Happy Birthday, Hans!

My last post was about what happened one decade ago in the state of Virginia, and today we are celebrating another event that happened one decade ago, but in the state of Montana. We are sending birthday wishes across the miles to our nephew/cousin, Hans. We see Hans once or twice a year, and it's something that we (especially our kids!) look forward to. He's a really happy, really imaginative little guy. (I guess I should say "guy" and leave the "little" out now that he's ten. Sorry, Hans.)

This past summer Hans was the captain and crew of the cardboard box boat for our team during our Fourth of July celebration, and he won the race! Of the four teams, he was the only boater who actually made it all the way across the pond, but that still counts. In the picture below he is just finishing his victorious voyage.

Today Hans and his family were going bowling to celebrate the big event. I hope the day is fun and that it kicks off another spectacular year for him!

One Decade Ago, in the State of Virginia

Today is the tenth anniversary of the first day of the rest of my life...my first date with Matt. It's also the birthday of two of my previous roommates (and they weren't twins). My college roommate, Polly, and I have this cool connection in that I had the first date with Matt on her birthday, and she had the first date with her future husband on my birthday. Pretty fun. Happy Birthday to Polly and Cheryl, by the way!

Our first date came after we'd been carpooling for more than a year, so we already knew each other very well, but it was still exciting. I actually earned the date as a prize for completing a photo scavenger hunt that Matt sent me on when I was making a road trip back to Taylor. (He had a plan.) What a prize! The date was pretty normal, dinner and a movie, but like I said, exciting!

We celebrated tonight by babysitting for some friends of ours whose two girls were born within days of each of our two girls. It's like having two sets of twins when they come over, and they're very dear to us. Joe's outnumbered but doesn't seem to mind being the only boy, since he's still the oldest and gets to be in charge. These girls just got a new baby brother last month, so Joe will soon have some more masculine company.

Out of the Mouths of Babes

Yesterday, out of the clear blue, Erin started calling me "Your Majesty". I'm glad someone around here is starting to get the idea.

Cheap Thrills

Joe is definitely one of those "high-energy" kids who needs a constant outlet for his momentum,so just imagine how excited I was to discover a new way of wearing him out with very little expenditure of energy on my part. This past weekend I was playing "kitty" with the girls (again!), and I made them some kitty toys by tying little stuffed animals onto a piece of yarn. Joe saw them playing and got so into the idea of batting at the toy and trying to pounce on it before I pulled it away! He played for as long as I would yank the little string and was winded when he was done. It may seem like a little thing, but after dealing with the ants in his pants on a daily basis, I say it's an answer to prayer...and very blog-worthy!

Goodbye to Megan

We were up at Matt's folks' last weekend for a rondevouz (sp?) with our niece Megan who is soon heading to Montana to seek her fortune. (Megan is the oldest of 15 grandchildren on Matt's side. Our Erin is the youngest, with all the others pretty much evenly spread out between. It's awesome to have so many ages and stages in the same family!) Megan's moving out west to work at a place that runs dogsled tours, which is not your ordinary job, but very Megan. And how, you may ask, does one get into a job such as this? Megan has a degree in back-country horsemanship and is a recent graduate of an intensive course in photography...not to mention she has family ties in Montana (Matt's sister) with connections to the dogsled place. She is certainly in our prayers as she heads out. The Ohio part of the family will definitely miss her. Joe put it best when he said that his Montana cousins are the only ones happy that Megan is moving. We look forward to hearing more about the world of mushing, not to mention seeing how the Lord will direct this new stage of her life.

By the way, we made it back from our trip with everything that we took with us! High five!

Indian Summer

We've enjoyed a bit of an Indian summer this week, with highs in the 60's. It's not really my favorite weather, (I love winter and always look forward to it getting cold and staying cold) but it did give the kids some nice days to play outside. I got this picture of the girls playing by their treehouse today. Matt built the treehouse in the summer of 2005 because I really thought we needed a cool place for the kids to hang out in the backyard. It's a platform that's right under some low-hanging branches, and it has a slide out one side. The kids haven't taken to it like I thought they would...or like I know I would have when I was a kid! Now that it's been up for about a year, they are starting to play on it more. I actually took this picture so Matt could see that all his labor was not in vain. Great treehouse, Daddy-o!

