Merry Christmas 2010!

I can't believe another year has nearly past. The years really do fly by the older you get! Anyway, we hope this finds you well and enjoying the life you've been blessed with. We are so thankful to have you in our lives--even though most of you are far from us these days. We think of our family and friends often but particularly so at this time of year. We pray that you are blessed beyond belief and enjoying this beautiful time of year when we celebrate the birth of Jesus. He loves you so much!

Our eco-friendly (read: ECOlogical and ECOnomical!) Christmas card is attached below.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

With love from the Meek's...Steve, Teri, and Judah (and Cassidy, the dog)

It's been a while...

For those of you who (at least USED TO) regularly check our blog to see what's going on in the Meek's lives, I sincerely apologize for being so long between posts this past year. It's been a busy year and I honestly don't know where it's gone so quickly. Anyway, here are a few photos from the past year so you can see how big Judah is getting and how old Steve and I are getting. Ha Ha

I promise I will do a better job of keeping up in 2011. Okay, there it is IN WRITING so now I HAVE to blog regularly. How's that for motivation and accountability?! :) Here are a few pictures taken throughout 2010.

Such A Profound Statement

Tonight Steve and I were doing a family devotion with Judah. After watching the short Bible lesson on DVD, Steve started reading out of the discussion guide. Judah said he wanted to read so he took the discussion guide and began to "read" from it. The next words out of his mouth were so profound...

"The God of Israel came in words."

The lesson was all about ways that we can communicate with God and how He communicates information to us through the Bible...His Word. What a nice summary that Judah put together in that 4 year old brain of his.

My Amazing Hubby

I just want to brag a little bit on how amazing a job my husband does as the Children's Pastor at Heritage Church's Bettendorf Campus. You can see some of the great work that he does by looking at his Kids Ministry Blog at http://www.hcbkids.com/. Amazing stuff! I'm so proud of you, Steve!!!! I love you!

That's My Boy!

We've been anxiously awaiting May since that is when some of our favorite things open for the season. The other day, Judah says to me, "Boy, I can't wait for the zoo and the (farmers) market to open!" I LOVE that Judah loves the farmers market as much as we do!!! I had other commitments but Steve and Judah rode their bikes down to the opening day of the outdoor farmers market this past Saturday and had a great time! We plan to ride our bikes down there as a family this Saturday. Can't wait!

Crazy Hair

As you know, Judah has some pretty curly hair and, some days, it can get to looking crazy and unruly. This morning as I was wetting his hair down and trying to corral the curls into some semblance of a style, this conversation took place...

TERI: Judah, you've got some craaaaaazy hair today. Those curls just don't want to lay down!

JUDAH: Maybe they aren't tired.

What a clever boy! Makes me smile. :)

How Was Your Day?

Steve typically asks Judah how his day went once he gets home from work. The other day, as we ate dinner, Steve asked Judah about his day. Judah told him some stuff that he did throughout the day and then he said to Steve, "Can you tell us about your day, Daddy? What did you do today?"

He said it with such genuine interest and really wanted to hear about his daddy's day. Totally adorable. Made this mommy's heart so proud!

Pre-Reading

Preschool has been really great for Judah. He is learning a ton and his social skills are getting better being around other kids more often. He has begun to recognize "his" letters from his name and points them out whenever he sees them in sentences and random places. The other day, he called Steve and I in to show us that he had written three of the letters from his name all by himself, without looking at anything to copy from. Wow! He's also "reading" books that he knows the story of already, which is so fun to watch and listen to. He'll be reading for real before we know it!

Sending "E-mails"

Judah has shown an interest recently in wanting to send e-mails to his friends and to Word Girl and her sidekick Huggy Face. Of course we don't really let him use our e-mail to do this but we've been letting him type into Word and then we pretend to send the "e-mail" once he's done with it. It's so cute because he puts his fingers on the keyboard and tries to immitate the way we type. So cute!

The Turtle and the Mouse

I took Judah to the Putnam Museum yesterday. We were playing with some cute hand puppets in a big treehouse they have. Judah's puppet was a turtle and I had a mouse. Judah's turtle was playing host to the mouse and offering him something to eat.

Turtle: Help yourself to some lunch. It's on the table.
Mouse: Oh, thank you. I'm so hungry!
Turtle: I promise I won't eat you.
Mouse: Well, I hope not! Turtles don't eat mice!
Turtle: Oh, sorry. That was just a turtle joke!

