This morning I visited New Life Church in West Linn to gather ideas and get insight into how they do their sports camp for kids. Our church hopes to do a similar outreach next Summer.
Before we left, Dutch grabbed a basketball and did his first dunk ever, without any instruction or an example to follow. He dealt with the rim checks pretty well. Persevere my little boy! Here’s his second and third dunks …
Dutch doesn’t feel good today. But he is real sweet. Here’s a pic of him last weekend enjoying the old Jeep.
Because we’re playing hide-n-seek…
And being silly
In other news, Dutch has started to wrestle with me. Makes a daddy feel oh so good.
Dutch is 16 months old today .
In the last month he has learned how to sit still and ‘read’ on our laps, and learned the difference between apples and ducks and trains and shoes and balls and dogs and cats (all in one picture book). Still waiting on talking with actual words, but those will come; no hurry! In the meantime, his motor sounds are in high gear. Plus he’s getting so terrifically awesome at following directions, like putting away his cars (mine when I was a boy, and I don’t think I ever learned to put away), and stacking books that have been scattered on the floor. What a precious boy we have! Happy 16 months Dutcher boy . We’ll be home from class soon to play.
Here are some pics from this weekend
Dutch the hiding boy
We woke up to Winter
Came home and it was beautiful Spring again
Dutch the preacherman; he likes the ESV
Mommy + Dutch playing …
Mother and son reading … (kept still for 45 minutes!)
Dutch is ready for Spring. Boy is he!
Praise Jesus for simple pleasures like running around the yard under the bright sun with our bright son.
The house is quiet tonight. Just returned from teaching our Foundations class. Kari and Dutch are not here with me, as they hopped on a plane this morning bound of Salt Lake City to visit her brother and his family.
Kari took this picture of Dutch with her phone…
Kari started her one-year no-new-clothes fast today (read about her LiveDifferent challenge #1).
Truly, I married up (!), and miss Kari already. As much fun as Dutch is and as much as I love Him, I could not live without my Karina.
I think it was J.C. Ryle who wrote: “The great thing I always desired to find was a woman who was a Christian, who was a real lady, and who was not a fool. Whether I was successful or not, others must judge the better than I can, but I call God to witness these were the three points I always kept steadily in view.”
Before dropping her off at PDX I asked her to send me lots o’ pics, so I could at least "see" how they were. A whole bunch were waiting in my inbox tonight when I arrived home. Uncle Kris taught Dutch how to throw rocks, our precious boy giving cousin Jennika a kiss on the cheek, then giving her a little frightening, and then one of his beautiful blue eyes.
May God be the glory for all His mercy in our lives and the abundant ways He lavishes us with His love, in practical evidences of His grace.
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Nothing deep here … I just wanted to reflect on the joy of mommyhood. Yesterday Dutch got a new toy–a green John Deere truck from my dear friend Crystal. Dutch flipped! He loved it. Usually snack time is the most exciting part of the day and when I pull out the special Dutch muffin and start breaking off pieces and putting them on his high chair tray, he just about goes crazy. He loves muffins. But yesterday, he totally ignored the muffin as soon as he saw the tractor! Then later, the boy who hardly ever plays on his own, took his tractor over to the stairs and played for 30 minutes, all by himself, making the engine sounds and loading and unloading special imaginary bucket-fulls of dirt on the stairs.
Dutch’s other favorite thing right now is to sneak into our bedroom and go through Jeff’s nighstand drawer. He usually goes for the “No More Fungus” bottle (yeah, gross) and hides things in our bed. So last night, about 2am, I woke up and couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t comfortable, the realized something hard was under my back. I reached back and there was a deck of playing cards … from our special little boy. Too tired to get up, I tossed them down to my feet and fell asleep smiling. What a little boy.
Today at church, I was the proudest mommy ever because Dutch ran to Pastor Dale and jumped into his arms. Then I said, “Dutch can you give Pastor Dale a kiss?” And he leaned up and planted a huge kiss right on our pastor’s cheek. Yeah, it was pretty sweet. Of course he might be a terror at home for me, but at least he’s sweet at church. 
That’s all. Just savoring mommyhood.
It’s 90 minutes until Earth Hour here on the West Coast. Join millions in giving our planet a break - power down between 8:00-9:00pm tonight .
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We’ve experienced unique weather during the first week of Spring. Yesterday and the day before last we had rain, snow, sleet and hail, plus clear blue skies intermingled at various times of the day. Much of the same today — it’s snowing as I type this. Here are some pics of Dutch and me on some adventures.
It snowed yesterday morning (and this morning too) but only a little bit; yep, it’s a week into Spring, and we live in a part of Oregon that rare sees snow. In one day we truly saw all four seasons.
Even still Dutch enjoyed his slide during the break in the weather…
He also enjoyed roaming around the grass with his Daddy… can you tell there’s something in my hand he wants?
Kari's latest Patterson Family Margin
