"His Last Name is DiboDaboDooya."

The title is an original Rhianwenism for all the Clemson fans out there. We beat Miami. Hooray!

Other funny Rhianwenisms:

"I pooped a moose poop!"

"One day, Alden will be a daddy, and he can have sharp things like scissors so he can cut paper."

Last week daddy was out of town most of the week. We were stuck here sick. It was a looong week. Many of you probably saw my facebook status wherein I bemoaned many mishaps, but we survived. Here's one that didn't make the list:

"I think I've got it down now. Potty training is a breeze. I don't get why my big sista has such a hard time. I really am enjoying it." (Notice the feet).

Being a "rodobot" and talking to daddy.

Camouflaged, he thinks...

Once daddy got back, we all felt well enough to go to the State Fair. We must have been crazy. Both of us were tired out after a long week away from each other and on our own, but we went none the less. It was SO crowded but very enjoyable, and we managed to keep track of the kids without contracting swine flu or E. coli.

Rhianwen stared for a very long time at this one. So long, in fact, that a complete stranger came up and said to me, "I think she wants that one!"

Chicks in the incubator.

Thrilled to finally touch one.

Notice the large pumpkin (376 lb). Note also the sign..."Whole lot of happy." Weeeellll, Rhianwen could improve on the whole poster-child thing.

yUmmm. Corn.

Now this is more like a whole lot of happy. I absolutely love the ease and simplicity of this craft project. Wally claims that his mom still has his leaf placemats from many many years ago, and they still retain their colors. It's just 2 pieces of contact paper with leaves in between. I think we'll make bookmarks, sun-catchers, mobiles, key chains...the list could go on, we'll sell them on ebay...or maybe etsy...just kidding. I really haven't gone that far off the deep end. At least, I don't think I have, but don't be surprised if you get a little leaf gift in the mail sometime soon.

We've decided on gymnastics for Rhianwen for now. We tried it out, and she loved it. Her class only has 2-3 other girls in it, so she gets a lot of one-on-one attention. She bounced across trampolines, did somersaults, tried handstands, turned upside down on a bar,walked across a balance beam, swung into a pit of foam, chased hoops, ran to the spring board. All kinds of stuff. The only thing she completely balked at was the awesome "big" swing which is a belt tethered to the gym ceiling by ropes that ties around your waist and can fly her through the air like Peter Pan. Maybe next week. I told her she'd be like Mary Poppins, and I'd take a video if she did it. She seems open to the possibility.

Jumping on a small trampoline before walking across the balance beam.

Not to be outdone, Alden also is learning some skills:

Alden also has added some words to his vocabulary like sky and dark. I can't believe he can say sky (sk's are hard!), but he does it perfectly! Can you tell we have early risers? "No, it's still time to sleep, Alden. See, the sky is still dark."

We had a 15 mo well visit for Alden. He maintains the status quo. Long and lean: 21 lb 8 oz (25th percentile) and 31 3/4 in long (75th percentile). And a 3 yr old check up for Rhi. Rhianwen's numbers I can't remember other than that her BMI is 52% (good), she's in the 80th percentile for height and 75th for weight (so staying very proportional). She also peed in a cup and answered the doctor's questions...a miracle...

Long Overdue

We've been busy and sick. Not a nice combination. I told Wally the other day that this time of year I feel like our kids act like they need to go into hibernation, but they just can't. For that matter, I'd like to go into hibernation too and avoid the entire cold/flu season!

Before the kids got sick, we traveled to Asheboro Zoo to celebrate Rhi's b-day with the fam. It was both kids' first trip to the zoo, and they really enjoyed it. We saw tons of animals. It was a great day. Rhianwen even got to feed a giraffe!

Don't you just love that guy's earing? (Can you tell, I'm feeling really lazy tonight and am just not up to editing and cropping).

Rhainwen requested green cupcakes except for Grandaddy's. His had to be orange since he was having a birthday soon.

Happy birthday, Grandaddy!

Enjoying a little primping.

I thought this picture was cool. I had a really hard time getting pics b/c they were all of the backs of everyone's heads. This was at the otter exhibit. One of my favorites. They are just so energetic, cute, and roly-poly. Very much like Rhianwen and Alden.

And just to keep at our frantic pace, we tried out a pre-dance class with some of our friends:

A free-for-all? Perhaps, but man, did they have a blast. We are trying to decide between dance and gymnastics. Anyone have an opinion? I kind of think Rhianwen is a bouncy gymnastic type, but she does really love dancing to music. So I'm torn.

Relaxing finally, in front of the fire listening to Winnie the Pooh. It amazes me every time I read those books (the "real" versions) how much A.A. Milne knows kids!

