teach us to pray

in the MIDDLE of dinner when sophia reached out both of her hands and said, 'ma! da! ma! da!' i couldn't figure out what she wanted. i offered her everything that was on the table and could not please her. so finally i just offered her my hand. she then turned to matt holding out her hand, 'da! da!' until he too offered his hand. she bowed her head and waited.

she wanted to pray.

i looked at matt and he offered simple one line prayer. when we said amen she raised her head and sighed with a smile.

dinner continued until - hands extended - sophia started in, 'ma! da!' this time we knew what she wanted. so we held out our hands and matt again offered a simple but different prayer.

and this is how it goes every night at dinner - over and over and over.

when we first sit down to eat, the family hold hands, bows our heads and prays. it happens naturally and routinely. if i'm honest i am not thinking about what it's teaching my kids or even that it is a 'teaching moment'. i try so hard in other parts of my day to notice and take advantage of 'teachable moments', but it's not even crossing my mind at that point of the day. maybe that's how it's supposed to happen though. not stressing over these 'teachable moments', but your relationship with the Lord just happening and them observing. but that's not really what this post is about...

it's about how in the last few weeks, sophia has taught us how to pray. in short bursts, in the middle of conversations, smack dab in the middle of an argument. all of the sudden little soph will call us to pray and the entire family will just stop what they're doing and pray. mid-sentence, mid-bite. we drop our things, we hold hands and we pray. matt and i take turns saying short prayers. in the beginning they were simply something to appease sophia, but now they have developed into simple, short, deep, rich, in-the-moment outpourings to God.

and when the amen is given soph raises her head, sighs and gives us a grin.

4 years

(alaythia in a dress from hong kong that my grandparents
brought back for me when i was in elementary school.)

i find myself staring. all hints of baby-ness are gone. her last stomach bug even rid of her last bit of baby chunk. she's a girl. not a toddler, not a preschooler - but a young girl.

her life is so wrapped up in her brother's life. his friends are her friends, although most she never even talks to. so it was difficult to figure out who to invite for a party. most of her 'friends' are 6 year old boys who would never come to a princess party.

so we decided to go girl-out. grandma was in town and did it up right. we booked a hotel room for just alaythia, her grandma and me. we had a tea party, we watched movies, we went swimming. we had starbucks in bed and played hide-n-go seek. she feel asleep sandwiched between us, each singing, one playing with her hair and one tickling her back.

alaythia is nurturing and kind. she's smart and funny. she is opinionated and stubborn. perfectly comfortable in who she is and what she wants. her personality and her determination are astonishing to encounter. she's hungry to learn eagerly joining us with school. she loves to show off what she knows to anyone who will listen. she loves princesses and weapons, flowers and movies, dance and soccer.

simply put - she is her own girl. for example, today she had a beautiful floral dress on, with two pistols in their holster around her waist, polka dot rain boots on her feet and wild hair whipping in the wind. as he watched her run around the front yard, i wish you could have seen her dad's face beam.

this young girl - who is so much i'm not - brings so much living to my life. and she is much more than i could have ever imagined in a daughter. she's an amazing little girl, and celebrating her 4 years of life is such a joy.

6 years

isaiah celebrated 6 years of life and i didn't post one thing about it. but that's not to say we didn't celebrate. instead, it's like we've been celebrating for 6 weeks.

-we blew out candle and opened presents with cousin caleb and hannah when they were here.
-alaythia got sick the day before his scheduled birthday party, so we had to postpone. but eventually six of his bestest friends came to celebrate with him.
-as luck would have it, we had no school on his actual birthday and grandma was in town. so we headed to an indoor waterpark where isaiah went down his first adult slide!

isaiah is every bit six years old. he's lost five teeth, he's reading easily, he's two thirds of the way through kindergarten. he is on his school's golf team and is set to start soccer next week. he loves football - especially his fantasy league of which he invited his male (and one female) family members to play. he is active, sensitive and smart. he's everything i could ever hope for in a son.

while i'm usually stunned with how mature he's getting just the other night, he crawled up into my lap before bed and asked me to rock him. knowing that snuggle time is VERY rare and will soon not be something he ever desires - i ate up the chance - holding his two younger sisters at bay.

i sat in the same gliding rocking chair i bought before he was born. and like most of the nights of his first year of life - put him on my shoulder and rocked him. although how different it felt, his feet hitting my shins and barely being able to hold his weight with my arms. as i rocked i talked to him about all the 'alone' time we got when he was young. about playing with toys and crawling under the kitchen table to look at the mirror. about lunch dates and walks in the sunshine. how he would suck his two middle fingers and that at 8 months he could eat a whole chicken breast for dinner.

he laughed, i rocked -- and my heart was full. these have been 6 wonderful years of life with the boy God has given me.