garrett and me

Our Savior

2011-01-18T08:50:00.000-05:00

Last night I was thinking about Garrett and the life and spirit that he is. I was also thinking about a friend of mine and how his son was having some headaches and his wife took him to the doctor. After a few tests it was confirmed that he had some form of cancer. I then started thinking about all the times Garrett has had a hard day and how he will grab his head and say he is having a hard day and that he has a headache. This got me thinking about what would I do if Garrett ended up with cancer, which lead me down a long rabbit trail of finally thinking about what Christ has done for us. I thought about my sin and evil heart, and how God gave up his son for me while I was yet a sinner. I even wondered to myself if I would have the faith of Abram to give my son up for God, much less to give him up for my enemy.

It really effected me while I was trying to go to sleep last night. I guess what I'm trying to get to here is that, Garrett I really love you. You make me laugh, - love to wrestle with you - even when you hurt me. Most of all, though, you are bringing me closer to our Savior without even knowing. Thank you buddy! I really love you!

Views from a Father

2008-08-15T11:58:00.003-04:00

Garrett, I've been doing some thinking about you lately and thinking about your many different personalities. You have the highest highs and the lowest lows. You can be the most lovable boy in the world and then you have other days that can just drive us insane. You screech at the highest decibels that just will make your toes curl, but then you will hug me and tell me that you love me. I wouldn't trade any of the bad moments for fear of losing those moments where I just want to hold you and love on you. I want you to always feel good enough about yourself that you will tell me how you are feeling. I love you pal. I was just looking through some photos on my computer and it made me want to post this blog, and so here are some funny pictures of you at your best times.

Garrett, you are hilarious... You are always just trying to make us laugh, and this was one of those times. (You and your mom are going to kill me when y'all see this picture on the blog.)

Garrett at the breakfast table, during vacation, goofing off and having a little fun at someone else's expense.

Sitting and soakin up the rays at the beach, on vacation.

I love this picture, because I feel like I can see your soul in those wonderful big brown eyes.

I was runnin'. I love the pure joy on your face here buddy.

We really have to capture these moments when you are hugging Esther, because most of the time you are both tormenting each other.

Making one of your funny faces for the camera, again!

This picture is exactly how I want our lives to be. Just you and me walking along, hand in hand, enjoying each others company.

2008-04-09T15:30:00.003-04:00

dude, i love that you are all boy.For your birthday, you got a punching bag from grammy and p-pop. last night was a bad night for you because you had eaten cookies all day and really nothing else and the sugar was really getting to you. i had you go into your room with the punching bag and you started doing some ufc moves on the bag. i was so proud and i can't wait for the day you start turning those moves on your friends (ok, so may be i shouldn't teach you how to throw elbows and use your knees to hurt people, but it is a good stress reliever for the both of us). anyway, mom caught you the other day doing some more boy play with some sticks and you don't understand how much enjoyment we get out of watching you play like a boy and use your imagination like a boy. you are so wonderful and we love you so much. here are the pictures of you with the sticks. i love you man!!!

2008-03-18T11:37:00.003-04:00

Dude, you just turned 4 yesterday and it feels like it was just yesterday that you were born. I'm so proud of who you are becoming and I am challenged daily to learn how to love you all the more. I am learning just as much about myself as you are about yourself and about life. I am learning how to control my anger as I watch you learn how to be self-controlled as well. I see so much of myself in you and I have to apologize that most of the bad habits that you have, you probably got from me. I love you dude, and I always will. Here's to many more years of birthdays and days that we can laugh and play and wrestle, and to live this life out together learning and loving. Have a good one buddy!

2008-02-14T11:37:00.005-05:00

Dude, I know that I haven't kept up with this thing as well as I would have hoped, but you keep me busy so much of the time. I am so glad to be your dad and it is my prayer that you are my son. I was just looking through some pictures of you just here lately and it's a total reminder of how funny and crazy you are. You make me laugh non-stop and you are such a good kid. Hope that when you look at these pictures you'll see the beauty of your personality and your good looks (that you got from me of course :-)

You and Gideon, cheesing for the camera.

