levi's first........

yes, STEPS!!!! this morning he took about three steps all by his big boy self! it was so exciting! he immediately fell head first into the ottoman afterwards, but HE TOOK HIS FIRST STEPS!! we were so excited. and it was so great because he did it while clayton and i were both around, which is wonderful that clayton got to see it. so it has been a big day for us, and we have been sitting around with the camera ready to see if we can get it on tape. cheezy, i know, but i'm a mom - that's what i do. and he is still trying new food. whew. green beans is the flavor all over his face in the picture...so we are doin work at our house this week! yay!

lets see - what else. ummm. i don't really know. all i can think about is that i am about to have a little boy that can walk all by himself and it seems like i just had him a couple of weeks ago. when i was putting him to bed last night, i just started crying thinking about how fast it's all gone by. it still doesn't seem real that i am a mom to this little baby boy...that he is mine and that it is my responsibility to raise him (with clayton of course, but this is SELF reflection :) i want him to cherish his childhood and love clayton and i because we loved him in a way that shows him who christ is. i want to teach him character and integrity. i want him to be gentle in the way he loves other people, and loving in the way he stands for christ. i want him to desire more than anything the relationship christ has for him. i'm praying that God would teach me how to teach him. that he would show me how to display grace for him and other people in our lives. more than anything, i want levi to grow up in a home that is about christ, and not church. i want him to understand from an early age that he cannot EARN christ's love, but that in the actual relationship with christ there is so much love already given. and in writing all these "goals" that i have for levi, i know that i myself am still learning all of these things. i still am learning to desire christ above everything else. i STILL have to remind myself in the business of ministry that life is about christ and not church. and the most humbling lesson that i learn over and over and over, is that i cannot, in ANY way, earn my saviors love. ugh. there are days and weeks where all i want to do is DO enough things to make him love me. love me more than he did before, to make him love me enough that he will forget about all my mistakes. it is so hard to accept that in the greatest relationship ever offered to any man, that the reason the relationship is so amazing has absolutely nothing to do with what i bring to it. there is nothing about my relationship with christ that I can take credit for...and that, in my human nature, is hard to accept. my prideful self wants to receive some kind of glory for how great this connection is, and in no way is glory due to me. how humbling. how freeing. how incredibly unfair for christ, and so incredibly beneficial for me. when God teaches this system of grace again and again, my heart is revived with a love for him. with a love that recognizes the true sacrifice of the cross and the unexplainable desire to follow and obey. to be so free in his love for me that i desire to submit to his authority. to know that i cannot earn his love, but to still live to honor him with my life. i can't wait to see him one day...and i can't wait for levi to know him. man...

he is so excited about this new talent!

really, he's about to take off and RUN!

making sure we're watching ;)