Birthday Celebrations

Micah, our first born child, turned eight years old on Friday. Amazing how quickly the time has gone by. In three and half weeks he will be finished with school for the year and will officially be heading into third grade! We are so proud of Micah ~ the precious boy he is and the young man he is becoming. He brings such joy and a lot of fun and energy into our family! How blessed we are!

Last Sunday we celebrated with David’s parents. I made a cake and grandma made terriyaki chicken and rice for dinner, at Micah’s request. Spiderman is still a big hit and he seemed to steal the show this year! Spidey was everywhere!

On his actual birthday, we started the day by visiting the aquarium. This is always a favorite for Micah. It is amazing to me to see the strange and incredible creatures that God has created! You definitely have to watch out with things in the sea. Things aren’t always what they seem…

This little guy (a puffer fish) had the most incredible teeth! He flashed me a big toothy grin a couple times, but I couldn’t quite catch the full effect.

Upside-down jellyfish ~ aren’t they cool?!

For some strange reason I have the most difficult time getting my children to cooperate in front of the camera. Here is the result of my attempt at capturing something nice in front of that lovely rose bush…oh well. They’re cute anyway!

After the aquarium we came home to open gifts. It didn’t take Micah long to break into the Legos.

For dinner Micah requested the following:

• Grill-Roasted Whole Chicken with BBQ Sauce
• Broccoli and Cauliflower
• Baked Beans
• Watermelon

 Not your typical 8-year-old birthday dinner, but I’m not complaining! It was quite tasty.

Saturday we headed to the Dallas Zoo. They had a great new exhibit called Stingray Bay where we were able to feed and touch the stingrays. It’s a travelling exhibit so it will only be there through the summer. We were so glad to be able to see it.

It was such a fun weekend and I think Micah enjoyed it. Anytime he is able to see the animals is a fun time for him! Our (not so) little animal lover!

Happy Birthday, Micah! We love you!!

 

 

Let’s Play Ball!

Saturday was Micah’s first baseball game…his second season playing for the Rangers. It was a beautiful day and we were all kissed a little by the sun. I need to get back into sunscreen mode! Micah was up to bat twice and got a hit both times. 

Gettin’ ready to run…

He played second base, right field (I think…I can’t remember exactly), and catcher. The catcher’s equipment was so big on him and he looked like a robot when he walked! He said he felt like Darth Vader! I wish I would have taken a picture. He looked pretty cute! That’s Micah in the center of the photo.

We played at a different park than we have in the past. It was a beautiful park and had a little play area near the baseball fields so the girls could play while we watched the game. Abigail and Isabel were on the little merry-go-round for most of that time. I don’t know how anyone can spin for over half an hour and not get sick!

For those of you in my family or who know my family well, take a good look at this next picture and tell me…who does this child look like? As soon as I took the picture I looked at it and someone very familiar (other than Isabel) was staring back at me. David didn’t see what I saw, so maybe it’s just me!

 

Flying Kites and Shooting Arrows

Abigail has been begging me for quite some time to fly her kite. The winds were a blowin’ today, so out we went for some kite flying fun!

~

Soon Isabel joined in the fun!

While the girls were busy flying kites, Micah was honing his archery skills. Last week he borrowed “Robin Hood” from the library, so he has been itching to get outside and practice.

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Isabel helped out by collecting the arrows and bringing them back to her big brother.

Micah has enjoyed this bow and arrow set, which is an actual set and not a toy…therefore requires close adult supervision! Today he was shooting them quite far and is becoming more accurate all the time. Sometimes I still can’t believe that it was my idea to get this for him. I am generally the more cautious parent, but this has turned out to be a great activity for Micah and I’m glad we went for it!

 

Meet Micah

This is the third and final interview of our kids! In the first interview we were introduced to Isabel and a few days later we learned all about Abigail. Now let’s meet…

Micah James
Age: almost 8 (on April 18th)

His name means: Who is like Jehovah?

Some of his favorite things:

Book: any animal book

Bible Story: Joshua and the wall at Jericho (For school this week Micah’s journal topic for handwriting was about what Bible character he would like to be. This is what he wrote: “If I could be a Bible person, I would have been…Joshua because…He fought many battles. He destryed Jarico. He destryed another. He was cool. He died at the age of 110.”)

