The Happys

Things that make me happy:

warm sunshine
new spring leaves
summer evenings
picnics
rivers
flowers
ice cream cones eaten outside while they melt
strawberry limeades during happy hour at Sonic
the smell of camping food
riding my bike - every time I go I forget how much I love it.
riding in a convertible
playing in my own backyard
sisters
and my brother
days when there is nothing that HAS to be done
warm breezes
music
wading in a creek
learning
eating chocolate
my husband
the first day of school
the last day of school
baby deer
laughing
being with friends
my entire family sitting on one couch
Sunday lunch at my parents'
drinking hot tea with Dan
Christmas
board games
making smores
life

What give you the happys?

My Aviary

We were outside swinging and making up funny songs this afternoon. It's a beautiful day. You know, the kind of day that it is surely a sin to be indoors. Elijah loves to swing in the baby swing. I think he would stay out there for hours if someone would stay there and push him. The other kids were respectively on their swings and we were singing this song:

It's fun to swing,
While we sing,
In the spring.

We jump up high,
In the sky,
It's like we fly!!!

Our rhyming really went downhill after that, so I'll just write the good verses here.

As you can see, we're quite the song writers. If we could find someone to sing them, I'm sure we would be famous.....

 Rylie, who really loves to write things down, ran inside to grab her notebook so we could remember our song. I had just spun Zack on his swing and he was screaming bloody murder as he was holding on to the bottom of the swing spinning furiously. All of the sudden Rylie began screaming also. "Mom!!!!! There's a bird in our house!!!!!" she squealed. Now I had two children screaming. We live in a retirement neighborhood and our neighbors just LOVE us..... I was just beginning to think that maybe Zack needed rescued when I ditched him to check out the aviary that used to be my house.

I reached the house in time to see a cute little bird flying around my family room. My first thought was, "birds can't control their colons, it's going to poop all over my house!!" My second thought was, "How are we going to chase it out without touching it?" (I'm deathly afraid of mites and diseases.) As the rest of the kids trailed in, the bird flew off into the other part of the house. Out of fear I'm sure.

I then began to squeal. Loudly and frequently. My fear of diseases and mites was escalating with every squeal. And NOW this bird was SOMEWHERE in my house spreading disease. (And most likely pooping.)

I hollered at the kids to go down the hall, find the bird, chase it towards the front of the house, and close all the bedroom doors! While they were doing that I went to prop the front door open so it could fly out. As I was opening the door, Rylie came in and informed me that I almost stepped on the poor little bird. At that message I started jumping around and squealing all over again at the mere thought of squishing a little bird between my toes.

It was lying there looking quite dead. I assumed there were two possible reasons for this. 1. We scared it to death with all our squealing (OK, my squealing.) and running around like madmen. 2. It hit the window trying desperately to escape the madmen and stunned itself. We're going with option 2.

Now we had a couple of problems. We have a cat who is an avid hunter. She's quite fat right now though and prefers slow animals. A stunned bird is very slow. I was sure she would eat her. The other problem was how to get it outside without spreading diseases and mites by touching it.

I fixed the first problem by locking the fat hunter in the garage. Zack fixed the second problem by using Dan's shoe to scoot the bird out the door.

Now my last problem is how to keep Dan from reading this post as he is constantly telling us to CLOSE the back door.........smile.....

Race me Mom?

Kade loves to run. Not run like a normal kid, more like a marathon runner. He can go forever. The older two kids will wear out long before he does.

"Race me, Mom," he said to me the other day. "OK," I agreed all the while thinking that running is not quite what it used to be. "Where do you want to race to?" I asked him. He pointed in the distance The far distance. "That tree over there." he replied. "Kade, I said, I can barely SEE that tree!" "It's OK, Mom", he said reassuringly. "Let's race to THAT tree," I suggest. "Mom, I can TOUCH that tree from here. I know. "But, I might have a chance," I say.

"I can beat you if you race to my tree," he says.

Of course you will. I'll die half way there. Or, I will have to stop and catch my breath......three times......while you're winning. I don't like to lose. Especially to a five year old.

We raced. I won. Barely. I'm only going to admit that here. Next year I probably won't be winning. I may have to fake an injury. With the length of Kade's races it might not be fake.

I love it though. I love the fact that my kids want to race me. They like playing games with me. They want to be WITH me. I like that. It makes my heart sing. It makes me want to race, even though I'm sure I look silly, and I'm probably going to lose.

I'm pretty sure that's how God feels when we WANT to be with Him. I think it makes His heart sing. We were created to WANT to be WITH Him. When my life is crazy, I try to remember that.

Stompers Make a Comeback!

Do you remember Stompers?

 You know, those great little monster trucks that went by themselves. They would go at regular speed with a normal battery, OR you could hook them up to a 9 volt battery and they would ROAR!! Good memories.

