This week in our world..

Seth has two new words.. Spikin' and Turbo. These will be used at every possible opportunity. They apparently mean awesome and extremely, respectively. A few minutes ago I caught him washing his hands with five pumps of soap (we have a one pump rule). When I chastized him, his response was, "But Mom, I was TURBO dirty!"

Saturday we attended the local Fall Festival. If you haven't gotten photos yet, you will soon. There Seth met a girl who used to be in his class at school, but has since had dramatic health problems and become confined to a wheel chair, where she is tube fed and unable to speak. When Seth spoke to her, she became visibly very excited to see him. Meeting her has apparently had a profound impact on Seth and remains in the back of his thoughts at all times. He often asks me if I think God will heal her and what he can do to help her. I assured him that nothing is impossible with God and told him that the best thing he can do is to pray for her and her family. Her name is Piper by the way.

Sunday morning, I was scheduled to work in the infants room at our church during worship hour. We were 15 minutes late arriving and I first had to drop off the boys in their classrooms. Daniel showed his usual display of heart-wrenching separation anxiety, then it was upstairs to Seth's class, where we waited in line for our turn to check in. While we waited, Seth worried out loud about his friend Piper's lips, and how chapped and cracked they were. When we finally reached the front of the line, he looked up at me asked, "Mom, do you think we could pray her right now?" So there we knelt, in the middle of Tiny Town, to pray for Piper. Nothing else was more important in that moment. I have no doubt that Christ lives in that little boy's heart.

Daniel's favorite word lately is "Uh-oh!" Needless to say, he makes a lot of uh-ohs around our house. He and Seth are taking an interest in the same TV shows, which is convenient.. usually those with music. Dan loves nothing more than to shake his little rump to a good beat. Seth loves the Saturday morning show on DayStar called GodRocks. It has taught him some powerful scripture through rock music, and he performs them any chance he gets. If you haven't already, be sure to check out "Seth Jammin" on YouTube.

Daniel started swimming lessons this week. Lets just say it was less than smooth sailing. If we don't have a better time next week, we'll put the whole thing off for a few months, till this stranger anxiety phase passes.

The Latest from the Merry Go Round

So much for weekly updates, huh? Guess we'll have to settle for semi-monthly. So much is happening so fast, I forget half of it before I have a chance to write it down. I know I'm going to miss telling all of you about some of the really good stuff here, but until the Danimal can be trusted in the study, we're going to be limited to my memory at the rare times when I can sneak in here alone!

So here's what I can remember from the past few weeks.. Seth is in piano lessons and really loving it. He recently became very distressed however and announced that he does not have a "middle finger." His must be missing, he cried, since he's sure there are only four, two on the left and two on the right, with nothing growing in the middle! I assured him his fingers were fine, explained that the thumb was counted as a finger in piano, and resolved to call his third digit "tall man" from now on. At this, he quickly retorted: "Well if Mr. Thumb is going to be a finger now, I guess we'd better start calling him Shortman!"

Seth is enjoying 4 yr old pre-K and becoming quite the ladies man. One little girl in particular has caught his attention, and he has apparently asked her to marry him when they "get big." To his delight, she said "yes." Just for the record, her name is Natalie. I had explained to him one night, after watching Aladdin, that God knows the name of the girl he will marry someday and even though we don't know her name, we can still pray for her. That night after our prayers were said, he whispered to me, "Mom, when I grow up, if I get married to Natalie from school, I'm going to kiss her sideways all the time."

Daniel is recovering from a stomach virus and making up for lost time on all fronts. He has acquired a knack for opening containers with his teeth, and goes after anything that will either redocorate a room in our house or fill his bottomless tummy. This week's top contenders have been face powder (my bedroom is now Transluscent Ivory.. turns out its not so translucent afterall); pancake mix, Quaker oats, and today's special, guzzling Aunt Jemima right from the bottle! Yes, I do feed him, I promise. His other recent passions are screaming/squealing at the top of his lungs when life doesn't go his way, saying a very redneck "Hi" (more like Haaa) to everyone who looks his way, and spinning around in circles laughing and shouting "Dizzy! Dizzy!"

That's all for now, folks... check back soon.