Harry Potter, Basketball, & Atrium

Grandma Nichols with mom.

Dearest Joshua and Luke,

This week was our first basketball practice.  You are both on awesome teams with great coaches.  I am glad that you are both practicing for the season.  This also means that baseball is right around the corner.

Joshua just finished reading Harry Potter's book 6 - The Half Blood Prince.  I can not believe how much Joshua loves reading Harry Potter.  Actually I can!  The books are addicting after you begin the series.  I think Harry Potter is one of my favorites now too!  Reading a book with over 800 pages does not intimidate Joshua at all.  I started reading the first Harry Potter book with him, but quickly found that I could not keep up with his pace.  He reads the books at school after he finishes other work.  So I did the next best thing.  I have been reading the chapter summaries.  I am so proud of Joshua and his love for reading.  I love to read, too.  The real challenge here will be finding him a new book series as he finishes Harry Potter!

This week we talked a lot about why we send the boys to Atrium each week. I talked to the boys about how church was in my life growing up.  Aunt Tina and I would go to Vacation Bible School, Kid's Club, and sometimes church on Sunday evenings with a youth group.  The big church bus would come by our house and pick us up and off we would go!  Grandma and Grandpa Nichols believed in God, but they did not attend church regularly.  Grandpa Nichols took us to church when we were very little.  I  only remember this because of the pictures of Aunt Tina and I dressed alike!  I probably stopped going to church around 8th grade.  I always remember wanting to know more about how to talk to God and get closer to him.

Luke leading the audience in the Pledge of Allegiance at the Pinewood Derby. 

I was so happy when I met your dad and found that he went to church regularly.  In fact, he took me to first Christmas Eve midnight mass on our first Christmas together.  It was so beautiful!  When your daddy asked me to marry him, we both knew that we wanted church to be a part of our lives. We started attending classes at St. Mary's Church with Deacon Dilley.  We were married at St. Mary's not long after (25 years ago today as a matter of fact!).  We have kept church as a main focus in our loves since that time.

Luke and Joshua building with Lincoln logs.

What I want for you two is to realize God's presence in your lives and around you every day.  I want you to be one of God's best disciples every day in your life.  I truly believe that we are here to carry on Jesus's work on Earth.  We need to care for the most vulnerable people in the world - the elderly, sick, homeless, children, etc.  I want you both to work with God and put his will first every day.  You both know that I promised God that he blessed us with children, I would do my very best to teach you both to be disciples of Jesus.  I am going to keep doing that all the days of my life.  I love you both to the moon and back and back again.


Love,
Mama