Piano prodigy?

Over the holiday Will was opened to many new experiences, including - as we see here - playing the piano with Grandma Dekker. Enjoy our budding prodigy's composition. It's a modern piece.

And Happy New Year, everyone!

Dear God,

Thank you for protecting my brother Vitaly and my sister Marina in their terrible car wreck yesterday.

Love, Beth

Marina lost control of her car after a icy curve (Dec. 23), veered across the road, into a tree (the large one in the picture below) and flipped at least one time.

They got out of their seatbelts, put down the back passenger's side window (the only one that worked) and crawled out of the window (you can sorta see it in the very top picture).

A woman who lived nearby came in her SUV and had the kids sit in her car to get warm (it was about 12 degrees outside) while Dad, Nick and I came to get them. We didn't know it was as bad as it was.

The wreck happened in an very rural Amish community, so we had many people stop by to help and almost everyone that drove by stopped to see if they could do anything. I LOVE small towns for this very reason.

The state police (the road is under state jurisdiction, so the local police won't cover the area) took an hour to get there, which I was less than thrilled about, but he was very nice. They brought a flat bed tow truck and took the car away. It was, of course, totaled.

Both Marina and Vitaly were very shook up, but only had minor bruises. Thank God.

It's been such a rough day...

Whenever we feed Will from his bottle, he does something really funny with his hands. His normally flailing arms are calm and slow. He slowly rubs his face and his head, passing them gently over his eyes. Often it seems like he's rubbing his eyes, as if to say, "It's been such a hard, long day..."

Christmastime is here...

That's the thing about Christmas, isn't it? It always sneaks up on you.


But you're always happy when it's finally here.

This one goes out to Mike Dekker....

Wee fish ewe a mare egrets moose
Wee fish ewe a mare egrets moose
Wee fish ewe a mare egrets moose ...
Panda hippo gnu deer!

(Followers of this blog may remember that this is a repost of a previous post. And, just to let you know, the last line must be sung in a mock-operatic voice at the top of your lungs. If you want to do it right, that is.)

Merry Christmas!

Come, Thou Fount

I love Christmas carols. Sure, there are some that are cheesy and overplayed, and some of them have very strange lyrics (one of my favorites is from Here Comes Santa Claus, in which the singer sings "Let's gives thanks to the Lord above, 'cause Santa Claus comes tonight"). But some of my favorites, I've found, are the good old classic hymns, ones I sang in church growing up.

So I find myself fascinated when different musicians record updated versions of these hymns. One of my favorite hymns is Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing, which isn't necessarily a Christmas song, but I've come to associate it with the yuletide all the same. I've always been particularly struck by the lyrics, and its focus on our daily need for God's mercy and grace and our grateful response to it. And Christmas seems as good a time as any to celebrate that.

So when my favorite musician Sufjan Stevens released a version of Come Thou Fount on one of his Christmas albums, I was awestruck again by its beauty. Here are some of the lyrics:

Come, thou Fount of every blessing,
tune my heart to sing thy grace;
streams of mercy, never ceasing,
call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I'm fixed upon it,
mount of thy redeeming love.

Here I raise mine Ebenezer;
hither by thy help I'm come;
and I hope, by thy good pleasure,
safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
wandering from the fold of God;
he, to rescue me from danger,
interposed his precious blood.

O to grace how great a debtor
daily I'm constrained to be!
Let thy goodness, like a fetter,
bind my wandering heart to thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
prone to leave the God I love;
here's my heart, O take and seal it,
seal it for thy courts above.

I've always been interested by the first line of the second verse: "Here I raise my Ebenezer." Until now, I assumed it meant like Ebenezer Scrooge from Dicken's A Christmas Carol, as if the lyrics are saying, "I'm giving up my inner Scrooge." But today my friend Amanda e-mailed me this link, which explains that Ebenezer is actually a Biblical reference to 1 Samuel, in which Samuel raises a monument to commemorate God's help to Israel. Samuel called the stone Ebenezer, which means "stone of help." So the Methodist pastor Robert Robinson, who penned the hymn in 1757, wrote of erecting his own monument to God's help.

