One of my favorite things

  One of my favorite things about our city is that they make Creekmore park beautiful with Christmas lights just after Thanksgiving.  I really only took a few pictures.  It is a large park and they really go all out.  The boys loved the lights and we enjoyed walking around and looking at them all and then ended our time by playing on the playground.

Only by the grace of God

There are some days when I get to the end of the day and I'm thankful that our boys have been kept from obvious danger.  I'm sure most mothers think that way, but my boys are just rowdy and do things that scare me sometimes.  With Micah, it goes with the territory.  He just doesn't understand boundaries of any kind, whether that's walking out in the street or toward a car, etc.  We don't let him out of our sight for that very reason, but on occasion there are moments when it's hard to avoid if even for a few seconds. He is very strong and even if I am holding onto him, he will sometimes try and maneuver out of my grasp. He loves climbing these days, and that may be on the table, on the couch, or any high surface.  He is also in to sticking things in his ear.  One day I absent mindedly left a pair of scissors on the counter and turned around just in time to snatch them out of his hands as he was about to put them in his ear!  We are careful to put knives and anything sharp up in high places.

Gabriel has become mister independent, wanting to do almost everything by himself (except for the things we want him to do by himself!).  This includes walking out in a parking lot.  He does not want us to hold his hand and sometimes will act like he is being tortured if we try and hold his hand. He also loves to climb and jump from high places. 

As I think about these boys, I'm reminded that I'm not alone and that the Father is watching out for them and Wayne and myself as we parent them.  Psalm 121 talks about the LORD being our keeper and there are many references in Scripture to being protected.  Sometimes children aren't protected from harm and I don't understand why; that's a whole other theological discussion.  For now, I have to submit my fears and worries and believe that He is a good Father.  He is my Help and my Shield.

Simple Christmas tree

 Micah found some beads to play with

 We had fun decorating our tree; Gabriel loved decorating it and you can probably tell which ornaments he hung. We've had our tree up for a little over a week now, and amazingly, it has only been taken down once.  And by taken down, I mean knocked over by Micah.  We've had this pre-lit tree for a couple of years, and while I miss the smell of a real tree, this is the best thing for us.  We always start with as many ornaments as we have, which is not many, because we know they won't stay on the tree for long. 

As I mentioned in the previous post, Micah loves anything in the plant, flower, or tree families, artificial or not.  So, he loves to spin our tree around and if we aren't fast enough to stop him, results in it being knocked to the floor.  The ornaments that survive the fall which may be breakable just don't go back on the tree.  I can't imagine having a real tree now; there would be pine needles covering the floor.  After the tree was knocked over I debated whether it was worth fighting with Micah to try and keep him from spinning it and I eventually decided it is.  We usually only have it for a couple of weeks before it's time to pack up and go visit our families.  Then we have to keep him from their trees!  I love Christmas trees, even if ours is void of anything but lights.  In fact, last Sunday I noticed a couple of small Christmas trees in our church sanctuary.  I said to Wayne "Hey, those look like our tree, they only have lights."  He replied "See, we know how to decorate for Christmas after all.  Simple, but elegant."

Yard helpers

Last Saturday we spent a couple of hours raking leaves in our backyard.  Gabriel was so excited to help rake leaves for the first time.  He actually did help some.  Micah loved picking the leaves up and dumping them all over himself as you can see.  He is really into this phase of picking anything outside, whether it's leaves, weeds, grass, dirt, etc. and either dumping it/them on his head or taking a handfull and raking it over the side of his head like he is brushing his hair with whatever it is.  It's strange, but just one of those phases he is in which will pass in weeks or months, hopefully. 

Micah actually helped put leaves in the bags some, but then at other times would take leaves out that we had just put in.  He and Gabriel both loved to come tromping through once I had a big pile gathered.  Though it could have been frustrating, we actually had fun and enjoyed seeing the boys have so much fun.  At some point Micah carried off 2 right handed gloves and we think may have put them in one of the leaf bags which we didn't notice.  We realized there were two missing and they were nowhere to be found, so that was the only explanation.  We ended up with 14 bags of leaves and probably could have filled up as many more.