Happy Mother's Day!

   My days have been seemingly getting shorter.  Or maybe I'm getting busier!  It seems the older Audra gets and, with the latest stages of development that Christian is going through, they are keeping me hopping!  If my tummy wasn't getting bigger, I wouldn't even know I was pregnant!  :)  I'm too busy to notice.  Ok, that sounds bad.  I mean, I haven't even hardly given the the nausea and the tiredness as much notice as I did with the other three pregnancies.  And yes, I'm still throwing up.  I thought that was supposed to slow down by now, and I was supposed to get my second wind!  I did pretty good up to the past few weeks, now I'm getting waves of tiredness and the morning meetings with the toilet are still a regular thing.  Oh well.  The days are flying by.  I'll be holding this baby before you know it.  Audra is everywhere at once these days.  She's learned to climb the stairs and is REAL proud of her great accomplishment.  There's a little landing halfway up where the stairs turn a corner, and she'll sit up there grinning down at anyone who walks by and notices her.  Then if you start up the stairs, she'll squeal and scramble up the rest of the way, thinking you are after her.  Now, coming down is a different story.  She gives me a heart attack every time I see her start the slide down.  She can't figure out that coming down head first is a bad plan!  She gets stuck laying on her tummy, with her hands on one step and her legs and bottom on the one above, not knowing what to do next.  I have to push her back up, then pull her legs around til shes sliding down on her tummy feet first.  This way is no problem for her.  She comes down almost as fast as Christian.  But I just know she's going to loose it one day trying it her way head first.  My ears are highly tuned to the BUMP, BUMP, BUMP of little persons coming down the painful way.  At least that landing slows down the progress a little!
    Christian begs for piano lessons every time we go to church.  He'll make a great piano player someday.  He can "feel" the music, if you know what I mean.  He'll sit at the piano, gently pushing the keys, swaying slightly forward with every note, head cocked to the side with slight grin and a far away look in his eye.  Classic musician pose?  :)  Almost as if he's "riding" the music.  He can hear it.  Many times, while I'm practicing on the piano, he'll be beside me on the keyboard and amazingly, many of the notes he hits go perfectly with mine!  He begs for lessons all the time!  He's got it figured out that someday, he's going to play for Audra while she sings.  Then he proceeds to tell me that he's going to play for church too.  AFTER he gets done preaching!  Which, he does quite often already.  :)  At the house, that is. I normally have a preaching CD playing in the kitchen while I cook or clean.  The other day, he climbed up on a chair with his Bible, after the CD stopped, and declared that he was going to preach "about Hebrews".  He went on to preach about Joseph being chased by a "mean man", then went on to talk about all the animals Joseph had on the boat.   ....well, ok, it's a little off the original stories, but he was sure getting into his own version.  :)  Then he prayed for Mama and Daddy, and Audra, the food, and "his big house in the country" before climbing down to find a truck or tractor to play with.  I LOVE hearing those little sermons!  I pray every day that God will use Christian in a mighty way and keep him close to the Lord.
   "His big house in the country".....   We found a big house that sits on about 3 acres of beautiful property out in the country.  Its surrounded by rolling hills, pasture land, and corn fields.  The house, too, is absolutely beautiful!!!  It was built in 1890, and has been empty for several years.  The woodwork and built in furniture on the inside is stunning!  Its got lots of huge windows, high ceilings, and massive solid wood pocket doors.  Its our dream house!  It does need a lot of work to get it fixed up again, though, its foundation is solid.  It basically need paint inside and out, varnish on the floors, some wall and ceiling repair, and the bathrooms and kitchen replaced, etc.  Its big enough for us to keep missionaries comfortably, and also for our family to grow.  There are also two working wells on the property, a barn and three sheds.  We've done a lot of research on the place and think we can get a great deal on it because of all the work we'd have to put into it.  Andy's going to make an offer on the place this weekend.  We are praying that God will give us this house.  We want His will, and if this is not it, then we will wait.  But everything seems to have fallen into place so far, and all of our prayers have been answered up til now about it.  The only thing standing in our way now is the actual offer, whether or not the owner will take it.  She lives in Colorado and has never even seen the place!  We've discovered that raising kids in town is just about the worst thing in the world, and we'd give just about anything to get them into the country again.  If this house deal goes through, I will post many pictures of it, inside and out, you can be sure!  :)
   I taught the two year olds class at church last Sunday.  Andy asked me to do it at 8:30 Sunday morning!  Hey, if you want to be a teacher, ALWAYS be prepared!  :)  I've been sitting at the piano playing to open the service before when someone came up to me and asked if I'd take their class.  That's when you scramble through your purse for some item to use as an object lesson.  :)  It really does work too.  The kids think you spent hours preparing!  Well, that's sort of how it was last Sunday, except this time, I was just getting ready to walk out the door.  I dug out an old lesson I'd visualized a few years back, grabbed a few tennis balls out of Christian's room, and Christian's colorful tumbling block quilt, then I found a huge piece of plain white paper, some stickers and some crayons, and I was ready to face anything those little toddlers threw at me!  :)  Actually, my class ended up being just a few toddlers, one of which was my own son so that made it easy.  I spread the quilt on the floor, choosing to pass on the table and chairs, and we all sat around in a circle on the floor while I told my story.  Then I laid out that big sheet of paper on the table and let the kids enjoy scribbling on every inch of it.  Then we played a game with the balls, letting each child get a turn hiding them, while the others hunted for them after counting to ten.  Then, to use up the spare time, we colored some more.  Even Audra tried to do everything the "big" kids did.  :)  At the end of the class, one little girl asked me if I was going to teach again next week, so I guess I passed the test.  :)  I sure had fun too!  I enjoy teaching an older age group a little better, but those toddlers were so good and well behaved, I had no trouble at all and thoroughly enjoyed them.
   I also played piano for both morning and evening service on Sunday, something I've not done since leaving McMinnville.  I was a bit rusty, not to mention having to get used to a new song leader.  But we worked well together and he seemed to like my playing okay.  I'll be playing every Sunday starting the first of June.  Then, after church my family took me out to eat Chinese, so that topped it all off!  Happy Mother's day!
   Every year, at this time, my heart overflows at how much God has blessed me!  I remember how hard Mother's Day used to be for me when I longed for a baby of my own.  How many tears were shed on that dreaded day!  It was a stark reminder of my own empty arms.  It was a hard day, and one I didn't look forward to.  So, after that long wait of 5 years, now that God has filled my arms three times over and soon to be four, the richness of those little blessings is so much more emphasized than it would have been if I'd been able to have children when my husband and I first married!  I realize that 5 years is not long considering the wait some women have had to endure, but when you want something so badly, pray for it almost every waking moment, long for it.... even one year is an eternity.  For me it was 5 long years of prayers before God saw fit to give us Rebekah.  Oh, God is so good!  Now, looking back, I see those years of waiting was for my good, preparing me for His plan.  As I look at each one of my children, I see God's love for me.  Mother's Day has a very special meaning to me now.  I don't take it for granted.  Just another holiday.  A day just for mom.  No, I feel humbled by it now.  It brings tears to my eyes.  Tears of thankfulness and joy.  Tears of gratefulness to the God who loved me so much.  My arms are truly full of good things!  Precious jewels.  God has given me the great privilege of motherhood!  What a humbling, yet wonderful gift!  HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

Her first taste of a Popsicle.  I love her chubby little baby hands.  :)

Sunday School