Ashley, the kayaker

Mom and Luke are back and it's great to be all together again. Nicole seems to still be battling a teething fever, so pray for her, and us. The waves were just the right size for Ashley and me to get out and play in the kayak. She got over her fear and had a blast. I even convinced her to jump off the boat into the water at about 4 ft depth. Good times.

Morning Paddle

Here are a few pictures I took this morning just before I left for a
sunrise paddle on a ocean of glass. It was pretty amazing. I kept
the flag in view for most of the shots because, well, "I'm proud to be
an american!" Sorry, I'm back from bursting into song- enjoy the
pictures. I owe a thanks to Matt and Stacy who came over at 5:30 to
sleep in my house with the girls so I could get the paddle in. Thanks
guys!

Yesterday and today are going pretty well though we really miss Mom.
She comes back tonight and we are looking forward to having her back.
Nicole is running a fever, which we think is teething related, so when
that is running high she really needs a lot of attention- but all is
well and we are making do.

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Update

Well, I've posted a few more pictures in our MA album and am adding the below video of Luke laughing. Very cute kid.

He is on his first airplane ride right now; headed back to IL with his mom for his great grandfather's funeral. They will be back tomorrow. In the mean time, Ashley, Nicole and Dad are on the beach with some of the cousins. So far, so good but we miss having the full "team" around.

Vacation and nice wearther arrive together

I wrapped up my time in the Wakefield office friday and came back to
the beach and perfect beach weather.
We had a fun weekend on the beach and had our good friends, the
Bradley's and jeff visit this weekend. The bummer of the trip however
is the passing of Missy's grandpa Sunday morning. It really is a
blessing and it was his time but now Missy, Luke and some of the rest
of her family is flying back to Il for tuesday and wed. Just thought
I'd check in with the b log and let you all know what is going on and
we will posr some new pictures soon. Please pray for safe travels and
that God will comfort our family in this time.

The weather man was wrong

Well I posted a few more pictures last night of our gorgeous day, see the album to the left.  There are more pictures from the morning when it was still cloudy and once it got perfect out we were too busy playing in the waves, kayaking and enjoying the day to remember to take pictures.  The weather called for last night and today to be rainy- it was supposed to be easy for me to leave for work in 20 min and be in an office all day.  Well, the weather man was wrong.  I'm squinting in the sunlight as I write this, watching a beautiful morning.  I'll manage to get to work I suppose.

It has been a great morning so far and thought I'd share a link to today's Truth for Life devotional.  Check it out if you get a chance as it talks, in words far more eloquent than what I can come up with of God's amazing grace and greatness.  But as i sit here looking at the ocean and read the hymn at the bottom, to look at the sea and think not of God's greatness as I tend to, but to use it as an analogy of the greatness of my sin, it makes God's greatness that much greater because He has concurred death and my sin which means He is far greater still. Romans 8:2  "For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death."  Freedom is amazing!

Photos posted

We have not had the best weather, but that is all a part of the fun. Great thunderstorms have rolled through almost every day. Anyone can have a great vacation at one of those spots where the weather is good, but it takes character to enjoy Rockport weather.
Check out the photos we have posted.

Beach Front Naps

We had so much fun on the beach that we are WIPED OUT. Great beach day and more pics coming soon.

22 hours

Well, we have arrived safely in ma.
It took 22 hours in total but 3 of that was stopping at our good
friends house a little over an hour from here and a few hours in
stops. 16 hrs driving time.

We left home at 9pm thursday night after a beautiful (though week long
packing) job. Missy did an amazing job of preparing and it was great
to put the full utility of the minivan to use. We brought everything.
The kids fell asleep around the IN state line and slept till just east
of Buffalo. It was great driving through and making good time. Hard
but great and reminded me of college drives btwn chicago and out east.

The we stopped for a stretch and Missy took over driving while I
napped. 45 min later I woke up to help the girls pick up some stuff
they dropped and a min later Ashley was getting car sick. Sparing you
the details it was bad but not too hard to clean up and we took a few
more breaks medicated and moved the girls to the middle row (sorry
luke). The rest of the drive was a little more stressful but event
free- the best kind of driving.

Well, off to play on the beach but thank you all for your prayers.
Will send pics soon.

--
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Happy Mat Genius

So I think my son may in fact be smarter than me. They say true
genius is being able to focus on the task at hand. Luke can focus on
the star [see photo] on his "happy mat" activity map for 45 minutes.
That is 44 minutes longer than I've ever been able to focus on
anything.

Additionally, Luke here is wanting to give out a fist bump [see photo]
to the blog readers, show how big he is getting and let the world know
that while Dad and formula will make do, Mom's amazing in that she
takes care of him and his sisters solo most every day. Dad's just
proud of himself for having the time to get a photo and post a blog
all while Mom is out- for a mere 3 well deserved hours. (I wonder,
will I always refer to myself in the third person as Dad? Any parents
of older kids care to let me know when/if that goes away?)

