Evelyn – 19 Months

I would have to say that this has been the most challenging parenting month that we’ve ever had with Evie.  Many times I’ve looked at Brad, thrown my hands in the air and said “I just don’t know what to do with her!”  The tantrums come at record numbers and we wonder what is going on with her!  Even though it’s been challenging, man, I just love that little girl to death.  No matter what she does or how discouraging parenting can be, it doesn’t change the love I have for her.  What a treasure she is to me.  Hmmm, I wonder if that’s how the Lord feels about me at times?

"Where's Evie? Peek-a-boo!"

"Where's your nose?"

In one of the previous posts there are some pictures of her pushing her stroller around.  That has been a continued favorite activity.  She loves her babies and is also especially attached to her blankie that she pushes around in the stroller.  She loves her sunglasses and has surprised me at how well she keeps them on.  It’s fun seeing her play with girly things, although I think she likes playing with Tristan’s cars just as much!

She loved me taking her picture this day...she would run back and forth from the couch to the camera to see what picture I took of her!

Before Christmas we had a lot of problems with her playing in the toilet.  Between teaching Tristan to always close the lid and not having any problems on our trip, I thought we were out of that phase.  Nope.  Tristan forgot one time and one of his Thomas trains got its first dunking courtesy of Evie.  Thankfully she doesn’t know how to flush the toilet yet and I only had to retrieve it from the bowl.  We’re back to keeping a close eye on the bathroom!

She loves to take the stool from the bathroom and bring it to the living room to either sit and watch movies on or to stand on!

She loves to play in front of the full length mirror in our bedroom.  She’ll stand there and look at herself, point, giggle, smile, etc.  I remember Tristan doing that every now and then, but Evie is just enthralled with looking at herself in a way that he never did.  The other day I walked into our bedroom and caught her walking away from the mirror, pushing her stroller with one hand, turned, and waving bye to herself in the mirror with the other hand!

She loves the beach!

I love fixing her hair in pig tales!  I did it a lot over our trip and some since we’ve been home.  I would do it that way all the time except that her hair is so thin and fine it breaks off a lot around where I have the rubber bands.

I think that Evie has grown a lot this month.  I think she might be catching up from gaining and losing weight with he sicknesses in November and December.  All of a sudden some of her 9 & 12 month clothes are getting tight and short and the 18 month clothes are starting to fit.  I was looking at her sleeping the other day and it just hit me how much she looks like a toddler and not a baby anymore.

Email Subscriptions

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Looking for Like-Minded Leaders

I have certainly met a wide variety of church leaders since we have arrived in Freeport.  They vary as much as the churches they serve in, which range from several hundred to a handful… conservative and calm to charismatic and frenzied… educationally accomplished to very little training… and you get the picture.  Some of these factors can make it easy to make assumptions or fit certain people/congregations into a stereo-type that may not be true.  It also takes plenty of time to develop a meaningful relationship, so where do I start?

I know that I cannot give a great amount of time to building relationships with all of these men that I am meeting.  This does not mean that I neglect or dismiss anyone, but I must realistically begin with a modest few that I want to really know and develop connection with beyond the surface.  Where I have chosen to start is to look for those who are like-minded in their thinking about life with Christ and the purpose of His church.  Two of the key factors in identifying these people include the following:

1.  Do they establish the Word of God as the true source of authority in their life and local church? Many of the local churches here are very dependent on one man to lead them and be the face of the church.  The willingness of a leader to subject himself to the scrutiny and authority of the Scriptures says a lot about who rules the heart.

2.  Do they have a vision to equip the people they shepherd in the Word? It is easy to be the man that the people depend on to drive the ministry and do the work, but the humble shepherd realizes it is his job to equip the people for the work of ministry.

Lord willing, we will begin the training process in March with a group of like-minded leaders hungry to be further equipped in God’s Word.  Whatever the background or denomination of the people He sends we are going to examine the Scriptures together deeply and let His truth have its way with us!

