Memorial Day Thoughts

So it's Memorial Day again. A nice three-day weekend, a good time to have a cook-out or go to the beach. Or remember - be mindful - that war is hell. When I think about the true purpose of Memorial Day, it makes all the other activities of the weekend seem so frivolous, almost embarassing. Now I'm not saying we should scrap all fun plans for the holiday weekend; just that we should be sure to honor the day for what it is... our Remembrance Day to pay tribute to all who have given their lives for our country to help preserve our life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness that we treasure. Blood has been shed, hearts have been broken, hopes have been destroyed. Many brave men and women have made the ultimate sacrifice, giving their lives to save ours, to preserve our freedom. To them and their loved ones I send out a Thank You.

And on quite another level I am reminded also of the One who gave His life for the whole world - because sin is hell. His blood was shed, hearts were broken, but a new hope has arisen. He gave His life as the perfect sacrifice, once and for all, to give us true and everlasting freedom that no one can take away. Through Christ we have life eternal and peace unshakable. To my gracious God, Lord of all, I send out a Thank You. Amen.

Growing Up Evan

Yesterday Evan turned 13 months old - I can hardly believe it - and suddenly he is taller, I'm sure of it. He takes several steps at a time by himself now, dabbles in the art of eating real food, and cries when I tell him "no." He is getting so big. Yesterday as I was walking him around the house I discovered that he can now reach high enough to pull things down from the edge of the table. Somehow I hadn't seen that milestone coming (note to self - keep everything away from the edges), and yet here it is. Evan is a climber, too, not like Anna and Will. He routinely climbs onto the fireplace hearth. And when I'm walking him around the house he will walk up to a chair or table, for example, and hold his foot up as high as he can, wanting to step up onto it. It's somewhat bittersweet to see our little guy moving out of the baby stage, but mostly it's sweet, as the 1- to 2-year-old stage is one of my favorites. They're just so darned cute at this age - and not nearly as much trouble as a 3-year-old. I've found threes to be much more "terrible" than twos. Of course, this baby might change the way I think about all that - you just never know.

Photo Albums

I love taking pictures - especially of my kids - documenting our life, preserving a bit of history. I have kept up with photo albums since high school - not the fancy "scrapbooking" style that has become popular, but a merely functional format to organize the pictures and add some notes in the margins. Currently I am running a year behind in my photo albums, though. Literally May 2009 is next on my list to order prints from Snapfish. It's so hard to find the time to keep up with all our photos, and now summer is coming and I'll have less time to accomplish anything with the kids out of school. If I tried to do scrapbooking, I'd be toast - countless years behind. As it is, I order the prints, slap them in the book, write some captions, and move on. And still I'm behind. But it's worth it. In the last couple years Anna and Will have really started enjoying looking at the photo albums, learning or remembering the stories of our family history. Their enjoyment helps to spur me on. I just wish I could catch up to date!

Animal Kingdom

Anna and Will love animals. Really. They like to pretend we are all a family of bunnies, for example. But they are also very competitive with each other, so they will often end up arguing about what kind of animal we will all be. Anna wants to be bunnies; Will wants to be whales; someone ends up whining or crying. Will has become more clever lately, though. Anna says, "let's pretend we're all bunnies." Before announcing his animal Will asks me, "Mommy, what eats bunnies?"

First Steps, First Party

Today (Saturday, May 1) we celebrated Evan's first birthday with a pizza and cake party with family. Evan started off the day by impressing Jon and me with his very first steps - four of them - from the bed to his daddy. Way to go, little guy! I think he enjoyed his party, too, with both sets of grandparents, one aunt, one uncle, and several cousins. We all gathered around expectantly to watch him eat his oversized cupcake (the cake was for the rest of us), but alas! Evan hardly knew what to do with it. Although he is a year old, he does not care much for solid food yet (not at all like his sister and brother at that age). He did manage to eat some of the frosting and break the cake part into smaller pieces, but overall it was pretty anticlimactic. He thought the toys and balloons were lots of fun, though. Will thought it would be fun to pee on the tree in the backyard when he figured no one was looking. Too bad for him that we saw him, with pants down, through the kitchen window. He was so amused by his mischief that he immediately came inside and confessed, grinning and giggling. After all the party excitement, Evan took a nice nap. Such is the life of a one-year-old.