Back in "The Lou"

We unloaded our truck about a week and a half ago, and I have to say we're doing pretty well.  The move couldn't have gone smoother - the wonderful people of Fishers of Men in Sugar Land were absolutely amazing in their help both physically and financially.  God has blessed us through them well beyond any expectations we had a year ago.  Leaving them was just about as hard as leaving California.  I never thought we would be so loved for who we are, and how we live our lives.  I wish I had the words to express how amazing that feeling is ... but I'm just not sure I can explain it.  You'll just have to take my word for it!
Now we're back in St Louis, living on campus.  We are right next door to our very good friends the Schmidts and we've shared enough meals to joke about living in our own little commune.  Kaitlyn and Ethan (5) are figuring out how to get along, but boy are they demonstrating forgiveness!  They'll figure it out soon enough, and in the mean time they are giving us adults plenty of practice mediating.  Daniel (3) is excited to be around all the kids playing and is so much fun now and Katy (19mo) and Christine are getting along really well.  Christine has now added her to the very short list of people she will hug and kiss without being asked.  Kaitlyn is the only other one on that list.  Mommy and Daddy didn't even make the cut!  We're excited to spend lots of time with them this year.  Our other friends are scheduled to move in during the next two weeks which will provide several more little girls running around here.  It's an odd feeling - kind of going backwards - but we're going to make it a special year that we can remember as a time spent with lifelong friends who are really more like family.
I start work in one week and have two weeks of before school meetings before the students return.  I'm excited that the commute is only 5 miles, and my new boss sounds nice.  I've been so blessed with wonderful administrators, I hope the trend continues.
Christine is in a time of transition, which is exciting.  A couple days ago she decided to remove her diaper during naptime which resulted in a soaked pack n play mattress.  Unfortunately, I forgot to put a waterproof pad under the sheet although I'm not sure that would have helped much.  Since the mattress didn't dry in time for bed (I had to use the hose)  I had to put the crib mattress on the floor barricaded with Kaitlyn's bed.  The girls decided they like this arrangement.  What a blessing to have sisters that love each other so much!  So right now we're seeing how it goes to have her sleep uncontained.  I have the pack n play set up just in case Christine decides to play instead of sleep, but that's only happened once so far.  Soon we'll have to figure out a more functional set up for their room.
Well, I think that's enough rambling for now.  I'll save how brilliant I think they are for the next post :-)

Prayer Time

We pray with the girls every night before putting them to bed.  Kaitlyn's prayers range from thanking God for everything and everyone in her world by name, to the common table prayer (come Lord Jesus be our guest and let these gifts to us be blessed).  Recently she's become a fan of this one sung to the tune of "Frère Jacques"
     God our Father, God our Father
     We thank You, we thank You
     For our many blessings, for our many blessings
     Amen, amen


Christine has become more and more interested in prayer time, especially now that Kaitlyn has been singing her prayers.  Tonight I said, "OK, it's prayer time" and Christine folded her little hands and sang her adorable version of the bedtime prayer.  How awesome is that???

Happy Father's Day!

Sean hasn't had a great string of Father's Days.  His first was great - he did exactly what he wanted and really enjoyed his day.  His second was the day we pulled into St Louis after a very hard 3 day drive, the third was spent working at Schnucks (the grocery store he worked at for a couple months in St Louis) the 4th was spent officiating his Mom's wedding to Steve (which was pretty cool).  So this year he finally got to do whatever he wanted! 
Our day started with church where he delivered a great sermon about the Burden of Expectations.  It was convicting and uplifting.  Then we went to a BBQ place called The Swinging Door which was highly recommended by a couple friends.  The food was fantastic, and the building and surrounding areas just felt like Texas to me.

 

Here's Sean and Christine after lunch

 and daddy with his girls

Kaitlyn was having an especially silly day today.  After I took this picture (at her request)

she and Sean had this conversation:
Sean: Kaitlyn, you're all that and a bag of chips
Kaitlyn: why you called me a bag of chips?
Sean: It means you're really cool
Kaitlyn: I'm not cool, I'm fancy

After lunch we all enjoyed nap time then Sean and Kaitlyn made some pineapple upside down cake.  

Happy Father's Day honey!  You are a wonderful father and husband.  There isn't a day that goes by I don't thank God for the gift you are to us.

And I Will Help You

Kaitlyn is in that super "helpful" independent four year old phase.  Most of the time it's great.  She's able to do so much for herself - fold clothes, sort toys, pour her own water (!!!) and more I'm sure that just aren't coming to mind right now.  One of her favorite areas to help is in the kitchen.  This is very fun when both of us are home because one parent can occupy Christine, who just wants to do everything her super cool big sister does.  Sean has been looking forward to this phase since we found out we were having a baby almost 5 years ago.  Here are some pictures of them cooking dinner together.  She loves to help.  When it's time to cook she gets her stool out of the bathroom (which is a bit of a hazard when I'm flying solo since Christine likes to climb on it with her) and is ready to cook!

Sean and Kaitlyn made German potato salad with sausage.  It was super yummy!

 

Then Kaitlyn helped by cutting Christine's pears for her dinner

Christine and I kept busy by playing with the camera and feeding her some kind of cracker.

Gadget's Garage

Friday concluded Vacation Bible School WOO HOO!  The whole McCoy family was there all week.  We had a great time, but were very glad to see the end on Friday - well, I think Kaitlyn would have liked another week but the rest of us were done!

The theme was GADGET's Garage which stands for God's Always Doing Great Exciting Things.  The mascot was a robot which Sean did - and was awesome.Watch his amazing robot moves from day 1 here.  I worked with another woman who is an elementary teacher as a preschool group leader.  I'm really glad she was there - after working with teenagers for so long, I was WAY out of my element with the little ones.  I also realized that Kaitlyn is far more focused than the average 4 year old boy.  Christine spent the week with her favorite nursery babysitter, Mynda.  But by Wednesday she was over it and wanted Mommy again.  I've never left her for two days in a row let alone a whole week.  It was an adjustment for both of us, but we got through it.  I'm thinking of it as a dress rehearsal for August.  At the end of the final day's program we were able to sneak in a family picture.  Despite the great efforts of others around, Christine just couldn't take her eyes off of Gizmo - possibly because she kept hearing her Daddy's voice coming from it.