I'll always think of this song as a Christmas song, I think because the birth of Christ instigates the hope that this song expresses.

A letter from Will to someone special...

Dear Maddie,

Thank you for the Adidas outfit. I look forward to the day when we can wear matching outfits... as we walk down the aisle together.

Sincerely,
Will

Thanksgiving and Will's First Bite

We headed to Greenville, PA for Thanksgiving this year. We decided that it would be fitting that Will's first solid food meal would be at dinner on Thanksgiving, and of course it was well-documented!

Here he is with his favorite Aunt Marcia!

You can see the excitement in his eyes!

There goes the first bite of rice cereal!

Ah, as independent as his mother...he had to try and feed himself...

So he grabbed the cup (which was my little engraved cup from when I was a baby...we had to be sentimental!)

And tried to take a "sip!"

Not much of it got into his mouth, but he seemed to enjoy the experience.

The whole Meyer family! From left to right: Nick, Will, my Dad, me, my Mom, Katie, Grandma Meyer, Marcia, Chip, Vitaly, Irina, James (Marina's fiance), Marina, and Abbey!

First bite of Punkin Roll!

I'm not sure what it is about Grandmas and their desire to feed babies bites of solid food, but even before we could try some rice cereal (more on that later), Will has had his first taste of punkin roll, a Meyer family favorite at Thanksgiving. I think he likes it! We'll never get him to eat rice cereal now, not that I blame him! Enjoy!

Will's first Christmas tree!

Last Sunday we went and cut our Christmas tree - Will's first! We found a small tree farm just north of Columbus, loaded Maeby in the van, and headed up there. We spent much of the weekend cleaning the house and putting up the Christmas decorations - a bit early, maybe, but it was our only available time, and we wanted to enjoy the decor as much as possible before we travel for the holidays.

It didn't take long to find the perfect tree for our living room.

Requisite Peanuts Christmas moment.

Once we got the tree up, we showed it to Will. He had the instinct to grab it, without leaning it to eat it, as he does with everything else. Fortunately, the tree - a Canaan fir - is nice and soft.

Thanksgiving

11 years ago this Thanksgiving day, my parents and sister Katie flew to Arkhangel'sk, Russia to retrieve my twin sisters and brother. They were legally made part of our family on December 10th, 1997. My parents' friend and pastor wrote this in celebration 11 years ago tomorrow. I thought everyone would like to read it!


"Adoption"

Scripture: Ephesians 1:4-5 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will--

This Thanksgiving week is "National Adoption Week". Coincidentally, I have two very dear friends who are preparing to leave tomorrow for Archangleus, Russia, for the purpose of adopting three siblings!

I have often thought about the love that would compel someone to such an act: to claim as their own blood relative a son or daughter of another. In some ways, it is very hard for me to imagine.

Children, while being a joy and blessing, are a great liability (Allow me to play "devil's advocate" for just a moment…). On many occasions I have commented on how my own children have simplified my life: those nagging questions about what I would do with my extra time and money vanished with their birth! From before birth, and throughout their lives, children are a constant source of concern for their parents. Why would anyone want to adopt a child?

I believe the answer to that question is found in our own Creation. When God formed man from the dust of the earth, He did so "in His own image". Our natural proclivity toward parenting is the result of the Father's own imprinting of that desire upon our psyche.

While some have looked at adoption askance, I have come to admire it as one of the greatest expressions of selfless love! For a natural parent to surrender a child for adoption (in the hope that a better life for the child may result ) , is an unbelievable act of sacrificial love. For someone to adopt that child and raise them as their own, is yet another act of sacrificial love!

I am an adopted child myself. Not in the physical sense, but in regard to the spirit. I was once lost in my own sin, doomed to destruction. Just when I was most helpless, Jesus provided the means for me to be adopted into God's Royal Family. Through my acceptance of His sacrifice, I have been purchased from my slavery to sin and have become His "blood" relative.