I was totally cracking up at how quickly his little mind came up with that. I grabbed him and hugged him as we both laughed hysterically.

Superhero for Hire

Judah has been really into Word Girl lately. He watches episodes online at PBSKidsGo.org. He dreams up elaborate trips and adventures that they will take together fighting bad guys and mean robots. He's even invited me to join him on these trips, which I guess I should feel pretty flattered about considering that I'm his mom and I might cramp his style. Anyway, he saw Steve's Team Tri-Fit "calling cards" (business cards) the other day and said that he wanted some of his own for his Superhero work. So I set to work and quickly put together a superhero business card for Judah. I used some of the design elements from the Mr. Incredible Valentine card I had made for him to make the process go more quickly...since he was standing over my shoulder saying, "We're NEVER going to get these done!" Anyway, if you ever find yourself with a bad guy or mean robot hanging around wreaking havoc, don't fear...Super Judah is here!

Sorry For Being Temporarily Out Of Service

Once again, I find myself playing catch-up on what's been happening in our lives. I guess that's good because that means I'm enjoying each moment but it leaves you out of the loop of what's been going on, especially with Judah. So I apologize for my absence.

A lot has happened over the last few months. Nothing earth shattering but we did celebrate Christmas and Judah's 4th birthday. Wow, my baby is getting so big! For Christmas we were able to give to Samaritan's Purse again and provide needy families with a couple of stocked fish ponds, 30 fruit trees and some honey bees. Thanks to Teri's parents and sister, Becki's family for contributing this year! We know that many of you give to those in need in ways that are meaningful to you so, thank you for giving, too! Judah received many wonderful gifts for Christmas and birthday but one in particular has been really exciting. Grandma and Poppy Meek got a neat wooden train set for Judah and we've all had fun setting it up and playing with it. It came with a train table but Judah seems to prefer to take the tracks apart and set them up everywhere BUT the table. He has lots of fun reconfiguring the track. I'm amazed at some of the cool ways he sets it up! There have been many days when I've heard him upstairs playing quietly except for the train sounds he's making. Woo Woo!

Judah celebrated his birthday at Grandma and Poppy Meek's and, while there, he also got to race Aunt Nettie's bird, Claude, up the stairs (see video).

While celebrating at Grammy and Grandad Barman's, Judah had his very own Vanna White (cousin Alex) to show off his gifts after he opened them. :)

Grandma and Poppy haven't been feeling well the last few months so we continue to pray for them and hope they feel better soon.

Despite the cold, snowy winter we've had, we try to get out with Judah to do things when our schedule allows. We've gone to John Deere to climb on the tractors, hiking at Scott County Park, playing in the bounce houses at Monkey Joe's with cousins Will & Maddie and Bald Eagle watching on the Mississippi. Besides that, Judah has been busy making lots of art projects at preschool. Steve has been keeping busy with his church responsibilities and the Triathlon Team. He even spoke to the kids at Judah's preschool this week about what he does as a pastor (they've been learning about community helpers at school). I've been keeping busy with Judah, keeping the household running smoothly and doing some design/copy writing work for Steve and a friend who's raising money to become a missionary in Poland. I also designed Judah's Valentine's cards for him. He wanted three kinds: The Incredibles, Lightning McQueen and Word Girl (from PBS). Life is busy but good! We are soooooooo ready for Spring!!

I didn't mean ME, I meant someone else...

Those of you who have children know that sometimes God speaks to us very directly through our kids. That happened just the other day at breakfast...

STEVE: I'm going to thank God for our warm house (it's been sub-zero here for a while now). How about you, Judah, what do you want to pray for this morning?
JUDAH: I don't know.
TERI: Maybe you could pray for all the people who don't have a warm home and are living outside in the cold. Some boys and girls don't have a nice warm house to sleep in like you do.
JUDAH: Well maybe some kids could share their house with those boys and girls.
STEVE & TERI: That's a great idea, Judah. Should we let some people stay at our house who don't have a house of their own?
JUDAH: I didn't mean MY house. I meant that maybe some OTHER boys and girls could do that. If boys and girls stayed at our house they would mess my things all up and I don't want my things getting all messed up.

Wow, God really spoke to me in this conversation! This could very well have been a conversation I was having with God inside my own head. God, please forgive my selfishness and lack of compassion (love turned into action!) for people around me who are suffering. Help me to show your love to others in practical ways and to be your hands, feet and voice to a hurting world.