Prayer

I have already told you guys my thoughts on religion and faith.  Each night, I pray that you stay safe from harm, that you are healthy, that you grow up to be happy and that God blesses me with the wisdom to raise you to be good men and to have faith in God.  I really don't care if that is faith in a Catholic God, a Lutheran God, a Jewish God or any other God.  I just want you to have faith that there is some greater power in our world that is beyond our realm of thinking.

I may not like to go to church but I am a believer.  I believe that there is some sort of heaven that we go to or some sort of other realm of existence.  I believe in God.  I want to give you a foundation so you can also believe in God.  I was struggling with that.  How do I start teaching you?  I asked your godmother and she had some great suggestions.  I prayed about it at night.  All of a sudden I had a voice (I think of it as THEE voice - not the normal crazy voice that is my own but a voice I can recognize as completely coming from somewhere that I think to be God) that told me to start with you when Elijah turned 3.  So, on his birthday, we started saying your prayers.

Each night, Elijah will say "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray to God my soul to keep.  Please guide (Which she says God) me safely through the night and wake me with the morning light.  Dear God, please bless (which he says blast)....  Then, comes the nightly list.  Without fail it goes like this..."Morgan, Jake, Tyler and Andrew."  Then, if he had a really good day with someone, he will mention them.  Otherwise, the daycare kids go next (including the dog) and that is about it.  Sometimes, we will get mentioned like he is throwing us a pity bone.  After he is done with his list, he says "Amen."  It is a start.

Last weekend was Auntie Becky's birthday.  We had already seen her and taken a gift so I knew we were covered.  But, something kept nagging me to send her a video of you boys on her birthday.  I got my phone out and I told Elijah to say Happy Birthday.  When I hit record, he started singing Happy Birthday to her.  He even blew out the candles.  Joey said "Cheese" to the camera and bye-bye.  It really was odd how I kept getting little nudges in my head to do it.  Yesterday, I got a card form your Auntie Becky.  She told me that she prayed for you guys to sing to her.  She knew she was going to be lonely on her first birthday without Gramma Dorothy so she wanted to hear from you .

Now, I am a believer but this was such a confirmation to me on 2 things...  1) God answers our prayers.  2)  Sometimes that little voice in my head is more than crazy ramblings or intuition.  Sometimes that voice is that every powerful "THEE" voice - I have only had that happen 3 times.  Some times that little thought in your head that you think is genius is really inspired by God planting the seed in you.

Just another testament to faith and believing in God - your Auntie Becky was hurting and prayed for a smile through you guys.  God kept bugging me about it so I finally did it.  Elijah sang without even being asked to.  Can't get much closer to proof than that!

Dear Joey...

Hi Baby JoeJoe,
You are killing me lately buddy, just killing me.  Sometimes, I get a bit sad because you are so independent and don't want to be cuddly.  For some reason, it isn't in your nature.  A few nights last week, you snuggled right on my belly as we were getting ready to go to sleep.  I let you lay there - your head touching the bottom of my chin.  Your legs about touching my knees.  It made me think of all the times that we laid like that in the NICU but you were just a baby.  Now, you are a big boy and want to do everything yourself.  I like watching you play and learn but I would also like more snuggle time.

You just kill me when we are in bed and you say "Mommy."  For so long it has been screams of "Ma."  Now, it is "Mommy."  It sounds so strange coming from you.  As you may imagine, every time you say it, I soften and you get your way.

We have a ritual at night on the nights I lay with you.  We climb in bed, say night night to daddy, we say our prayers and then we sing.  I would always sing the same two songs "Baby" and "You are my sunshine."  Then, Elijah started learning more songs and he thought I was a DJ or something.  Next thing you know, he is barking out "Row Row Row your boat" or "Twinkle Twinkle" or "Rockabye baby."  Last time you were home with us and Elijah was gone, you thought it was your job to bark orders.  Now, you do it more than him.  I will finish a song and you will tell me the next one.  Makes me smile.

But, what really got me the other night was that you were singing WITH me.  You hit the notes where you should and some of your words were clear.  How is that possible?  I think you are musically inclined.  You love toys with music.  You love music on cartoons.  You love music at night.  I am not biased enough to say that you are the next Mozart or Bob Seger (ha) but you do take a liking to it and maybe you will play an instrument.  Either way, you singing makes my heart sing.

Yesterday, I came home from being gone all day and you just attacked me.  Since you aren't one to express a ton of affection, I loved it!  You wanted to be by me all night.  When I would walk away, you would get mad.  We were joined at the hip and that wasn't a bad thing  :)

You are starting to give better kisses.  You know not to open your mouth anymore.  But, when I say give me a kiss, you tilt your forehead to meet mine and then you do a big smacking kiss sound.  8/10 times, there are no lip actions involved at all  :)  Tonight, I said "Night Night Joey.  Give me a kiss."  I heard a big lip smack from across the bed!

You say "I love you" now.  Oh man.  Kills me.  Tonight, I said "Night night Joey, I love you."  You said "ove you".  I giggled so then you had to giggle.  Not much more can brighten my spirits more than hearing my babies say I love you.

Speaking of giggling, you think so much is funny.  You crack yourself up.  You are also starting a silly laugh.  You love to make noises to try to get Elijah to laugh.  You love, love, love it when you can make your big brother laugh.

I think that is about it, my love.  Thank you for being such sweetness!

Some Scrapbook pages

Hey boys!

I may not have written about the last couple of months but I can at least show you & your family some scrapbook pages of our activities.  :)

Our Thomas trip to Boone Iowa.

We had a great time at our trips to Valas with family and friends.

You both enjoyed Phineas and Ferb in Lincoln

You both loved Halloween and both really got into trick or treating!  We did a lot of Halloween activities - Bryan trick or treating, Haunted Safari and then trick or treating on Halloween night.

Not traditional Thanksgiving photos but it wasn't a traditional Thanksgiving - it was so warm out, you could play outside with your cousins with no coat on!

Family photos

We had a great time at the Children's Museum when we went to cookies & milk with Santa.  Joey doesn't look like he had a good time, but he did  :)

On the 22nd, we had cousin night.  We went bowling with the grown ups and you guys had 2nd generation cousin night at Auntie Sheila's.  It was the beginning of the Lang Christmas curse where everyone except you two and Auntie Val got sick!

Snow storm!  You guys wanted to go outside and play so bad!!

On Christmas Eve, we made cookies for Santa while daddy worked.

 

Year end letter to Elijah.

Elijah's 9:33 photos.  The 9:25 photos were good but when 9:33 rolled around on his birthday, he was done dealing.

Right after our 1,000 cheers on NYE.  We did dinner with the Beatys, Children's Museum then CHEERS on the kitchen floor like we did last year.

October, November, December

Well, my loves, I have slacked on your blog.  But, here are our daily photos from October, November, & December.