Family Snapshot: June 2009

“Family Portraits” rarely happen in our home. In fact, we haven’t had any type of professional couple/family pictures since our wedding (although I have taken the kids for pictures) and for someone who likes pictures as much as I do, this is very sad.

So in the rare event that we snap a family “candid,” it will most assuredly end up in this blog!

Last Saturday was one such day. . . Our last family snapshot was in March, so it’s time for a new one! Here it is–FWIW.

FamilyPicMidJune2009038

My goal is to get a “real” family portrait in early fall, to send out with the Thanksgiving letter I am planning to write this year!

Swimming, Sloshing, Sweeping

It has rained so much this month! Mara really wanted to be outside, but it was raining, so I told her she could go out if she wore her swimsuit. Naturally, by the time she got out there, the rain had stopped. Here she is, chatting with our neighbor who was sitting on his back porch.SwimsuitInRainMidJune2009082

Mara’s animal crackers are sloshing through vanilla pudding.AnimalCrackersPuddingMidJune2009072

Mara asked me if she could sweep the floor, and then attached one of her crocs to the end of a yardstick.ShoeSweepMidJune2009 049

Thanks, sweetheart! You’re a great big helper!

“I Painted My Nails!”

Mara has been asking since Florida if we could paint her fingernails. As I was feeding Micah his lunch a few days ago, I heard her say, “Mommy, I painted my nails!”

I didn’t know how that was possible, since she was sitting in her highchair, eating a PBJ sandwich. But I should have known!

I glanced toward her highchair and witnessed intense concentration:MeticulouslyPaintingPBJNails

Sure enough, she had done it! If Mom doesn’t paint your nails, sometimes you just have to do it yourself!PBJNails2

Here’s the finished product. (Bleh!!!) PBJNails

I shouldn’t have been surprised. Last week she was face-painting with her peanut butter (see picture below). And when I asked ‘why,’ she said “Because Jocelyn painted her face!”PBJFacePainting

Yeah, Mara, Jocelyn painted her face, but there was an actual design, and she didn’t use peanut butter!

And I wonder why Daniel always asks:Where was her mother?!?!?!”

With Mara, Everything is “Great Big . . . !”

Watching her brother pull himself up and walk around holding onto the furniture:

“Micah did a great big job! He’s going to walk soon!”

After emptying the dishwasher with Mommy:

“I did a great big job! I helped you, Mommy!”

The morning after we had a bunch of people over for dinner:

“We had a great big fun having our friends over!” she exclaimed exuberantly. Then she quietly added, “But now they went back to their house.”

The Faith of a Child

Tonight at our bedtime prayer, Mara and I had so much for which to thank God! We thanked Him for another stroller we were given–and baby food from Target. We thanked Him Daddy could grill hamburgers for dinner and we could have chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream for dessert. We thanked God that Grandmom & Grandpa could come over with the aunts and uncles and baby Sophia.  We prayed for Daddy to be safe coming home tonight and for the whole family to sleep well.

I stroked her cheek. “Goodnight, sweetheart,” I was saying, as she suddenly called out, “Oh! Pray about I don’t have an oval!”

At first I was perplexed, until Mara started to act it out. “Pray about I don’t have a hu-la-loop!” she said earnestly.

Ohhhhhhhh–a hula hoop!

Now that I understood she was asking God for a hula hoop, I had a couple of conflicting thoughts and tried, the best I knew how, to express those thoughts in words a two-year-old could internalize.

“God always wants you to ask Him about things that you want,” I told her. “But you know what? He decides about it. He might say ‘yes, you can have a hula hoop.’ Or he might say ‘No, you don’t need a hula hoop right now.’ Or God might say ‘Wait! You can have a hula hoop later, but not now.’ And if God says, ‘yes,’ you should say ‘Thank you, God, for the hula hoop.’ And if God says, ‘No,’ you should say, ‘It’s okay because I know God wants what’s best for me.’ And if God says ‘Wait,’ you should say, ‘It’s okay. I will wait.'”

Yeah, maybe I said way too much! But I didn’t want my daughter to get the idea that God is a genie that grants wishes or something.

Mara looked like she understood. So I prayed, “Dear God, Mara would like to have a hula hoop. Please help her to wait. Help her to thank You, if You say ‘yes.’ Help her to obey You if You say ‘no.’ Amen.”

We opened our eyes.

Mara’s eyes lit up with all the sparkle of Christmas morning. “I’m going to get a hu-laloop!” she squealed, shivering with excitment.

Part of me sighed, thinking ‘She didn’t understand anything I said’ and then the other part heard the verse ‘unless you have the faith of a little child. . . ‘

She has no doubt that God will give her that “hu-la-loop”! . . .

. . .  I want to trust Him that way, for the good things He has already promised.