Leadership Conference

The Zion United Baptist Churches of Freeport and west Grand Bahama recently had a conference for its church leaders.  I was given the opportunity to teach several sessions due to the relationship that I have built with the director of training, Dr. Elvis Burrows.  He is someone that I met a few years back when we first began the training in Freeport.  Also a pastor of one of the Zion Baptist churches in Eight Mile Rock, a settlement near the port just outside of the city, Dr. Burrows returned to Freeport after studying at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.  I have quickly come to appreciate my friendship with him as a like-minded brother who is very concerned about exalting the Word of God and discipling others to maturity in Christ.

The sessions that he asked me to do involved conflict resolution and building a unified team.  While each session was intended to cover different material, it ended up that the focus in each was really the same.  Understanding the value of body life, and our call to function and live together as one body in Christ, is critical to our approach in resolving conflict and developing healthy teamwork.  After examining the right mind-set we began to discuss practical ways to model these principles in the church and train others to think and do the same.  Although I did not know many of the people who came, we found a common bond in our disappointing experiences and desire to see the body of Christ working as He intended it to be.  What a challenging and wonderful time of exploring His Word on such important issues in the church.

Siblings

Playing on the slide in the back yard

As Evelyn gets older she is able to play with Tristan more and more.  It’s a lot of fun to see them interacting with each other independently of us.  Tristan continues to be very gentle and kind with her.  He always greets her with a kiss and hug each morning and talks to her in his high pitch baby voice.  It’s very sweet and cute.  Evelyn tolerates his smothering OK, but eventually she gets frustrated and tries to pull away. Tristan always asks for her while she’s napping.  “Baby up, baby up?”  When I tell him that she’s going to sleep a little longer, he gets the most dejected look on his face! Oh, and he’s always called her “baby”.  Every time I try to get him to say Evelyn or Evie, he emphatically shakes his head and says “baby”!

More playing in the back yard

At dinner every evening, when we say it’s time to pray, Evelyn immediately reaches out for Tristan’s hand.  (Their chairs are right beside each other.)  They hold hands the whole time we pray and then Tristan is always waiting for us to say “in Jesus name” because they he says “Amen” with us.  Evie also tries to say “Amen”.

Brad took this picture in complete darkness...that's why our eyes are so squinty!

Now that they’re on the same bedtime routine, they love to do everything together.  They rush to the bathroom when I say “time to brush teeth”.  Then they race to the rocking chair to read, sing, talk and pray.   At the end of our rocking time, I say “lets pray” and the same routine that happens at dinner happens again.  Except this time, Evie reaches for Tristan’s hand and then they put their hands inside of mine.  It’s so sweet.  Then there’s kisses all around and off to bed!

Watching a movie together

We got Tristan a new booster car seat over Christmas so that Evelyn could move up from the infant seat to Tristan’s old convertible seat.  Evelyn loves being able to see out now and they both love sitting beside each other.  We’ve even caught them holding hands together completely unprompted by us!

Taking a walk together

I try to get the kids outside on a regular basis.  We either play in our back yard or go for a walk.  The beach is about a mile from our house, so I will walk them down there and let them play in the sand for a while and then walk home.  It’s a little exercise for me and a fun outing for them.  The water is a little cool right now, so we don’t do swim suits and bring the water stuff.  I throw in a few sand toys and they’re thrilled!

First trip to the beach in a while...getting used to it again!

Doesn't take long to be covered head to toe with sand!

We continue to pray that their bond grows and deepens as they get older.  Family is such a blessing!

Lucayan National Park

On Saturday, we enjoyed a family trip to Lucayan National Park.  We picked up some tickets last fall, but never got the chance to go.  This park is about 30 miles east of Freeport and a new trip for me having never been out East of the city.  We had a great time hiking the trails and exploring a new area.  I think we will be going back every now and then.  It’s a great outing for us.

