ferrets and phones, hearts and big stuffed animals....

We've had a ferret infestation in our house. I'm thinking about keeping this one since he's so cute....

Jonah learned all about ferrets at zoo school last week and has been playing the part ever since.

Couldn't resist posting this picture of Henry calling his daddy after soccer on Saturday. He could not wait to tell Daddy all about the goal that he scored! Way to go, Henry!

Sam came in one day last week from outside. He was working pretty hard, enough to work up a sweat....which left a cute little heart shaped stain on his t-shirt. He couldn't see what I was talking about, so I suggested we take a picture so he could see it. (Yes, a mirror would have worked too, but then how could I blog it?)

Anyone know why this picture is significant?

This is the very first time Henry has been excited to see a giant cartoon character! He has always been terrified of these things, even though we tell him it's just a person in costume. Last year at Sea World we had to take a pretty wide detour just to avoid the guy dressed as Shamu near the entrance! And we always have to steer clear of the library on days when they bring in Winnie the Pooh or Clifford to visit. So I was quite surprised when Henry grabbed my hand at the Teddy Bear Parade last week and said, "Mommy, will you take my picture with that bear?"

Slow Fade

This a really great Casting Crowns song. I've been hearing it on the radio a lot lately and haven't really paid any attention to the lyrics. It only caught my attention because at the end a little girl's voice sings "Be careful little eyes what you see..." and my boys always sing along. Sam and I saw "Fireproof" the other day and they play this song--anyway, it got me (and Sam too!) really paying attention to the lyrics and it is a really powerful song! So enjoy! If you have time, go ahead and listen to the video and if you don't--I posted the lyrics for you to read! :)

God bless you and have a great week!

Be careful little eyes what you see
It's the second glance that ties your hands as darkness pulls the strings
Be careful little feet where you go
For it's the little feet behind you that are sure to follow

It's a slow fade when you give yourself away
It's a slow fade when black and white have turned to gray
Thoughts invade, choices are made, a price will be paid
When you give yourself away
People never crumble in a day
It's a slow fade, it's a slow fade

Be careful little ears what you hear
When flattery leads to compromise, the end is always near
Be careful little lips what you say
For empty words and promises lead broken hearts astray

It's a slow fade when you give yourself away
It's a slow fade when black and white have turned to gray
Thoughts invade, choices are made, a price will be paid
When you give yourself away
People never crumble in a day

The journey from your mind to your hands

Is shorter than you're thinking

Be careful if you think you stand

You just might be sinking

It's a slow fade when you give yourself away
It's a slow fade when black and white have turned to gray
Thoughts invade, choices are made, a price will be paid
When you give yourself away

People never crumble in a day
Daddies never crumble in a day
Families never crumble in a day

Oh be careful little eyes what see
Oh be careful little eyes what you see
For the Father up above is looking down in love
Oh be careful little eyes what you see

Nose Picking

I suppose all kids end up doing it a time or two. It's just a matter of catching them and correcting them.

However, Henry gave me the best argument this afternoon when I told him to get his finger out of his nose . . . . .

"It's okay, Mommy. Don't worry, because Caleb picks his nose too!"

Don't let the sweet smile fool you.

This little girl doesn't know how to share!

This morning we had a fun playdate with some of the girls that sit at my table at MOPS. One of the girls brought her son and her nephew who are both the same age as Bridget (their birthdays are all actually within two weeks of each other). Bridget found new love for toys that she normally doesn't even know exist. She was heartbroken over letting someone else play with the jack-in-the-box. She yelled and screamed whenever she saw another baby playing with a stroller (even though there are two of them!). But I think the final straw for her was seeing someone else play with her beloved bead necklace. That might have just pushed her over the edge.

It got me thinking. The boys have never had any real problems sharing. Not to say they don't ever struggle, but sharing or taking turns with toys has never really been an issue for either one of them. Bridget, on the other hand, has never been asked to share. Whenever she wants something that one of the boys has, she points at it and they give it to her! They dote on her and would never dream of denying her anything. Seems like maybe we're raising a little princess here--but certainly not on purpose. I'm just not sure how I'm going to tell the boys that they can't give in to their little sister any more!

Home from Florida

We had an incredible time in Florida!


