recent roadtrip footage

the kiddos and i took a quick day-trip to a neighboring state for a few reasons:
to visit this glamorous grandma (she's wearing my 17yr old cousin's sunglasses and doesn't she look great?)


to meet this little beauty

to say goodbye (1st goodbye of a few) to the two wonderful people flanking grandma here. my brother and his wife are headed to India to teach music for a couple years.
while we were there, we were graciously welcome to the cookout on July 5th hosted by my cousin and his sweet wife kate

nathaniel is with my scary brothers

the kids had a blast with cousins and 2nd cousins. my grandma has 10 great grandchildren with one (ours) on the way.






though graham did get eaten alive, as usual

and benj got a mohawk

the fam minus the ones who left early with tired small children


of course i didn't take any of these pictures as my hands were usually occupied with little people. my sister-in-law bethany gets the credit. it was a lovely day, though rather exhausting. we are so thankful for dear family.

finally ripe!

we harvested our first tomato yesterday and it was SOOO yummy. we have bunches more that will be ripe soon. ours are a little later than usual...maybe i put them in too shady of a spot? this little fellow loves, loves, loves to eat tomatoes. can't say the same for his big sis...

with his children

"for you know how, like a father with his children, we exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you to walk in a manner worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory." 1Thess 2:11-12

sweet husband:
i am so thankful for you. for exhorting, encouraging, charging our children. for living a life of repentance before them...ever acknowledging your faults and at the same time assuring them of your love for them and striving to point them to Jesus. my love for you has been enriched as i watch you love our children...growing into your fatherly roll with each passing day and with our growing family.









happy father's day adam!

mostly recent photos of the little people

she likes to wear her helmet "like daddy does" when she rides her bike

drying off

the beginnings of our neighborhood babysitting co-op (and this is about half the kids!)

my handsomes

from a recent nature discovery walk near our house

marit is probably trying to persuade graham to be just like her in some way. seriously, graham imitates just about everything she does these days...

think his feet will be as big as daddy's? so far, so good in that respect!

dancing to the Lord of the Rings soundtrack, which is appropriate since adam impulsively bought her this "ballerina dress" that she wears nearly every day

even ballerinas get tired

marit fell and hit her eye on the corner of a stool...this is when it was starting to look a lot better...SO sad!


these blocks were a fantastic garage sale purchase. adam likes them almost as much as the kids. you can see the kind of tower he likes to build and the kind graham likes to build. the main challenge is to keep graham from knocking over all in-process structures no matter the size.

ready for the summer sun!

morning at the park

met some sweet friends at the park yesterday. i happened to have my camera along (a rarity it seems) and we had a lovely time! thanks for the invite tara!
tara brought a book along and then the girls and graham had fun looking for living things. marit found a cricket, butterfly, spider, caterpillar (i think it died after it got passed around so many times)


i think graham just ate something that was 'alive'

all looking and 3/5 smiles!


she loved the hydrangeas the size of her head

rikki and charlie joined us!

slow-moving with all those little people

they were talking to the lady

note: 7-yr old t-shirt and the badly-in-need-of-washing hair

tuckered out!

i have kind of struggled over how to blog about this. my blog is not intended to stir up controversy, to preach to anyone (though i hope the Gospel is evident in our lives), but simply to take note of life as it quickly passes by and to also note God's faithfulness in small and big ways. i will include the email we sent out when we decided to baptize our small children. if you are totally opposed to infant baptism, please don't be quick to judge that we think our kids are safely going to heaven now or anything, but more importantly as our pastor eloquently put it "they are being baptized into discipleship," which is so much of parenting. we would love to more thoroughly explain ourselves to you if you think we have fallen of the deep end or something...we invite in-person discussion. my family falls on both sides of this discussion, but many of them came to support us and there were no major fits, squeals, or meltdowns that distracted from the sweetness of the day.

from the email we sent out:
we finally decided to have marit and graham baptized! we have been off and on stewing over this decision since ellen was pregnant with marit 3 years ago...read a lot of Piper, Grudem, Keller, Driscoll, and other people mixed in. basically we feel like there is scriptural support for both believers and infant baptism, but the thing is that we are raising our kids to know about Jesus and pleading with the Lord daily to give each of them a love for Him that they might not ever remember not knowing Him. Of course, it is our hope that they will one day make the Christian faith their own, but it may not be a specific moment in time that they can point to because we are raising them Christianly. The baptism is simply a symbol of that commitment to teach them about Jesus and to try to get to their little hearts and the sin that is there and their desperate need for the Gospel in every area of life. We do not believe it "saves" them, and we will not teach them that they are going to heaven because they are baptized...rather it is a symbol of our covenant with God to raise them in the faith and of His faithfulness to call people to Himself that they might come to depend on Jesus for their salvation. we like the case that this guys makes for it.


in addition, after the funeral of the 4yr old daughter of our dear friends, things began to click a little clearer for us in this area (covenant theology speaking). and because we go to a pca church that baptizes both believers/converts and infants and children, we feel like this is an important step in our submission to the church leadership. we feel like there is a lot of mystery surrounding the sacrament of baptism and so feel that there is much room for grace. we hope if you disagree with our decision, that you can offer us that grace