We hiked off and on for about 2 hours, taking a break to each a quick lunch we packed.  We put Evelyn in a back pack carrier and Tristan hiked the whole way.  He did such a great job!  We explored caves, trails, mangroves, the beach and watched the fish and birds.  I think Tristan’s favorite part were the caves.  We walked that trail first and the rest of the time he kept saying “more caves”.  He cried when it was time to go.  I thought he would be over hiking, but I guess he wasn’t!  Here’s our excursion in pictures.

Entrance to the park off Grand Bahama Highway - the caves trail is North of the road and the mangroves and beach are South of the road.

Getting ready to walk down the stairs into cave #1

This isn't a great picture, but I wanted to show you how blue the water is even in a cave! The parts where the sunlight reached from the opening were just beautiful!

Walking down into cave #2

Family picture in the cave, just below the entrance. The caves are really all underwater - over 6 miles of tunnels. We just explored the entrance to them!

Tristan leading the way on the trail.

A section of the South trail was this board walk over a creek. We saw lots of fish in the water and birds in the mangroves.

Evie was content the whole time riding on Daddy's back!

Playing on Goldrock beach.

It was high tide, so with these trees on the beach, there wasn't a lot of sand.

Headed out on another smaller board walk.

This one was a little more unsteady, but Tristan still did great on it!

Tristan 3 years + 2 months

Tristan has adjusted to our home life after the trip exceptionally well.  I am so thankful for this!  The biggest change to his routine is cutting out his afternoon nap.  We wanted to get him on the same bed time as Evelyn so we only did the bedtime routine once an evening.  We wanted to get them both in bed by 8PM.  If Tristan takes a long nap, he’s not ready for bed at this time, so it was time to start cutting back on the nap.  Instead he takes a rest time for an hour each afternoon.  He has to stay in bed, but he can look at books or take a few toys to bed to play with.  About 2-3 times a week he ends up falling asleep during rest time, especially on days that he’s played hard outside.   So far, it’s worked out nicely and he’s been going to bed at 8PM every night.

What his bed typically looks like during rest time...this was one of the days he obviously fell asleep

Tristan’s speech has increased so much since we’ve been home!  He’s putting together 3+ words at a time and it’s so fun.  One of the first days home he ran in to the office expecting to see Brad in there.  When Tristan didn’t see him in there, he turned to me and said “Mom, where Daddy go?”  I have an increasingly hard time understanding him because he’s attempting to say so many new words.  Many times I just have to say, “sorry bud, I don’t know what you’re saying.”  He attempts to say everything that I ask him to say now, where as before he didn’t want to try.  For the first time he wanted to learn our little neighbor girls name and said it over and over again while they were playing.

He loves to play with these Toy Story stamps that I got at the dollar store!

I think my favorite thing he says now is “I miss you”.  Whenever I am gone for any period of time…it could be as little as leaving the room for a few minutes or leaving him with Brad for a couple hours or just waking up in the morning…Tristan always greets me like I’ve been gone forever.  He say “mom” over and over again in this high pitch, sweet voice, and then he hugs me over and over again.  Yesterday morning after he got up every time he came to hug me he said “I miss you”.  (It happened probably 5-6 times)  I loved it!  He is such a sweetie.

Couldn't resist taking a picture of his hand while he was sleeping one afternoon.

This month he had started to “whistle”.  It caught us off guard the first time he did it.  He puts both of his hands up to his mouth like you would see someone use their fingers to whistle, but instead of whistling, he lets out this high pitch screech!  It’s loud!  He started doing this when he and Evie would chase each other around the house.  He has increased to using it to get my attention, especially if we’re in separate rooms.  When it’s time to go somewhere, he whistles.  Most of the time it’s quite funny, but at times I wonder if it’s respectful to have my son whistling at me!

It’s been fun to see Tristan come up with things on his own.  Babies and toddler imitate so much than when they start being creative it’s fun to watch.  The other day Tristan heard a dog barking outside.  The following conversation took place:

Tristan: “dog bark”

Mommmy: “yes, there’s a dog barking”.

Tristan: “Daddy bark?”

Mommy: “No, honey, Daddy doesn’t bark.”

