Wedding #1

So we have a three weddings in a row this month and last weekend was our first. I was actually part of the wedding party so I let my parents watch my little ones for the wedding so I have no pictures of them there. However my family is heavily involved with most wedding plans going on around us and so my sister Maddie was the wedding planner and made the day beautiful, my sister-in-law Amy was the flower coordinator and made gorgeous bouquets and helped everywhere else and my sister Beth played the music for the ceremony...I just walked down the aisle and supported my good friend who was also one of my bridesmaids-Nicole! Anyway I got some pictures taken by my wonderful brother in law Brandon of Amy and I's baby bumps and I promise she is the same size as me I just look bigger in the pictures...

Down the walkway

Bride and her Daddy

Amy and I

Isn't she glowing?

Baby Bumps

I love this man of Mine

Eating Ice Cream...Need I say More?

It's not Measles...

It's roseola...thought I would post this to help new mom's who ever encounter this childhood sickness. When Gideon was a baby like 8-10 months old he ran a fever for a couple days and then the fever disappeared and he broke out with a rash all over his back and chest. Didn't bother him he was just fussy and I felt bad for him but then it disappeared. When I called his pediatrician they weren't much help saying monitor the fever and it could be an ear infection. Well, an older lady at my chapel told me when I was telling her about it that it was a virus called Roseola that was not harmful and ran its course in a few days. When I looked it up she was right, Gideon had all those symptoms just like roseola is described. I learned an important lesson that day--doctors don't know everything and older women who have had many children are a wealth of information!

Sunday Tirzah had a fever and was pretty lethargic...so I kept her on Tylenol and monitored her. Monday she was still rather miserable but her fever wasn't too high. Tuesday the fever disappeared and she was just terribly fussy! Yesterday I noticed a rash all over her back...my first thought was chicken poxs...no wait, there are too many to close together...measles? I wasn't sure what the symptoms of measles were...oh wait, I bet this is another case of Roseola...and it is. So now we suffer through a very fussy baby as the virus runs its course. And I share this information with other new moms in hopes it may help them if they encounter it.

Sad and cuddly on Sunday with Laura from the chapel

Train Table--Yard Sale Find

Gideon is quite taken with his Thomas trains and we have started a small collection. We have four or five trains and a nice little track for him to put together. We have kept our eyes open for a train table but they are quite expensive. Well a couple weeks ago Joshua and I stopped at one yard sale and found a train table for $20! Which is quite a good deal! So we snatched it right up, however I thought there wouldn't really be room for it at our house so figured we would give it to Grandma for her to have in her playroom! She was happy to have a train table but since she was out of town we brought the table home for the week where Gideon played on it and had a wonderful time. I discovered that I definitely don't have room for it but was glad we have one at Grandma's. So here are some pictures of him enjoying it at our house but it is now moved to Grandma's where he asks to go quite frequently.

Hosting a Multi Family Yard Sale

My sister Beth and I hosted a yard sale this past weekend with four other Moms and we had a lot of fun! We had pretty good success and around 11am when the sky looked quite threatening we told people to fill a bag for $1! We sold about 25 bags that way. After all we were taking pretty much everything to the goodwill afterwards anyway.When the rain started to pour down we hurridly packed different cars with items for the goodwill or that we were taking home. The kids were great, they stayed up under the screened in porch with one of the mamas while we rushed around. We had so much fun having a yard sale and got rid of lots of stuff! It's amazing how much one can accumulate.

Borrowing a car seat someone bought for tired Tirzah--Gideon loved playing with her.

Mamas and their babies

Yard Sale Shoppers

Hannah and Georgia--both of us mamas forgot jackets for our kids and it was cold so we took out jackets from our clothes for sale.

It rained at the end and we had the yard cleaned up pretty fast!

Training Our Children to sit in the Meetings

Training your children is never easy. In fact sometimes it can be downright exhausting! Joshua and I want our children to enjoy going to the chapel on Sundays and learning to sit through the meetings. Let me tell you that with restless, busy, noisy little children that is no easy task. We have tried many different things and finally hit on a plan that works for us right now.

We have started "practicing" at home in the evenings having our family Bible time where we sing, read the Word of God and pray. Gideon and Tirzah are expected to sit on the couch with us quietly, except when singing where we encourage them to sing with us. It has been delightful to see Gideon starting to sing! He at first started off just singing whatever words came to his mind "rabbit, trucks, kanga" but he picks up on words that we sing like "shepherd, Jesus, etc" and he sings those words now. He is proud of the fact that he can sing. (He is singing right now "I'll walk with Him always"). It is precious to us that they learn to worship at an early age. Gideon also says "amen" after every prayer and asks after every prayer in the meeting "done?" At the meetings they are allowed to play quietly on the pew with their toys, look at books and I bring their cups and a snack--goldfish is their favorite. When one of them acts up--normally Tirzah they are taken out until they are ready to come back and sit still.

We make them sit through the first meeting at our chapel which is the quietest the Breaking of Bread--our worship service. Then usually the second service they will either play in the nursery with me watching or another mom or grandma. Sometimes Gideon wants to just sit with Grandma for the meeting. But we've decided to give them a break if they want and let them play if they want to. Then after lunch we have a third service in which they normally take a nap or rest.

It is not easy to train, it is honestly exhausting! I come home so tired in the afternoons! And I don't judge moms or think hardly of them if they choose to stay in the nursery with their children because I know it is so hard to train. We rejoice in little victories like where Gideon and Tirzah both sit fairly well through a service or they fall asleep or we hear them singing. We want them to grow up loving to worship!

At home singing

This picture is from a while ago, notice the passie

Sleeping on Aunt Lydia's lap