Splendor of the King

Yesterday evening, the Lord revealed to this little family of ours a taste of His splendor.  After living in Lawton for nearly 3 months, we finally stole away to the Wichita Mountains and the wildlife reserve there. It was breathtaking.  I’m left wondering if the people here in Lawton and the surrounding area realize just how much of a gem this place is… to be able to drive just a couple of miles outside of town and enter into a world that is bathed in such a beauty that proclaims such majesty…a majesty that only my God can create.

The pictures do not even come close to capturing what our eyes saw, but just so you get an idea:

Mother's Day {2012}

Her children rise up and call her blessed...(Proverbs 31:28)




...Indeed, I am so very blessed to be Josiah and Elijah's mommy...

Journey with Josiah {4}

Josiah will turn three come August.  I sure did think that he would have been talking by now. And goodness knows that I have tried so hard to get him to....from diets, to speech therapy, to supplements, different doctors, etc. (you can read about these avenues that we have explored in my three previous posts titled "Journey with Josiah") The gluten free diet that we had him on was unrealistic for us.  It was too hard and too expensive to see as little results as we were seeing. Also, he made no improvement from the speech therapy that he received for several months.  And the supplements and detoxification? Well, shortly after we moved to Lawton, Josiah got sick with the flu and for a few days, he couldn't keep anything down. We had been dissolving his supplements and detoxosode in water and adding the mixture to juice and he took this without a problem....until he got sick.  Once he was finally able to keep food and liquid down again, he refused to take his juice "mixture" and to this day he still refuses...forcing it down him makes him upset, gag and throw up. 

So what's the next step?

To enjoy him.... 

This age is so fleeting and it seems like I have spent the last year doing more worrying about him than I have spent enjoying him.  So much time, energy and money has been used to explore so many different avenues....avenues that I have ventured down just because they have helped other children and not necessarily because God wanted me to.  So right now I am doing what God wants me to do. I am casting this burden completely on Him and trusting that He will give Josiah a voice in His own time. If He tells me to try something different, I will, but in the mean time, I'm going to focus on the joy that Josiah brings to my life...I'm going to focus on how smart he is...how loving he has become with his hugs and kisses...how fast he climbs up in his eating chair when he sees me fixing his meal...how he runs straight for his bed when we say "night night time"...how he has a favorite new toy every week...how he runs and jumps with so much excitement when he is playing outside...how he tries to tap dance like the penguins on Happy Feet...I could do on and on.  I am so blessed to be Josiah's mommy. 

Go and Do and Explore...rinse, repeat!

Well, there's one thing that I know for sure and that is that my boys like to go and do and explore and then go and do and explore some more.  They keep us on our toes for sure. But I love this about them....this curiousity...this need to learn and explore.  I pray that this personality trait sticks with them...that it would follow them into adulthood.  And most of all that their love for the Lord would be the driving factor to seek to learn all that they can about Him.  I pray that Jordan and I will continue to be parents who help to feed this hunger within them.

Here's what they have been up to the past couple of weeks:

Bob the Stroller has been getting ALOT of action the past few weeks as we have been exploring the country around our new home. 

We stroll through Letitia Cemetery almost everyday.  These lizards (Mountain Boomers) are everywhere out there. We like to make a habit of counting how many lizards we see on each walk.  So far our record is 13...

Here's a little more of what we have seen on our walks:

Josiah was crazy about these guys!...and the llama...

I absolutely love the view out here:

...but I love this view even more:

We also went into town and visited Elmer Thomas Park and Museum:

These little guys were everywhere....

In other news, do you remember Josiah's love for penguins? Well, he has passed that love on to Elijah.  So without further adieu, let me introduce Pepper:

So this is a random picture but this is a random blog post altogether so it works...Can you tell that this boy likes cake???

And last but not least, the weather has been beautiful this past week so we finally got to pull out one of Eli's birthday presents and put it to good use:

I'll end with this next one because the red hair is sure to make you smile:

Resurrection Day {2012}

On April 1st, our church had its egg hunt. This was the first egg hunt that both of our boys had ever participated in...it was very special watching them figure it all out. Eli figured it out realy quick and was practically throwing the eggs in his basket...then he would sit down on the ground and take a break...then he was at it again! (oh, and I would like to mention that Eli's lunch found its way all over his shirt which is why my pasty, little read head is hunting eggs without a shirt...I've gotta start remembering to take his shirt off when he eats)

Watching Josiah hunt eggs was pretty entertaining.  He would gather up as many eggs as his two arms could carry...but instead of putting them in his basket, he would dump them in a pile and gaurd over them. We tried to put some of his eggs in his basket but he just took them back out...

This past Sunday (8th) was actually Resurrection Day. We had a great day celebrating our risen Savior.  The message that the Lord spoke through Jordan was truly amazing, the boys enjoyed their goodies (Tarzan dvd, Leap Frog dvd, books, and bath letters), and we had a great lunch with a dear, sweet lady in our church.