Shoes

The last couple of times I've been with Morgen in her (amazingly decorated--go Jen) room, she's said, "shoes". I missed it the first time, not knowing what she was talking about. Then, she started pointing, saying "shoes, shoes, shoes." It was then that I saw that Jen had all of Morgen's shoes in a pile, as the shoes are relocating to her closet or something... Shoes. Shoes. Shoes.
It begins.
I already feel sorry for her husband to be (at least 30 or so years from now).

Ex Nihilo

Noah and I were praying together this morning. A portion of his prayer required me to attempt to keep from laughing more than usual:

"Thank you, God, for making us out of dust...I don’t know how You made us out of dust. That was very cool. I wanted to watch, but I was dust."

Country Roads, Take Me Home

Honestly, I was minding my own business, as Jennifer was driving through the mountains of West Virginia (on our way back to Ohio from Virginia--thanks for the prayers for Noah). Morgen asked for some "num num's", and I gave her some cereal. I also decided to try some for myself...I guess this is what happens when a tired, bored native Kentuckian eats too many Kellogg's Corn Pops while riding through West Virginia--they must have gotten stuck in my teeth...or as my teeth...or somthing. (Yes, this was a cell phone self-portrait)

All by Myself

I was awakened from sleep this morning by a hearty scream of "I'm all by myself!!!!," as my son had a bit of a "Home Alone" moment. Evidently, after waking, he looked in the first room he saw here at his grandparent's home in Richmond, VA. Failling to notice that his grandma was right there (there may be another blog there about the way men look for things vs. women), his mind quickly jumped to the only logical conclusion: we all got up early in the morning and decided to leave him there alone.

It's generally not good for your health to jump to conclusions too quickly. It's also better for those who may be sound asleep close by.

Beautiful Day

January 11? Are you kidding me? I'm in Richmond, VA and was at Providence Golf Club today, 70's and sunny (hence the shadows of my brother-in-law, Andy Johansen, and his trusty sidekick partner-in-crime, Tommy Burkett). We'd planned on staying inside all day, as the forecasters had said it was going to be a day full of nothing but intense thunderstorms. They were sorely mistaken. What a day. And yes, I managed to stay out of the water on the left.
I love the fact that my father-in-law "works" at a nice golf course....

Picture Pages

I can remember a song from when I was a kid (yesterday, or so)..."picture pages, picture pages, time to get our picture pages, time to get our crayons and our pencils..." It was a part of a Saturday morning Bill Cosby kid's show (complete with Fat Albert, etc.).
Kids relate to pictures. They say that a picture paints a thousand words....

Yesterday, I got up early with Noah, and was going through my prayer list (see my "pray" post from a while back). I asked Noah if he'd like to make a prayer list. Of course, he wanted to. It started well, with him just telling me things, and me typing away (things like, "thank God for my favorite animal in the world, the armadillo..."), but everything quickly changed. He told me to draw a picture of a heart, because God loves him, and he loves God. Then he wanted a picture that let God know he was thankful for his favorite Halloween character, Dracula (I found some nice kid's clip art for that one...I guess it's OK to thank God for Dracula...still figuring that one out for myself).

At first, when Noah asked me to do the "drawing" part, I was a little tripped up, and attempted to explain to him how it was something for writing words. Then I quickly realized that Noah was doing to me what I seem to do to people, as well. He was coloring outside of my box. He was going beyond what I'd thought of, in a pretty creative way. At first, I tried to shut him down, but he was persistent. I'm so glad.... I'm going to put some clip art in my prayer Word document. You should too. Something besides Dracula, preferably.