Halloween 2010

We attended a "Light the Night for Jesus" event at Reddicks Grove Baptist Church tonight. It was a fun festival event with all kinds of games, a hay ride, cakewalk, crafts, and food for kids of all ages. The twins had a great time...and so did I, especially when I won a homemade cake! It was great to catch up with a lot of folks from Steven's home church and see the twins so happy with their Mima and Papa.


Meredith and Berkley loved this kiddie rollercoaster, which you can see by the giant smiles on their faces:)

More fun on a hayride with Mima and Papa!

Berkley playing a fishing game. I love how Meredith is so patiently waiting behind him, trying to figure out what is going on.


I wanted you all to see Steven's dad's horses and cart. These horses just won 4 blue ribbons at the state fair! They're just beautiful and Steven's dad has done an amazing job training and caring for them. I also couldn't resist sharing this precious video of Berkley's glee while riding on the kiddie roller coaster.

Fall 2010 Festivities

Today has been a fun-filled day of Halloween/Fall activities. This morning I was blessed with the opportunity to join some fellow stay-at-home moms in delivering trick-or-treat goodies to some elderly folks at a local assisted living facility. It was a reverse trick-or-treating of sorts; our kids were dressed up but they did the treating. It was great seeing the older kids joyfully knocking on the doors of these people they didn't even know, giving them hugs, attention, and yummy treats. I've been challenged a lot recently in considering how am I doing at loving people, not just those I know and those who are easy to love, but people who I've never met that may take more effort to love; ultimately this love should come as a result of the love Christ has shown me. This morning was a great opportunity to learn to love others more and I hope that it was a great beginning for Meredith and Berkley to learn to love as well.
Here's half of our kids with their moms. What a fun group!
I couldn't have done it today without the help of Grandma!

Then after the twins woke up from their nap, which by the way was 3 HOURS today (huge deal considering they typically haven't slept for more than 1.5 hours since we switched to 1 nap), Steven and I took them to Briley's farm. We went on a hayride, picked out two little pumpkins and got to feed the farm animals. Meredith and Berkley's favorites were the hayride, the giant sand pile and just having the freedom to run around in the open space. Here are some fun pictures from our farm adventure.

Meredith and Berkley with their little pumpkins.



I love this one, Berkley is handing Meredith a piece of straw. Wish they'd share like this all of the time:)

Lake Lure 2010

Here is the beautiful fall foliage surrounding the Broad River which we had the privilege of seeing while on our vacation with Steven's family at Lake Lure, NC this past week. What a beautiful week to be in the mountains of North Carolina and what a memorable time we all shared with Grandma Penny (Pen-Pen), Aunt Lisa, Aunt Brenda & Uncle Billy, Mima & Papa, Matthew & Haley, and Heather.



One of the highlights of our trip was a boat tour of Lake Lure. This was the first boat ride for Meredith and Berkley. Berkley was mesmerized by being on the water and just appeared to be in awe of the water the entire time. Meredith enjoyed being on the water while the boat was really moving, but got antsy when things slowed down. The scenery was beautiful and we realized that we couldn't have chosen a more ideal time to see the colorful fall leaves.

Did you know that the water lift scene from the movie Dirty Dancing was taped at Lake Lure? It was and we had the opportunity to see the exact spot while on the tour- so cool!



Another HUGE highlight of our vacation was having Steven's cousin play the banjo for us all. Berkley and Meredith had never heard a banjo before and I had a feeling they'd love it...and boy did they!!! You see above Heather teaching Meredith how to strum and below that a picture of Berkley's sweet face, adoring Heather as she plays. I wish you all could have seen the whole family clapping and dancing to the banjo music, what fun!


We also visited Chimney Rock State Park while in the area. We were able to take the babies to the bottom of the Rock, but not all the way up to the top. Here is the four of us inside the tunnel leading to the elevator to go up to Chimney Rock, it's a 26 floor ride to the base of the rock and then you have to climb stairs to actually stand on Chimney Rock.


Overall, it was simply a wonderful time. Other highlights included seeing a pack of wild turkeys crossing the street, there were probably a dozen of them - some ran across and others flew. We drove up to the site of a car accident while driving to Asheville. All we could see from a distance was a car on the side of the road that appeared to be close to toppling over the edge. We didn't realize until we were finally able to pass the site that it was only a few inches from toppling into a creek bed below and that the victims of the accident were a young family who appeared to be about our age with an infant in a car seat. Boy did that put things in perspective and help us more appreciate being together and safe.

Other fun things that the twins did while on our trip - Meredith started saying "Come On" and tapping her hands on her legs to tell you to come. Meredith also started saying "alright" and "good girl." Berkley started saying "what's that." They are both saying "door" consistently and will say "open" when they want you to open it. A funny thing that Meredith did during the whole trip was crowing like a rooster whenever she was upset, it was hilarious. The four of us shared a room the whole time and Meredith woke up one night in the middle of the night. Now if we had been at home we would've let her cry a bit to see if she'd settle back down, so we tried this method of handling things first. Meredith knew we were in the room and cried and cried and then all of a sudden she crowed like a rooster. Imagine Steven and I lying in bed praying that Meredith would calm down and then out of the blue she crows. We were laughing so hard and of course, had to respond to her. I guess she figured out that people would respond to the crow because she did it several other times during the trip. Berkley and Meredith loved playing with all of the fall leaves, I think they were their favorite toys the entire trip.

I can't reiterate enough how much Steven and I appreciate our families. It was such a blessing to spend quality time with the Gurkin bunch and make some happy memories.

