Swiss Family Robinson

Last week we watched a movie together as a family. The boys were so excited that we all did it "together". You can imagine our entire family piled up together on the couch complete with all their blankets (thanks Great-Grandmother Tynes!) and pillows. They wanted to turn all the lights off and have a "real" movie atmosphere. So, just watching the movie together was an experience. But the movie itself was terrific! A few months ago I had read a short version of Swiss Family Robinson to the two older boys and they really got into it. Daddy remembered watching the Disney version of the movie when he was a boy, so we decided to let the boys watch it and see if they would like it too. Now, remember this movie was made in 1960. But it was GREAT! The boys were way more into it than we thought they would be. They absolutely loved the pirate fight at the end of the movie and couldn't wait to watch it again and again. In the movie there are only 3 sons, so our boys renamed themselves according to the boys' names in the movie. Fighting pirates, catching tigers, and defending their home and their women-folk all speak to little boy's hearts more than I will ever be able to understand. The thing I liked about the movie is that it had all those things that boys love but without being too scary for little eyes. It allowed the boys to experience the thrill of a fight, good winning over evil, and just lots of fun exciting things that boys love, but didn't expose them to things they're not ready for yet. Loved it. They love it and Mommy loved it. SO glad we got it for them! It was a great family memory that I hope they will cherish. I know I will!

Micah is 3!

July 7th was the long-awaited 3rd birthday for my Micah. He couldn't wait to turn 3! And now he's already talking about how he's going to be 4 on his next birthday. We told him he was going to have to just enjoy being 3 for now because it was going to be a while before his next birthday. He's ready, though. :-) Micah is a fun-loving, talkative, courageous, smart kid with an infectiously great laugh. He loves trying whatever his brothers can do, but he can keep himself occupied just fine when they are not around. Entertaining Mercy is at the top of his list of fun things to do, though he sometimes gets a little carried away and forgets that she's just a little baby. Being the 3rd born doesn't keep Micah from being heard in our family. He is quite articulate for a 3 year old and can express himself very well. Some of his cute sayings right now are "It's just that...", "What I'm trying to say is...", "I can't know" when he doesn't know the answer, and "I'm on it, Dad!" when asked to do something. He is a Daddy's boy through and through as he loves to be with and do things with Daddy. His very favorite color is green, so anything that is green he thinks belongs to him. He really enjoys playing with his Little Einstein toys and carrying around either Leo, Jesus, or Mickey Mouse at all times. In fact, whatever little toy he's been playing with he will be sure to set on his dresser at night so that first thing in the morning he can pick it back up and carry it around with him again the next day. He's almost always the first boy awake in the mornings, and he likes to come out with his hands full of his little toys to play with. He will fiercely guard anything that belongs to him, but will also share when the occasion calls for it (most of the time, anyway). He loves to sing songs as most 3 year old's do, but he also likes to make up silly songs. The last few months he's been showing off his amazing puzzle skills, completing large 60 something piece floor puzzles as well as multiple 25 piece puzzles at the table by himself. Even more recently he's starting drawing a lot (taking his cue from his brothers), and his art skills are pretty impressive for his age. When people first meet Micah they think he's kind of quiet and shy because when he's around a lot of people that he doesn't know, he does become more reserved. But once you get to know him, quiet and shy are not adjectives that you use to describe my sweet Micah. He really is a fun kid, and we're so glad he's a part of our family!


Micah's special day was spent celebrating with all things green as well as the Little Einsteins. I did my best to combine the two "themes" in honor of Micah. We started the day with birthday donuts, of course. His first present that morning was his new green shirt and shorts, which he absolutely loved. The rest of the family wore green just for the occasion as well.

Here are the boys reading some of the Curious George books that the Morriss cousins sent.
After a fun morning at home, we took the kids to one of the local "fun places" in town.

Then that evening we had a few friends over for dinner to celebrate Micah together. His choice of birthday supper was blueberry pancakes and green eggs. He loved it! He was even licking his plate to get all the syrup off of it. :-) He's very thorough.

Decorating the cake was a little stressful as when I was working on it, the icing started to melt and slide off the top! I ended up putting it in the freezer for about 30 minutes before I could finish it. So, I was just completing the cake decorating when the friends starting arriving. Thankfully, our summer friends were still here then so they cooked the pancakes and eggs for us. It was a fun time together, and Micah enjoyed his big day.

