Happy 2nd Birthday Emma Gracie!

We love our girl. And she loves us. She had a splendid day today. BOTH sets of grandparents were present for her birthday this year. It's very special because it's unlikely to happen ever again - since both sets of parents live very far away from each other!

It has been a blessing to grow and learn with Emma Grace. I've learned heaps about little children, how they think, how they learn. I've also learned heaps about myself and the amazing grace of God! My greatest desire for our children is to see them come to know the Lord as their Saviour. It has been a joy to see her increased understanding of God this year. Of course it is so limited - how can you explain the unseen to a child? But she understands that we love her and we tell her God loves her more than we do, and that we love God more than we love anyone else. She is learning that she has a 'bad heart' or 'naughty heart' and that Jesus is the only one who ever had a 'good heart' which is why we need Him. She recently told me that Rachel (her doll) was having a good day because she had a 'happy heart'. She will also report to me during the day "I have a happy heart mummy". Which is something we strive to encourage Emma to have when she needs to practice self control against her sin nature. We are so very thankful to God for blessing us with the task of raising her and for the 2 years He has given us with her so far.

So...happy birthday to my beautiful daughter, Emma.

The 'Flood Victim Shop'

This piccy shows our bedroom

It’s really tiring going to the supermarket to constantly do ‘big shops’ in order to set up a pantry again. It’s starting to get embarrassing. It’s coming together, but there’s quite a few standard recipes I like to make that have common pantry ingredients, which I'm missing. Oh wait, I don’t have the recipe books anymore either. NUTS! That’s really annoying. sigh. oh well, what can you do? back to the grocery store . . .last week I bought PILLOWS from the grocery store. I’m not sure if this is common in other countries, but I never even knew you could purchase bedding from a grocery store. Tea towels, yes. but pillows?! who knew. Apparently not many folk, because I had tonnes of people look at me, doing double takes with a very confused face as if to say “you have pillows in your grocery basket . . . .huh?” Anyway, my in-laws are sleeping on them this week so I’ll learn from them if grocery store pillows are worth the embarrassment of purchasing them.

Brisbane Floods, January 2011

We were affected by the floods in Brisbane last month. I left the house on Tuesday morning the 11th with the children because the driveway was going to be flooded and we needed to get the car out. I had a Dr appointment that morning and as we definitely wouldn't be able to get back into the driveway, I packed overnight bags for the children and myself and took some laundry over to my mums house to be productive while we were out of our house.

Oh how little we knew at that moment.

Lyle and I discussed what we would do, he decided to stay there the night because even if the worst happened the next door neighbour had a boat he was going to stay in.

As the day progressed I received a call from my brother telling me to go to his place because he knew I wouldn't get into our place and we assumed mum and dads house would also be affected.

I spent the afternoon there and the kids loved hanging out with their cousins, although they were driving us a little nutty only being inside from the rain.

In the afternoon my brother and Lyle rocked up and said they heard it's going to be worse than the '74 floods. We've seen photos of our area from the 1974 floods and it wasn't good. In fact we could only see roof tops.

We all made some quick decisions, meanwhile my parents who were by all accounts were 'stuck' in another town and technically were unable to return to Brisbane . . .interestingly they rocked up at the driveway . . .I don't envy my mum that drive with my father!

All said and done Lyle managed to get 100% of all we needed out of the house - mainly paperwork and documents. We spent the night in a unit and following the announcement that the streets in that area may be affected and the power switched off we made the decision to move again. The first evacuation was necessary, the second was precautionary. But it was a good decision. We stayed with friends who were more than accommodating and blessed me personally with an awesome example of hospitality. We were there for over a week I think.

It's been heartbreaking for me to move the way we moved. But the Lord's providence is good. He is kind and gracious beyond compare. We are now in a place that suits our needs better than our old place and we have been witnesses to the staggering kindness of God through our brothers and sisters in Christ. We have a beautiful lounge suite, an incredibly comfortable bed and Emma has never seen more new toys at once . . .ever! And for now, they're all hers.

Flood Mud

Flood mud is worse than regular mud. It’s contaminated and smelly. I didn’t have the opportunity/chore of cleaning up the house and all its muddy contents the day after the flood (having small children really is a complete, full time job). I’m thankful I didn’t go, but at the same time I’m quite sure it’s taken me longer to comprehend what happened there. I’m glad for the photo’s that Lyle took, it’s helped me gain at least some understanding of how disgusting it all was. Our DVD collection was placed in a crate and is sitting downstairs in our new place. I’ve been rummaging through it a little to take out the DVD’s and throw away the cases. Some of the mud is still wet and as I got stuck into it for the first time I just thought ‘ewwwww’. Not teary though. It’s interesting the things that make you cry when you have this experience. Not the mud, it’s just gross.

Christmas

Here are two videos from Christmas day. Emma received a very cool piano from my uncle and the second video is her opening her Shaun the Sheep toy (she then proceeds to tell us that he has two legs, two ears etc) it's very cute. (of course)

Hallelujah Chorus

This is my contribution to spread the Christmas spirit. It's very clever.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCFCeJTEzNU

Singing to William

Here's Emma singing Insty Winsty Spider to William.

The kids

This was our first day at home. Emma is very gentle (for the most part) with William, it's lovely to see them together.

Introducing . . .

William Luther Wetherston

Born November 24th, 2010, 3.150kg and 51cm

~ ~ ~ PRAISE GOD FROM WHOM ALL BLESSINGS FLOW ~ ~ ~

I am so amazed at Gods continued kindness, goodness, graciousness and love towards me a wretched sinner. I do not deserve the blessing of children and feel completely out of my league having them entrusted to our care for the time He appoints.