Tristan: “Tristan bark?”

Mommy: “I don’t think you bark, do you?”

Tristan: “uh-huh…bark, bark, bark”

Now whenever he see a dog in a book or sees one outside and so on, he says “bark”.  I guess that’s a prime example of kids being literal!

One evening last week, I was getting Tristan ready to run an errand with Brad and Tristan asked me, “mom coming, baby coming?”  I told him that Evie and I were going to stay home and watch a girl movie.  He was content with that and left with Brad.  They ended up coming home sooner than expected and I hadn’t even started watching the chick flick yet.  After being home for a little while, Tristan came up to me and said “girl movie, girl movie, girl movie”.  I confirmed that he was asking to watch the girl movie and he kept insisting on watching it.  I explained that it wasn’t a movie for him to watch and that he wouldn’t like it…all to no avail.  Finally I pulled the movie out of the drawer and showed it to him.  He took one look at it and said “mope”.  (his version of nope or no)  So, while Brad was slightly distressed that his son wanted to watch a girl movie, he was quickly put at ease that Tristan didn’t want to watch it as soon as he knew what a girl movie was!

Ready to go out with Daddy!

Tristan likes to identify places we arrive at while driving in the car.  Store, food, water, etc.  When we were in the US he liked to identify the houses we visited.  Nana’s house, Nanny’s house, Trina’s, Adam’s, house, etc.  Since coming home, he has identified our home as “Daddy’s house”.  I’ve tried a lot of convincing him to say “mommy’s house” or “our house”, but nope, it’s always “Daddy’s house.”

I had a lot of convincing to do to take these outdoor pictures of him.  The last thing he wants to do is look at the camera!  After a lot of pictures of him on the go, I finally told him that he could choose where he wanted his picture taken.  It worked!  He chose all these spots and poses.  I think he did a great job.

Since We’ve Been Home

Life is slowly getting back to our normal here.  With the kids being on a crazy schedule for our month in the US we’re doing an overhaul now.  We still haven’t figured things out, but we’re trying to get into a set nap time and bed time routine.  Tristan has had fun playing with all his new toys and Evie has done her own thing.  Actually, she’s been a handful since coming home!  I think she got used to being entertained 24/7 by all the people she was surrounded with and it’s rocked her world that mommy can’t hold her ALL the time.  There’s been lots of melt downs and re-training going on here!

The little diva herself

Evie had a way of creating more work for me while I was trying to get unpacked!

...and again with the wet wipes!

This is a continued favorite activity for our kids…

They chase each other around the “circle” in our house for hours a day.  (At least it seems like hours!)  They have certainly gotten full use of this push toy and stroller!

We have experienced the same cold front that Florida is experiencing.  We’ve not been quite as cold, 40’s at night and 50’s during the day, but that’s cold for Bahamians!  The church we went to on Sunday had a much smaller crowd than we’ve seen before.  I asked one of the people there why there weren’t many people there and she said it was because it’s so cold out!  I was corresponding with another friend here over email about getting together and she told me that we could “get together when it warms back up because Bahamians don’t do rain or cold”.  Having just come off our trip to the US, we know that these temps are balmy compared to what many of you are still experiencing!  I must say though, I have been colder this week here than I was during our whole trip to the US.  While I experienced periods of being colder, like while I was outdoors, I was always able to warm up once inside.  Our house temp is in the 50’s and we don’t have heat!  I am always cold.  I have put all the blankets we have on the beds and have alternated the 2 sweatshirts that I have here every other day!  I even caught Brad using a blanket last night on the couch and I have never seen him do that in all the years we’ve been married. 

Trying to get warm!

Wrestling with Daddy is a frequent evening activity and Mommy chooses rocking as her evening activity!

Tristan and Evelyn Monthly Update

Just wanted to do a quick post for Tristan’s 3 years +1 month and Evie’s 18 month update.  I obviously didn’t get their updates done while on the trip!  They spent this whole last month being entertained by grandparents, aunt, uncles, cousins and lots of friends.  The kids really do a great job of going with the flow and adjusting to where ever they are.  They are constantly meeting new people and sleeping in new beds, but they do great.

