more jesus

Each night when Elsie goes to sleep we will read three books and then I'll ask her if she wants to snuggle. She always does and it means she turns her body and rests her head under my chin as we rock back and forth and I sing Jesus Loves Me.

Tonight as a stalling tactic, she kept calling out during the song, "More Jesus!" So I sang Jesus Loves the Little Children. And she kept on, "More Jesus! More Jesus!"

I mean, honestly, what is a mother to do?

So I kept on, "Jesus, Jesus there's just something about that name. Master, Savior, Jesus..." and on, "Tis so Sweet to Trust in Jesus...Jesus, Jesus how I trust Him!" and on, "What a Friend we have in Jesus, All our Sins and Griefs to Bear..." And at this point it became a game for me too. A good ol' church-girl challenge. I went through camp songs, hymns, and church liturgy.

It was a really precious moment and a moment I am sure will now be repeated, now that Elsie knows the magic words that will keep me in her room, holding her close, rocking her back and forth, back and forth.

More Jesus!

july at the grovestead

And I'm back! We just returned from family bible camp and had an awesome time. I had planned on blogging while up at camp, but as it turns out camp has its own wonderful pace and I only got my laptop out one time. Which might just be reason number 6,793 why I love family bible camp so much.

But it also meant I went a whole week without blogging! Which is a very rare occurrence for me.

This month flew by and I have a whole lot of posts still left in my head so I thought I'd close this month with a bit of a photo dump. We're in full on summertime here at the grovestead. Lots of animals, flowers, produce, sunshine and weeds. Our chickens are growing, our children are growing, and our garden is growing.

It's a happy season and we're happily soaking it all in.

overheard

Elsie has started calling me, "BahKah." I've tried to tell her that I am her mama a few times, and then I heard Ivar tell her this, "Elsie, only oldults call her Becca. Are you an oldult? No. We are kids. So we call her Mama. Can you say Mama?" Elsie looked right at him and said, "BahKah."

We have been listening to an old VBS cd in the car and one of the songs says, "I'm fired up for Jesus!" Ivar asked me what fired up means. I told him, "Well, when you're fired up it means you want to tell everyone. When you're fired up for Jesus it means you want everyone to know that you love him so much." Ivar told me, "Oh. I'm fired up for these chips. Mama, you should tell all the people that I just love these chips!"

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And I put these up on facebook, but I don't ever print out facebook like I print my blog...so it's not really a great place to write my kid's quotes. But since I print out my blog, I'll record them here:

Ivar just put on his spiderman glasses from McDonalds and said, "When I put these on I am going to be very grumpy and pretend that I am not hilarious."

Ivar just said, "mom, you remember that movie of the little lamp that was jump, jump, jumping and it smooshed a letter? I want to watch that one again sometime. Maybe we can get it at the library." (he was talking about the little scene that shows before every Pixar movie.)

Ivar during his bath: "And mom, don't get any wetness on my hair. Because then it will grow and remember I got it cut yesterday?"

We were given a children's picnic table and the kids are thrilled. Ivar told me, "now me and Elsie will sit at this little table and the oldults will sit at the big table!" I think that makes me and Rory oldults.

Ivar just said, "Remember when we went to the zoo yesterday and we got a rememberingship so we can go again and again and again?"

Last night Ivar and I were struggling to get his tight pajama shirt on. He said, "It won't go on! Because it is for small-year-olds, and I'm three-years-old!"

the rice county fair

After Elsie's birthday party we decided to go to the Rice County Fair. Our friend Kandi was competing in the Karaoke competition and had made it into the finals. Obviously we had to go and watch! And we're so glad we did. She took home the gold, or in this case, a whole lot of fair bucks! When she started singing the guy behind us said, "well, here's the winner!" She was awesome.

And of all the rides to choose from our kids chose the big slide. Ivar loved it and would do it again in a heartbeat. Elsie held her breath most of the way down and let out a whimper when we got to the end. It might have been just a little bit too big for her: 

elsie slide from Becca Groves on Vimeo.

Then we went and saw all of the animals went home when everyone was still happy. A great night at the fair!

Elsie turns two!

Saturday Elsie turned two. It was two years ago that my delivery doctor said "it's a girl!" and I let out a sob-cry of happiness like I'd never sob-cried before. This girl overtook my heart in an instant.

This past week I hemmed and hawed over what to do for Elsie's birthday. I was sick with a cold, not feeling like a party planner. And as my mom, sister Annika and sis-in-law Lisa will tell you, I changed the party plans every single day. Every other day we were going to a splash pad. The days in between we would celebrate here at our place.

In the end, we had the party here. And without planning it, the party became a garden party. Picking food from the garden, getting it ready to eat for the birthday lunch.

Sonna found the carrots and decided to pick some of them. Rory commented that he probably would have given them a few more weeks, but since Sonna had them proudly in her hand, this was a great day to pick a few. :)

Josie, Mara and Sonna picked sweet peas and then shelled all of them! We cooked them for lunch and they were delicious. At one point all of the kids were shelling peas together. Lisa told me, "there's your party game!"

Jack is 17 and he is awesome. When he saw the eggs in the coop he asked permission to go fry them up. I think this is what happens when you're a 17-year-old growing guy. You see protein and you just have to eat it. Like right now. I was so happy he was so excited to eat our eggs!

And then there's Zina. Zina brought a box of bee keeping gear that her husband had used decades ago...including this hat! (I'll write more about that another day.) Zina saw the flowers on our pumpkins and got so excited to fry them up. She went to work in the kitchen and I'm here to say that I would eat a plate full of these fried pumpkin flowers any day. The flower is sort of sweet and soft. Can't explain it, but they were awesome. And Zina was so, so happy to be making them. She went back for more flowers after her first batch. What a joy!

Mostly this party was awesome because it was so good to be together. I think this shot of my mom and sister sums that up nicely. And this picture has been added as one of my favorite pics of all time. We'll get this one framed asap.

And then there is Kyle and Lisa. Lisa biked here for the party. No kidding. Probably thirty miles. She made it to the outside of town and then called her pit crew to drive her in for the last bit. But if it hadn't been so windy she would have pulled up our lane on her bicycle!

Love this family shot. And especially love that my brother will be here in a few weeks so we can get him in the next family shot!

We had another wiener roast and mom made her chicken salad. And mostly we ate from the garden: lettuce, cucumbers, carrots, peas, pumpkin flowers and two tiny yellow tomatoes.

We wrapped up with cupcakes and presents and got to enjoy the sweetness of Elsie. She seemed so glad and grateful. I don't know how to explain it. She just seemed so happy to be celebrated. She was delightful. It was a super special second birthday.