The house that we rented turned out to be not quite as nice as we had hoped. We arrived pretty late, so we scoped it out and went ahead and went to bed. The next morning, Kelly decided to call the rental agency and talk with them about the state of the house. There were a lot of things broken and the pool was FILTHY. The man at the rental agency agreed to do something about it for us--he gave us a different house! The house we ended up getting was BEAUTIFUL! Everything was much nicer than the first house, it was decorated very fun and beachy and the pool was bigger and sparkly-clean! There was even a screen room between the house and the pool (which eased my fears that someone might leave a door open and allow Bridget access to the pool--the first house was a little scary that way).

So we had a gorgeous house with a private pool and we were only about two blocks from the beach. There was a church about half a block from the house that had an amazing park for the kids. It was an ideal set up! We spent time each day at the pool, the beach and the park. It was such a relaxing time and so fun to spend time with Jon and Kelly and Dave and MaryBeth. The guys went golfing a few times and we all spent some time at the outlet mall. The guys also spent some time at the Bass Pro Shop, which has become a tradition on this trip. :) It was really an almost perfect vacation!







I'm sure I'll be posting more pictures in the days to come, but for now....here's the trip, in photos!

Our good friends (and family!) Jon and Kelly, with Jordan:

Dave looking out over the ocean: MaryBeth, enjoying a little poolside reading time:Everyone in the pool:
Bridget with her favorite person, Grandpop:
The kids enjoying the park:

The boys on the beach:
Me and my kiddos having a swim:
The guys and their dorky glasses (another tradition!):
The last night on the beach:The one picture with EVERYONE in it! I forgot to take this pictures at the house, so we took it in the parking lot of a Wendy's on the way home! I saw right away that Sam was shadowed, but there was no way we could get everyone settled back down for another picture! :)

I feel so incredibly blessed and favored that God would enable us to go on a wonderful vacation like this with our family and loved ones. We enjoyed every minute....thank you, Lord!

Florida!

Last year at exactly this time, my family was vacationing on the beach in Florida. It was our second annual trip with these guys:
and we had hoped to make it again this year. Things didn't seem to be falling into place, but last week we decided to just make it work. So tomorrow, we are headed to the beach! :)

We'll be swimming, relaxing and enjoying having NOTHING to do.

I'll be marvelling at the fact that a year ago, my baby was only this little:
The boys will have some more fun in the sand and surf:

and the park is always lots of fun, since Daddy is there to play:

and this year Bridget will probably do a lot less sleeping through the fun times than she did last year:
This year should be extra fun since we've invited along an extra couple too....Sam's parents are coming with us!

May you be showered with blessings this week!

I'll post pictures of our fun in the (hopefully) sun next week some time.

Trip #2 to the Pumpkin Patch

Henry's class went on a field trip last week to a pumpkin patch that was about an hour away. Yesterday, my MOPS girls and some other friends went to the more local (and free!) pumpkin patch.

It was so much fun! The kids went on a hay ride, picked out pumpkins, painted mini-pumpkins to take home, played on the playground equipment and ran around like crazy people. Then we had a picnic lunch and everyone headed home.

This was Bridget's first choice, but she ended up picking one a little bit bigger--she would have kept trading up all day if I had let her!

Here's Jonah and his pumpkin. It was so suitable for him. He had a perfectly shaped, bright orange, flawless pumpkin and then he saw this one....smaller, slightly brown, with big scars running down almost three quarters of the pumpkin, and he declared it "the one." Jonah always seems to choose the underdog, just like his daddy!

Bridget was EXHAUSTED after her morning of fun and excitement....tired enough to actually fall asleep in the car, which she is normally fundamentally opposed to doing.

Here's me and my favorite girls. :) Kim on the left, Andrea on the right.

By the time we got back to town it was almost time to pick up our kindergarteners, so we let the little ones play at the park (and Bridget continued her car-snooze) while we sat back and talked.

It was a beautiful fall day!

The Lessons I Learned at ESOAL

If you're done hearing about ESOAL, then you'll want to skip right over this post. ;) This is probably the last I'll write about it for the time being.

The last night (before the sleep/no sleep torture cycles* began) we watched a reeeeaaalllly boring movie on nutrition. It was almost impossible to stay awake by that point. I stood in the back of the room bouncing up and down just to keep myself awake. At one point my friend Alisa (pictured with me above) came back to stand back there too and near the end of the movie we hobbled out together to use the restroom. When we made our way back the movie was over and everyone had a piece of paper and a pencil and they were all furiously writing. I assumed we were missing a written test (not a good idea during esoal) so we quickly sat down. However, it wasn't a test, but a chance to write out what we had learned so far at esoal. The following is what I wrote...(un-edited)...in my state of delirium!