I have no idea what this face is about!

You having a little fun at Playworld

Some more fun at Playworld

You riding your sister like a horse.

You even love your Mom (that's okay, I love her too)

memory lane

2007-06-12T16:04:00.000-04:00

this picture just scrolled through on my screensaver today, and i was completely amazed at how much garrett has grown up just in the last year. he looks so little here and i can't believe that he is getting so big. call me a big softy, but i don't want to lose these precious years that he is small and that he looks up to his daddy as a hero, who is big and strong and can beat other daddy's up. i just thought that i would take a stroll down memory lane and these pictures are just in the last year. how fast time flies by.

this is garrett eating breakfast when eric and his family came to visit and i still think that garrett looks so young. he has changed so much in the last few months.

this is garrett at a park in holland looking out over his kingdom. garrett is a rough little man and i'm always telling him to stop punching and kicking, but there is a part of me that wants him to keep that fight in him. you see his dad has lost a little of the fight in him, and partly because the society that we live in tells us to stop fighting that it is not good to teach our kids that. garrett, keep fighting and when you get older, you'll be able to beat up your old man, but i'll still love you the same then as i do now.

this is from the other night when he decided that he would be a super hero. he stood up and said, "power in the back." what an imagination. he just makes me smile all the time, even when he is doing something that he knows that he shouldn't be doing.
this is me using him as a human shield. i didn't want jess to take my picture and garrett had just hit the camera and broke it, but mommy got one last shot off. i know that i'm terrible for using him in his pain, but hey, when you don't want your picture taken, you don't want it taken.

garrett, there are going to be days that we fight and that we don't see eye to eye, it is starting to happen more and more as you get older. but i want you to know something. i love you now, and i'll always love you. there will be nothing that you do that will make me stop loving you. as i am writing this, i just got news that there is a teenager that is going into surgery as i write, and i have to say this now, i love you. i don't want you to go into emergency surgery not knowing that. i don't ever want there to be a time that you don't hear me say that. you may have just committed a terrible crime that you are going to be held responsible for, but i want you to know that i love you. you may have just hit your sister, but i want you to know that i love you. there are a lot of men out there that may think i'm a loser for posting this, but i know that a real man is able to say what he wants and i want you to know that i love you. i guess that's all there is to say.

2007-04-03T16:19:00.000-04:00

i love you buddy!

2007-04-03T15:51:00.000-04:00

i've been thinking about how big garrett is getting. it just seems like yesterday that the little guy was born and now he is three. i know that i haven't been real regular about writing here, but i just felt like i needed to say how much i love him. he's the type of kid who is go, go, go one minute and the next he'll look at you and with so much love, he'll just say, "i love you daddy" it just melts me. garrett, i love you and i want you to know that you are not allowed to get out of this stage of just telling me out of the blue that you love me. you always have to stay that way.

messy eater

2006-07-14T14:33:00.000-04:00

it has been a long time since i have done anything on this blog. it is not because garrett hasn't done anything funny or anything to write about because if i did it that way, i would be writing about every minute of everyday. this little guy just keeps us busy and he is a handful, but he is the most loving and funny kid ever. jess and i just had some old pictures developed and i came across this one, and i couldn't help from posting it. he is the worst eater in the world. he always has food all over him and a lot of the time we just have to just give him a bath after dinner and i know that he had to have a bath on this night. just to let you know that he is eating ice cream here, but it also looks like there is a little snot and saliva worked in there as well. garrett, i love you beyond what i can put here, but would you please just learn how to eat like a normal human being? love ya!!!

