Our Three Sons

I just want to say that I'm truly in love with our three boys. I love their individuality. I love their different passions, pursuits, dreams, loves, personalities, gifts... I love that they are uniquely designed in a way that only God intended. In fact, Tom and I pray all the time that in spite of their parenting, they grow up to be strong, passionate men of God. A good friend of mine (Kathy Rusch) encouraged me to pray for my boys out of this verse:

Eph. 3:16-19 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen (Crist, Dane and Ty) with power through his Spirit in (their) inner being, so that Christ may dwell in (their) hearts through faith. And I pray that (Crist, Dane and Ty), being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that (they) may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

When we told the boys the news of a new baby coming into the Olsen home...they responded JUST like we thought they would:

Crist couldn't believe it and then couldn't stop smiling. He is so tender hearted anyway, but he has a certain love for young children. He has such patience with them, never tires of playing with them... Crist was made to be a big brother to this little one and I know that eventually he'll be a WONDERFUL dad himself! He texts me all the time to check on me and see how I'm feeling. And he is an AMAZING helper around the home already!

Dane's first reaction was genuine shock...and then he went to concern. He started asking, "Why don't you look happy mom?" (that's when it was still sinking in for me) "What does 'risk' mean?" and then I overheard him ask Crist later, "Aren't you worried about Mom?" Dane takes after me, unfortunately, in that he can tend to worry about a lot of things. But he has slowly come out of that and now seems to be excited. The only thing he says now is that he doesn't want to have to drive his sister to Ballet lessons or anything like that!

Ty responded just like we thought he would... he instantly said, "Wahoo! I'm not the youngest anymore!" And then he started making out a list of names for the baby including: Trogdor the Burninator and then Po (from Kung Fu Panda). He then proceeded to say that we will FORCE the baby to play football, we will FORCE the baby to play basketball, we will FORCE the baby to play baseball, but they will have an option to play soccer. He has it all planned out, obviously. Ty definitely lightens the environment with his joyful spirit and is just plain fun to be around. Can't wait to see him interact with his new sister!

What a wonderfully unique family we have. I truly cannot wait to see how God has wired and gifted this little baby girl... we believe that this miracle child has got something special planned for her!