Life moves fast...

Really fast, especially when you have a super hero, logger and angel in one household! I am constantly amazed at just how fast a day goes by even though sometimes I don't notice until the day is done. It's funny how a day can seemingly drag on but at the end of the week I can hardly remember what we did on Monday. At any rate the kids are growing leaps and bounds in such a short time! Lincoln is growing, growing, growing! He still asks 100 questions a day, knows everything about everything and can talk from sun up to sun down without taking a breath. He's decided he'd like to write Christian children's books about dinos because at the last trip to the library he was sorely disappointed that I wouldn't check out any dinosaur books for him because they're evolution propaganda... he didn't understand what I was talking about :) He loves to build forts. There's one in the living room nearly every day. Lincoln's also becoming quite the evangelist ;) I call him my super hero evangelist because everything relates to the good guys beating the bad guys or being a warrior for God and slaying the evil dragon... yeah, the gospel gets a little face lift when Linc tells it. He adds dragons :) He was telling Barrett the other night over dinner about how he should have Jesus in his heart so that he can follow the good guys not the bad guys. So cute! He's made plans to invite over several friends to tell them about Jesus and he's got his good guy bad guy speech all ready. It's gotta be the next big hit in evangelizing techniques. I mean what three-six year old boy wouldn't love Jesus if he described as a super hero?!

the super hero evangelist at work!

working out with poppa

Bear loves listening to Lincoln talk about the good guys and bad guys, in fact he loves it so much that he still doesn't talk much for himself! Barrett has made huge progress in the speech category though. When we started speech therapy with him last fall I thought it was going to take a miracle to convince Bear that he needed to speak but nope, it just took six months! He now says small sentences and when we asked him if he wanted to go with pop and brother to awanas last night or stay with momma and Low he said to our amazement "Wan go me momma" and we all sat staring at him with our jaws on the floor! His first sentence! He went from saying only "eh" to a four word sentence in just under six months! While he is doing much better we still have a very hard time determining what exactly he is saying most of the time. His latest mystery phrase is something that sounds like "hot pie"... he periodically gets excited and yells "HOT PIE!!" and we all laugh and yell hot pie too :) I'm sure we sound crazy! Barrett is pretty funny and charming at this stage in life. He has a super sweet side to him and a really spunky funny side that results in crazy dance offs, spinning, and laughing this hilarious laugh. Oh he's charming! He still has quite the temper and is pretty quick to forget the power of using words but when he turns on the charm it's over! Oh and did I mention that Willow looks so much like Bear!?

They look so much alike!

thats a whole apple... he carried it around in his mouth for about 30 minutes!

this is the tug boat that he built on top of himself

Actually miss Low is a perfect combination of Levi and I resulting in a strange resemblance to both her siblings. Sometimes I think she looks exactly like Linc and other times she looks exactly like Bear. She's adorable no matter who she looks like and just a couple of weeks ago she started smiling! To believe one of MY babies smiling at just under two months old!?! It's unheard of! My babies never smile until at least four months! The clouds have parted and God is smiling on us! Willow's smiles and coos are so amazing. She's an awesome baby still and while she's had a night or two of crying and she gets a bit fussy in the evenings it's ALL overshadowed by her gentle spirit and those smiles. I packed up her newborn clothes the other night... and almost cried. Man, it's just too fast! She's packing on the pounds and her little chubby cheeks are proof. She is very loved by her big brothers except somehow she got gum in her hair this week and I spent about 30 minutes massaging olive oil into her hair to remove it. It worked and the gum is out but I still have NO idea where or when that happened! I like to think I am an attentive mother but gum? In my two month old's hair? How'd I miss that one!

Levi and I are really enjoying this season of life and while we don't get as much alone time together as we'd like the kids keep us focused on working as a team and I think that really helps keep us strong. We are going on a little over nighter in a week... but we're both so tired in the evening that we haven't planned it and we don't really know where we are going! Ha! Levi's been leading a Bible study here at the house on Monday evenings and I'm so proud of him for being a great leader in our church. I wanted to do a women's mentoring group while Willow is young enough so I signed up and won the lottery... hmm.... I won the lottery on a women's Bible study, there's a figure of speech for ya' :) But really the women God placed me with are amazing, amazing! I'm learning lots, some of it uncomfortable but all of it good. Thankfulness is the overarching theme to what I've been learning. It's really good! I've also been sewing some lately and at the request of my sis in law Jamie and my mom I took some pics of the things that came out decent enough to wear;

a dress that is so tight I cant bend at the waist

my shirt that drove me nutty and makes my chest area extra lumpy in all the wrong places!

 In closing this is what happens to my boys around fire;

 Thanks for watching folks, see ya' next time!