Tristan is saying more and more.  I think being around all the people has helped with that.  He loved to play with the Thomas trains and tracks that my mom saved from my brothers playing with them!  Tristan also loved to play air hockey and dinosaurs.  There was always someone to play with him!

The biggest thing on this trip for him was learning to use his manners all the time.  He likes to say hi and bye when it’s his idea, but if we asked him to do it, he didn’t always want to comply.  He had lots of opportunities to practice and he’s getting better and better.

Uncle Dawson loving on Tristan

He has continued to do a great job with being potty trained.  I brought some pull-ups with us because I wasn’t sure how he would do at nap and night time being in new places and new schedules.  He did great while sleeping, but did have a couple accidents during the day.  Both times we were at a new house and he was excited to be playing with new toys.  I think he just was excited and waited too long to tell me that he had to go.

Telling Uncle Travis that he has to go potty - he always holds his nose to tell us!

Evie loved being the center of attention!  Everyone was watching her and she knew it!  She would put on a show and steal everyone’s hearts with those big eyes and cheesy smile.

She did get sick for about 6 days the week of Christmas.  It ended up being roseola and she was just miserable for that time period.  She was also a handful the first few days getting over being sick as she had gotten used to having her way and being held all the time!  Thankfully no one else got sick during the trip, which is a huge praise!

Evie had a well baby check up and got her 12 month immunizations.  She weighed in at 19 pounds ( off the bottom of the chart percentile) and 29.5 inches tall ( 6th percentile).  We got lots of comments on how small she is and that she looks a lot smaller in person than she does in pictures.  She really is tiny!  This tiny one eats plenty though, so I’m not concerned.  Now, if she had Tristan’s eating habits, I would be concerned.  She still eats more than Tristan most of the time.

Evie loves her string cheese!

She finally completed cutting through her one year molars on the trip.  They had been poking through forever, but now I can see the entire tops of them.  She still isn’t saying anything and doesn’t seem to very receptive to using signs.  I need to be more diligent in working on the signs with her.  Brad and I have just concluded that we’re not good at teaching our kids to talk!  Ha!  While I have fleeting moments of concern about it, I know that it will come eventually just like it has for Tristan.

First ice cream cone...in the cafeteria at Cedarville

Having fun with Uncle Jason at a basketball game

I had trouble choosing what pictures to include for this post…we have so many from the past month!!!

Friends, Chattanooga and a Baby Shower

We enjoyed many visits with friends over our trip.  Sometimes I got pictures and sometimes I didn’t.  Somehow chasing 2 kids around during a visit makes it difficult to take pictures!  Here’s one visit with a friend from college.  Christine and I and were housemates my first year at Cedarville and she was the main influence for me to become an EMT/Firefighter.  No picture of us together, but here are our kiddos.  Not sure what happened to Evie’s sock, but the kids had a great time together!

Tristan, Adam, Evie and Anna

We also got to make a day trip to Chattanooga the Sunday after Christmas to attend our sending church and visit with some more friends.  We love opportunities to see our small group from when we lived in Chattanooga.  With some having moved (we miss you Bennetts!) and others sick, we had a smaller group, but it was just as great.  Only 5 kids this time and only 2 of them made it into a picture!

Tristan isn't sure what to think of Brock's face here!

We were able to have dinner with Paul and Lisa Voss.  It was so great to see them and their kids.  It had been a while!  Caleb and Tristan had fun playing Thomas together all evening!

Tristan and Evie with Jessica and Caleb

Right before we left to come home, I was able to go to my sis-in-laws baby shower.  Travis and Amanda are due to have a baby boy in March and we are so excited for them.  It was a fun afternoon with the girls!

Not sure how I missed out on this sisters picture!

Evie is looking forward to having a cousin on the Ayers side of the family!

Evie wanted to get in on the gift action!