It's Baseball Season!

The boys are so thrilled that the season is here. Over the winter, each and every Sunday as we drove by the field the boys commented about how no one was playing baseball that day. Then, they would ask when Spring is coming?

Well, it's finally arrived, and they couldn't be more excited.

We went to our first game last weekend and had a blast.

And yes, those are hot dogs the boys are eating!

Funny story: (We had gone to the games on Saturday). So, then the next day we drive by on our way home from church. Samuel asks if we can go to the baseball game that was playing. I said no, we needed to head on home for lunch. He said "well then, can we just stop by and have a hot dog for lunch and then go home?"

I've really gotten myself into trouble!

So, in the eyes of the Eckert boys I'm imagining that my blog post title should no longer be "it's baseball season" but "it's hot dog season"

Inevitable Change

Our den currently looks like this:

But in the eyes of these boys:

The junk needs to be cleared out and these need to go up, much sooner rather than later:

And eventually all this fabric that they picked out made into 2 quilts:

The beds totally took us off guard. Andy and I were just walking around an antique store on our way home from our anniversary get-a-way when we saw them. They were too good to pass up.

I was so against this idea for so long, but now that I've accepted all the change, I'm excited.

I spent so long setting up their current bedroom making it look just so. I was not ready for them to just move out of it onto bigger and better things. And, I also wanted to be able to design some new bedding and accessories just for Annabelle. But, I designed their room to be gender neutral just 'in case' we ever had a girl and wanted her to end up in there, we could arrange that without any changes. So, good thing it is not super boyish. I'm not going to change a thing. I might add a few girlie features, but that would be it. And, I get to figure out how to design the boys' new big boy room. How exciting!

The boys are going to be moving out of their current bedroom and will be moving into the room that is currently the den/sewing room (pictured above). And, now we will have permanent beds for our guests to sleep in (the boys' beds). A problem that we've been struggling with since we moved into this house.

So, after all the delaying of the inevitable, the boys are getting big boy beds, Annabelle is getting their old room and the den is no longer... It's exactly what we were avoiding, but it's the most obvious solution.

*******

As resistant as I was to giving up our den, the Lord was really able to work in my heart. Here I am complaining that we don't live in a bigger house and I can have the luxury of having an entire room to sew.

Here I am so excited about our next child, but not excited about what the presence of this next child in our home will look like and the sacrifices it will require of me.

How selfish of me.

We comment about how we'll have to move out of our house soon if we keep having kids. It just makes me realize how spoiled we are as Americans to think we need all of this space to live. Andy and I are probably some of the richest people in the world material wise and we complain about not having enough.

We sure do have enough, enough materials to keep our eyes focused on ourselves and off of the Lord who wants to be our true provider of happiness.

What we don't have enough of is faith. Faith that the Lord will meet all of our needs (not wants) and that he will grow us during these seasons where we feel as though we're being stretched beyond what we can bear.

I love it that we serve a God who cares about the little things and wants us to be happy, yes, but even more so, for us to be holy. And making us holy isn't always a fun process.

*And In case you're wondering, yes, I'm writing this post to avoid cleaning the den :)

Best Friends With Rings

On April 10th Andy and I celebrated 6 years of marriage. Wow. I can't believe it's been that long. I could not have imagined 6 years being filled with so much. Best years of my life, by far!

Andy's mom came to stay with the boys while we got away to our favorite place on earth. Yes, the Sugar Tree Inn. She gave Andy money for his birthday in January to go again since the last time we went wasn't so relaxing. We waited to use it for our anniversary since it would be our last chance to get away before Annabelle makes her grand entry.

It was phenominal.

My wedding boquet was white orchids so each year on our anniversary I try to get some orchids to celebrate. I found this stem at the Charlottesville City Market for THREE DOLLARS! I was so thrilled. It still looks like it did the day I got it (4/4).


We got home from our trip to these two little precious cut-outs of our boys telling us about their time with Gigi. They are still up on our walls and we laugh at them every time we pass.

Easter 2010

We had a wonderful weekend celebrating the resurrection of our King. Aunt Juju was here to make it extra special.

I found some great resurrection eggs that each had an object in them and then a story and questions to go along with them that told the death and resurrection of Jesus. I was so pleased with it. They went and searched for the eggs and then we gathered together and opened the correct egg as we got to it in the story.

Seeing such a miraculous story start to really make sense for them was such a joy. There is nothing that makes us happier than to see them start to understand Biblical concepts.

Samuel was so sweet. He made sure he and Joseph both had the same amount of eggs. He would find an egg and then go get Joseph to go and discover it so he could put it in his basket.



Here I was 30 weeks pregnant.

Okay, I just had to include this picture below. If you don't know Andy and his sister well, then here is a really good way to catch you up. This is what they do! But the funniest to them is for me to take pictures of them and then they look through them and completely crack up at themselves at how ridiculous they look.

Notice Samuel on the sidelines. Learning early.

32 Weeks

I simply cannot believe I only have 8 more weeks until my due date.

Here we are growing by the minute!