Pictures of Callan

I was surprised - I thought she'd be blond like my sister.

But she is a cutie!

Callan Leigh

My sister gave birth to their first child, a girl named Callan Leigh, about 6:30 pm this evening. After a 14 hour labor, Jaime had an 8 lb. 4 oz, 20.5 inch long bundle of joy - with no drug, no pitocin, nothin'! Jaime and her husband had to wait a long time to even get pregnant due to fertility issues, but at long last Callan is here!

I'll post a picture as soon as the proud new daddy sends them out.

That makes only our second neice!

3 Months Old!

Is it just me, or has the past three months just flown by?

Isn't she cute?

Her daddy thinks so too.

It's Brynna!

We picked up Brynna's glasses about an hour ago. So now she's walking around commenting on all the things she can see clearly now. None of us realized how blurry her vision was getting, even Brynna. And we think she looks adorable in her new glasses!

Conversations with a Three Year Old

This is Lauryn, in our family dubbed "the class clown."

Conversations with her are always interesting. Her little mind must be moving very fast because she darts into left field quicker than anyone I've ever met. Here are some snippets of conversations with her in the last two or three days.
***
(When I came out of my room yesterday to start breakfast, Lauryn was "reading" a book at the school table. She looked up and asked me,)
Mama, do frogs have ears?
***
(Later, while she was coloring a picture)
The mean witch said my dress was not pretty. So I'm going to tell her that her dress is ugly and that my dress is pretty. (Then she holds up two crayons) This one is for make-up and this one is for designing dresses. I'm pretending that we are in a movie. You, me, and the witch. This is me and the mean witch will be over here (points to the opposite side of the page). I'm designing my pretty dress. The witch is really mean, and here is my sword and my dagger. I'm going to cut her neck off (make a swiping motion across her own neck with one hand) and then I'm going to kill her (make a stabbing motion into her heart with the other hand).

Now I'm going to pretend a different movie with lots of boys and girls. And one baby.
***
(Last night during family devotions, we were talking about being a living sacrifice. Kelly asked the girls about what we could give to Jesus. Lauryn's idea?)
My big horse. [Note: this is a large plastic horse big enough for an 18 inch doll to ride.]

(This morning she informed me that)
Mama, frogs don't have belly buttons. But they do have tummies.
***
(At least once a day, she comes up to me and taps me on the arm and says,)
Mama, I mean Mudder [mother]? I'm gonna call you Mudder. Kora and Aubrey and Brynna and Hailey can call you Mama, but I'm gonna call you Mudder. And Daddy is Fodder. (father) Where is my Fodder? Is he at work? Why does he have to go to work every day?
***
Why do we have a baby? Why do we only have all girls and no boys?
***
Where is Ashlynn's other belly button? [Note: This is in reference to her umbilical cord stub that fell off when Ashlynn was 4 days old. She can't get it through her head that it was attached to her belly button, not a separate one.]
***
I'm gonna lose this tooth tomorrow. Daddy's going to pull it out tomorrow. [She says that while trying to wiggle a tooth that is not loose at all. She desperately wants to lose a tooth and get an ice cream cone like her big sisters do.]
***
Is God in the sun, or is He everywhere?
***
Good thing our family loves to laugh!

picture thanks to my MIL

Three in One

Tonight after supper, we were doing our family devotional from John 14. This is the passage where Jesus tells the disciple of the Holy Spirit. So we started discussing the Holy Spirit and the Trinity. Since the Trinity is a difficult concept even for theologians, it's always difficult to try to explain to children.

After Kelly was explaining that the three persons of the Godhead were the same but different, this is the conversation that followed:

Kora: It's kind of like God has three heads.

Kelly: Not really, because that would imply that there were three minds and three different thought processes. But that's not the case. There is one God, but they have different roles.

Aubrey: It's more like the one head has three bodies!

Firsts: Rolling Over

A few minutes ago I went into the bedroom where I had put Ashlynn, and found that she was looking up at me, lying on her back. I had laid her down on her tummy. She looked a little puzzled, as if thinking, "How did that happen?"

I brought her out to tell the older girls what she had done. The response from seven year old Brynna: "Oh, she is growing up too fast!"

Don't I know it.

"The days are long, but the years are short."