We offered our prayers,

Night and day those prayers arose

To heaven's throne. He heard our voice,

And God planted a Rose.

We gave our hearts

To love, though the Rose we could not see.

In faith and fear

We dreamed of al that she would be.

We prayed God's grace

For grace in her to be known.

And for beauty

That would come from the depths of her soul.

But God's dreams are greater

Than any we could conceive.

His plans are always good and right;

This we must believe.

And in the midst of dryness,

God's tears fell with our own,

As He chose for Himself the beauty He made.

God picked the Rose.

Todd Wallace

August 30, 2003

Kids Say.....

The other night Todd and I were sitting down to do a devotional with the kids. The one we are going through right now is teaching them how to pray. There is a series of fill in your answers and at the end the kids pray.

I love this devotional because I get to hear what the kids are actually thinking about. It's been fun too as we look back at when we first started this book with Jadon when he was 3.

Sunday night we started with the first, I love you (God) because.....
Haven's answer was so sweet, "because He loves me."
Then they gave their answers to, I'm sorry because..... and thank you (God) for.........
After those came the prayer requests and the time of prayer.

Haven wanted to pray for her hurt leg, she did scrape it up pretty good at Great Gram's house. Then we decided that we should pray for Lucas, Bailey, Micah and Ruthie's papa because he is very sick. What came next has to be the sweetest pray I have ever heard.

Haven started praying and this is her prayer, it was so sweet that I wrote it down word for word so I wouldn't forget it. "God will you be the doctor to make Lucas and Bailey, Micah and Ruthie's papa feel better."

It brought tears to my eyes, she spoke truth in her innocent, sweet prayer. Our God is the Great Physician and the Healer. Oh, I pray that she in her innocence continues to learn and believe and trust in the truths of our Holy God.

And God will answer her prayer, He will take care of their papa and he will heal him and that may mean his ultimate healing in heaven.

A Cousin and the Zoo

This weekend we had a wonderful visitor. It was my brother's little girl, who actually isn't so little anymore. We hadn't seen her in 4 years and we got to spend this entire last weekend with her. One of the first things we did was take her and Jadon, Haven and Jude to the zoo. This was K's first time at a zoo. She wasn't quite sure of going, she had pictures of the lions and other animals running around and she was concerned about the lions getting her.

Once we got there she looked at me with all seriousness and said, "Aunt Heather you will be patient with me and let me spend time looking at everything."

We did let her have all the time she wanted and it was so much fun. Here are some pictures of K's first trip to the zoo and my kids getting to spend time with their cousin for the first time.

Thanks to Nana for buying us all tickets to ride the train. Haven and K sat together, Nana and Jude sat together and Jadon and I sat together. Nana is so cool, she's in the picture with all the grand kids. After 3 tries I still wasn't quick enough to catch Jude actually looking through the hole.

18 Months

Jude,

You are 18 months old. Some days that seems completely impossible. As I write this I'm watching you play and laugh. You have the sweetest, but at the same time, ornery laugh I know. There is a mix of sweetness, loving and stubbornness in your personality. We will spend many a days working on submission to authority. Mommy and Daddy won't have to worry about you following the crowd. The crowd will follow you, so we pray for your heart to be submissive to God in all things.

You are fearless and there are many bumps and bruises on your head to prove it. I believe that is another reason God made you with such a hard head. You are determined and never give up, even in things you know you are supposed to do.

Right now we are in the midst of a biting issue. Poor Jadon and Haven catch the brunt of your bites. So much so that as much as you like to bite you like snuggling even more, but anytime you try snuggling with your brother and sister they run from you screaming.

You do love your brother and sister and want to emulate everything Jadon does. Right now you are running around in Jadon's shorts that are much too big for you because you had to have his shorts on. I love watching you and Jadon wrestle on the floor, which comes to an automatic stop once you bite. Gotta stop that biting!

Your favorite person in the whole world right now is Pappy. You are quite the Pappy's boy and you do not share him. He loves you just as much and is proud of the fact that when he's holding you no one can get you from him. Not even I or your daddy can compare to Pappy.

