Great Grandma Eleanor

Last Wednesday Grandma went home to be with Jesus. She has been waiting and waiting for this, so we are happy for her, but we miss her. She was kind, thoughtful, hospitable, given to prayer, loved truth and she was sweet until the end. 

Here are some photos and videos of our recent times with her:

With newborn Lukas:

This is Grandma with Lukas when he was about 6 months. He looks and sounds JUST like Theo does now:

This was Christmas 2016. Grandma wasn't feeling well enough to come out to Mom and Dad's for our Hoilien Christmas, so we all descended on her and made her sing:

Here she is with Theo a few months ago:

And this Christmas she did make it out to Mom and Dad's! We enjoyed singing Christmas carols with her. 

We had a family visitation and remembering-circle-time the night before the memorial. There are 41 of us from Grandma and Grandpa Revne's three daughters. All of us adults love Jesus and so far the young ones do too. This is what she prayed for every day.

We love you Grandma. We are thankful for your life.

Christmas

Lukas LOVED playing with his cousins as usual. 

Theo is more and more of a little person and not just a blob on his mama's lap, so the cousins enjoyed getting to know him, and he them.

Mama enjoyed getting presents.

Papa was his usual happy self.

(Heidi took all these beautiful pictures.)

Sometimes It's Hard to Get Your Belly Off the Floor

Lukas is 3!!

On December 29th, the big boy turned 3! We had chocolate pie with friends to celebrate.

We also celebrated with family a month ago, to spread out the gift joy. Heidi took these nice ones:

The Baby Jesus

We read Betsy Kirk's Advent Readings for the Very Young this year. And I ordered a very nice embroidered felt nativity set from Etsy. This was the first we've read much of the Bible with Lukas. It didn't seem like anything was sinking in, but I think some did. 

After a particularly ugly outburst of anger by this Mama (not toward the children, though that does unfortunately happen) Lukas had some helpful words from the backseat of the car:

"The Baby Jesus is helping you Mama."

"The Baby Jesus is God."

"It's ok Mama."

At the end of this year I feel less holy than a year ago. Maybe it's a more accurate understanding of who I am or maybe it's true. But now that there is someone in the backseat who understands a lot of what is going on around him, I want to be more holy for his sake. I am thankful that God is patient with me, and that he gave these boys to me, and that he is with me and Daniel is with me in this good work.

Matching Shirts.

I love matching shirts. I try to trick Daniel into wearing matching shirts with me but this is never received too enthusiastically so I try to confine the desire to dressing my boys. Aren't they cute?!

The Cat.

There will never be a real cat in our house. They make me sneeze a lot. I will not explain further reasons, as I know some of you who may read this appreciate cats. 

But at a white elephant gift exchange I stole this cat for Lukas. The morning after the big event I came downstairs to find this setup:

In case you're wondering, Lukas named her Melissa.

Grandma.

Grandma comes every week. This is very nice for Mama, as well as the boys. She took these first two photos during a visit to the American Swedish Institute:

This (fake) goat lives on the roof:

For as much as Lukas thinks about him, 

I wonder if he is why Lukas sings, 

"Goat! Tell it on the mountain!"

This stocking was Grandma's funny purchase last year. She is very considerate of always being fair, and didn't want a bigger stocking for Lukas to make the other grandchildren concerned that she liked him better so she gave it to me. 

Of course Theo was Lukas' favorite present this year.

Papa's Morning Goodbye Committee

"Theo's silly."

We Must Get Our Exercise

The tricycle is pretty awesome. With a dishwasher basket strapped to the back it offers a nice ride for his animal friends and small cars. When Mama is feeling ambitious, Theo also gets a ride on the back. Warning: this video may make you dizzy.

Keeping Busy in Cold Winter

These are some very fine pants from our friend Heidi, whose mother made them. They're a bit itchy or Mama would put them on him every day. 

Can you see the snowman? 

And snowman 2.0? The snow was packable but not as formable... Mostly I love the big boy's sweet smile in this photo.

And the little one likes getting outside too: