pics

Hannah claims she became brave today. It started with just poking a worm, then she held it between her thumb and fore finger, next she'd hold it in her hand, then I turned the corner AND.....

Look at our little beauty!

Hudson was following after sister and becoming brave as well!

He also likes to water the, uh, um, dirt. To make mud of course!

AFTERTHOUGHT

Forgot I had these pictures.

Thought you'd enjoy to see Peter Pan, Wendy, and Tinkerbell.

Spring has Sprung!

It feels a little silly but I gotta say, having a BBQed cheeseburger really means spring is here. Jared cooked them tonight for dinner. It was the best burger I've ever had, until the first one next spring I guess. We were so proud that Hannah actually liked it that I had to post some cute pictures.

Adding to our family

We would like you to meet the newest member of our family, Daisy. While we were preparing our garden I secretly had the kids working with me in a special flower bed as well. Little did they know we were preparing a turtle habitat. Why turtles you ask? I don't even know. I was staring at that very empty flower bed right outside our back door wondering what to do with it. Of course I couldn't do something like flowers right!? Hannah had put the idea in my mind about having another pet. What kind of pet doesn't stink up the house, doesn't need to be potty trained, doesn't need their cage cleaned every other week, does not gross me out if it gets lost in the house, and doesn't cost that much to feed....TURTLES! Not to mention the ones we have hibernate 5 months out of the year.

There is a woman in town who rescues turtles and just happened to have a couple of babies that needed a home. Yes, we have 2. The other one is named Moto Moto (from Madagascar 2). He was unavailable for a photo because he's been hiding a lot in the pen. Apparently almost all turtles from pet stores have been taken from the wild, and end up being too stressed out to thrive in captivity. So, after some research I found this woman in Clovis who takes in turtles that people can't care for etc. When Hannah and I arrived at her house to pick up our little babies I was SHOCKED! It was like a turtle zoo. She has around 125 turtles. She has at least 10 different species both aquatic and land dwelling. She even has one that weighs about 500lbs! He was a little scary for us to be close to.

We are having so much fun, the kids are loving it. We'll put in more photos when we can coax Moto Moto out of hiding.

SPRING CLEANING?

We were very fortunate to host a good friend from Romania this past week. We met Evodia in 2002 when we lived for 2 months in a flat above her family.

Our lives were never the same after that trip. We learned a lot about serving God and others. Both Jared and I have been back to Romania a couple of times and each has brought great times of reflection when we return home. For a while, our fairly often trips were supernaturally timed. Just when my newly gained spiritual focus would begin to wear, it would be time to start planning another trip. However, since having kids I haven't been back. After Jared started working with BTB he's been doing world traveling instead as an ambassador for the integration of abled and disabled people. Needless to say, those great reminders of living simply and keeping my priorities straight had been forgotten for a while.

It all began coming back to me though when we heard Evodia would be coming to California. We just HAD to see her. It worked out great and we picked her up in Pleasanton to stay with us for a few days.

My new ambitions are no doubt the working of the Holy Spirit. I began to realize that as a mom I am focusing way too much on our kids. I am going to try to find the balance between our commands from God as mothers and as believers. If I am a believer first and foremost then my main goal should be to point/bring others toward Christ. As a mother the first goal is to point/bring our kids to Christ. However, being a mommy I sort of subconsciously used that as a reason to not be as passionate about my first command. Of course, it is immensely important to bring my children to a knowledge of Christ and the desire of a relationship. But it seems they will learn more about this with my combined efforts of teaching them AND others (not to mention they'll soon realize it's NOT all about them!).

Also, I've been doing a little cleaning! Visiting certain countries brings living simply to the forefront of my mind. I've just been feeling like we have so much STUFF, including too many kids things. So, I've already sold three items on ebay and two and almost a third on craigslist. I never wanted our family to be so flooded with toys/material things. Somehow it just happened.

So the kids and I have been spending a lot of time outside and have plowed up a large area in our yard. We plan on growing lots of food there and some flowers. Hannah and I are very excited. Hudson just gets excited about playing in the dirt!

We'll update you on our crops as they start coming up.