Saturday, January 23, 2010

spelling vs reading

rumor has it that good readers are good spellers. that is not true for me. i love to read and read a lot, but i am a horrendous speller. i think the disconnected started when i was very young. my parents tell the story of when i was 3 or so and would get into the playpen with my sister, Hanell, to read to her. we had a book that had animal pictures in it. i always used to read the letters and then the word. "P-U-P-P-Y... DOG!"
i'm afraid caleb will have the same issue. the other day, we were playing with stamps. he has a stamp from gram that says HUGS that we were using. and he was reading it to me, "H-U-G-S... SNUGGLES!"
i love that boy!

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Jesus is coming!

everyone prepare, Jesus is returning soon! how do i know? tuna.
need more explanation? ok, here goes... a couple of years ago, i went out and bought tuna at costco. i figured, it never goes bad and this way i wouldn't be out of it when i wanted some. well, then it got pushed back in our pantry and i forgot about it. so, the next time i was at the store, i bought some tuna. and it was on sale, so i bought quite a bit. that way i wouldn't run out, right? as troy was helping me put it all away, he found the costco tuna. he told me that i would never have to buy tuna again until Jesus came back. and today, i opened the last can.
so, get ready!

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

bedtime conversations

most nights, troy puts caleb to bed while i take care of ali. but on monday and wednesday evenings, troy has class and i'm in charge of both of them. i let caleb play with my iphone while i put ali to sleep and then i get to hang out with him.
after we read a couple of books and brush teeth, we make our way to his room and read his Bible. then i turn off the lights, pick him up, sit on the rocking chair, and then we have the greatest conversations. monday, it was about what's real and what's pretend. we talked about micky mouse, buzz lightyear and woody. we talked about how pretend things are fun, but what we really love are the things that are real: family members, friends, etc.
tonight we talked about heaven. he was telling me that God lives in heaven. he wanted to know what heaven was like and i told him that everything that was the best was in heaven. i asked what he thought would be there. here are some things he mentioned: lots of cool toys, chocolate cow milk, cold chai tea, chocolate candies, brownies, and mommy and daddy. sounds great, huh? then i told him the best thing about heaven was that Jesus was there and we would get to see Him. caleb was so excited about that. he told me that he wanted to go drive to heaven and see Jesus. me too! when the time comes, we'll be called home and i can't wait!

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

kids' names

following in jessi's footsteps, here's a blog about how we arrived at our kids' names.

Caleb Alan
before we had kids, we talked about naming a son zachary alan. we knew we wanted alan as a middle name because it's troy's dad's name and he had always wanted to name a son after his dad. and zachary just sounded good with alan. but then troy told a couple of people what we
were thinking and i just have this thing about keeping it to ourselves until we're really sure. and the more people talked about our "someday kid" named zachary alan, the more i became convinced that that's not what i wanted. so then finally we were pregnant and i was pretty sure we were having a boy. and somehow, i just wanted the name caleb. i love the story of caleb in
the Bible and i love that he is described as loyal to God. we talked about a few other names, too, but i distinctly remember one time, a few days before our ultrasound, driving home in the car and saying, "ok, if we are having a boy, his name is caleb alan." so the day of the ultrasound, we called all our family and shared with them the excitement of our little caleb alan!

Alia Marie
oh girls' names. so much harder for us. troy loved the name abigail, and calling her abby, but as a teacher i had had a few negative run-ins with abigails. plus, my cousin has a daughter named abigail. and then troy liked the nickname allie, so he thought maybe naming her allison. which is a beautiful name, but also my maiden name and i wasn't quite removed enough from it to do that. plus, i knew the middle name would be marie because it was my grandma's, my mom's, and my middle name. and to go from lauren marie allison to having a daughter named allison marie, was a little strange. so at one point, when i was pregnant with caleb, troy said, "let's just name a girl alia and call her ali." but he was mostly kidding because he thought he had made up the name and wanted something that had more meaning behind it. every once in a while, when we would talk about future kid names, i would bring up alia marie (because i loved it) and he would sort of just shrug it off. fast forward a couple of years and we're pregnant with ali. we went into the ultrasound with a couple of options (of which alia was not one) and we find out we're having a girl. our top choice for name began with a "P" (and i'm not mentioning it because we might use it later and if i share it, i'll start not liking it). but think about the initials P. M. S. yikes. i actually asked the ultrasound tech what she thought of a girl with those initials. she said it was up to me, but she wouldn't do it. bummer. so, we're in the car, after the ultrasound, and wanting to call our families with the news... and a name. so i again mention alia and ask troy to look it up on the computer to see if it is actually a name and what the meaning is. and he does. and we fall in love with it! the name means "my God is Yahweh" or "Yahweh is God". beautiful... and just what we pray for our precious girl. more on the name here.