A pre-church miracle!

You'd think it would be easy to leave at 9:15 for church when we're all up by about 7:00, but for some reason we're usually rushing to get out the door. Today we were actually ready a little early, so I took the opportunity to take a few pictures.

Recent life

A few recent pictures of my boys . . . This is one of my all-time favorite pictures of Luke & Noah.

Arrrrrgh, matey! Mother's Day
Gary & Luke went on an Adverture Guides campout last weekend. Friday was beautiful, but a cold front blew in about 3:00 Saturday morning, and they had to come home early because the day was a washout. This picture is from Friday, before the deluge.

Luke was up till about 11:30 Friday night and didn't sleep well, so he was exhausted on Saturday.

Sandra and Baby Allison

I helped throw a shower for my friend Sandra a couple of weeks ago. It was really nice, and I think Sandra enjoyed herself. These pictures are out of order because I couldn't rearrange them for some reason.My friend Adriane made this tutu to go with a really cute onesie I gave Sandra. I can't wait to see Allison in it!

The guests of honor

My friend Denise made this cake - isn't it the cutest cake ever? Man, I have some talented friends!

Yikes!

It seems as though we are under a severe thunderstorm warning every other day around here, but we experienced something brand new last night. About 7:30 we were in the middle of a second round of thunderstorms; there was plenty of thunder and lightning, but nothing nearly as severe as some of the storms I've seen here. Gary was in Noah's room reading books to him, and Luke and I were in the living room watching TV when I heard the loudest, closest crack of thunder I've ever heard and saw a bright flash of light. Luke & I ran to the front of the house to try to figure out what happened. Gary said he thought lightning might have hit the house. We soon discovered it hadn't, thank goodness, but our neighbors told us they saw the bolt that nearly hit the house. Regardless of what the lightning hit, it did some damage. Here's a list of the things in our house that are no longer working and where they are located in our house:

-Internet & phone (OK, these are working now, but it's only because the AT&T guy just left about 30 minutes ago, but the lightning fried the modem last night): Gary's office
-the printer in Gary's office
-one of our garage door openers (OK, this is working now, too, but it was out for a while)
-the HVAC system
-the base to our cordless phone that was in our living room (the lamp that was plugged into the same outlet, however, is fine)
-DVD player in our living room (the TV and satellite dish that are plugged into the same power strip are undamaged)
-the Wii in our living room

Even though we could potentially have to spend thousands of dollars to fix/replace these items, I'm so thankful that we're not having to replace our entire house. I think we got very lucky that the house didn't get struck. I told Luke this morning that our neighbor saw the bolt that nearly hit us and that God was watching out for us because the house didn't get hit, and he said it was because God put a force-field around our house. I agree.

We were all on edge last night, and neither one of the boys fell asleep until nearly 9:00. Gary is pretty stressed today, trying to figure out ways to fix some of this stuff, and I'm still trying to understand why some things got damaged when others didn't (I'm sure I'll never figure this one out!) I'm just glad I still have a roof over my head and a working computer!

Slacker

I have become a blog slacker. I have the best intentions to update it more frequently, but inevitably it gets pushed to the bottom of my to-do list every day. So, I'm finally taking the time to give an update on us.

-Noah is quite the chatterbug lately. He is saying new words all the time, and many of the words he's been saying for a while he now says more clearly. A few exceptions to this are "vacuum" (which sounds like "mamu"); "ice cream" (there is no way I can explain how he says this word - it's bizarre!); "music" (which sounds like "hehaw"); and "basketball" (which sounds like "badudu").

-Noah is a very polite little boy. He says "bless you" when anyone sneezes, says "excuse me" when air of any sort comes out of his body", says "thank you" when you give him something, and uses "please" most of the time. It's really charming.
-Speaking of charm, Noah oozes charm and personality.
-Last week at school Luke's teacher chose him to be the line leader for the entire week. Apparently this is quite an honor.
-Luke also received the Tribes Award for his class for the month of April. This award is given to the student who consistently shows respect and is a good example. Way to go, Luke!!
-Luke's soccer team won their game last week! This is only the second game they've won over the past two years. Luke scored 4 goals. He's developed into a really good little soccer player.

Luke getting recognition at Friday Live for receiving the Tribes Award.