Happy 12th Birthday Christopher!

It's hard to believe our baby is TWELVE...  

Happy Birthday Christopher!!!

Poor Christopher.  Last year on his birthday, Tim and I did the best we could to celebrate his 11th birthday, but it came right before our big move from Ohio to North Carolina.  Christopher was such a good sport about it.  I remember standing at the bakery at Kroger's in Cincinnati, exhausted and filthy from packing boxes, letting Christopher pick-out a box of cupcakes and a package of candles, promising, "Next year, Christopher, I promise we'll make it a great birthday for you..."  He said sweetly with a smile on his face, "It's ok, Mom."

So we did our best this year to make Christopher's birthday EXTRA special!

Stage One:  The Party.
Christopher was thrilled that his church buddies Steven and Alex and neighborhood buddy Eli were able to come for pizza and cake, video games, a movie, playing outside basketball, a game of Sorry, and a Nerf-gun war.  This was our family's first slumber party....I mean, sleep-over. ("Boys don't have slumber parties, Mom!")  As far as middle school parties go, I think it was a success.  :D

The hit of the birthday bash: playing NBA 2K14 on PS3.  

Pre-teen boys LOVE their video games.

Stage Two:  The Gift.

Stage Three:  Putt-Putt Golfing.

While we were at the Outer Banks celebrating my Mother's Day at the gardens, we did a little putt-putt golf in Kill Devil Hills for Christopher's birthday.

Stage Four:  The Meal.

Given the choice of ANY restaurant in the Raleigh or Rocky Mount area for his special birthday meal, Christopher chose...the Rocky Mount Chik-Fil-A.  

And that is how we celebrated the twelfth birthday of our son Christopher, whom we dearly love and are SOOOOO very proud of....

                         

Mother's Day

An Open Letter To My Children 

on Mother's Day 2014

I am thankful for you, Christopher, who made me a mother back in 2002.  It was on you I learned how to change a diaper, how to feed a baby, and how much I could love a human being that I had brought into the world.  I am thankful that you are turning into such a responsible, trustworthy boy who is talented in music and art, and who doesn't mind when Mommy needs your help with the computer.   I am thankful for your sweet and gentle spirit, and that you put the needs and wants of others before your own.  I am thankful that you like to serve others, especially those less fortunate.  I appreciate your sense of humor, and your desire to make people laugh.  Your jokes are funny!  And I am thankful that you are turning into such a good cook: I look forward to the day when you cook me a meal for the first time.  I'm so proud of the Godly young man you are.

I am thankful for you, John, because you have brought such joy into our lives  from the moment your 9 lb 12 oz self made its way into the delivery room back in 2004.  I never stop being amazed by how much "boy" is wrapped-up in you, John, nor how dirty you can manage to get when playing outside.  I love your heart for Jesus, how you care about lost people, and how you fearlessly talk about going into preaching or missions someday.  And even though I know you think you're too old for hugs and kisses from Mommy anymore, I believe that maybe...deep down...you still like them.  I admire your desire to do what's right and be obedient, even when surrounded by others who are not.  And I appreciate your sense of style:  you are the only 9 year old boy I know who likes to wear dress clothes.  I'm thankful that you ALWAYS like my cooking and that you're always willing to try new and exciting foods with Mommy.  You are a blessing to the Lord and to me, John.

I am thankful for you, Anna, who surprised me back in 2007 because I was just certain I was having a third boy.  But when God made you a girl, He REALLY made you a girl!  I love how you dance and sing, want to play in my make-up and have your nails painted, and how you like to wear a dress every single day.  I am thankful you are unashamed about praising the Lord in public, no matter who is listening or what they think.  I love your heart for elderly people.   You are becoming such a good reader, and I'm glad you never tire of  reading or talking about the Bible.  And although you are certainly a "Daddy's Little Girl," I am thankful that you take time to be Mommy's helper around the house or play dolls with me.  You are a beautiful young lady both inside and out.

