God gave us You!

Happy 18 months anna!  We do love you!  YOu  are quiet the imitator - as seen above reading a cookbook and grocery shopping........

This week at the library I randomly grabbed a book off the library shelf, it's called God Gave Us You.
Its about where babies come from - featuring polar bears.  It's quiet cheesy and sort of weird - but being pregnant and a bit of cry baby anyways it made me tear up while I was reading it to Anna.

There is a page that shows the really prego polar bear praying (yes again very cheesy - but hey) and it says "Every night, I prayed for you, my special child.  I prayed that your bones would be straight and your heart would be strong.  But most of all, I prayed that someday you would love God."  "I love God," little cub said proudly.  "I know," said mama. "I do too."

We did pray every night that anna would be healthy, but also that we would be able to teach her to love god and that we would be able to teach her that she is a precious child of God.  We still pray for help in teaching her to be christ-like every night and every morning.

I think God is answering our prayers.  Although she can't say it with words, I'm pretty sure our little Cherub loves God.  She has a picture from nursery she colored of Jesus on the fridge, she points to it and says Jesus.  She goes over to it several times a day - unlike the other things on the fridge though, she hasn't (yet) taken it down and destroyed it - she just points and smiles.  We have a picture of the temple in the kitchen.  Today I asked her what it was and she said "tempo."  We have a book of family pictures she looooves to look at multiple times a day and it has pictures of the temple in it.  If I ask her where's the temple, she can find it!  I sing I am a Child of God and I love to see the temple to her.  She loves to hear them (even from my voice yikes!) and says "MOw-dA?"  which means more of that....

Beyond things we've taught her, I'm beginning to see that Anna is a very loving little girl by nature.  She loves her friends - although she is still a toddler with toddler issues (ex not sharing and basically ignoring her friends presence sometimes) - she is always excited to see them and always wants to give hugs (even if it's dangerous - as it is when she hugs zachie, they end up falling and one of them always cries).  She loves to take care of things - like babies and stuffed animals.  She even makes them sign please and thank you when she feeds them pretend food.  She loves to help too, she's always getting a rag and wiping things down or getting the broom out to sweep the floor.  I'm just loving watching the person she is becoming.

It's amazing to me that God trusts us enough to watch over and teach his children.  I mean, Rich and I try to be good people, but it's hard to always do what is right.  I just hope we can continue to teach anna to Love God and to teach her to show that love to others.  At 18 months she's learning a lot of things - at least 5 or so new words every day and several new skills as well.  She can even use a fork to eat (although it's pretty sketchy business without a bib)!  But, as fun as it is to watch her learn all those mad baby skills, I don't think there is anything more important for her to learn than to love God and she that love with others.

 tomorrow it's my goal to take some 18 month pictures - we might try to take her out to dinner for her birthday too....