We sure do love our awesome Micah boy!
Congratulations on turning 3, big boy!

July 4th and Sightseeing

Here are a few pictures from our 4th of July celebration. We had our 4 summer friends over and they cooked some yummy Mexican food for us that night. The day was spent doing some fun crafts and just spending time together as a family.


Later that same week we went with the 4 friends to do some local sightseeing. We saw some awesome historical relics, and had a great time! These first two pictures are of us riding a ski lift to the top of a mountain. I was not comfortable with the kids just sitting in there (no seat belt), but they did great and were very brave. Micah was riding with me, Mercy and Joshua were ahead of us, and Luke was behind us with one of the friends.

Growing Up

I should have posted this a long time ago, because I wanted to make sure everyone knew that Joshua finally lost his first tooth and has another loose one already. The first one came out on June 5th (sorry for the late announcement) while were at someone else's house. Joshua was beside himself, he was so excited. Everyone his age that he knows has already lost several teeth, so he's been waiting for this for a while now. Both times his new tooth has started coming in first, then the baby tooth started getting loose. So he hasn't had any big gaps in his teeth. He has had the signature lisp though, which is really cute. Below is the 2nd big tooth coming in.

My big boy is getting bigger and bigger!

Joshua Is 7 Now

My biggest boy is 7 years old already (as of June 25th). Sometimes it's hard for us to imagine that we have a 2nd grader now, but we do! And he is such an incredible 2nd grader at that. It's hard to know where to even start to describe my Joshua. First of all, talking to him is like talking to a little adult. People always comment on his verbosity and ability to carry on a conversation. Even here in a foreign country he'll monologue to people who have no clue what he is saying. It can be humorous at times. :-) Joshua is very smart and can solve incredible math problems that 7 year old's are not supposed to be able to figure out. He's always had a bent toward math, so that's fun for me since I was a math major in college. He's been reading well for a while now, but lately he's been reading more and more by himself. For a long time he would only read out loud if he was actually reading a book (as opposed to just looking at the pictures and skimming familiar words), but now I can tell he's actually reading everything and he's spending more time with books in his hands regularly. He was most excited to receive his new "real" Bible, the first real Bible he's ever owned, for his birthday. He's totally into looking up verses and stories and reading them for himself. What's In the Bible is a series of DVD's put out by Phil Vischer (of Veggie Tales) that the boy's love. Joshua can pretty much quote an incredible amount of information that he's learned from these DVD's. It's awesome, really. I'm still amazed at what Joshua remembers and can recall with incredible clarity. Lately he's been into making recordings of things whether it's quoting information about the Bible or recording one of his rescue missions. He loves leading his brothers (or anyone else who will follow him) on rescue missions to save people from the volcano, hurricane, earthquake, etc. Rescue Heroes was his theme for his birthday and it was perfect for him right now. We gave him the Rescue Heroes Movie just for the occasion and he has literally watched it every day for at least 2 weeks. Saying he loves the movie would be a major understatement. When he takes a break from rescuing the world, he also loves drawing things, especially in his doodling book. No matter what Joshua is doing, whenever he is doing it he is totally focused and intensely into it. He is not to be deterred when he has his mind set on something. He is our intelligent, silly, intense, fun-loving, imaginative 7 year old and we love him so very much.

Birthday donuts!

The day of Joshua's birthday was a fun day. We went to a new local "fun place" that turned out to be really cool. The boys played in an indoor play place for over an hour then Joshua and Luke climbed up this tower thing. Then Joshua got in the bungy strap and jumped on this giant trampoline. He went up really high, but was very brave. He seemed to really like it! After that Joshua wanted to eat Dairy Queen hot dogs for lunch. That night we had taco jiaozi (dumpling wrappers stuffed with taco meat and cheese then fried) for supper. We had four friends who have been here just for the summer who came to join us for the yummy supper.


About 10 days before Joshua's actual birthday, we had a party with all of his friends. We had it early because all of the friends were leaving for the U.S. before his birthday. It was really important to Joshua to have everyone on his "list" to come to his birthday party, so we decided to have the party early for him. His awesome Grandmother sent some great things for the party, and the four summer friends helped make it a great party. They helped decorate (including making the "fire" for the cake to be set on) and helped with the game ideas as well.