Swim lessons and Thunder

With our trip to beach less than 2 weeks away we thought it would be a great idea to get the girls more used to the water. So we had our first swim class at the park district on Tuesday. Ashley is old enough to go to class by herself, but Nicole needs a parent with her. Ashley's class had 5 kids in it, Nicole (and Brandon) was the only one in her class- which would be great 1:1 instruction, had the instructor ever worked with "little kids" before. Nicole was having a blast till the instructor told me to put her face in the water and thinking she knew what she was doing I, mistakenly, obliged. She cried the rest of the time; which had the added benefit of convincing Ashley that she should be scared too (we were after all in the same pool). So day 1 didn't go great, but we talked up day two like crazy, but I guess God heard the prayers of our Girls and brought a huge thunderstorm through right at the beginning of class- so class was canceled and the girls bought themselves another 24 hours to prepare. Wish us luck!
Here is a picture of Nicole pre-dunk:

Smiling Video

We took Luke for a walk and he was all smiles. Here is a video of his smiles.

(Facebook readers, I think to see the video you will have to visit our blog http://5brown.blogspot.com to view)

Smiles and Tummy Time

As you can see, Luke is geting bigger and more interactive by the day.
The second picture here is of "tummy time" which he takes as an
opportunity to nap on his stomach, not sit up and get the excercise it
is supposed to be.

Related to Tummy time yesterday, we heard Ashley walking through the
house singing "Duh nu nu nu.. nu nu Tummy time. Du nu....." I looked
at Missy and she explained that one time, in trying to get Luke
excited/awake about it she sang about tummy time to Luke to the theme
of Hammer time.

Oops... Spoke too soon.

Luke read the posting from yesterday and decided that he'd make me insert my foot squarely in my mouth. He was up yesterday afternoon and cat napped some, but was mostly up till 1am. But he was for the most part happy and while his parents were not all that happy to be awake much later than we would have liked, he did sleep from 1 till 8 this morning.

Not really a blog worthy piece of news but thought I'd mention it out of fair "reporting".

Those of you reading this on facebook: Missy and I are both now importing this blog to our facebook notes application, so you may see this duplicated if we are both on your friend list.

Not about Luke

So, since this blog has been pretty much all about Luke recently, and sometimes his sisters, thought I should warn you that this post isn't really about the kids.

This week I finally got around converting 6 cd's of the Psalms to mp3. It's this really great recording my Mike Kellogg (Moody radio) but when I pulled it to MP3, the track names were not found, so I had Unknown artist, Unknown Album, Track 1, Track 2...track 37, so when I got to work, I decided to fix that. I opened up the properties window and had to fill out the properties for the mp3. Okay, Artist. I was floored.

It seemed too amazing to me to put "God" as the artist... but it was right. Sure, David may have been the composer and Mike Kellogg was the one reading it, but "artist" on audio books is the author, right? It made me realize that the God of the universe wrote a book, wanted to express a message to the people He created and I even had the opportunity to hear God's Word spoken. It is an amazing thing. And best of all, God's Word is living and active, which means it is a message for me today just as much as it was to David 3000 years ago. I listened to the Psalms all the way home as I biked through the woods and they never looked so good.

I also have to give thanks to Matthew Westerholm (Friend from church and author of retro-evangelical.blogspot.com) who through that blog introduced me to Bob Kauflin's work and in his 75min interview (link) his discussion of the Psalms- to realize that Jesus is the only one who can say so many of the Psalms in the entirely. So prophetic. So relevant. So alive. Check it out. (link)

Our sleeper

At the risk of making those of you with young children a bit jealous- and at the risk of jinksing ourselves, thought we'd share the "news" in Luke's life, which is, he sleeps a lot. We have not figured out a "schedule" yet, but have just tried to roll with it. Yesterday he woke up at around 4 pm (yes, I mean pm) after having slept from 11pm the night before, only waking for a morning and midday feedings. Then he napped from 6-10, ate again, then slept till 5am this morning. He and I went for a run, then he was back to sleep by 6:45, sleeping now.
He is growing like a weed, so that is what all the sleep is about we guess. When he is awake he is sometimes a bit fussy, but there are times he is wide awake, alert and smiling, even working to make eye contact, so that is fun.

Bunking It

Nicole is out of her crib now. Both girls in the bunk bed resting
soundly. They also did a great job last night at both staying in bed
and falling asleep in a decent amount of time.

First smiles

Luke is smiling now and Missy tried to catch a picture of it. The timing with the digital camera was not ideal, but we will take what we can get with these first smiles.

Getting big quick

So many of you have commented that we have not had an updated picture
of luke in a while. He is doing quite well. If I say he is sleeping
well, then he will be up all night. He loves his changing pad and
there are times he just wants us to put him down, but he is a pretty
good cuddeler too.

Tandem Swingy Ball World Champions

Ashley and Nicole are the world's best tandem swingy ball players. I have installed the "Big Swing" and the girls are loving it.

PanCan 5K Walk, Chicago

The PanCan walk went well. The weather was a bit rough (50 degrees or
so and a really strong wind with some occasional drizzel) but it beat
the forcast and we made the 5K walk. We were walking in memory of Sue
Brown (Luke's grandma) and all of her grandkids (and kids) were there.
It was good to see everyone and the walk was fun, though a bit
anti-climatic and disorganized- evidenced by the fact that we didn't
get a picture with everyone or many pictures at all, but for having a
18 day old at an event of this size, we did prety well. Luke held up
great and slept through the whole thing.
Alli and Missy set up camp under a bridge and hung out with Luke while
the rest of us did the walk. Thanks to everyone who donated to
PanCan... it was a huge turnout and it was good to be together with so
many people who's lifes have been affected by Pancreatic cancer and
remind us and them that we/they are not alone. Nicer weather may have
allow a bit more socializing, but we'll take what we can- thanks to
all who were there.