Grandpa Lyons

Safely Home

I am home in heaven, dear ones;
Oh so happy and so bright!
There is perfect joy and beauty
In this everlasting light.

All the pain and grief is over,
Every restless tossing passed;
I am now at peace forever,
Safely home in heaven at last.

Did you wonder how I so calmly
Trod the valley of the shade?
Oh, but Jesus' love illumined
Every dark and fearful glade.

And he came himself to meet me
In that way so hard to tread;
And with Jesus' arm to lean on,
Could I have one doubt or dread?

Then you must not grieve so sorely,
For I love you dearly still;
Try to look beyond earth's shadows,
Pray to trust our Father's will.

There is work still waiting for you,
So you must not idly stand;
Do it now, while life remains,
You shall rest in Jesus' land.

When that work is all completed,
He will gently call you home;
Oh, the rapture of that meeting,
Oh, the joy to see you come!

Please pray for us today as we prepare to say goodbye to an amazing husband, father, grandfather and friend. We miss Tony "grandpa Lyons" so much already.

For love, which is timeless, Never ceases to exist

Practicing

Sick Days

Griffin came down with the stomach flu over the weekend and as soon as he started feeling better his mom and dad came down with it. In order to help us feel better he made us some alphabet soup with his blender.
It was such hard work he lost his pants (that and I swear he lost some weight with the flu).

New House

Griffin's bedroom.

Finished part of basement.

Office in basement.

One half of Griffin's bathroom.

Nursery on first floor.

Guest bedroom on second floor- it is actually 2 rooms combined with an attached full bathroom.

Our new deck to grill on!

Dining room looking into the kitchen which goes pretty far to the left.

Master bedroom on the first floor.

I took these pictures at the inspection of our new house, which ended up going very well. I wanted to show these pictures as our "before" shots, although it may take a year for the "after" shots. In about 6 weeks we have the closing and occupancy, 8 weeks makes us a family of four and yesterday we decided we were getting a new car, too. Crazy life but we couldn't ask for better.

Soo sweet

Griffin now has added three very sweet things to his vocab. He says "Pease" when he wants something and "Daydoo" when it is given to him. He also says "I yu you" when he is going to bed at night. Hearing that will NEVER get old. It makes up for the "butt" and "asses" that we hear all the time. BTW- he helps his grandpa build a fire every night and he helps shovel the ashes, which is what he is trying to say.

Sledding

Here is Griffin sledding for the first time. He went by himself a couple times too! As long as he could stay in the upright position he was happy.

Snow Day

This was the first day that Griffin actually got to go out and enjoy the snow. The other times it has snowed, it hasn't been enough. We went sledding, made and threw snowballs, ate snow, researched icicles and also went on a long walk with Griffin in the sled. At least a dozen times during the walk I would look back and see what you see above. No complaints from him but he couldn't get back to sitting position when he fell over. So I would sit him back up and we would be on our way :)

2 word Phrases

One of my favorite things about having a 20 month old is getting to observe the language development that occurs so spontaneously. Griffin has been talking a LOT lately and putting words together. My favorites have been:
"eyow bus= yellow bus"
"pry snow= pretty snow"-which you can see in front of (hopefully) our new house :)
"two choo choos"
"I need dat" instead of "I want dat"
Lastly, he says "bye-bye" to everything now. When he leaves the clerk at the grocery store, when he leaves the trains to play with some other toy ("bye-bye choo choo") and when he doesn't want me to change his dirty diaper ("bye-bye Mommy").
Another fun thing is getting to see his sense of humor maturing. I love getting to experience what he thinks is now funny. For example, he knows when he says nonsense words that they don't make sense and so he will say them and then laugh. He also thinks bodily function noises are funny, like when he laughed after belching this afternoon. Trying not to encourage this one too much but its hard not to laugh at the fake-forced laugh that he does :)

New Fun at the Old Museum

With the temperatures being in the teens for this last week we have headed to our favorite place, the Museum a couple times. Griffin decided he was big enough for the tunnel/cave/crawling area and I decided being 7 months pregnant has even more perks since dad had to do the crawling through the tunnels with him. We also went up to the tower of the museum to see the real trains in the back of the museum (there are dozens lined up and dozens more coming and going as we were there). It was pretty cool...although Griffin once again decided that train tables are more interesting. You can see the trains out the window behind him if you look closely.
Also, while we were there we had lunch, and at the end of the meal Scott had to use the restroom. When Griffin asked where he went ("Dada?") I told him and then he proceeded to use his new screaming voice to say "Dada pee-pee" over and over. Although, slightly embarrassing it was pretty funny. On that note, he has really found his voice these past 2 days. He repeats EVERYTHING we say. Some classics from JUST today "big butt" (thanks grandma), "Geez","Gosh", "Play-doh".

Patience has Paid off!

Our patience in purchasing our dream house has finally paid off. As of 2 hours ago we found out that a house we put an offer on got accepted. Pending inspection and closing, it is all ours! We are in love with this 4 bedroom, 3 1/2 bedroom house with an open floor plan, partially finished basement, huge deck, great neighborhood/school district, the list goes on. It does need some work (new kitchen, new carpets, new windows) but we are even looking forward to making it even better and making it all ours. We are hoping to be in this house by March, probably after our daughter joins our family. Thank God for parents who have let us live with them for the past 6 weeks and for another couple months. We owe it all to them!

In Love with Trains

Lately, I feel as if my life has revolved around "choo-choo"s. Griffin LOVES trains and we must play with them the moment we get up, all throughout the day, before we go to bed and then one has to go to bed with him. In the first picture he is making Grammy and Grandma sit at ONE of his train tables to play with him. The other picture is of the train set Santa brought and grandpa set up in the living room. I'm pretty sure we will never be able to take that one apart.