Bath time

Lucy in her "shower."  (Yes, we do let her take baths in her bathing suit)

She thought it was pretty cool to wear a towel like this and sing as loud as she could.

Such a silly girl!

Loving the Outdoors

Matt loves it outside and he has passed those genes on to his daughter.  Matt loves his landscaping and has been teaching Lucy how to water the flowers.  One night when we were hanging out outside, Lucy grabbed the hose and started to water.

To tell you the truth, I see visions of a girl with a power washer in her future!

Matt has some beautiful flowers around our house.  Here are a few:

Lucy wanted to try out the camera and we thought "Maybe we can get a good picture of the two of us with it not being a self shot!"  HAHAHA  Here is Lucy's best attempt in round 1:

Then in round 2, Lucy tried for just me.  There were a lot of terrible pictures.  Here is the best one:

And then Matt had to make a silly face for the one where we were both in the picture... sort of.  Some day...

I love this picture of Lucy.

It's been a beautiful summer so far.  It's hard to believe that it is already mid August!

Forts

I have many memories from my childhood of making forts.  We would drape our comforters over kitchen chairs and pile books on the blankets on the chairs to keep them in place.  Now, I get to make those types of memories for Lucy!

We have made quite a few forts in our house so far.  Here is one example.  She made us go to sleep in the fort.

Before Lucy was even born, Martha Stewart Magazine had a cool idea for making tents outside.  The took rope between 3 trees and then draped sheets over the rope.  I have been waiting to make one of these for a long time and we finally did.

Unfortunately our trees are too far apart from each other and it was super windy.  But, here is what we came up with:  (the ropes are tied to 2 trees that are out of the picture.  The one sheet we just pinned across the two ropes to make the 3rd side)

Lucy kept forgetting that the sides were sheets and two of the corners were pinned closed.  She kept running right into them.  Eventually we just had a two sided tent which was fun too.

As we were picking the spots, Dilbert peed right in the center of one group of trees and then pooped right outside of the spot we picked.  I proceeded to step in the poop as I was heading back to the house.  I love having a dog...

I've also seen cute "fort kits" made by bloggers in blog land that are made from dollar store sheets and loops sewn on, along with ropes and clips.  A cute idea.  Maybe someday I'll throw something like that together for Lucy.  For now, we just use old sheets we have around.

Happy fort building!

Best Mother's Day Ever

Matt and I have always loved zoos and have gone to them together since we were dating.  For Mother's Day, Matt suggested that we go to John Ball Zoo in GR.  We had SO much fun!  It was probably one of the most memorable zoo trips we've ever had.

Lucy loved these bass that were outside the penguin house. 

The bears were really active and had been swimming.  When we got there, this one was walking around in the exhibit.

We kept hearing a cat making a bunch of noise, and when we finished watching the bear, we walked over to the cat exhibits.

This mountain lion was meowing at the snow leopard in the next cage.  The snow leopard just kept ignoring the mountain lion.  All through the zoo you could hear the mountain lion: "Meeooow meeooowww  meeoooww!"

Lucy played the drum outside of the lion exhibit.  The lions were super boring.  <nap time>

Then the best part of the zoo happened.  We got to the chimp exhibit and saw these guys:

Next to the tree here is a mallard duck that must have been sitting on a nest (read: would not move). 

The chimp was not a fan of this duck in his area.

First he tried running at it. 

The duck didn't move

Then, he threw sand at it.

The duck didn't move

Then he went to the edge of the cliff thing he was on and turned his back to us.

He put his hand by his bum and pooped in his hand!!!!

Then he pooped in his other hand!

Then with a mighty throw he pitched to poop 1-2 right at the duck.

The duck still didn't move.

We were all like "Did that really just happen?"

Then the chimp ran up to the level above the duck and started to throw sand down on the duck.

The duck still didn't move.

After a little while, the chimp gave up.

As soon as that chimp moved away, another chimp jumped up and did a really crazy chimp dance.  It was unreal!

As we walked away from the exhibit, Lucy said "Monkey poop in his hand!  (while squatting and putting her hands between her legs)  And throw it at the duck!  So naughty!"

She said this over and over and over again all through the rest of the zoo and part of the car ride home.  And then for the next 3 weeks at any mention of zoo or monkey or just whenever it came to mind.

