It's Been A Long Time

It's been a long time since I updated our blog. So much has happened in our lives since the last post which was close to a year ago. Here are a few snippets of what's been happening in our life over the past year.

November 2010- Ezekiel turned 5! We also found out Tim's dad wouldn't have much more time to live.

December 2010- Christmas with our families and ALMOST had a white Christmas. It started snowing Christmas night and we woke up to about 8 inches of snow the day after Christmas. Braved it in our Outback with all three kids and made the trek to S.C. and had a blast sledding with our family.

January and February- They were kind of a blur as we sought to spend as much time with Tim's dad and our family in Blanch.

March- John Howard Chilton, a man who undoubtedly loved "His Savior Jesus" passed away. One thing I was so encouraged by as I saw my father-in-law passing away was that his default was always "Praise the Lord" and asking people "Who's my Saviour?!" I hope and pray that I will long to see my Savior as much as he did and my default, as I age, will be singing His praise and not withering in pity. We miss him dearly but are so encouraged in our hearts by his faith and that now he is not seeing "face to face" (I Corinthians 13:12).

April- A tornado, or two, hit Raleigh and caused some damage to Ezekiel's school. He ended up being out of school for about a month while the facility was repaired. We enjoyed having him at home more often and having his teachers in our home.

May- It was hot.

June- It was hot too. Ezekiel and Damaris took swimming lessons. Damaris took with her buddy, and my nephew, Heath and her papa. Ezekiel took here in Raleigh through Parks and Rec. They are both doing well in the water and having lots of fun. Ezekiel can swim without his swimmies or life jacket and Damaris will actually let go of us in the water. We have had a lot of fun going to different pools this summer and it's been easier for me to manage all three at the pool by myself since I only have to hold Dietrich now.

Ezekiel graduated from pre-K in June and my nephew Caleb graduated high school!!!

We spent some time visiting my family in June.

July- It's crazy hot and the humidity has been around 89% here. I couldn't believe it the other day when I saw the temp was only 75 degrees but right when we walked outside we were drenched with sweat. Tomorrow is supposed to be 102 degrees. Early this month I got to visit my lifelong friend Tammy, who lives in Florida with her cute three year daughter and her husband. That was a real treat taking Damaris down there and letting our daughters play and catching up with each other.

That's brief catch-up over the past months/year. Here are a few recent pics.

My prissy sissy. Damaris (we call her sissy) loves all things girly. She wants to wear a dress everyday, wants new shoes more than she wants toys, and always carries her purse with her. She's pretty good at picking out what goes in that purse too. She usually has some Kleenex, her cup, chapstick, and her all time favorite hand sanitizer.

Heath, Ezekiel, and Damaris getting ready to go fishing with Papa and Daddy at Mr. Mike's pond. They were determining who was going to catch the biggest fish. They caught a few but lost two fishing poles in the process. It was a little traumatic for Damaris seeing her pole sink to the bottom and us not being able to reach it in time.

I love this picture of Dietrich. It really captures his personality. He is so much like Tim, just a real character.

Damaris and Sophie

My lifelong friend Tammy's daughter. She and Damaris are four months apart, the same distance between Tammy and I.

Catch Up

Pastor T and Tim doing push-ups somewhere in China.

Mommy and Damaris riding the Thomas Train.

Two girls who love to sleep were up before 5 to catch the train.

Jason (L) and Ezekiel (R) waiting for the next event at Day Out with Thomas.

Ezekiel LOVES his cousin Jason, as we all do. They are complete opposites but they have a lot of fun together. They were so cute riding the Thomas Train and meeting Sir Topham Hatt.

Damaris modeling her new dress daddy brought her back from China.

The Birthday Boy Dietrich!

There are too many things to try to even catch up from the last post. Here are some things we've been doing lately.

Tim went to China for a couple weeks during September. He got to meet some new friends and catch up with some Chinese friends he taught here in the States. To say we missed him while he was gone would be an understatement. The kids did great while he was gone but we were SOOOO ready to have him home. I'm so thankful to God for the advancement of technology which enabled us to talk to him on the phone almost daily and to Skype with him several times.