William arrived all too easily. After the horrific experience of Emma's 45 minute birth I 'umm-ed' and 'ahh-ed' about how to handle this one. In the end God provided me with a very providentially timed conversation with a friend who was in a similar situation and I finally (with many tears) made my decision. We had William induced so I could have some pain relief and OH MY WORD! the difference of a birth with pain relief! I almost feel guilty at how easy it was. It was still only 2.5 hours from beginning to end, so I'm extremely thankful I didn't have to feel it.

Lyle and I went in at 6:30am after a lovely dinner the night before and Emma stayed with my parents for the night and the following day. In the end we were bored all day long until the epidural was put in at 1:30pm and my waters were then broken. It seems like it was a busy day in the labour ward!

Naming Baby

William: simply because we like it!

It is a name I've liked for a while and from memory it was tossed in the pot when we were expecting Emma (as we didn't know her gender before birth). It's also circumstantially my Grandfathers name, which is sweet to William's only living great-grandparent my maternal Grandmother.

Luther: Martin Luther is too profound a man to be ignored. The Lord used Him mightily, giving him discernment to fight for the truth of God's word. This is our hope for our boy. That he will know and cherish God's word as truth for all.

It's intimidating having such hopes for such a little person. Especially as I reflect on my lack of knowledge of the Bible myself. I don't say this as a cop-out, but I'm SO glad I'm married to a theology student!!

Here are the words to 'A Mighty Fortress', a hymn by Martin Luther.

A mighty fortress is our God,
A bulwark never failing;
Our helper He amid the flood
Of mortal ills prevailing.
For still our ancient foe
Doth seek to work us woe --
His craft and pow'r are great,
And armed with cruel hate,
On earth is not his equal.

2

Did we in our own strength confide
Our striving would be losing,
Were not the right Man on our side,
The Man of God's own choosing.
Dost ask who that may be?
Christ Jesus, it is He --
Lord Sabaoth His name,
From age to age the same --
And He must win the battle.

3

And tho this world, with devils filled,
Should threaten to undo us,
We will not fear, for God hath willed
His truth to triumph thru us.
The prince of darkness grim --
We tremble not for him;
His rage we can endure,
For lo! his doom is sure --
One little word shall fell him.

4

That word above all earthly pow'rs --
No thanks to them abideth;
The Spirit and the gifts are ours
Thru Him who with us sideth.
Let goods and kindred go,
This mortal life also;
The body they may kill:
God's truth abideth still --
His kingdom is forever.

Insty Wintsy Spider

We love singing in our house and Emma has is learning to sing very sweetly. Not all the words are clear, but she's not even 2 yet, so I'm pretty impressed (and totally biased) and I think she's on a great path to being an opera singer one day.

Our wiggley baby

I don't know if it had the hiccups or if it was just practicing kickboxing in there, but this is not an uncommon part of my day. I'm over it.

Fun with my Macbook

My laptop takes photos....and has a fun little feature called 'effects' you can use while taking a photo . . .I started with taking a normal photo just to update where I'm at with this pregnancy (I'm now 35.5 weeks along, yay!) then decided to see how fat I could make my belly, and conversely how small I could be (this time breathing/pulling my belly in is making NO difference at all! haha)

The 1st photo is how I actually look (no it's not the exaggerated 'fat picture') 2nd is skinny and the 3rd one is just really funny (except it's probably not funny to my mum who was apparently about that big with me! sorry mum!)

Happy Birthday Grandpa Gary!

Happy Birthday Grandpa Gary.

We hope you have a wonderful day!!

Crash!

Mac's 1st Birthday!

Our nephew Macca turned one in September - he has the coolest birth date 09-09-09! Couldn't even do that if you tried hey?!? It's been so fun to watch him grow up - he's only 7 months younger than Emma. I love that she has a cousin who is the same age as her!

Emma loved Aunty "Binna"'s cake (the girls got skills she makes the greatest cakes for her kids)

Macca with Grandpa

A toddler at play

Our little thrill seeker!

Silly time with Daddy

Here are our chins

Blinking

nose!

tongue

Emma has finally developed the 'cheesy camera smile' as most toddlers do whose parents relentlessly stick cameras in their faces and say "SMI-ILE!"

A big baby kick!

I'm presently trying to take an afternoon nap, but the baby has decided that its party time. So I thought I'd try to get it on record. Here's a 10 second clip where you see it kick. Only once, but it's a big kick! I realise, watching this, how heavily I'm breathing too - probably because my lungs are competing for space in there!

ps - I am aware that this may be incredibly boring for some people and super exciting for others, if you find it boring, I'm sorry for the boring post! :)

No More Monkeys Jumping on the Bed!

DISCLAIMER: this is the first time I've seen Emma jumping on her bed, and no it shall not continue as a practice in this household :)Actually, I've never even seen her do it on our bed, so here's hoping it isn't a secret habit of hers that she developed in 2 days that we must now break! hehe. Kids are awesome. What a blessing!!

Emma's Toddler Bed

Yesterday, Emma jumped on her new bed and said "I big girl!" Lyle and I were so stunned that we looked at each other and took a minute to respond to her!

She really is a big girl. She's talking for one, which does not cease to amaze me!

I was talking with a friend on Monday and in the Lord's providence when I mentioned that we were going to buy a bed this week for Emma, my friend replied "oh, you can have ours!"

How great is that?! This little bed is a huge blessing to us. a) it's free b) it's low to the ground c) it's really small and d) it's expandable! it fits perfectly into the space where her cot was, so I've had to do some tricky re-arranging of her room in preparation for baby to join her! Tonight is her first night in it, I checked on her a little while ago and she is fast asleep - with her head at the foot-end hehe. I'm so thankful for my little girl and great friends who so willingly bless us!!