Summer Time

As you can see, we've been enjoying our summer with Luke and painting with Isaac. For those of you without little children because your kids are too old, well you have very much forgotten how difficult it is to care for a newborn! I mean WE FORGOT and it's only been 2 years since Isaac was born. I mean it's one thing to remember the fact that you didn't sleep for more than 3 hours without a cry in your ears for 3 months straight and NO BREAKS, but it's another to have to live thru it all over again.

Gospelly we're taught that part of the atonement was to give Christ the physical knowlege of suffering although he already perfectly understood all suffering. Living thru pain is essential different than understanding it. This is the real deal here. Having a baby is difficult, even if they're perfect angels who hold your heart in their little fists.

I didn't realize that having kids was like a mission so much. I thought God tells us to multiply so that we can replenish the Earth, but it's much more than that. In the same way God doesn't just send out missionaries to bring souls to the truth of the Gospel. That is barely half of the reason.

Missionaries go out and work their butts off, and parents have children and work their butts off for the same reason: necessary personal growth.

Now I'll admit that serving a mission was so far the hardest thing I've ever done in my life, but if we have any more kids I'm going to be willing to make being a father the hardest thing i've ever done, and at the top of my difficulty list. Even though I'm home all the time sharing the load with Amy, I don't have the ability to nurse the baby and so thanks to nature Amy does have to do more work than me and she's doing a great job. (some days she'll have to take a nap until 5pm... but that's ok) We can't wait for Luke to learn how to sleep more, but at the same time we must appreciate these times that we're pushed to our limits and force us to grow personally as our love grows with another child in our lives.

Luke is so so precious, we can't describe it. Just ask Rhone or Janet or Grandma Kay or Valerie or Tracy. Try and get them to adequately describe this baby. He's just so so precious and perfect and adorable times a billion.

Oh and Isaac is getting smart, he's growing his brain. I think he's pretty much human now.