Love Watermelon Juice

Last night for dinner we had pancakes and watermelon (don't judge me) and both of the kids LOVE watermelon. Jonah prefers to eat it right off the rind and Aphia likes hers in chunks. I put the chunks in a bowl for her and she proceeded to eat the entire bowl full, as well as drink the juice right out of it too!

Family Canoe Trip

We were blessed, two summers ago, with the addition of a canoe! It's a wonderful, light weight, perfect for portaging in the BWCA, canoe that holds our family in it's loving kevlar!
A couple weekends ago, on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, we decided to go out on Lake Pulaski for our first family canoe experience. It was marvelous. The kids thoroughly enjoyed their time, traveling from Griffing park, along the shoreline over to West Pulaski Park for a snack picnic. Jonah loved "helping" paddle and Aphia was pretty good about sitting still and enjoying the scenery.

This adorable little picture below is the baby- drawn by Jonah.

*I heard this conversation from the other room, the other day:
Jonah: "Aphia, please get away. You're knocking down my blocks."
Aphia: "I know. But I love you."
Jonah: "I know you do, but please love me somewhere else."

*In my pregnantness (I think I just made that a word), my emotions are CA-RAAAAZY! When I was pregnant with Aphia, there was one time that I was driving down a country road, and it was lined with trees, whose leaves were beautifully changing into brilliant oranges, yellows and reds. It was so gorgeous to me, I cried at the sheer beauty for a good 5 minutes of the ride. Sheesh.
Well let me tell you of a little story from yesterday. I was driving north on Hwy 25 in Buffalo, right in town by the post office. I saw a truck pull out from the fire station, going south, and turn it's lights and sirens on. The southbound lane had a long line of cars waiting for the light, they all did their best to pull over, and I in the northbound also pulled way over. I always pull over, but no emergency vehicle has had to use my lane to get by, if they had been traveling in the opposite direction. But yesterday they did! I of course started crying, because well, that's a huge deal to a pregnant, emotionally charged lady! I was glad to get out of their way, so they could quickly get to where they were going.

So if that wasn't enough for me, Jonah stops mid-sentence and says, "Mom we have to pray!" And so we did, just like we always do, whenever we hear sirens. Prayers for the first responders, for the situation, for the victims, etc. We finished and Aphia promptly breaks out into "Jesus Loves Me!" and oh boy were the tears aflowing then! I look back and shake my head. Yes it was a very tender moment for the three of us, but BAWL WORTHY??? REALLY?!?! Again- sheesh.

I don't really have any inclination of whether this child is a boy or girl. But if the fact that I was not very emotional with Jonah, pretty darned emotional with Aphia, and EXTREMELY OVER THE TOP emotional with this baby says anything- it'll be a girl, a very emotional girl. Oh goody- as if one isn't enough :)

Uh Duh!

We had an "Uh Duh!" moments as parents this morning, prompted by none other than 4 year old Jonah. He speaks truth and common sense into our lives quite frequently, and this morning was no different.

Jeremiah and Jonah were talking during breakfast and Jonah, being the "rules boy" that he is, was talking about sin, how he doesn't want to sin, but sometimes he does, etc. Jeremiah talked about forgiveness and asked Jonah, "So after you sin, do you pray and ask God for forgiveness?" to which Jonah responded with, "No. I just pray before and then I don't do it!" Uh Duh! Maybe we should all try to live that out.

Amazingly we have a Savior who knows just how very human we are and that we do constantly falter and fail. He is here to pick us up, wipe off the grime, and set us on our path again. But He never continues spurring us on to stop sinning and turn to the way of righteousness. My 4 year old gets this... why don't we? I shouldn't always wait until after I screwed up, but rather, prevention is the key! Pray prior to sinning and have faith that the Lord will help me to do the right thing! Uh Duh!