Color: Green

Toy: Green Transformer from his friend Charles

Song: “Lord, I Lift Your Name on High”

T.V. Show:  “Teen Titans”

Movie: “Star Wars”

Animal: “That’s a hard one. Spiders.” (I was a little surprised he said spiders! But Micah loves animals and is a walking encyclopedia when it comes to his knowledge of all kinds of animals and insects.)

Snack: Granola Bars

Food: Chicken and Bow Tie Pasta

Subject in School: “I have a lot! History, Literature, Lunch (gotta love that!), Math.”

Superhero: Spiderman

If you could go anywhere in the world, where would it be? Australia and China

What do you want to be when you grow up? Police Officer

Up until recently Micah wanted to be a Crocodile Hunter like Steve Irwin (which means he wanted to protect and rescue animals, not actually hunt them). I still see him working with animals someday, but we’ll see. He has lots of time to get that all figured out! Micah is definitely our animal lover and has an extensive knowledge of many types of animals. I know some of you have heard this story before, but I get a kick out of it everytime I think about it. When Micah was about four years old he was talking about an aye-aye. I asked him what that was and he said, and I quote, “It is a nocturnal lemur that lives on the island of Madagascar.” It’s always fun when the mom gets to learn something from her four year old!

Micah the Meerkat…

 

Micah is our imaginative child. He loves to act things out and is extremely creative at finding props for his adventures. The warrior with his sword and shield…

 

 

He is interested in history and enjoys reading. Every night when he gets into bed we allow him to read for a while and on non-school nights sometimes he will read for 2-3 hours in bed, often falling asleep with an open book across his chest.

Micah also loves baseball, both to play and to watch. Next week he begins his second season playing for the Rangers. No, not THE Rangers, but maybe someday!

Micah brings us such joy and amusement. He is beginning (too quickly for me at times) to transition from little boy to young man and although it is sometimes hard to see him leave behind little boy things, it will be exciting to see what kind of young man he becomes. David and I pray that as he continues to grow that he would grow in his knowledge of and relationship with our Lord.

Perfect words for our Micah from the prophet Micah:

He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? ~ Micah 6:8 (ESV)

 

Winter Fun

Even though it has not felt like winter lately, we certainly had a taste of it this week! Monday a winter “storm” rolled through, leaving some areas blanketed in several inches of fresh, white snow. We however, were not one of those areas. Round two hit yesterday, quite a bit heavier than the first, but alas, again no snow; we saw rain most of the day. I was slightly surprised by my disappointment since I am not a cold weather person, but my Pacific Northwest roots run deep and part of me can still appreciate the beauty of fresh fallen snow…at least in small amounts! What should await us this morning, but a lovely, light dusting of pure white snow (that was gone by about 11 am so that made it even more enjoyable)! You can imagine the delight of our children when they looked out the windows. They immediately began scurrying about the house in search of appropriate winterwear.

 

It’s fun to watch our kids in the snow; they are never quite sure what to do with it! I guess that comes with living in the South, but it didn’t take them too long and soon Micah was throwing snowballs at his sisters (I use the term snowballs loosely as the snow was quite dry and not great for that sort of thing).

 

Our little snow angels! 

 

 

They had a great time…for about 10 minutes! Then it was in to the house for hot chocolate. And what did Mommy do to warm up? I went to Starbucks, of course!

 

You Know Your Child is Classically Educated When…

Yesterday after church David was making some comments on the passage we discussed in our Sunday School class (Acts 7–Stephen’s speech just before he was stoned). He commented that Stephen was Greek and Micah asked, “Are you talking about Homer?” For those of you who do not remember your ancient Greek literature, Homer wrote the epic poems the Iliad and the Odessey. How many seven (well, almost eight but still…) year olds do you know who would ask that question…and not mean Homer Simpson?

 

Psalm 100

This week Micah has to memorize a Psalm for his weekly Scripture memory at school. He was able to choose any Psalm and we decided on Psalm 100. So even though I didn’t quite get last week’s verses memorized I thought it would be fun to memorize this psalm with my son. Knowing Micah though, he will have it memorized long before I will!

Make a joyful shout to the LORD, all you lands!
Serve the LORD with gladness;
Come before His presence with singing.
Know that the LORD, He is God;
It is He who has made us and not we ourselves;
We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.
Enter into His gates with thanksgiving,
And into His courts with praise.
Be thankful to Him, and bless His name.
For the LORD is good; His mercy is everlasting,
And His truth endures to all generations.