This Thanksgiving will be a special time for my friends travelling to Russia (Carl, Kathy, and their daughter Katie). They will rescue three children from despair and give them a chance at a new life (please pray for them ).

This Thanksgiving is a special time for all of us who have benefited from the rescue mission of Christ when He traveled from heaven to bring us a new life. My hope and prayer is that you and yours are counted among that number.

Goofing off with Will!

We caught this bit of video tonight while goofing off with Will. This comes at the end of a fun day all together as a family. We went and cut our Christmas tree, cleaned the house, and started our holiday decorating. This video shows Will doing a bunch of stuff. You can hear his honest-to-goodness I'm-having-a-good-time laugh. And the constant ah-ing that he's been doing for hours on end. He's apparently a bit ticklish... hmmm, who did he get that from? You'll also see him dive in to munch on Beth. And how he's in the habit of trying to grab anything he can get his hands on these days. Our little guy is a ball of fun! Enjoy!

Exersaucer!

Will just got one today, lent to us by some friends at church. I placed him in it right away, and so far he seems to love it! The best part is that there is so much more he can learn to do in it. Once he has enough strength, he'll be able to swivel around and bounce up and down.

Connect

In this day and age, it's not hard to be connected. I mean, with IM, Facebook, Blogs, websites, email...it's actually hard to lose touch. It still happens, to be sure, but you almost have to want it.

Maybe it's just me, though, but I LOVE reading the status updates on Facebook, and I LOVE checking people's blogs. I think it's great that at a click of a mouse, I can chat with a bunch of my friends, either to get some work done or just to check in. I can understand how this uber-connectedness might overwhelm some people - not only do they feel forced to connect, overwhelmed with the avenues with which to connect, but also guilty when they don't connect.

When did this happen though? When did I start feeling terrible if I don't respond to an email within 20 seconds of receiving it, or returning a phone call within a few minutes because it went to voicemail before I could race to the phone? I suppose it was a gradual increase, but it feels like it happened overnight. But all those little bits of information, statuses, chats, emails, actually make it feel a little less crazy and a little more human, oddly enough.

I don't think I'm addicted to technology (though my iPhone might tell you differently), and I truly enjoy using it to be efficient with my time and energy. All those little things I'm able to get done during the day allows me to spend my free time with Will and Nick. And, really, that's the most important connection I make during the day.

Baby in the leaves!

Last week I raked all the leaves in our yard into a couple piles, so I naturally had to place my child in the middle of it and take pictures of him. Here are the results.

Will seemed puzzled by the leaves and the noise they made.

So, naturally, he tried eating them.
Overall, he seemed fine with the leaf phenomenon, albeit a little confused.

Artsy, far away shot.

Anxiety

Marcia and I headed to IKEA last week, and brought Boo along for the ride. He's getting a bit heavy to wear for 5 hours straight, so I tried putting him in the cart's child seat. I have no idea how old kids "should" be to sit in those seats, and he sits up really nice now, so we did it. It had a little belt, which helps with the side-tipping. He seemed to be very proud of himself, for a bit.



















But every time I would walk a few feet away from the cart to look at something, he got this very concerned look on his face. I imagine it was weird to face me, but not be held by me.



















He was fine for about 10 minutes, and then that little lower lip came out and he sorta freaked out. The second I picked him up he buried his head into my neck and smiled. I think we just experienced his first little anxiety attack!

Mandi and Michael and Ezra Visit

We have been blessed with so many visitors this month! Two weekends ago our friends Mandi and Michael brought their son Ezra up from Cincinnati to meet Will. They also brought along their Bumbo for us to borrow, and Will just LOVES it.

Ezra and Will are exactly 1 year and 1 day apart, and enjoyed regarding each other with varying degrees of interest, especially at dinner.


It was wonderful seeing them, and we can't wait to get the boys together again soon! And now for one last adorable picture of our dear ADORED son: