Little dudes photo post

Some of our friends have an amazing backyard, and Levi was a permanent fixture during a recent construction project. He loved watching the men work and getting to touch Salvador's drill.

Exploring the pumpkin village

He's a work-man, fire-man.

The boys dressed up for our fall festival - Lightening McQueen and Batman!

Getting to "fly" an airplane!

Toddler burrito

A real leaf blower!

Oh hey, blue eyes!

Even big boys like this swing.

Tie-dye love

Cutie

Sometimes, his hair just does that. And I love it.

After realizing it had been very quiet for several minutes, this is the scene I found!

 Brother swing time

The pumpkin patch! 

 On our way in with these cuties and these beauties. I love fall!

Enjoying the crisp weather

My boys

Here we are, in November, and I need to update! 

L. Blaze, L. Blaze, what a fast and furious season we are in with this guy. Through our moments of, shall we say, toddler intensity, my oldest child is teaching me and refining me in a way no other person on earth ever could. And that is actually a really good thing! Just as I'm trying to teach him to walk in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, self-control, etc., it has never been more clear that I MYSELF need to walk in those very things. Hellooooo, truth. 

Amidst the teachable moments, this blondie also gives me some of the sweetest moments of my life. As on-the-go as he is, he is still a cuddler with his mama, which never gets old. Watching him learn to help his little brother, watching him learn to play with his brother, saying I love you's to our family, his laugh, his love of tools and all things related to a "work-man," his spontaneous outbursts of singing... he captures my heart daily. He reminds us to pray for our food, and his simple prayer of "God, thank you for our food, aaaaamen" is one that I believe touches God's heart every time it's uttered. I am astounded at his memory, his creativity, his vocabulary and sentence structure and his eye-hand coordination. His love for drumming has only increased, and he has discovered the thrill of climbing things. He loves playing with "big kids" and has started informing me that he is a "big boy." As I watched him climb stairs the other day, taking them in full stride instead of one at a time, I realized yet again that yes, he is getting to be such a big boy.

Nate-a-roo, our little social butterfly, loooooves his brother. Levi has recently invented a game where he runs from his bedroom into the living room, and our little crawler will be right behind him. Levi waits, and then runs back to the bedroom, and Nathanael immediately turns to follow. Repeat. It doesn't seem to get old for either of them, and I just watch and smile! Little brother wants to be with big brother in whatever he is doing. 

Around the eight-month mark, Nathanael finally became interested in eating solid foods, and by nine months he was consuming his purees with vigor. The first time I prematurely took a puree packet out of his hands before he decided he was done with it, he let forth a scream we'd never heard before - and to date it is only used in relation to food. At ten months, he is eating like a champ. He babbles da-da, ma-ma and bubba-bubba-bubba, and when he finds himself in a room with excellent acoustics, he loves to hear himself talk and shriek. He pulls up on everything, and can stand for a few seconds without holding on for support. Gone is the constant cuddler - he has too much to do! Now, those cuddles are reserved for when he's tired or teething. At last count, he has four teeth - three bottom and one top, with another top one coming in.

Enough typing. Here are some snapshots of life for us recently!

 One of Levi's many smile faces!

Fearless 

State fair fun! 

One of our fave people!

Candy! And Aunt Leigh!

Getting to ride with Didi in the parade! 

Fall fun

Running around at the zoo

OU Homecoming parade watch party, complete with suckers

Can you see us? Enjoying a gorgeous day at the Arboretum.

Nathanael Oak, 8 months

Nate Nate Nate Nate-a-rooooooo!

Your brother has recently become captivated with one of the few TV shows we watch, Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood. We've adapted one song from an episode which originally said, "paint paint paint paint-a-roooooooo" to your name instead. It's common for me to hear your brother singing the Nate version in his room while playing. He loves his brother!

Oh my sweet Nathanael Oak, you are eight months old! And MOBILE! At seven months, you were sitting on your own and going from all fours to seated position, back to all fours. And you were rolling all over the place. But, the day after you turned eight months, you started crawling. You aren't all over the place yet, but once you see something you want, you are determined to get there and get it. You can imagine how this panics your brother when your chosen object is one of his beloved toys.

In the last week, you've also cut your first tooth, and the second is almost here. You've only been "Nathanael cranky" throughout the teething process, which is the most mild form of cranky I've ever seen. I wouldn't even call it irritable if I didn't know your otherwise completely sunny disposition.