Turkeys

"For the Lord is good; His lovingkindness is everlasting and His faithfulness to all generations"
Psalm 100:5

Matt and Joe had a fog day today; their second one this year. Hope we have a mild winter...not really. Anyway, it was great to have them both here all day, and it was nice timing as I had a little craft prepared for a day such as this. Joe and Ellie made these turkeys, which are attached to cans for holding little notes of what we're thankful for. After we made the turkeys I got out my Bible to read Psalm 100 about thankfulness. As soon as I said I was going to read Psalm 100, Joe said, "Psalm 100..." and proceeded to recite the entire psalm from memory! It just totally freaked me out! I guess he's been memorizing this with his Sunday School class for some time now, but I had no idea. I just sat there with my mouth hanging open, thinking, "How is he doing that?!" So, I guess I don't have a child who can spontaneously spurt scripture, but it did make for a nice moment. As you can see from the picture, Erin didn't make a turkey, so she felt that she had to act like one.

One thing I can put in the turkey cans tonight is that Matt painted our registers today. Some were black, some were green, some were brown, and one was even pink...all were chipped and very yucky looking. Now all are black and glossy, and while they don't look like new, they're pretty good for being 100 years old. Matt has a very sore index finger tonight from the spray paint can. I laughed at him for that one, but he hardly ever complains, so it must really hurt.

Goodness

It's my two favorite trees again, this time from a different angle. I took this picture last Wednesday, which was one day before our wind storm which blew all the leaves down. It really looks like the season has changed here now and color like what's in this picture is but a memory. All the glorious fall colors made me think of something I had read on God's goodness, and I wanted to share some of it.

"...God has not only given us senses but that which gratifies them; and this too reveals His goodness. The earth might have been as fertile as it is without its surface being so delightfully variegated. Our physical lives could have been sustained without beautiful flowers to regale our eyes with their colors, and our nostrils with their sweet perfumes. We might have walked the fields without our ears being saluted by the music of the birds. Whence, then, this loveliness, this charm so freely diffused over the face of nature? Verily, 'The tender mercies of the Lord are over all His works' (Psa. 145:9)." (Arthur W. Pink)

One Lucky Mommy

When Joe was two, he used to do this little role call whenever we sat down for lunch. In his tiny, little boy voice, he'd say, "One baby Ellie, one big boy Joseph, and one lucky mommy!" Last night I felt like I had earned that title all over again, when I walked into Joe's bedroom and found his first-ever note written to me in his own handwriting. I had just finished tucking him in when Matt went into his room and found him laboring over his little magnadoodle. By the time Matt got there, he had written, "Der M..." Matt helped him spell "dear" correctly, then Joe finished the "Mommy" and left the note laying on his bed where I would see it when I went in to wake him up this morning. He was so thrilled with himself! He told me how he wished he had more room so that he could have written, "I love you." "Of course," he said, "Daddy would have had to help me with the heart." Tonight he got another magnadoodle and finished the message. It's not luck...I AM SO BLESSED!!!

Crazy Color Day!

Oh, if all of school were as much fun as kindergarten! Today was Crazy Color Day for Joe, as a celebration of finishing a unit on colors. The kids were to wear as many colors as possible, and they did fun, colorful stuff (like eating geen eggs and ham) all day. Joe was going to wear our rainbow clown wig but decided it was too itchy, so this was his color. Erin has dubbed this Joe's "hemigana" shirt. (WARNING: This is one of those long stories that might only be amusing to the parents of the children in the story. Proceed at your own risk.) Erin calls all sunsets and sunrises "hemigana's" because of the song that is sung in the opening of The Lion King. In the movie, as the sun rises over the African savannah, African voices can be heard chanting, "Hemigana, hemigana-yana, hemigana, hemigana-yana..." (At least that's how it sounds to us.) Erin first started calling real sunsets in the sky hemigana's, but the first time she saw Joe wearing this shirt, she yelled, "Hemigana!" And she still notices it today. The first thing she said when she saw Joe this morning and again after school was, "Hemigana!" Aren't family jokes so neat? If Erin had never come into our family, we would have never known about hemigana shirts.