my guitar player

2006-03-21T11:36:00.000-05:00

this is garrett and he is just like his daddy. i love him so much. he loves music and one of these days i will be able to teach him everything that i know about it. he just turned two on friday and it's amazing to see him mature. he is completely potty-trained and that is huge feat for a 2 year old boy. he has so much love to give and i just pray that the Lord will help jess and myself lead him into the ministry that God has for him. being a parent is something that i never thought would be difficult, but when i look at the responsibility of leading this one in the way that God has for him i now know the amazing stress that is put on jess and myself. God has great plans for garrett (and for the rest of my kids) and i am so excited to see how God uses him in the ministry for His kingdom. thank you God for garrett and everything that he means to me.

seat stealing

2005-12-08T11:52:00.000-05:00

garrett loves to steal people's seats and then laugh at them. i don't know where he gets it, but he is a stinker. this picture was taken because i had been lying on the couch and had gotten up and then he jumped up in my seat and laughed "ha ha" at me. so now it's just a game, he jumps in my seat and i lay down or sit down on him. as you can kind of see in this picture, he is a thumb sucker, but not just that, he also likes hair. when he is tired he will put his thumb in his mouth and then latch on to some hair and twirl it in his hands. it will be his or someones, it doesn't matter. i don't know if i have told you, but i love this little guy. he puts a smile on my face. i know that he is human and that he is going to make mistakes in life (much like his old man) but right now, he's great. i wish that we could keep them at this age. i know what is coming. i know that when he grows up he's going to do something that is going to hurt my feelings. he is going to do something to get himself hurt. he is going to do something that is going to hurt someone else. garrett, even though you do those things, there is one thing that i want you to know. i love you no matter what. God has placed you in my care, and there are a lot of things that you will do that will make you think that i don't love you, but i want you to know that i'll always love you no matter what it is.
there may be times that i let you down, that i do something that hurts you, and i want you to know that if i let you down i am sorry. if i hurt you i am sorry. i still love you and i always will. God please protect my little man and help me be the daddy that You want me to be. help me to love and protect him and to show him the path that You want him to take. thank you so much for my son, and i pray that i will be the daddy that will love and protect him forever. Amen

future hippie

2005-10-18T14:24:00.000-05:00

i just thought that i would share one of my favorite pictures with you. i think that in the future he will make a wonderful drummer in a band or may be he will just be a cross dresser. anyway, this is garrett, making us laugh and loving it. like i said, he will do anything for a laugh. i love this little guy. God bless you all!!!

i love this little guy

2005-10-13T19:13:00.000-05:00

i love my boy. he is the funniest little man ever. everyday when i come home he just screams, "DADEM, DADEM, DADEM!" don't ask me where he got that, but that is how he says daddy. i love this little guy. he loves to climb, he loves to run, he like to tackle girls. i know that he is going to give me problems in the future, but he is the funniest little buggard ever. i think that i'll keep him.
i have been meaning to post some more pictures of him, but the internet is down and for some reason, i haven't been the best of fathers and haven't been taking many pictures of either of our kids. well i just thought that i would let you know that we haven't fallen off the face of the earth. God bless my little man and God bless all of you that read this journal for my son. i hope it brings something to your life, i know it does to mine.

my son

2005-09-10T18:55:00.000-05:00

i just wanted to tell you a little about my boy. he is 1 and a half and the funniest little guy ever. he is a cut up and will do anything for a laugh, even if it will cause him injury. i love this little guy and that is why i am starting this blog. i was lying in bed the other morning and he was walking around the room and he came across a couple of journals. one of those journals was one that we got when my wife and i got married. we were supposed to journal about what is going on in our lives so that we could look back and remember the times. the other journal was one given to us when olivia (our oldest) was born. we were supposed to journal in it and tell her what she is doing. as i watched him looking at these i got sad that he didn't have anything like that so i decided to write this blog. he is a good boy and well deserving of just a little work of writing, (something that i am not fond of). i hope that i can share with you the wonderful things that my son means to me, and what he teaches me. thanks for being my son!