You started sleeping through the night last month when I finally moved you out of our room. I suspect you would have been sleeping longer much earlier had I moved you before then, but I loved having you in with us. It only took you a few nights to adjust, and you've been a rockstar ever since. Your naps are starting to become longer, and the three of us are getting our daytime routine down. You are a tummy sleeper, and, like your brother, you love falling asleep to the sound of the musical seahorse. Unlike your brother, you don't always need a pacifier to fall asleep - sometimes you want it, sometimes you don't.

You are a smiley guy. You don't get upset easily, and you love being around people. When I pick you up, your legs immediately go into wide splits in anticipation of being placed on my hip. It's the cutest thing. In the last few days, when we go in to get you up from a nap or in the morning, you've begun raising your hands to signal for us to lift you up. You do it with the biggest grin on your face, and I love it!

You looooove Levi. When I bring you out into the living room each morning, your head is on a swivel, searching the room until you find him. You smile at him and babble to him, and you love it when he is in close proximity to you. Sometimes, when you are playing in the Baby Einstein, Levi will come on the outside of it and "go to work" with his screwdriver, pretending to fix certain areas. You will reach for him with the biggest smile.

You started eating solid foods just after turning seven months old. You would eat pretty much whatever I offered you until you were full, until this week, when your mouth went on lock-down. I thought it was probably due to sore gums with your tooth coming in, but you wanted nothing to do with what I was offering. Until today, when I finally tried to get you to eat some prunes. Suddenly, you were interested in chowing down! I realized that your mouth felt fine - it was the vegetables you were protesting!

You are a talker! You babble, experimenting with making various noises at different pitches. Sometimes you will look at one of us with the most serious expression and start "talking" like we are having an everyday conversation.

We took you to the Middle East at the beginning of the summer, when you were just turning five months old. You slept the entire duration of the flights on the way there, and almost the entire way home. We got so many compliments from fellow travelers and flight crews about how well you travel. And once in Dubai, you were a trooper! You were a-okay with napping in the Ergo carrier, being up late at night, and nursing wherever we found a place to do it. We couldn't have asked for a better traveling companion while Levi was loving life at Mimi's and Didi's house.

You are a pretty chill kiddo, but by no means are you a lump on a log. You are active, active, active, and love to grab anything and everything near you. You are curious and determined, and I can't wait to see your personality continue to blossom.

Here are some pics of our boy and his amazing baby blues!

Being a good sport while your brother drives you around.

My boys, playing together!

This update is long overdue, but I can honestly say that I have been busy living in the moment with you. I made the conscious decision to note things for you to go back and read later on in life, but to not rush to jot down every move you make. I want to be so present for you and your brother, to watch life happen, and let's face it, you two keep me on my toes! I'm loving every second of it.

We LOVE you, baby dude!

Love,

Mama

Levi Blaze

Levi Blaze, Levi Blaze!

As I sit here and write this, you are two years and seven months old. How can this be?

Toddlerhood is equal parts entertaining and challenging. I love the way you say "hammurger" and that you are now creating your own jokes. You know that you're funny, which makes it even funnier. You drum everything. EVERYTHING. "Just like Brent," who is our drummer at church. We finally wised up and began giving you straws to use as drum sticks so that our ears get a small break from the constant tapping. But I have to give you credit - you have rhythm, little man. You can keep a beat quite well, and can even sing while playing. I don't think I can do that.

You know complete songs and are prone to break into one of them at any given time. I'm not talking nursery rhyme songs, though you know those, too. I mean entire worship songs. Or the random songs from your Mimi's Pure Moods CD. Haha! I don't think you noticed my jaw drop the other day when the first musical bars of a song began and you matter-of-factly stated the actual name of the song before any words were sung. You'd heard that song maybe twice before. But you don't stop at songs. There are also a handful of singers you're familiar with, and you recognize their voices almost instantly. I love that worship music is what you love, and you often request for either your dad or me to sing you one of your favorites. We've had to make mental notes of your names for some of them, names that often come from a line in the song somewhere, so we know what you are talking about.