Love You Bunches,

Mommy

3 John 1:4

Pickin' and A Grinnin'

One Christmas Christopher, John and Anna were given a kids' guitar as a gift from their Nana.  They have all three played and played that guitar, and Christopher fell in love with it.  Now that he is a bit older and bigger, he has worked hard to show his mom and dad that he is responsible enough for a full-sized guitar of his own.  Christopher has taken to the piano well in recent years, so we know that he has an interest and talent in music, and that he practices faithfully.  Upon recommendation of our dear friend and expert guitar consultant Aaron Smith, in April we went to Guitar Center in Raleigh to pick-out one for him...

It was so confusing!  Guitar Center has rooms full of guitars, and to the untrained eye, a $5,000 one looks EXACTLY like a $50 one.  So a big thank you to David Hammond at Guitar Center, who took this clueless mom and dad on and helped us find just the perfect guitar.  David was great.  He talked us through what we needed and was honest about what we didn't need.  David didn't try to up-sell us, and we ended-up with a reasonably-priced but well-constructed Yahama acoustic folk guitar.

And here was our Christopher, sitting down with his new instrument for the first time...

 

This week, Christopher had his first guitar lesson with our friend Jimmy.  Jimmy is a talented musician and teaches the guitar very well.  And best of all, Jimmy ends his guitar lesson with prayer.

Christopher hopes to someday be the next Steven Curtis Chapman or Tim Hawkins.  But we are ready for him to be the first Christopher Barnette. :D  Mostly, though, we hope that he has fun and finds a new way to worship and praise the Lord through music.

So now that Christopher has his first real six-string, we'll have to see if he plays it 'til his fingers bleed this summer.  After all, these are the best days of his life... 

Sorry for the cheesy song reference.

Couldn't help myself.  I'm a child of the 80's.  :D

Anna Jean the Bicycle Queen

The time has come for Anna Jean to learn to ride her bike without training wheels.  So after days and days of practicing balance and control and speed, last night she figured it out!

  

Anna's "Learning to Ride A Bike" Faces...

HAPPY:

SERIOUS:

????

Tim pushed and guided and coached her up and down our street all evening.  He must have run miles!

And when I wasn't working the camera, I helped, too.

And then, just like a baby bird spreading its wings and flying for the first time... it worked!

Our little girl was off on her own.

Oops!  We need to learn to brake.

Things We Learned While Teaching Anna Jean To Ride A Bike:

1. Anna's legs apparently do not move unless she is talking.  She talks and talks and talks her way up and down the street.
2. Girls are very interested in the little sparkly strings that come out of their handlebars.  Girls will stop bike-riding lessons to pick-up sparkly strings that have fallen into the street.
3. When Anna gets scared, she veers her bike to the side.  Over and over, we had to tell her that when you get scared, you have to just keep looking ahead and going in the right direction.  THAT is going to be a sermon illustration someday.

So after successfully graduating three students, this mom and dad are retiring from our school of teaching little ones to ride without training wheels.  Whew.  Just in time.  At ages 40 and 41 our legs are getting TIRED!

Happy Easter

We hope your celebration of the Savior's resurrection was as joyful as ours has been.  Our family is so thankful that the five of us are never, ever alone:  Jesus is always with us.  :)

And I am happy that the Lord bloomed my bushes just in time to take some Easter pictures of the kids in the yard.

Christopher, age 11.  Growing-up entirely too fast. 

 John 

"Cause Every Girl Crazy 'Bout A Sharp-Dressed Man" 

Barnette, age 9.

 Anna Jean, age 6.

Our Family's First Passover

The children and I have spent some time this month studying the Jewish celebration of Passover, which culminated in us having our first-ever family Seder this week. 

The best resources we found to study Passover were this video by Messianic Jew Zola Levitt, and the book Why On This Night? A Passover Haggadah for Family Celebration by Rahel Musleah.

The first step we took for our Passover preparation came the ritual of cleaning-up every speck of dirt an dust we could find...

Then came the fun part:  preparing the food.

