Easter

Happy Easter from Jim, Laura, Lydia, and Claire.

Look what the Easter Bunny brought us! Lydia loved both her beautiful pink shoes and her real baby bottle.

Claire sure did love putting on all of her frilly fixings. Too bad the hairbow, socks, and shoes all fell off before we even got into the van to go to church.

What a pretty girl!

Even Elmo loves hunting for Easter eggs.

Praise God for the gift of Jesus Christ and his resurrection. Pretty baskets and dresses are fun, but I'm so grateful the significance of Easter is far greater than pastels and baby animals.

The 11th Hour

Finished!

Good Friday at the Park

Punk Rocker

We're concerned that Claire's new friends are a bad influence.

18 Pounds

I lost 18 pounds overnight. Yahoo! That's right. This morning I stood on the scales and my weight was 18 pounds lighter than yesterday's weight! Lydia really enjoys stepping on the scales, marching, and watching herself "make numbers". That may have had some influence on my rapid weight loss, but I'm choosing to believe I found the secret to shedding baby weight. (I'll sell it to you for a small charge.)

Love Jesus Now!

I had great intentions of making this Passion Week meaningful for Lydia by reading a little piece of the Easter story every day out of her storybook Bible. (Which I highly recommend. It knits together how all of the Old Testament points to God's ultimate loving gift of Jesus. It's illustrated and written to be appealing to preschoolers and early elementary age children.) I also thought I'd incorporate a highly creative craft. Today, I read about 2 sentences of the chapter on Jesus' last Passover meal before Lydia decided she wanted to read the book herself. That would've been fine if she either knew the story or could read. Since she can do neither I found myself getting irritated and thinking, "No! You're ruining our beautiful religious education experience! Now be quiet and learn about God's love for you!" Sigh. Maybe tomorrow's time will be a little more productive. I'm trusting God to honor my efforts!

Most Distinguished Alumni

Last night I read the alumni newsletter from my graduate program. It's a wonderful school, and I am extremely grateful for the time that I spent there...even if it wasn't my best financial decision. One of the posts in the newsletter was a call for nominations for the annual distinguished alumni award. A brief moment of disappointment came over me as I realized that I'll never be nominated, and I will certainly never be given this honor. You see, I really love my profession, and when I graduated I had decent potential for establishing a very meaningful career. Now I only work about one to two afternoons a month; work being defined as getting paid for a service rendered.

So I'm left to wonder if I am using my degree in a distinguished fashion. Daily I conduct a pragmatics group (pragmatics being the use of language, better known as social skills), and I'm seeing great gains for both of my clients. Lydia is now able to enter a social situation such as story time at the library with confidence, and she even initiated a conversation about ice cream with the dining room attendant at Chick-fil-A. Claire is mastering eye contact and turn taking with vocalizations. Goals are also being achieved in both receptive and expressive language. I'm a little suspicious that Claire may be beginning to recognize and understand her name as well as Mommy, and Lydia is speaking in little adult sentences. I am also seeing progress in pre-literacy skills as Lydia "reads" restaurant and store signs on billboards and "reads" her favorite books like Brown Bear, Brown Bear word for word.

My university may not recognize my accomplishments, and my children will not acknowledge them for many years yet, but I hope that my family is reaping many blessings from the education I received.

The Problem With Having an Older Sister....