When you received your toddler instruments last year, I thought they might keep you entertained for a month or so. But nooooo, you love instruments. You love to play them, talk about playing them, pretend to play them, and you have an ear for them. We will be in the car, listening to music, and out of the blue you'll pause what you're doing and call out the instrument you hear. Drums, guitar (gee-tar), violin, pan pipe, trumpet, etc. And you're right.

When you aren't drumming, you are pretending to either mow or edge with a weed-eater. Bzzzzzzzzz. Bzzzzzzzzzz. Bzzzzzzzzzzz. Around the house you go!

You have entered the world of pretend play, and it's adorable. You will create a zoo with your animals, or build a "tall, tall tower" with your blocks, or carefully line up trains on your crib rail. You're also clever enough to know the difference between actually doing something you're not supposed to and "just pretending." When I ask you not to do something, usually involving drumming (i.e., using your dinner fork as a drumstick), you'll nod your head in agreement and say, "just pretend."

You can put on your own shoes, spot a cement truck out of any car window, and you are fascinated by all bugs, but especially by dead bugs. You can tell me the name of an impressive number of animals by their photos. Antelope, red fox, chimpanzee vs. baboon, lion vs. puma vs. cheetah vs. tiger. You are sharp, little man. And active! You love to kick a ball, and I know I'm your mom so I'm impressed with most things you can do, but son, you have skills. You are a coordinated dude. You also love your tie-dye shirt and request to wear it almost daily, whether it's clean or not.

Your vocabulary, while it has always been great, continues to advance. You aren't just repeating things you hear now. You are telling your own stories and can have a simple phone conversation. I love asking you a question and hearing either a simple "yes" or a more expanded "I sure do" or "she sure can" or "I sure didn't."

You are a sponge and love to do anything your dad is doing. You love oil wells, airplanes and helicopters, cement trucks, tools, and jumping. At some point during the day, I'll usually find you carefully lining up your toys. You have the world's best bedtime routine that you yourself created: hug, kiss, ugga mugga (you pronounce ugga myka, that you learned from Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood), high-five and pound it. This is how you say goodnight to us, and I can't get enough.

Amidst all of your talents and fascinations, you also remind us that HEY, I AM TWO. TWOOOOOOOOO. You are learning boundaries and your own preferences, and you aren't above throwing a tantrum or two. Or ten. But you know what? We are all being refined in this season, and I wouldn't trade any of these moments away, these moments that seem to fly by. I was reminded the other day of the phase we were in just a few months ago, where you would take off at the drop of a hat.  I seriously considered buying one of those toddler leashes. I had to make sure to be holding some part of your body when we went outside or I'd end up chasing you. Once, I chased your naked self down the block before I caught you. But now? Now you want to hold our hands every chance you get. I want to freeze each of those moments forever.

Here are a few pics of you at this age:

I love this last photo series because it's so YOU in this stage of life. You picked out those shoes with Mimi and Didi last week, not ever having seen any of the Monster's, Inc. movies. You just liked the shoes. And the shirt pulls together some of your favorite things: hammer, screwdriver and drill. If you were a career man at this age, I think you'd be a handyman and lawn mower/weed-eater who drives a cement truck and flies an airplane over oil wells and radio towers.

I love you so stinkin' much! We all do.
Love,
Mama

Catch up

Where, oh where, to begin on this massive catch-up post! I would love to say that I'm going to write a separate post for each of the big moments from the last few months, but as well intentioned as that would be, and as much as those moments deserve their own post, I think Christmas would arrive before all of those posts were done. So, here we go, in a nutshell of sorts...

We MOVED! Into a HOUSE! After prolonging my graduation as long as possible so that 1.) I could remain sane in completing coursework at a slow enough pace that I could also function as a mama and wife; and 2.) So we could continue living in the international student housing, which we absolutely loved, I completed my master's degree, which necessitated us leaving student housing.

The timing was right because with two kiddos, the walls were starting to close in on our teeny little apartment. And getting two little-'uns up and down the stairs was enough to make me lecture myself daily on choosing a second-floor apartment. So after a lot of searching, and a lot of parental financial assistance, we moved into an adorable house that immediately doubled our living space.

And one week after moving, we left the country for two weeks. Haha! Somehow, in the logistical planning, that never registered as a red flag until we were in the midst of the chaos. Our amazing crew of friends and family helped us load and unload and get as settled as possible before repacking for a trip to Lebanon and Dubai. Except strike that Lebanon part because 24 HOURS before departure, we received official notice that our itinerary needed to change. So, while our team went on to Lebanon, we stayed in Dubai before meeting up with them.

