New Tricks for Daddy to See

While You Were Sleeping

Workin' in the bathroom,

Sleepin' on the floor.

You are waking growing up too fast.

But, could we ask for anything more?!

MWAW!

Planes and Pizza

Over the next few days, we will recount our trip home for the holidays--now that we've a month to reflect about it.

Wow, talk about a horrible family picture.
Our flight was actually quite nice, despite the horror and exhaustion our faces may suggest

At the end of the long day, the Nelsons took us to a family friend's restaurant and Beccah made us some pizza.  It was delicious.

Hope, Sheep and Rocking Chairs

Today Joshua's study buddy (or whatever grad-school, grown-up term they use these days), brought up an interesting point. He was talking about all the plans he has for the future and things he wants to happen: get married, have kids, work for this really cool company. Then he said, Ahh, I plan too much, and paraphrased one of his favorite scriptures, James 4:14--
Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a ^avapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. .  . .

Joshua was reminded of Hebrews 11:1--
Now ^afaith is the ^bsubstance of things ^choped for, the ^devidence of things not seen.


Joshua came home and was telling me about the conversation.  I like the mesh of the two scriptures.  Hope and plan and be excited for life.   Have faith, knowing that your life is in God's hands (not your own) and that's okay. It might not turn out at all liked you hoped for.  But it will be a pretty dang good life.  


So, here are some of the things I hope for (not in order of importance at all)

1. A real couch that I can curl up on. From a real store (like RC Willy Outlet)
2. Pet Sheep. Because dog poop smells and goats eat your trees.  Joshua likes the idea of getting something useful (wool) out of them every year when shearing season rolls around.
3. Lots of hugs and smiles from baby Charles and however many siblings come after him
4. A big garden that Joshua can come and get his exercise tilling.  And harvesting enough Yukon gold and red potatoes to last us the whole year.
5. Chickens.  Welcoming our hens back home someday (or at least their honorary descendants).

Family picture from two summers ago. From left: Joshua, Starks, Erica, Norman and Buddy (may he rest in peace)

6. Talking as we sit in our rocking chairs on our porch some evening, reflecting on our many many happy years of life together.

Thank you for sleeping, but I miss you.

We are still figuring out how to help you sleep. Naps, mostly. At bedtime you do fantastic. But howcome you don't want to take naps? Maybe you miss me too much. When you first started going to sleep for the night at 7:30 or 8, then sleeping until midnight or one am, I missed you. Like, I would go in and wake you up to eat when you were probably ok. But I missed you all those hours. I love you sooooo much. I hope you are getting enough sleep, even when we keep you from napping because we like playing with you!

Shagai

We're getting a little bored of playing Monopoly Deal every night. So we've moved on to another timeless standby; the national game of Mongolia. Shagai, in case you didn't already know, refers to a game that is sort of like jacks or marbles, except you play with the astralagus of a sheep's ankle bone. I have no idea what astralagus means, but the links to Wikipedia are there for the curious to take a look.

It was a great enrichment to our marriage to start playing board games before we go to bed each night. It gets us talking and having fun together rather than zoning out in front a TV or laptop screen--though we do have certain TV shows that we enjoy watching and commenting on and discussing endlessly together. We'll blog about those at a later time.

Thanks so much to Erica's mission companion and our dear friend Munkhnaran and her family for generously giving us their substantial shagai collection. It would have taken us a long time and a lot of horhogs to accumulate a collection of our own.

The Snotsucker

Poor little Baby Charles had his very first cold. It was very yucky and he had a lot of congestion. But we are recovering, thanks to saline nose spray and The Snotsucker.

He is a good sport about it all. Still smiles all the time, and gives us those little grateful smirks when we pick him up and he anticipates that we will somehow relieve his suffering (which hopefully we do some of the time). Though the aforementioned nose spray and Snotsucker are not exactly his idea of fun.