Our Family's Passover Menu:

Matzo Ball Soup

Unleavened Bread

Latkes (potato pancakes)

peas

grape juice

Ashkenazi Haroset (a mixture of apples, walnuts & cinnamon)

Beitzah (boiled eggs)

parsley and salt water

fresh-grated horseradish (for the bitter herbs)

celery sticks (for the Karpas)

and a lamb shank, for representative purposes

We set our best table possible, lit the candles, and began the ceremony....

We were of course sure to save a place for Elijah.  Which sparked the funniest part of our Passover.  Anna - who is six -  absolutely, unquestionably believed that Elijah was coming to our house.  She kept looking for him all day.  Anna apparently likens Elijah to the Tooth Fairy.  If you leave a tooth under your pillow, the Tooth Fairy is sure to come.  And if you leave a place-setting for Elijah...

Things Learned From Our Passover Celebration:

•  I learned that making Jewish food is not easy.  There's very little of it that you can throw in the oven or in a Crock Pot and walk away from.  Much of the food has to be cooked on the stove at the last minute.
• Anna learned that when searching for the Afikomen, you can also find a lost doll, an M&M in the couch cushions, and a quarter.
• Tim learned that although they might look similar, Matzo balls don't taste as good as dumplings.  However, the boys learned that they are pretty big fans of unleaved bread.
• The kids learned that Jesus can be found all through the rituals of Passover, from the food eaten to the verses spoken.  Which is pretty uncanny considering how long Passover preceded the birth of Jesus.
• We learned that for 450 years before Josiah, the Israelites did not celebrate Passover.  One of the first things Josiah did as king was to re-instate the remembrance of Passover.
• We learned that even Gentiles like ourselves have the ability to know God better by understanding Passover.

NEXT YEAR IN JERUSALEM!!!

Putting A Little Spring in Our Step... in Chapel Hill

Our family visited the North Carolina Botanical Gardens in Chapel Hill this week, which are owned by UNC.  The university's botany students maintain and do research in the gardens, which are free and open to the public.  It's definitely a relaxing way to pass an afternoon...

Anna Jean was by far the most excited of the five of us about the flowers.  She danced and smelled her way  up and down and through the paths.  And when she finished, she had a tell-tale sign of having dipped her nose in some springtime...

There were times that I fully expected Peter Rabbit or Benjamin Bunny to jump out and say "hello" to us!  The Botanical Gardens look like a page out of a Beatrix Potter book...

The yummiest part of the gardens were the herb gardens.  With so many herbs growing together, when the wind blew just right it smelled like something was cooking.  In the picture below, John walks beside a bay bush:  those are bay leaves like we put in Italian recipes.

And in the herb garden, the students had decorated a tree with kitchen utensils.  Cute.

 But one of the coolest things that the UNC students had done was to create a giant chess board out of spray-painted pots and garden equipment.  They even let visitors play!

 The "poison plants" section contained a few too many itchy plants for my comfort.  Yes, they intentionally grow poison ivy in there, I suppose in the name of research.  I walked in to take this picture and then skeedaddled right back out...

The Paul Green Cabin had been located to the Botanical Gardens in the 1990's.  Paul Green is a Pulitzer-Prize winning North Carolina author.  He wrote a book about the Lost Colony, which was later made into a play in Manteo in the Outer Banks.

The boys had a fun time looking for plant markers that had funny names:

  And John posed proudly beside a buckeye tree.  Having once been one.

(A Buckeye...not a tree. :D)

And with Tim being Tim, he couldn't leave without finding a 3' black snake, who happily smiled for a picture.  (I think that little guy is smiling....but then again I could be wrong.)

 One of the restaurants I had always wanted to try in Chapel Hill was the famous Mama Dip's.  Mama Dip's serves classic southern cuisine: it was named the 2nd best restaurant in the South in 2009 and was the feature of an article in Southern Living magazine in 2011.  Tim had fried chicken and pinto beans.  I had salmon cake and turnip greens.  The best thing Mama Dip's serves, though, has to be their mac and cheese.  Yum.

We couldn't slip out of Chapel Hill without swinging by Duke University over in Durham and saying hello to the Blue Devils.  

And that's how we "got our spring on" this week.