The trip was, in a word, incredible. I've never been on a trip like it before. Our team was one divinely woven together, and together we saw lives changed every single day we were there. Jesus can do that, I already knew that, but to actually see it in action, day by day... wow. Each night as we gathered before bed to debrief the day, we actually had to limit the stories told because there were so many that otherwise, we'd be up all night hearing them.

Some pics from the trip:

We took advantage of a long layover to get out into Amsterdam and breathe fresh air! 

It was so FUN to get to have coffee with one of my favorite Norman friends. Her parents live in the emirate we visited, and I got to meet them, which I'd always hoped to do! Meeting up at Starbucks there with her felt surreal, but also weirdly normal!

We visited one of the largest mosques in the city. You'll note the ladies are covered, which is required to go inside. However, this was the only time we had to cover our heads the entire trip.

Baby dude had lots of helpers who were amazing! 

Just one of the many moments spent on the metro!

The Moore tornado happened while we were overseas, and it didn't feel real to be living in a completely different situation, while hearing news from home of the homes devastated and our friends working in relief efforts. We really did feel worlds apart on some level. 

Less than a week after returning home, our dear friends Sarah and Joel began what would become the biggest battle of their family's lives. I really can't put into words, still today, an accurate description of those weeks. None of us expected the ending to be a funeral. Truly, we didn't. But God is faithful to the end, and this summer has taught me a lot about intercession, faith, and hope. And Sarah? She will get her own post here eventually because not only is she a good friend... she is a warrior. She is vulnerable and fierce, and I count it a huge honor to be her friend.

And now, with the advent of a new school year, we are looking ahead to a great year with all of the new international students on campus. Last Sunday, as we kicked off the first Wal-mart rides for international students, more than 70 students showed up. It was a blast, and I love the sight of the aisles of Wal-mart filled with representation of the globe.

I can't believe it's nearly September. Here's to a great fall ahead!

Miracle

I know I posted a link to Sarah and Joel's blog a few weeks ago, but I'm doing it again today: http://joelandsarahsjourney.wordpress.com.

You see, these aren't just people in my hometown. These are dear friends of ours, and to see them have to continually battle for health not only breaks my heart but it stirs up a righteous anger. This is not how it should be.

I cannot say enough about Sarah. Her blog is just a glimpse of the resilient, tender, determined, fierce, faithful woman that she is. She stands for her husband in a way that many people don't dare to do - and why shouldn't she? Our God is the God of miracles. As her recent post says, He is the God who parted the Red Sea, and He's the God who a month ago saved Joel's life once again. He is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. And day by day, He's giving this family the grace and strength to battle another day, and another day, and another day.

I ask you to pray for Joel. I ask you to dare to stand in full faith that this man will be healed, fully, completely. Come boldly before the throne of our merciful God and ask for restoration for this family. Be part of the army that has arisen to surround this family in prayer. And then, in the end, when he returns home, you'll know you had a part in one of the most powerful stories you've ever witnessed unfold.

Birthdays... belated!

Is it... July?

I realized it had been a "while" since my last post, but apparently it's been quite a while. A LOT has happened in the last few months, and we've had a fun time celebrating a season of family birthdays. Here we go, with throwback photos from the glory days of 2008, simply because I stumbled onto them today:

My sister-in-law, KRP, had a March birthday. She, by her very nature, is an encourager. Kimberly Renee, I am thankful for you!

This hottie celebrated the big 3-2 on the very day we left the country for the Middle East. Mr. Park, this is going to be one fantastic year for you, I just know it. You are unbelievably kind, generous, full of vision and passion, and your family adores you.

His father, Papa to our boys, celebrated his birthday while we were overseas. Here's the to man who taught me, among many great things, the pleasure of a breakfast cookie.

And my momma, ooooh where do I even start? Sainthood, I tell you. Sainthood. (And, she's buff.)

And me? I am no longer 30, but am now "in my 30s." Haha!

Also in there, my youngest little sweetie turned six months old, and my eldest is just days from turning two-and-a-half. But those two will have posts of their own, maybe tomorrow? Maybe before August?!

Happy birthday all!