The Lessons I Learned at ESOAL

The experience at ESOAL has been like nothing I have ever experienced. I have been challenged physically, beyond what I thought I could endure. I have been placed in a leadership position and have felt challenged to really help and support and encourage other women. It has made me realize that I often place myself in roles where I am comfortable and not challenged. Jesus has been pressing into my heart the necessity of women's ministry and ESOAL has confirmed that this is something I need to pursue. Maybe not in this season of my life, but I feel that God is preparing me for something in the future. I have learned to truly believePhil. 4:13 -- that with God all things are possible. I believe my endurance level has been expanded and I am still processing the lessons I've learned on applying perseverance to my everyday life. My major had wonderful words to challenge and encourage me with and I will be reflecting on what she had to share with me for a long time. She encouraged me to live a pure and faithful life not just because I am a child of God, but also because I am an example to my children. Also she encouraged me no to overlook sins in their life that are difficult to deal with. I am so very grateful to have been given the opportunity to take part in this absolutely amazing experience! I was taught to always have joy through my circumstances and that is an infectious thing. Others can be encouraged simply by a smile or kind word and that joy is a testimony to Jesus.

*The sleep/no sleep cycle is a time where they had us lie down on the football field for something like four-seven minutes and told us to sleep. Then they would 'wake' us up and have us do exercises and head to the ice-water baths. There we would have to dunk either just to our waists or all the way to our shoulders. Then we would get out and stand around a very small fire. We would have the chance to earn two extra minutes by the fire by answering TM trivia questions or quoting specific scriptures when we were called on. If the answer was wrong, we headed back to the sleeping bags to start the cycle over again. It was pure torture! But in a good way. :)

The tornado strikes again...

Dear Bridget,

First of all, I love you. You are such a free spirit and an adorable little girl. I love that you are fiercely independant but also love a good snuggle now and again. I love that you have figured out how to walk and balance yourself but you still prefer to crawl or be carried around. I love that I can see when you're going to throw yourself down on the floor and have a temper tantrum but I still can't stop it. I love that you have a huge smile for everyone you see. I love that you find a way to put on any necklace/costume/loose clothing that you find around the house. I love that you adore your two brothers and want to do everything that they do. And on that note, can I just say that you don't have to be completely like your brothers just yet? They really are much bigger than you.

Take the toilet paper, for example. I don't mind changing your diapers for you still. Really. So you can go ahead and leave the tp on the rolls for now. And the movies? I know you'd like to watch movies like the boys do. I understand that. But I still say you're too young and taking all the movies off the shelf isn't going to change my mind.

The playroom is another situation all together. Just because the boys get toys out and don't put them back doesn't mean that you should too. You can set the example for them and start putting toys away--I won't mind a bit! :)

Silly girl. I love you more than you know! :)

Love, Mommy

Kindergarten fieldtrip

Henry had his first kindergarten field trip this week! We started out at a local park where the kids ran off some of their energy and we had an early lunch. Then we went to the pumpkin patch where we watched a short play on how pumpkins grow, watched a pumpkin carving demonstration, learned the different names for all the pumpkins, felt the pumpkin guts(!), pulled a 100-year-old plow (or cow, as Jonah says), and finally....had a hayride out to the field to pick pumpkins. It was so fun and Henry had a GREAT time. Jonah came along too and felt pretty big when he was allowed to do everything with the "big" kids.

A few pictures to document the event....

getting on the bus (which was half the fun of the whole trip!):

class photo opportunity:

me and the boys in front of the hay spider!

Of course kindergarten is fun with a teacher like this:

And here's Bridget with her good friend Melissa (who was kind enough to keep Bridget while we were on the field trip):

This one's just for the ladies....

This week I had a sad, sad revelation. After being pregnant and/or nursing babies for the last six years or so, my body is changed. Completely. Mostly in a very good way--I will say that being pregnant AND nursing my babies gave me a whole new appreciation for this incredibly useful body that God gave me. But now that the last baby is weaned and my body has finally adjusted and accepted that fact, NONE of my bras fit anymore! Not a single one! And I'm not happy about it. Some of you might think, "Ah, but now you can go shopping!" and I might be tempted to agree--I mean I do love shopping after all. :) But trying on dozens of bras and searching for just the right size/style/fit/whatever? That just doesn't appeal to me.

So anyway, this might be just a little TMI for some of you, but I really wanted to get that off my chest....pun intended, of course. ;)