We Learn Along the Way

There are so many ways in which we grow in wisdom with time, but I'm particularly going to focus on a silly type of wisdom today, which is the wisdom of blogging. I started this blog in 2004 after my sister passed away in a car accident. I used the blog as a therapeutic thing of sorts - to vent, grieve and weep via my computer. It was such a helpful thing and I'm glad that I started it. Today I was looking back through my blog posts and read a comment from a lady whom I'd never met. She had lost her brother from suicide the same year and her father was battling illness. I checked out her blog and was so encouraged to read her words of healing, biblical truth and to share her pain of such profound loss. I was so thankful that I could look back on her blog and read from the beginning, when she'd first loss her brother, to the recent present as she continues to heal. I would like to hope that my blog could provide the same comfort for someone experiencing loss...only, I remembered that I deleted a bunch of my posts. What was I thinking?! When I was creating my album and put my blog address in the cover I thought that some of the posts might be too personal, so I deleted a bunch of the posts dealing with my sister's death and my dad's illness. Don't be alarmed, I do have paper copies of these posts, but why in the world did I think it was a good idea to delete them from the blog itself and why didn't I save them on a drive somewhere instead of just printing out paper copies. Now, if somebody wants to go back to read my story to be encouraged through learning about how I've grown through my grief, there's no record. Well, there's nothing I can do about it...well, I guess I could retype all those posts, but that would take A LONG time! Once again, using the blog to vent...frustrated that I didn't know then, what I know now.

17th month update

The twins are 18 months old today. I've been keeping a running entry on what new things they've done this last month. Here we go.

I noticed Berkley's 1st molar coming in on 10/17 and a couple of days following that he got a cold. The combination of a cold plus cutting molars was not pretty. Meredith got the cold as well, so it was a tough week to say the least. Meredith can say Hannah, Heather, up, and will make an elephant sound. Berkley's favorite song on the Wee Sing album is "I'm a Nut" done in a chipmunk voice. This month we discovered Child Links, which is like an educational toy library for kids under 5. You can check-out 3 toys at the time for a 3 week period. It gives us a chance to refresh the kids' toys from time to time without having to spend all that money! Meredith and Berkley broke out of the gate a couple of weeks ago and made it all the way up to the top of the stairs before I could catch them. Thank the Lord they didn't fall! While they were upstairs their favorite place to play was the master bathroom, so I weighed them while they were in there. Berkley now weighs 25.2 and Meredith 22.4lbs. We've officially transitioned to one nap, which hasn't been a particularly smooth transition, but I'm assured by my more experienced friends that it will get better with time. The twins now love black olives, especially because they can put them on their fingertips. On 10/19 Meredith and Berkley climbed up on the couch for the first time by themselves. They saw a friend do it and Meredith didn't even hesitate, she just kicked her leg right up on the cushion and pushed herself up. Berkley fussed a bit because he wasn't getting up there fast enough, but with a little patience and encouragement, he made it as well. Thankfully, they have tried it again since, otherwise I'd probably be pulling my hair out by now. On 10/22 we called our Nana and asked her to sing for the twins, which they LOVE! At the end of Jesus Loves Me, Meredith shouted "DOE" for so, it was awesome!

We went to Lake Lure, NC on vacation this past week and just returned today. Meredith and Berkley seemed to grow so much in just a 5 day period, so there will be more updates on their growth as well as info on the vacation in my next post.

Meredith & Granddaddy

I'm visiting my mom's house today because it is just a bit crazy in my neighborhood due to the ECU vs. State game which is right across the street from our subdivision. I'm not kidding, our neighborhood was packed with folks by 8:30 am when I was heading out of town. Being at my mom's is great; I'm enjoying watching the Pirate's great start and catching up on all of my internet traffic while the twins nap.

I wanted to share a quick tender moment between Meredith and my dad today. The twins were looking out the picture window in my dad's bedroom at a tractor spraying cotton when Meredith turned around to me and lifted her arms for me to pick her up. I picked her up and she leaned down asking to go to my daddy. I thought for sure I'd put Meredith in bed with my daddy and she'd squirm to get out. Nope, she sat on my dad's lap, on her knees facing him, grinning and saying "hey" over and over again. Daddy didn't really look at her at first but then I began getting Meredith to make animal sounds. When Meredith roared like a lion my dad's eyes jerked to attention, staring intently at Meredith. Not only that, but Meredith noticed that my dad was wearing the t-shirt with her's and Berkley's picture on it; she pointed to herself and then Berkley. She sat in my dad's lap for a good couple of minutes and then said "bye, bye." I asked her give grandaddy a kiss and she leaned in and kissed him on the nose and then waved bye bye. So Sweet! It was PRECIOUS and I didn't want to forget it, so I thought I should write it down now.

Think Hard, Stay Humble: A Message by Francis Chan

Think Hard, Stay Humble: The Life of the Mind and the Peril of Pride: "Think Hard, Stay Humble: The Life of the Mind and the Peril of Pride on DesiringGod.org"

My pastor shared a link with our body here in Greenville to this message by Francis Chan at the Desiring God conference. I'm so thankful that I took the time to listen and I hope that you too will take the time. It's a little long but very worth it, as it is one of the most challenging messages I've heard in a long time about humility, love and ultimately putting your biblical knowledge into action. Some of the ways it has challenged me is by making me ask:

Am I truly being humble?
Do I genuinely love people? Do I mourn when they mourn? Am I burdened for the lost?
Is my knowledge stirring up love and good deeds and ultimately building my brothers and sisters up in their faith?
Am I boasting in anything other than Christ alone?
Can I say that my life looks like Christ's and welcome people to imitate me?

I hope that the talk gives you a lot to consider as well and will help you love as Christ does.