Inspiration

We have been experiencing a bit of turbulence in our personal life lately and last night Gary and I decided to pray for inspiration about certain things. This morning Gary and I both woke up to letters on our pillows from our sweet daughter. Mine was the usual love note but Gary's was something different. This is what it said:

Dear Daddy. Thank you for taking care of me. I love you. I will miss you at work. Be smart. Think about it first. xxoo

For Gary in particular this spoke to him as an answer to prayer. It's so unbelievably precious when inspiration comes like this and I am grateful.

Secret Code Words

Have I ever mentioned how much FUN going grocery shopping with three children is?

Surely she jests, I hear you say. In fact if you had asked me on any other day, I would have been able to give you a big laundry list of the reasons why I hate it. Today I decided to devise some sort of game to enable me to keep my sanity during the trip to Wal-mart. After-all, I've got about 8-9 more weeks before school is back in. I told the kids that we would have code words for good and bad behavior. If I spotted bad behaviour I'd say the code word and the same if I spotted good behavior. Leia chose the code word for the good behavior - CLOWN. Spencer chose the word for bad behavior - POLICE. Needless to say, I got a few strange looks from people who were no doubt wondering why I kept yelling POLICE at least once down each aisle, but on the whole, the shopping trip was quite painless and Leia and Spencer wanted to outdo each other on the amount of times I said CLOWN to them. Any ideas for next week?

On another note, I am missing my sister already. I didn't think it would hit this soon since it was quite chaotic at times and I was looking forward to getting back to a bit of peace and quiet but nope. I wish she lived close and we could hang out all the time. All those of you out there who have this luxury are unbelievably lucky and I am envious. However I am done feeling sorry for myself and talking about myself, so here is a picture or two from the last two weeks.

Feeling hot and bothered at the Columbus zoo with Auntie Rachel

I kissed this little boy so many times I'm sure he was sick of it.

Asp/Hall crew

Well all good things must come to an end unfortunately and so Rach, Ben and Max are heading back across the pond and we will all continue on with regular life. It has been a great visit and I have thoroughly enjoyed being Auntie Sarah and spending every minute with my best friend ever for two whole weeks. This morning before church we got out the tripod and endeavoured to capture the whole group for posterity. I'm very pleased with the results!

All the kids. Leia, Spencer, Nathan, and "sweet baby Max"

Quick, say "cheeeese" before the timer runs out!

All things Max

Well we've reached the halfway point of Rachel, Ben and Max's visit with us. Max still retains his celebrity status and we're all having a great time. I'm enjoying being Auntie Sarah, a hat I don't get to put on too often. Enjoy these pics of the cutest nephew in existence!

The center of attention

Just look at that face!

He doesn't smile too often but when he does it's infectious

Leia just thinks he's wonderful.

Being a parent is a real miracle don't you think?