Whoa! I'm a slacker!

So I ventured on our blog tonight and noticed how slack I am. 4 months fly by and zero posts. To top it all off, there's not 1 iota mentioning our Tman's 3rd birthday! So here's the ketchup from the last 4 months and Tman's birthday.

SEPTEMBER: Our little man turns 3! I can't believe it, the time just zips by! He had an awesome party fit for a superhero with all the trimmings. His cake, of course, "Hulk Smash"! Family and friends relished his sweet self when he opened almost every present and sweetly stated, "Oh 'tank' you! I always wanted 'dat'!" He's such a prince! A few bulleted items to keep everyone posted on the up and ups of our Tman!

*Favorite Person: By far, his big brother J. He tells me often, "we need to go pick up J from school, now. I jus miss him so so much!"

*Loves to: Hug and Cuddle (he's our BigLove)

*Enjoys: Staying home and playing with action figures - 'Hulk Smash' is a current favorite

*Favorite Food: Anything that tastes well,...good. He's a great eater, however, he does take after his dad with a bit of a sweet tooth especially for chocolate. He's his father's son in more ways than one!

*Can't live without: Mommy, of course! I'm really not kidding here. He is such a mama's boy. Woe to the girl who captures his heart. We're praying about her already.

*Big Plans: To start school in the fall! Tman cannot wait to join his big brother and attend school. He'll be heading to 3K next year. He enjoys pretending he's going to school, puts on his backpack, climbs on his little scooter and rides to "school" (which happens to be our living room).

*Spiritual Gift: Generous Heart. He honestly is the most sharing, gentle, child I've had the pleasure of living with!

*Sweetest Words I Ever Heard: "I love you sooo much Mommy!"

OCTOBER: We enjoyed the look and sometimes "feel" of fall and the boys, especially J, commented daily on the leaves changing colors. As a family we participated big time in our church Fall Festival. Kevin and I (well, mostly Kevin) decorated the back of the van like the Hulk Lab. Unfortunately, I didn't get the first picture. I believe that, in itself, broke Kevin's heart. But he did a great job, it looked really cool. He dressed up like Hulk and I like the mad scientist that I am. The boys were Raphael TMNT and AquaMan, our first homemade costume. T had to be AquaMan and who knew finding a costume for that character would be impossible, yes impossible. So we bought clothing that matched as much as we could. Kevin painted muscles on the front of the shirt, made a Triton, and we completed the costume with black boots. He looked similar and his costume was probably the most comfortable one out there! NOVEMBER: As the month rolled on, we found ourselves headed back to the doctor for a second ultrasound to check the baby's development. I was sure I wanted to be surprised about finding out the gender of Baby #3...until...we got in the room. The technician asked me if we wanted to find out Baby's gender and I told her this: "If baby shows off, then we'll find out, if it's too hard to see, then we're content to be surprised." Well, baby folded legs and wouldn't let us see. The technician told us, if we REALLY wanted to know, she'd get me to come back after my visit and try again but we were content with that and happy to have that settled. Well, we get home and try out our DVD that "had" superb footage of Baby sucking fingers and wiggling around and nothing showed up. I tried three times to get the DVD to play and it just cut off so when I called back to explain what happened, the technician offered to re-record some footage a few days later. So I went back, this time, baby was showing off. I don't know if I had something to eat or drink that made HIM exceptionally bravado but I could tell right away we were having another Berry Boy. I commented to the technician that I could see baby was a boy and she zoomed in on the turtle. Yep, sure enough we are welcoming a new boy into the house. Pray for us and we will have a house full of BOYS! Yikes!

Wonder what the third Berry Boy will look like? Will he take after mom like J? or dad like T? Hmmmm.... Having some Thanksgiving grub at my Aunt's for dinner. Obviously, I'm eating for two. This new boy is gonna be a big eater I can already tell! My Aunt Sharon noticed my full plate too... ;)

DECEMBER: Wow, it's been a whirlwind! This month has literally flown. I blinked my eyes and it was gone. However, this Christmas like all the ones in the past years was wonderful! We eagerly looked for to Christmas day so we could celebrate with a birthday party for Jesus. The boys helped build the nativity with snippets from Scripture and a book called "What God Wants for Christmas". It was exciting to have T take part in this since last Christmas he was too little to understand. The boys took part in getting one another gifts this year and poor T couldn't wait to rip into his. He literally did, not once but 3 times. We had a wonderful weekend celebration at home, with my family, and then Sunday with Kevin's family. The icing on the cake was Sunday after Christmas when Jordan was baptized at church. We were thrilled over the summer when Jordan made a commitment for Christ but we were timid to go full force because of his young age. He'd asked soo many questions and really wanted to be saved. So I prayed with him (used my handy Romans Road) and Kevin did too. We then explained to him what he had done in his heart and took him to our pastor to talk it over. Our pastor felt Jordan was sure of his salvation and gave us a date for baptism. We know that there may come times in his life when he will stumble on this path but his heart is forever safe in our Heavenly Father's hands and for that we are eternally grateful. To God be the Glory! Should you feel in your heart the tug that only our Father can give? Have you ever accepted his gift of grace for your own life? Our Father created every person with a heart that needs to filled by him and him alone. If you've never asked him to come into your heart and fill it up, maybe today's the day.

The Bible (God's Holy Word) tells us that there is no ONE who always does what is right, not even one -Romans 3:10. Paul (an apostle for Christ) also tells us that because of our sin we are not good enough for God's glory and in order to be right with him we HAVE to receive his free gift of grace through Jesus Christ -Romans 3:23 "When people sin, they earn what sin pays - that's death. But God gives us a free gift - life forever in Christ Jesus our Lord." - Romans 6:23 Jesus Christ was the ultimate payment for our sin when he died on the cross so long ago. He wrote the check to cover a debt that we would never have been able to pay, no matter how hard we tried on our own - Romans 5:8. So what does it take to receive this free gift? This is the best part!!! "If you use your mouth to say, "Jesus is Lord", and you believe in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead, you will be saved. We believe with our hearts, and so we are made right with God. And we use our mouths to say that we believe, and so we are saved" - Romans 10: 9 -10. No, our lives are not perfect but we are not meant to be perfect. There is only one person on planet Earth who was perfect and that was God's son, Jesus. The Bible says that "anyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved" - Romans 10:13.

Little Man J right before he climbed into the baptistery. I have pics of him while he was waiting to be dunked but they aren't uploaded. This was taken by our good friend, Brad.

As our little family grows we are delighted to know that J, called upon his Heavenly Father and is saved. We can't wait to see what God has in store for this little fella and how he will be used for the Kingdom's Glory.

I truly hope 2009 has been a good year for all those out there we hold dear and close to our hearts. We have so many things to be thankful for and blessings from our Dad up above are just too numerous to count! May 2010 hold so much more!