Two Years

Our boy is TWO. When I say it, it sounds so young, but as I interact with him, I keep thinking, '...he's getting so old...' It is a strange and wonderful thing, watching your child grow. He seems to be growing so fast now that he is starting to talk. We waited and waited for him to 'get it' and start saying words, let alone putting them together, wondering what it would be like to talk to him... and now we know. It is a joy and we are surprised every day by the new words he says and how he figures out how to put together. It is not a lot yet but it is coming. A little too fast sometimes. The other day he said a word that I didn't know that he knew (I think it was puppy) he was looking at one of his books and said it as plain as day. When he said it I was so happy and then my heart stopped for a minute and I thought to myself - no no no! this is happening too fast! I can't ever get this back! Puppy. You never know what it is that is going to get you... what's going to give you that strong jolt of a reality. There is just barely any baby left in him at all - he's all boy.

He LOVES the color blue, he loves to chase us around the living room, he loves baby einstein movies (maybe a little too much) (he sleeps with a Baby Einstien Baby Bach VHS tape of all things) (only during nap time). His favorite food is, I'm pretty sure, tomatoes and popsicles (home-made frozen smoothie). I'm going to have to cut him off from the tomatoes cause things haven't been looking too good in the diaper area lately. He just discovered that you can pick the red ones right off the vine in Grandpa Dave's garden and pop them right in your mouth. Pure fun.

He loves his mama, and he loves his dada, he LOVES Norah, and he loves his grandmas and grandpas and aunts and uncles. He loves being outside, he's very enthusiastic about presents, which made the birthday really fun, and he loves to pretend that he's driving the car (for hours if we let him - which we don't). Gosh... was there ever life before him? I think so, but I can hardly remember. I could go on and on and on and on. Thank God for him, our fun, happy, lovely little boy.

4 Months

Our pretty little girl is 4 months old... she is the happiest little baby I have ever known : ). She smiles and smiles and smiles and smiles. She even smiles at Sorin now, most of the time she just stared and stared at him but now she'll look at him and give him a big smile - it is charming him. She loves to grab her feet, she can almost get one of her big toes in her mouth, but right as it gets there - ah! - she looses her grip, rolls to the side and then tries it again. She hates to be alone, she loves it when she is right in the middle of whatever is going on, and most of the time she is, either laying on the floor or sitting in her little chair or propped up on the bed while Sorin bounces around her... it almost seems, at times, - as you can see in the pictures below - that she is playing with him. It looks like Norah's eyes are going to stay blue - they get blue-er by the day, and her lashes just get longer. She may, I hope, have some that rival her brother's. What a pretty little girl...

Sorin Helps to Tell the Schiefelbein Story

As the Schiefelbein Family continues to establish itself, we are still trying to tell a good story.  Katie and I were very inspired by Donald Miller's book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years which we both read last year.  Miller's premise is that what makes a good book or a good movie is also what makes a good life, and thus a good story.  There are essential elements to a good story, which Miller describes, such as the main character overcoming significant challenges on his way to reaching his goal. 

Katie and I want to tell a story of purpose.  Neither of us are wired to just do things for the sake of doing them.  We thrive on living meaningful lives, though this is a daily challenge.  Still, we look for opportunities to tell a better story and move towards lives of purpose.  We do these not in an attempt to bring any praise to our family, but to become a family that stands for justice and goodwill.  We're not doing anything that hundreds of families aren't already doing.

We attend Blackhawk Church which is once again providing school supplies for nine area schools.  I remember being very excited this time of year because I loved to buy new school supplies.  Notebooks in every color, new pens and pencils, and of course the first gear bag I ever had - a backpack to hold all my supplies.  It was a great time of year.  And now I realize not every kid had the same experience I did.  It's hard to imagine kids not having these basic tools for learning.

A couple weeks ago Sorin and I went out to get the school supplies for a child who otherwise wouldn't have them on his first day of school.  Sorin is old enough to walk around with me and when I realized he could reach over the top of the cart, I decided he would help me with each and (literally) every item we bought.

 As Sorin gets older and we prepare to send him off to school, he probably won't remember this trip to the store when we bought school supplies for a young student we don't even know.  But Katie and I will subtly remind him of what we did that Saturday afternoon.  We'll say it very matter-of-factly.  We'll discuss it in the context of our blessings and the blessings we're able to share with others.