These are the sticker badges that Grandmother sent for everyone to wear to the party. She also sent fireman hats for all the kids.

The kids had a great time playing rescue hero games like using flashlights to search for the hidden stuffed animals in the dark room. Then they formed teams to follow the clues to find the man trapped in the burning building. See below for a picture of one of the teams reading their clues. The last game was to assist the Rescue Hero astronaut, Roger Houston, in protecting the earth from the meteor shower by keeping the balloons from touching the floor. What ensued was 8 children under the age of 7 having the time of their lives together in my living room. It really was a fun party.

I spent most of the day making the fire truck cake for this party. It was my first time to use fondant and I don't know if I'll ever use it again! It was not easy, but I was very pleased with the final product. Here is Aunt Stacey assisting me via Skype when I was afraid all was lost and the cake was falling apart. :-) Thanks, Stac, for helping me and building my confidence in my cake decorating skills!

This is the fire that the four summer friends decorated for us. It really made the cake look cool. The figures around the cake are actually all Billy Blazes, the Rescue Heroes fireman.

Happy Birthday, my terrific Joshua. I'm so glad that you were born and that God has blessed our family with you!

Luke Turned 5!

My sweet Luke turned 5 on May 12th. I know I will probably say this about all the kids’ birthdays, but I can’t believe that Luke is already 5. He is so totally pumped about starting kindergarten in the fall; he is so ready. He’s changed so much and seems to have grown up a lot over the last year. Though he still has more physical energy and activity than the other boys, he can now actually sit down for longer periods of time to do school work or other things that he’s interested in. And somehow in the last few months he’s started to read! I have been doing preschool stuff with him this whole past year, but I have not focused on teaching him how to read at all. I just figured we’d do that in kindergarten. But he’s obviously ready because he’s reading quite a bit now and wants to read more. It was most evident when he got his new Beginner’s Bible for his birthday and he started reading the stories out loud. Daddy and I are always shocked how much he knows how to read already. I don’t know why we’re so surprised; Luke has always been one to figure things out quickly. He’s just always been quite intuitive. Something else that really marks Lukey is his sensitivity and gentleness. I’ve said this before, but it seems almost like a contradiction in terms. At times he is super hyper and going psycho. Then he can be the most gentle and sweet kid in the very next moment. He’s my go-to-guy when I need help with Mercy. He seems to be able to understand best how to care for little ones, and he loves to make babies laugh. I have often heard him say to Mercy that he will always be there to protect her – so sweet! He also seems to be quite sensitive to spiritual things lately. His understanding of the Gospel seems to go deep and he has that sweet childlike faith. His prayers often seem more heartfelt than rote. We love watching this develop in him. Actually, when I asked what theme he wanted for his birthday, he said he wanted to have a “Bible” birthday. So, everyone who came to his party dressed up like a Bible character and we made a scroll cake because that’s what he wanted. I’ll post some pictures below. The things that Luke is really into right now are reading his new Bible, playing Rescue Heroes with his brothers, watching What’s In the Bible DVD’s, and playing soccer. He is an active, intelligent, silly, funny, sweet 5 year old boy and we love him so much! Here are the pictures from his birthday celebration...

We started out the day with his first gift, which was his Beginner's Bible from Grandma and Grandpa. He LOVED it! Then for birthday breakfast we had birthday donuts with breakfast burritos.

We spent his birthday opening up presents throughout the day and taking the kids to a big indoor kid's play place at a nearby mall. We had KFC and Dairy Queen for lunch as per Luke's request. :-) Then for dinner we had one of Luke's favorites - chicken and dumplings. It was a fun family day. We had Luke's actual birthday party a few days later when all of Luke's friends could come. The party was a big hit and lots of fun. Many friends dressed up, and the party games were a fun for the kids. We played pin the rock to Goliath's head and Bible charades. The kids actually did a great job acting out the different Bible characters. Everyone had a good time.

Luke was Jonah, Joshua was Joshua, and Micah was Micah. :-)

We're so glad God gave us our wonderful Luke 5 years ago!