Where I Was Coming From

"It is impossible to overestimate the great things which become possible when a young life is surrendered to the Almighty God."
(Powell, David: His Life and Times - A Biographical Commentary)

After my previous two posts, I feel like I need to clarify a few things, lest anyone think that I dislike my work as a mother or not appreciate it for the high calling that it is. I don't regret spending my time doing things to give my kids happy childhood memories, it was just that my heart wasn't right as I was doing it. My main goal with my kids is not to give them memories of fun times as a family but an understanding of and passion for God and His glory. In order to do this, I must use every opportunity to impart God's truth to them, then pray that God will write that truth on the tablet of their hearts (Prov. 3:3). Deuteronomy 6:7, says to teach the commands of God diligently to your children, but the verse before that (Here's the catch!) says that these commands must first be written on my heart. When I have a week where I've not made time to open my heart to God's Word so that it can dwell richly in me, I'm not walking in the Spirit, but relying on my own flesh to accomplish what only God can. When I'm walking in the Spirit, I will be doing the things that show my love for my kids, but not just for the sake of loving them...for the sake of God and His kingdom. What gets me really excited about this is that if God would so bless our family, not only would our kids have God, but God would have them. Like Hannah with Samuel, what a wonderful offering this would be to present to God! One of my new favorite John Piper quotes sums it all up (and really challenges me): "I plead with you to dream a dream that is bigger than you and your families and your churches. Un-deify the American family, and say boldly that our children are not our cause, they are given to us to train for a cause. They are given to us for a short season so that we can train them for the great causes of truth and mercy and justice in a prejudiced, pain-filled, and perishing world."

Kitchen Window

Living in town, we don't have any particularly stunning views out of our windows, but I do really like this view out my kitchen window. The branches of this Japanese Maple and cedar tree interweave and are a wonderful complement to each other at all seasons, but especially in the fall. The evening sun shines through these at about the time I'm preparing supper and gives me some natural beauty to enjoy. I'm sure this picture doesn't do justice.

I'm preparing tonight for church in the morning. Our sermon last week was on being filled with the Spirit. Justin talked about the idea of what fills you, controls you. Eph. 5:18 contrasts being filled with the Spirit to being drunk with wine. The Spirit should control us just as wine controls a drunk person. Col. 3:16 is a good parallel to the Ephesians passage and it says that we are to "Let the Word of Christ richly dwell in (us)"...The Word of God dwelling in us is the same as being Spirit-filled. The memorable quote for me was, "It's not how much of the Spirit I have, it's how much the Spirit has of me." This week, I'm afraid it hasn't been much (see below), but I know where to go to get turned around. Let's hope and pray that I have more of the right stuff dwelling richly in me this week.

Trick or Treat

Here's the trick or treat line-up for this year. We have...
a fly, (It was hard to get a good picture of this one!)

an Indian girl, (Thanks, Grandma Barb!)

and a "leedle tiny mousie"!


It was a cold, wet night. Erin made it to a total of six houses before we headed home. Joe and Ellie kept on for about an hour, which was much longer than they've ever gone before. The costumes are the fun part of this day for the kids, while they each have a different take on the candy. Joe came back home, dumped his candy on the floor, and said, "I don't really like any of this stuff." He's a picky eater and it extends to candy, too, which is fine by me. Erin just likes to look at the colorful candy wrappers. After each house, she had to stop and examine her treat closely before we could go on. Ellie likes most of her candy and likes to make it last. Today I found her eating her last "Smartie", one hour after she had started the first piece!

And so we made it through. Today the kids were talking about how they wish it could be trick or treat every night. No, thanks. I'm ready to get onto the next set of holidays. Halloween has taken so much of my time and energy, and I somehow feel some of it could have gone to better endeavors.

Matt's Favorite Night

NOT! Tonight was jack-o-lantern night at our house, and now, thankfully, it's over! Every year I get the pumpkins cleaned out and ready to carve, then leave the honors of carving to Matt. There's something about working with a sharp knife in a room with three kids who are so excited they can't stand still that Matt doesn't like...hmmm. He always does a great job at the carving and this was the best year yet as far as him seeming like he was enjoying himself. This is just one of those things he does that shows how much he really loves his kids. Someday maybe the kids will be carving jack-o-lanterns with our grandchildren and suddenly realize how much it meant that their dad did this every year.

Pumpkin Patch

We took the traditional trip to the pumpkin patch on Saturday. Trick or treat is this Thursday, so we had to get going on that! It was a perfect day for it, and everybody picked their perfect pumpkin!

Erin really wanted a "leedle" one.

Joe wanted a tall one.

Ellie was content with a normal orange one. (That's my Ellie!)

While Erin liked the pumpkins, the big fun for her was poking her fingers in the mud. She does this compulsively whenever she sees dirt, and the pumpkin patch had so many muddy spots that it was almost too much for her!