And since we're stuck at home sick, I finally got motivated enough to do a craft using our Bible verse for the week:

Ps. 1: 1-3

¹ Blessed is the man

Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly,
Nor stands in the path of sinners,
Nor sits in the seat of the scornful;
² But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
And in His law he meditates day and night.
³ He shall be like a tree
Planted by the rivers of water,
That brings forth its fruit in its season,
Whose leaf also shall not wither;
And whatever he does shall prosper.

This was fun to do and pretty easy. Everything was out of the back yard except for the ziplock bag holding the water and the box.

I've hung this project in her room. Alden made a simpler one. I appreciate having the verse right there on the wall. It's so enjoyable for me to walk in and read it for myself!

Rhianwen asks what the Bible verse means now. I've always had a hard time explaining the first part without making it sound like we need to completely avoid those who don't love God, but finally, I realized that maybe the explanation should be that the person who loves God will follow Jesus instead of the godless. I've also always had a hard time understanding delighting in the law of God (I mean do you delight in reading Leviticus?). But I realized that David is talking about Scripture, God's word to us. It's beautiful and amazing that we have such a thing! So, yes we can delight in it. John Piper has a powerful sermon on this that we watched since we couldn't go to church this past Sunday b/c of all the sickness: http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/ByDate/2009/4261_If_You_Believed_Moses_You_Would_Believe_Me/

So, I guess not everything about sickness is all bad. We can still learn and have fun too!

An engineer's idea of dance class. Wildly different from our video at the dance studio :)

Happy 3rd Birthday Rhianwen!

Happy birthday, Wawa (this is Alden's way of saying Rhianwen). Alden worked really hard to make his sister's birthday a reality:

The 3 year old has emerged.

This is the first year that Rhianwen semi-understood what 3 meant. She kept saying things like "3 hugs for 3 years old!"

A bike with pedals!

I love the look on their faces...identical!

Alden loved handing gifts to Rhianwen.

"Little mommy" (this is what Rhi calls herself after reading a Golden book with the same name) with a new baby doll (Berenguer for $2 at a consignment sale...I had to make the dress...man am I bad at sewing.) She's named her Sara and loves her!

We had a fun party with her little friends on her actual birthday. One of the cool things was instead of everyone bringing gifts, they just brought stickers for a sticker-exchange. I felt like this took the focus off of gifts and put it back on enjoying the time and the people.

Blowing out the candles. (Rhianwen changed what she wanted her cake to be about every 30 minutes, but decided on Mr. Happy. She then added she wanted Mr. Happy holding a Bible. I assumed she wasn't entirely serious given that she had wanted a big chair and little chair, a purple rabbit, a leaf, a ladybug etc. But when she saw the cake she said, "Hey! Mr. Happy's not holding a Bible, mommy! He's supposed to be holding a Bible!" She wasn't at all disappointed, just very matter of fact.)

This is serious stuff!

We had a blast playing ring toss, pin the feathers on the owl, fishing for prizes, and a treasure hunt that ended in a big kiddie pool full of recorders hidden by packing peanuts. This was the first time we had thought of tying Bible verses to the clues for the treasure hunt. It was so fun making that application. Of course, I'm sure it all went over the kids' heads, but someday, they may get it!

(You can kind of get an idea of the yard decorations in this video too) For more, just go to our blog http://renovationtracker.blogspot.com/2009/10/fall-birthday.html).

What do you think the kids thought was most fun?

Rhianwen even tried to lead the crowd on her own game, a bear hunt (a game we've played as a family and a book we've read). The kids all ran around after her jumping off hay bales and the like, but I'm not sure if they knew what was going on. For example, her friend Phoebe yelled out, "Here comes the giant!" Regardless of the results, I thought it was neat how Rhi took charge.

We also enjoyed getting to have a video chat with Uncle Robeson and Aunt Natalie and Uncle Christopher. R and N gave Rhi some fun gifts, but the funniest one was the book There was an old lady who swallowed a fly. Rhi had never heard the song before, so when Daddy got to the part about the horse, Rhianwen interrupted and said, "Uh, but her mouth's not big enough!" Then when daddy got to the end, Rhianwen sat quietly for a moment processing and then said, "Ok...the end" and closed it. So cute! She's enjoyed reading it and singing it many times since then. Another favorite gift was her first umbrella from Uncle Christopher. I'm sure we'll have many pics of that in the future. Even Alden was taken with it and learned the word for it, "Mbella!" he says. Another favorite thing/word now is "Sguc!" (It's a truck!"). I ended up getting a whole book about trucks after realizing that in every book we read, he focuses on the trucks in the picture (even if it's really about airplanes).

Our prayer for Rhianwen is that she will have the heart of a true princess as the child of God, full of service, compassionate, joyful, and looking to Jesus for satisfaction and abundant life.