Our Precious Theo....

We are fortunate enough to have a lovely girl(lady??? - what do you call someone in their late twenties?) called Grace look after the kids for four hours each morning the day I work. We feel blessed with Grace (and all the other babysitters in the past that God has provided for me to return to work one day a week). Normally, Charles comes home at lunchtime to look after the kids in the afternoon. Well, this week I worked from campus instead of going into the office since Charles is out of town so I was the one who interacted with Grace when coming home. Later that day I received this email from Grace which I thought was worth recording for memory-sake:

'The other thing was Charles usually asks me for good and bad points from the morning so a couple of good points from yesterday - Jack was very kind in stepping back to let Theo find some eggs and also they both were very thankful to Reesy for coming and helping. Jack was very quick to say Reesy should have the first egg and more than one for doing it for us!! They were also very lovely meeting Becky and Theo in particular seemed to enjoy chatting to her (and climbing on her, being careful of the baby bump!). Addie was a very happy and chatty girl yesterday, and particularly cuddly and climby too which was very sweet! There were no bad points…at least until Theo munched the extra chocolate.'

Grace and her husband 'Reesy' had arranged an easter egg hunt for the kids. It is nice to get such a glowing report on the kids, but what was priceless was when she was leaving I told Theo that he had had enough chocolate. I made it very clear that he would be disciplined if he ate another piece. Grace and I then walked into the kitchen to find Theo with said wrapper in hand and Theo's mouth dripping with chocolate. He just couldn't resist the temptation. He couldn't leave good enough alone. Don't we as adults often fall into this temptation????

The striking thing is that this is the same little boy that yesterday during nap time called out crying because he had 'accidentally ripped a page out of a book' that he was allowed to take to bed with him. The story gets most interesting when I reveal that the book was the Bible and the page he tore out was 'Adam and Eve getting discipline and sent out of the garden'. Any connection between these two stories???

Aren't we all like Theo? We all too often fall to temptation? And we all too often wish there weren't consequences for our bad decisions! But Thank God for sending Jesus who did what we cannot - conquer sin and death!

Theo's Invite List

With the Royal Wedding, quickly approaching 'invitation lists' have been a big source of discusion. On that note, Theo informed me of his birthday invitation list:

Jack
Molly (his friend)
Jos Myers (his friend)
Addie
Daddy

Then to my prompting, 'anyone else, Theo?'

Theo quickly responded 'no'.

I have three months to improve my standing in Theo's world unless I might be missing my son's three-year-old party!

To be like Grandad

Jack just went to bed without his shirt. It is cold in England tonight. I asked inquisitively, 'are you sleeping without your shirt tonight?'

Jack responded with 'Grandad does it and I am just copying Grandad.'

There are many things I would be delighted for Jack to imitate my dad on - this is not necessarily one of them! Thanks Dad!

My Big Brother Jack

Yesterday we went to the farm with our good friends the Grahams. Jack and his friend Josiah went over to play a ball game and Theo, Addie, and I stayed on the bouncy castle.

A big boy (he told us he was ten) came over and started to bounce on the bouncy castle with us. He was a sweet kid and interacted with Theo quite a bit. He was very physical and was able to jump super high as well as do somersaults. It was really cute because after he did each 'trick' Theo would say 'My brother, my big brother, he can do that' or 'Jack, my big brother, can do that too'. Just to be clear, Jack would not even be close to able to do any of the moves this ten-year-old was performing. BUT in Theo's mind he could, and Theo was super happy to brag on his brother, his 'BIG' brother!

I hope Theo always loves and respects his big brother, even when he is just as big and able to do the same (if not more!) physical stunts as Jack .

Happy Birthday Grandad!

This post was not supposed to be this late in the day.

We had friends come around unexpectedly for dinner which was good fun. After they left we got the kids quickly ready for bed and then as I was tidying up downstairs I thought 'oh shoot I forgot to get the video made to wish Dad a happy birthday'. I went back into the boys' room and told them to get out of bed. They thought I was mad, but they did it happily and here is a somewhat sleepy but enthusiastic birthday song for Grandad!




Happy Birthday to my wonderful dad! We SO wish we were there to bring you ice cream on this busy day for you. Thank you for being so awesome.