Ezekiel started all-day preschool last month. It's been a lot different for him and for us. We miss having him around most of the day and he is beat everyday I pick him up. He plays hard and naps little to none so that makes for a tired four year old everyday. He is so much fun and is a joy to spend time with. He always wants to have his turn praying when we pray at meals or bedtime or before school.

Damaris is two and a half now. She is not in school this year, thankfully, but I do see some sort of preschool for her in not so distant future. Damaris is a lot of fun to have at home. She is always wanting to "help you momma." She says that with the most southern drawl. She really is a good little helper. She talks a lot and sings a lot at home but is very shy around strangers, unlike her big brother. She also wants to take care of "Didi," her little brother and hold him.

Dietrich turned turned the big 1 last month. I felt like it was such a huge milestone for him. He has grown so much in the past year and is such a funny little fellow. He looks just like Tim's baby pictures, minus several pounds. He weighed almost 20 pounds at his one year check-up and I'm sure there was no place to plot Tim's weight on the graph when he was one. I think he is going to be a lot like his daddy, which makes me really happy. He is such a ham and really knows how to make you laugh. He gets in to a lot more stuff than Ezekiel and Damaris did so he keeps me running.

Me- not much to update other than I am loving being at home with my family and we are all still loving our church here (tccraleigh.org).

Dietrich

Dietrich with Papa Howard

What a silly little grin. Dietrich was definitely enjoying his ride in Damaris' baby doll stroller.

I don't think anything could have made Damaris more happy than to have "Didi" or "Buddy," as she likes to call him, in her stroller.

First trip to the beach. Catching some rays, but not for long. The wind was brutal that day so we tried to keep little man shaded in the stroller as much as possible.

Dietrich is now 8 months old! Some times it seems like time has flown and other days it seems like time has been creeping. Little man is doing well sleeping, eating, and sitting up, but I think we're still a long way from crawling. He can move backwards a little but not much, just enough to get himself under the couch. I think his favorite person in the world is Ezekiel right now. He lights up and gets so excited when Ezekiel walks in the room and no one can make him laugh like Ezekiel does. I'm glad they seem to love each other so much b/c they're probably going to be sharing a room very soon. Damaris loves to help take care of "buddy." She wants to feed him everything and kiss him and play with him. She is such a little mama.

Stay Tuned

Stay tuned...hopefully there will be a post about Dietrich later this week.

One More

One more picture of Damaris. This is another outfit that I wore when I was younger. Damaris calls it the frog dress b/c it has a little frog on the front it.

Damaris

Damaris in the bonnet and jacket my sister and I wore when we were little.

The Birthday Girl! Damaris turned 2 last month. Here she is on her new tricycle and sporting her cute "2" shirt that her Aunt Emmy made her. I think she had a lot of fun celebrating her birthday but she was tired after opening the first present .

Hmmm. Wonder what she's thinking? She probably said something like "No don't take my picture" after I snapped this shot. Damaris is such as cutie and has so much personality. She can answer almost any question you ask her in a complete sentence and definitely makes her wants and needs known. The dress she's wearing here is another one of Aunt Emmy's fashions. It's a Clemson dress. I just love those big purple bows.

Damaris is growing a lot lately and is repeating EVERYTHING her big brother says. She loves to read books and draw and is not much of a TV watcher. Her favorite books are Goldie Locks Has Chicken Pox, Time for Tom, and The Going to Bed Book.

Ezekiel

Ezekiel pretending to be a pirate. That's pretty much what he's up to nowadays. He loves pretending to be everything and wants us to pretend with him.

Canoeing with Haley, Jason, and Daddy. We had our niece and three nephews with us over spring break and had a lot of fun with them. They are such great kids and our kids love playing with them. Ezekiel and Jason had their own oar here in the canoe but I don't think they were very helpful with paddling.

Me and my boy. I could just eat him up. Ezekiel is really growing up a lot and is learning so much. He's really watching out for Damaris a lot and trying to protect her. We're talking a lot about loving God, which is the greatest commandment and the second greatest commandment to love your neighbor. Ezekiel seems to be understanding what it means to love your neighbor and not love your neighbor and is able to communicate that well. We pray these simple truths of God will take deep ro0t in his heart and will bear much fruit one day.