You may be the smallest in our family, but in your mind you are the biggest. I love your big personality and can't wait to see how God shapes and molds you as you grow into a young boy and man. You are such a joy and we love you so very much!

Finally

I admit it, I'm just now getting around to having Haven's birthday pictures done. Her birthday was in June and shortly after her birthday we hit a very busy stretch for our family. So, today we went and got her pictures.

She did great and I had the hardest time picking out which ones I wanted. It was so much fun getting ready with her too, doing her nails and hair and picking out her outfits. Here are just a few of the pictures.

Some Fun Pictures

Last night Jadon and Haven were in a mood to have their pictures taken. It doesn't happen often that they both want to pose so we pushed bed time back and had a spontaneous photo session. We had so much fun laughing and they enjoyed coming up with the next pose.

Here's a few shots from our night.

Gavin's Snake Party

This past weekend Gavin turned 8 and he got to have a snake party. It was also nice that it landed on the weekend that the Bischoffs would be in town, so he got to have his cousins at his party. He had a herpetologist come and he brought 4 different snakes with him. At the end of his demostration he let the kids choose between holding a boa or a king snake. Lindsay took pictures of each of the kids that wanted to hold a snake and put their picture in a key chain for them to take home.

I have to admit that I was a little surprised at how interested my sweet little girl was in the snakes. She was the one that sat as close as she could to the snakes. When I saw her work her way to the very front I thought that's okay because once the snakes start coming out she will end up at the very back. I was wrong, she not only stayed up there but she couldn't wait to touch it and hold it. When she was handed the snake she hugged it and let it crawl on her shoulder. Jadon and Jude also held the snake. They are definately their daddy's children.

Jadon, Haven, Jude, Lucas and of course Gavin were the only ones in our family brave enough to hold the snake. Bailey, Micah and Ruth Ann chose not too, I'm with them.

The birthday boy and his snake cake that Erin made.The cousins enjoying the cake.

We had found a shirt at Gymboree that had a snake on it. It was also on sale so Nana bought it for Jadon to wear to the party. It was definately a hit.

He Can Move The Mountains

In between worship in the mornings and the ministry sites at night there was plenty of time for us to have some fun as a family. We were able to go hiking in the mountains on two different days. The first time we took everyone, the second time we took just Jadon with us.

The first day we went to Estes Park and hiked in the Rocky Mountain National Park. We got to see Alberta Falls, a beautiful waterfall, and Bear Lake.

Right before leaving for Denver Todd had found a zoom lens for my camera on the Internet. They were asking $100 for a brand new lens, so Todd offered them $75 and they accepted it. We were hoping that it would come in time for the Denver trip and UPS brought it the day before we left. I was so happy. I was even more happy when I got to use it while hiking through the mountains.

Pictures of us at the beginning of the hike and at the end of the hike at Bear Lake and of our friends that we went with.

Todd and Matt on top of the rock they just conquered. The day started off foggy, but by the end of the day the sky was a beautiful clear blue.Some wildlife that we were able to see. We were surprised at how close the chipmunk would let the kids get.The second trip to the mountains was to St. Mary's Glacier. It was definitely a different hike as in it wasn't as pretty as the prior hike. But once we got to the glacier it was absolutely beautiful. Todd and Jadon played in the glacier. There was a definite climate change the closer you got to the glacier.
To give you an idea of how big the glacier is in the middle of picture on the right hand side you can barely see two people on the glacier. They were on skies hiking their way across it.

We have found Jadon's thing, he loves hiking and climbing rocks. He becomes a totally different boy once we put him in the mountains. He is usually a cautious fearless (I know those don't sound like they go together, but that's Jadon, he loves to do new and daring things, but he's going to go in prepared and cautious) and we're convinced his body if full of nerve endings since he has absolutely no pain tolerance what so ever. But put him in the mountains and he becomes a wild man climbing everywhere.