Sad Cries from a Clean House (by Bridget)

I have had a couple of opportunities the past few months to ponder a conclusion I never thought I would come up with.
Bethany's grandparents have taken turns keeping her for an extended period of time while Steve and I are at home, with no real plans. So here I sit, for the second time now, in my clean, fresh smelling house, and I'm overwhelmed by a sense of emptiness. The first time Bethany was away, I walked into the living room one night and said to Steve in all seriousness, "the house has a funny smell to it". To this he responded, "clean!". It's true, when Bethany is away my house sparkles with freshness and order, something I always seem to long for; so why the empty feeling?
Then I notice the sticky fingerprints on the bottoms of our windows, and I recall her hands and face pressed upon the glass, screaming with delight, "look mommy, a lizard!" or "airpane, mommmy, airpane!" or "bird, mommy, see?, a bird!". Believe it or not I start to miss the hazardous mess that she creates on the floor from throwing every toy out of the basket in a tazmanian devil sort of way, just to get the little trinket on the bottom that she ends up tossing after 15 seconds of good playtime.
In no way would I trade this time away from Bethany. I know it is priceless for her and her grandparents, not to mention me and steve, but I am starting to realize the sweetness of a messy house. It means Bethany is home, and exploring, and growing up way faster than I ever thought possible! So next time you hear me complaining about my messy house, I would appreciate a quick reprimand to remind me of the emptiness that comes with clean...

Have you Seen this Man?

Time with JT

This week one of Bethany's best frieds, J.T., got to stay with us for 5 whole days! Bethany loved spending time with her sweet friend(who she is going to miss terribly by the way). Here is a few pictures from their day together on Saturday (chaperoned and photo-documented by Mr. Steve):

Our Little Gardener

This is pretty funny...at least to us. Bethany had no idea that Bridget was filming. Check it out.

Bethany the Gymnast

Explanations

Tonight Bridget and I had a discussion about blogging. It wasn't so much a discussion as much as it was me reminding Bridget that she hadn't posted a blog update in approximately 30+ days. You probably know how that went over...so guess who's blogging now! Anyway friends, as you can see below we've updated with a few pictures from last month. If you like Bethany's Easter Dress you can thank her GiGi, who graciously provided several new dresses lately including this one. Bethany has also enjoyed playing mommy dress-up and daddy dress-up lately, as you can see from the lipstick incident and her confiscation of my tie and pen.

Things here have been wonderful lately. It's always so tempting to just tell people about the "things" we are involved with that tend to keep us so busy, and believe me those exist. But let me say that we are doing the things that we feel God has called us to, and I am learning that there is so much joy in that. Simplicity can be an enormous challenge, but it reaps reciprocal benefits. More and more every day Bethany exhibits a new emotion, word or thought that I realize must have come from some observation in our home. This has made me think a great deal lately about the priorities that I have set in my life, or rather lived-out, without necessarily thinking about or evaluating them. I'm not sure where I'm going with that, other than to say the weight of the calling to be a parent is even now just setting in...1 year and 9 months after Bridget and I started to attempt it.

So then I've also been thinking about my heavenly Father's love in the light of the emotions and love I've experienced as a dad to such an amazing, charming and beautiful little girl. It's hard to write about this...mainly because it seems like everything has already been said - namely that the love I experience for my child is a dim shadow of the perfect love of our Father. I guess that's something we hear a lot, in some form or another, but I think it's good to dwell on it sometimes.

I'll provide a for instance - coming home from work. It has to be one of the brightest moments of my day. First of all because I'm married to my best friend, who has put a lump in my throat every time I have seen her since middle school. But now there is also a new participant in this reunion, which means an added anticipation every day for the moment I get to hear my daughters voice, see the disaster she has created in our den, hear the new word she has learned, see the picture she has drawn or the new song she can sing. These little things are so simple but they are so awesome to be a part of. If I enjoy these things, that has to mean that the Lord enjoys in the same manner (or in a magnified way) my voice, my disasters, my messes, my new word, the pictures I draw, the songs I sing, etc. That's incredible.

March