After the chimps, we were about done with the zoo.  Here we are in front of the spider monkey exhibit.

Here are Matt and Lucy in front of the penguins.

Ehinger family self portrait:

It was a fabulous day. 
I'm so happy to be a mom.

Global Leadership Summit

Global Leadership Summit

This is my 3rd time attending this conference hosted by Willow Creek Church.  It is phenomenal.  The speakers are a mix of church leaders and people from business.  The lectures are so applicable to work at the farm or an corporate job and to church leaders.

We heard 6 speakers today.  The main message I heard was "Go and DO something!"  Here are some of the nuggets I collected today.

Bill Hybels, Founder and Senior Pastor at Willow Creek
1.  Test your stress level.  Where do you do your best work?
2.  Rate your people and deal with the bottom people with a game plan based on an established system.  3 main issues with people:  bad attitude, under performer, and role passed up a persons talent.
3.  What is the core a your business?
4.  Name your problems and solve them

Len Schlesinger, President of Babson College
1.  Anyone can be an entrepreneur. 
2.  We are educated to believe that failure is bad.  Failure means you get to try again with experience!
3.  Baby steps solve the big problems, so take a step!

Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil, Speaker
1.  In the church, we need to break down barriers of differences
2.  When things in the world shift, (ie. demographics, economics, cultures) we can either view it as catastrophe or a catalytic event to change things for the better
3.  Pray for a Divine mandate, Name your catalytic events, Mobilize people to go

Seth Godin, Blogger
1.  Industrial age is over
2.  It's time for people to break the mold.  Be an artist, someone who picks herself to succeed
3.  If failure is not an option then neither is success

Pastor Steven Furtick, Pastor
1.  In 2 Kings 3:9-20, the kings of Israel, Judah and Edom and their armies are chasing the army of Moab.  They should be able to beat them but they run out of water.  They call for a prophet, and Elisha comes.  He tells them to dig ditches and God will fill them with water with no wind or rain.  They dig and God pours water down a valley.
2.  We need audacity to act.  If you want to see the land filled with water, dig some ditches!
3.  Faith without works is dead to get a shovel and dig!
4.  If you dig ditches God will send the rain.  Think about Noah: he looked pretty silly building the arc on dry ground... until the rain came. 

God, give me the faith to dig ditches and believe you will send the water!

Tomorrow there will be more great speakers.  I can't wait!

Happy Birthday, Rebecca

My high school friends and I stay in close touch and have since high school.  Each week we email check-ins with things we're thankful for, prayer requests, and stories from the week.  It has been a great way to stay in touch.

After high school, we all went separate ways, more or less:

Rebecca (Marcus) Brown went to Hope College

Stephanie Westrate went to Western Michigan University

Melanie Haveman, Julie (Koning) Phillips, Rebecca Geerlings, and Bethany Keeley-Jonker went to Calvin College

I went to the University of Michigan and then Iowa State (once I saw the light ;))

Let's just say, I wanted to get out of West Michigan and all my friends stayed in West Michigan.

Then I came back... and everyone else left for Florida, Colorado, Chicago, Georgia, Detroit, Iowa, etc.  (some have moved more than once).

It is always fun when they come home and I get to spend time with them.  This summer Rebecca Geerlings came over for dinner on her birthday! 

Here are her birthday cupcakes!

She could not get this candle blown out from laughing so hard!

Lucy got dressed up for the celebration:

"The clouds woke me up"

This morning Lucy woke up a few minutes before my alarm (30 minutes before I normally wake her up).  When I asked her what woke her up,

she said "The clouds woke my babies up, and they woke me up." 

Me:  "Really?  The clouds woke you up?"

Lucy: "Yup, the clouds."

We have blankets over the blinds in her bedroom to block out light so she definately saw no clouds.

When I put her in the car, she could see outside and she said while pointing to the sky "See Mommy!  The clouds woke me up!"

Sure enough, it was cloudy!  Who knew those crazy clouds could wake up a toddler.  Silly girl!

****

Lucy is also trying to read now too.  Last night, at bedtime, she found a Bible and said she was going to read it.  She opened it and said "I don't know.  I don't know.  (flip)  I don't know. I don't know. (Flip) I don't know.  I don't know." 

Tonight she read a book and started to make up a story about Lucy riding on Daddy's shoulders.  It was SO cute!