Joe led everyone in a big cheer when we were done (and when Mommy had finally gotten enough pictures).


Then we headed for home.

Red Wet Rat

We had a nice visit up at Matt's folks on Thursday and Friday. It was memorable in that we didn't forget anything when we left (at least not after we left for the second time). We always forget something. We accidentally left the kids' sleeping bags and all our toiletries at our house, though, so I think the reason we did better is that we forgot everything before we got there. We relaxed and had fun, but I was glad to get back home to my toothbrush on Friday night.

While we were there, the kids watched Lady and the Tramp, which has a "scary" part with a rat in it. After the movie as our kids were playing and acting out the story, we had the hardest time trying to understand what the girls were talking about. We finally realized that they were saying "rat", but it sounded just the like the way they say the words "red" and "wet". So when we got Ellie and Erin to say, "The red, wet rat," it sounded like they were saying the same word three times in a row. It was funny, but maybe you had to be there.

Happy Birthday, Rachel!

Today is the birthday of one of our top seven favorite nieces, Rachel! She is turning 20, which is, of course, significant, as she’s leaving the teens behind. (You’re just getting old, Rach!) Rachel’s one of those wacky but quiet people. (She’d make a great blogger!) who’s sweet and agreeable and just fun to be around. Her nice disposition might come from having three younger brothers, or maybe she’s nice in spite of that! :) God has truly blessed Rachel with an amazing sense of responsibility and a lot of discernment, making her seem wise beyond her years. Oh, that I only had her wisdom as I was starting my 20’s! Rachel’s family lives back the lane from Matt’s folks and we just started noticing this year that one of Ellie’s first questions when we get to that neck of the woods is if she’s going to get to see Rachel. (I think Ellie’s sort of quiet and wacky, too, so she must be drawn to Rachel.) We don’t see Rachel as much as we used to now that she’s away at college and work so often. We’re actually hoping to bump into her today, as we’re heading up that way and Rachel’s home on fall break. Then we’ll be able to give her a hug to go along with our best birthday wishes!

One-Man Star Wars Trilogy

Doesn't the title of this post just say it all? Last night Matt and I met up with his sister, Carrie, and two of her daughters, Megan and Emily, to go to a very unique performance entitled "One-Man Star Wars Trilogy". This guy came out on stage with no props, no costumes, no scenery, and acted out the entire trilogy (episodes 4, 5,& 6) in about an hour. (I hope picturing this makes you laugh.) He did voices and sounds, sang the music, and was all over the stage...I thought it was hillarious! There were a few Jedi in the audience with their light sabers, and I got a picture of our party with some of them afterwards (much to Emily's dismay!).


I've only gotten into Star Wars over the past few years, and I attribute a lot of it to Carrie's influence. She's the one who loaned me the books...sort of my Star Wars go-to girl. After last night I'm ready to go back and watch all the videos again, but I still don't own a light saber or a functioning R2-D2!

Another funny thing that happened today as I was looking over the program from last nght's show...On the cover the date was given as October 10, 2007. I read it and thought (seriously thought!), "OH! It's 2007?! I've been writing checks wrong! Is it really 2007?!" About 30 seconds later I was straight again, but I'm still laughing at myself that I could've even thought that. I guess my mind was still in a galaxy far, far away!

Art Eyes

Joe brought these glasses home from school the other day. They were his first school art project. His art teacher tells the kids that when they have these on, they can use their "art eyes".

A Thousand Days

We discovered a new park not too far from us and spent some time playing and hiking there yesterday. It was really a beautiful spot and the day was beautiful, too. We ate fresh apples as we walked along paths rimmed with golden leaves, beside a lake which mirrored it all. The kids chased the ducks around the lake, then later played on the swings and slides. Joe even demonstrated his new skill of crossing the monkeybars hand over hand. Before we went home the girls picked some flowers for me, then we put them in their hair. Ellie said that she was "just like a bride except for the dress and veil". (I had to give this description because my camera batteries died after the first couple shots. That was the only thing that went wrong on the trip.) It was a wonderful afternoon, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat. Days like this always make me think of Psalm 84:10,"Better is a day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere..." Even this perfect day, repeated a thousand times, couldn't compare to one day (or one minute) in the presence of God. What a joy it is to know that, because of Christ, I'll have an eternity of days that are infinitely happier than this one!