Everything We Love

Last night, we spent the evening at Jonathan's school where the First Graders presented a Valentine's program. They entertained us with some beautiful music to explain exactly what First Graders love. Some of these things are animals ("Old MacDonald"), school (their school song, "Sullivan's Kids"), our country ("This Land Is Your Land"), teeth ("Loose Tooth"), and mail ("Mail Myself to You"). One of their favorite things is to sing, and they really sang their little hearts out for their audience of parents and loved ones. This was Jonathan's first school program and it was a huge success!

How we wish everyone could have been here to watch his program, but we did happen to catch a small sample on video and, of course, a few pictures of the performance. As you're watching the video, notice how excited Jonathan looks as he's singing "Old MacDonald"; and, by the way, the girl with the pigtails you see singing her heart out and rocking back and forth, is his girlfriend, Sara.

Thumbody in the ER

Jonathan gave us quite a scare yesterday after school. We came through the door with armloads of groceries and dropped them in the kitchen. After giving all the boys their Valentines, Jeff and I began stocking the shelves in the kitchen. It wasn't 3 minutes when Jonathan ran into the kitchen screaming "Mama, I'm bleeding!" and sure enough he was. Blood was pouring out of his hand, and I had to let Jeff take care of this one.

Here's what happened:
One of his Valentines was a little difficult to unwrap, so he decided he would slide our sharp scissors under the wrapper, despite our many previous warnings about the danger of scissors. The scissors slipped and jabbed Jonathan right in the base of his thumb. From examining the scissors and the amount of blood on them, we suspect they went in about 1/4 of an inch. His wound was pretty deep and took forever to stop bleeding. He wasn't able to bend his thumb, so we decided it would be best to let a doctor take a look.

Off to the ER we went. I think Jonathan was more nervous than he was hurting. He was so scared to go to the hospital. The doctor cleaned the wound, x-rayed his thumb, and saw no damage to any bones or tendons. After spending all of Valentine's night there (4 hours), we came out with his bo-bo glued shut, a splint over his thumb, and orders to keep it straight and dry for 3 days.

Happy Valentine's Day!

We awoke this morning to Jonathan's voice ringing out "Happy Valentine's Day!" As he commenced to say "I love you" to everyone, I couldn't help to think that this is what love is all about. I am so grateful God ultimately showed His love through the sacrifice of His Son; but He didn't stop there. He still demonstrates His great love to me everyday through the love of my sons, and many more instances in life. How thankful I am to have such an awesome Lord and a family who loves Him so much.

Jonathan brought home a writing assignment in which he was asked to write about what love is. Of all the answers he could have used, he thought about his brothers, his best friends, his buddies for all time. This spawned an idea. I polled the three (of the four) loves of my life this morning about what love is and these are the results:

LOVE IS:
Jonathan: When my brothers share their stuff with me.

Aaron: When Mama Nance gave me that Art Kit.

Caleb: God.

As we go through the day, let's try to remember the greatest Love of all time and show that love to others. We hope everyone has a Happy Valentine's Day! We love you!