Zoe's Dedication

This past Sunday in a community of friends, we dedicated Zoe to the Lord. Essentially we said to God "We know you made this special girl. We consider Your will for her better than our own, so we'll follow You first in raising her." We committed to raising her in accordance with God's Word, to keeping the Lord in our home and family and to seek wisdom within our community to parent her. We realize that we cannot control Zoe's relationship with God, but we believe God will reveal His instructions and a lot of grace along the way for her to come to know Him.

There were 12 kids dedicated together - some were children of good friends of mine such as Chaney Russell (Kelly) Isaac Paul (Erin), Ben Ranson (Sara) and Joy Manuel (Dora). We were happy to do this in a community of friends. Here are a couple photos we took. While our intentions are pure and good, we realize too that we are flawed parents, so we put all our hope in Jesus to help us follow through with these commitments. Our best hope for our daugher is to come to know Him and live within a community of people (like this amazing one!) who do too.

Zoe update

Just wanted to bring you up to speed on my cute girl. She's happier than ever and changing all the time. I'm so enjoying her! Lately she can be found:

swinging on the swingset...


crawling everywhere (she must be in the same room with her brothers!)...

being loved by her brothers - sometimes it's a little much!...

trying hard to stand up....

cracking up....(at "where's Zoe?" or being tickled or anything her brothers are doing)

and (just this past week) clapping!

We're all loving this baby-stage. She's 8.5 months now...adorable!

Back to School!

The boys have now gone for their first days of preschool. They attend Anderson Hills Methodist. It's a really nice program. Today (Friday) was Luke's first day ever of preschool. He had no problems and loved it! Here he is ready (how could you not fall in love with that face?!):

And here's big bro showing him the ropes in the hallway (I love this shot!):

Tuesday was Andrew's first day. Here he is with one of his teachers, Mrs Huxtable. She's adorable. Luke described her as "cuddly." I think he's right.

I'm enjoying the new brother dynamics of them being at the same school. They have new things to discuss and share. Unfortunately for mommy, they're never there at the same time.

So we're off and into our new fall schedule. School has begun!

Noodle-fight!

So this week's Bible-story-action was David and Goliath. We had a shield (thanks to last year's Family Camp) and 2 swords.
Let me share with you the perfect sword:

Yes, it's a pool noodle. We had 2 in the garage, and it's (almost) impossible to hurt someone with it. We really went for it when the Philistines were battling with Israel.

This story was just plain fun...we actually did it twice. The boys alternated roles: King Saul or David. Nothing dramatic like last week but fun nonetheless. And they really love the idea of roles, costumes, etc. We just grab whatever is in our garage or basement and go for it. I'm learning again for about the 100th time that the kids just like it when they know a) that mom is going to be totally engaged in the play too! and b) they know what's coming (yay for schedules) so they can look forward to doing it each week.

Patterson-boys' Sleepover

Boys only. Sunday night was the first boys-only sleepover in our basement. It was a celebration of the start of preschool (this Tuesday for Andrew, Friday for Luke). It was complete with sleeping bags, popcorn and daddy...a recipe for a great night. The boys went down there at 730pm. Here's the first picture of them all set up and ready to go.

Then at 8pm I heard the ice cream truck coming up the street...what a perfect surprise! There was also a cookie plate and popcorn...my role was to make up the beds and provide the treats. Perfect.

The next morning, the sleeping bags came upstairs and Zoe got in on the action. She loved it!

The sleepover was a wild-success. We can see these happening on special occasions for a long time to come. As I was sitting upstairs watching "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" I was thinking about how lucky these boys are to have Bill as a father. It's impossible to know what kind of impact a night like this leaves on little boys when they get to see their dad play, read, wrestle and love them in a special boys-only way. But I think it's big.

Update on school

My school (the boys start this next week and I'm sure I'll do a post about that too!).

I was officially accepted a few weeks back. My first class is called "Old Testamant Foundations." I picked it out of all the classes in the seminary as the one I wanted first. And it is PERFECT. I'm learning exactly what I want to learn. The textbook is like gold to me. I read every chapter like this is precious knowledge that I'm allowed to have. I'm so very grateful for this class. It's already getting me more excited about the Bible than ever and filling in so many blanks in my own personal reading and knowledge. I'm constantly thinking "oh yes! why didn't I see that before?!" or "oh yes! that makes sense!" or "man - that is incredible." Turns out a lot of really really really smart people have studied this Book and deeply believe that it is the story of a real God. I'm just beginning to read a book all about the ancient worship practicies prescribed to Israel and how, through them, God was already telling the story of Jesus thousands of years before He came. I'm in heaven. (Not literally). :-)

So... just a quick post to update you....I'm loving it.

Adam and Eve...alli-style

So I thought it'd be good to have fun with some Bible stories by acting them out. Not only is it great fun for the boys, but I believe it just makes the stories come to life and sink deeper. Granted, this will continue to be more fun as they grow up, but I've gotten pretty good at dialing things down for a 2 and 4 year old. But I wasn't prepared at ALL for what happened this morning....

We decided on the story of Adam and Eve and (as their children's bible calls it...) the "Sneaky Snake." This is their current favorite at bedtime. Short on costumes, we grabbed a dinosaur costume from last Halloween and a superhero cape and mask. Andrew (the dinosaur) represented the creation story and Luke (the superhero) was Adam. Then we needed a snake and a God. I said I'd do the snake and Andrew immediately yelled "No Mommy! No one can be the snake!!" Ok - good point. So we settled on the tail of the dinosaur as the snake with mommy doing the voice. And I played God. (hehehe). And off we went through the short story doing voices, hiding behind bushes, etc. Then....

As we were coming to the end and I (er...God) was talking to Adam (now played by Andrew) and Eve (now played by Luke) about why they had to leave the garden and not live with God....I could see Andrew getting a little upset. Tears were forming in his eyes. (I was playing a loving but firm God -- nothing scary, mean or over-the-top I swear!). And he suddenly started to cry when I asked them to leave the garden (the bushes outside our front porch). He cried and cried. I had to stop and hold him on my lap. Real tears. He was really upset!! I asked him why he was crying as I held him and he said...
"Mommy - I can just feel how sad that was for Adam."
All I said was "you're right buddy - this is actually a very sad story. I think you got it."


Stay tuned - next week I promised some sort of battle with light-sabers.