I hadn’t seen them in years when Dan and I happened upon some while Christmas shopping. Dan instantly decided we needed 3.  For the kids, of course....

We took them home and wrapped them up. We let the kids open them on Christmas Eve. They were so excited. Well, ok, Dan and I were excited. I think exciting toys are a little more prolific these days than when we were kids. Rylie was really sweet and acted grateful, but she would much rather have had something to do with ballet….. It was fun though. We had Stomper races and monster truck competitions.

The newness has since worn off, and the Stompers are in the bottom of the toy box. The other day Kade came across one. He’s our monster truck enthusiast. He can play with them for hours. He was in the kitchen happily playing trucks with Elijah. They were having a great time when Kade decided to use Elijah’s head as a mountain for the Stomper to go over. Which wasn’t such a bad idea except Elijah as lots of hair…..

 Now those Stompers, they're not cheap toys. Oh no! They're good toys, they're 4wheel drive. Not just two wheels spin, all four wheels spin at once. Which is much better when they are on your child's head eating up his hair. They take in more hair that way. And Kade couldn't have put it in the back of his head, Oh no! He had to set in right in the front where everyone would be sure to see the chopped off bald spot. And, Oh yes, I had to chop off his hair because Stompers don't go in reverse and let out the tightly held hair. Elijah didn't appreciate having a 4wheel drive Stomper hanging off his forehead at all. Some boys would have thought that was cool, but he's not to that age yet. He just knew his hair was being pulled and he was being bonked in the forehead by an unidentified object every time he moved. I did what any desperate mom would do and I got the kitchen shears out. (They were the closest scissors handy.) Elijah suddenly got really nervous. Not only was there an monster truck hanging off his head, banging him in the forehead and pulling his hair, now his mom was coming at him with a large pair of kitchen shears. I had to have Rylie hold him down while I did the worse job of hair cutting I've ever done in my life. (It couldn't have been the kitchen shears....)

Elijah, not really caring much about how he looked, was very happy to be free from me and the Stomper. Kade, on the other hand was not so happy that there was a large amount of hair stuck in his truck. 

Maybe we could nickname it, “Woolly Mammoth!”  Ha! I crack myself up.

All in a Day's Work

I stopped at The Shop the other day on my way home from grocery shopping. Dan was watching 3 of 4 of our children. I walked in to find him standing in the garage holding Elijah's pants in one hand and a blow dryer in the other. He wasn't smiling. "He had a blow out," he stated. "It's really hard to get anything done around here," he added.

 I smiled. If he only knew.........

I was teaching a piano lesson the other day. My two older children are great about watching the baby while I am teaching. Rylie wasn't feeling well, so I gave Zack the task of keeping an eye on Elijah. He was playing the Wii also. I should have remembered that 9 yr. olds are not good at multitasking.

About half way through my lesson, Zack shouts, "Mom! Elijah's naked!" "Oh no," I thought. Elijah's new talent is taking off his own diaper. (Of course, if my child wasn't running around like a hillbilly in just a diaper this wouldn't have happened.) Before I could get up and take care of my child who had been running around naked for who knows how long, Zack said even louder, "Mom!! He pooped!!" Of course he did. He would wait until his diaper was off and I was in the middle of a piano lesson before he did that. "Where?" I asked, not really wanting to know. "On the carpet, right next to the tile," was Zack's reply. Right. Right NEXT to the tile???? Really??? I told my piano student we were taking an indefinite break.

I went in there to find that he didn't just poop on the carpet, but had decided to play in it. He had rubbed it into the carpet and spread it on to the tile. I was horrified. My first thought was, "Zackary, how did you not notice this?" My second thought was, "OH NO! DID HE EAT IT TOO???????" How was I to find out? Did I really want to find out? I mean, do you really WANT to know if your child just ate poop??? I decided to smell his breath. Surely that would be a dead giveaway. It's really hard to smell your child's breath while holding him at arms' length so as not to get poop on yourself because eventually you HAVE to go back and finish your piano lesson. I was grateful to find that his breath still smelled sweet. I decided to believe that he hadn't tried it. We're all happier that way.

I carried him down the hall and plopped him in the tub. I called Zackary and told him that he was NEVER playing Wii again in his life, and to watch his little brother. I quickly cleaned the carpet and tile, all the while thinking we needed to get the professionals in here. I then washed my hands, regained my composure (if that's possible) and finished my piano lesson.

Yep, Dan, I'll take a blowout any day.... =)

The Woodshed With God

I've spent some time on my face before God this past week. He's been reminding me what a wretch I am.

I find myself being critical of others. Often. Too often. It's so easy to find fault in others. For one thing it makes me look better if someone looks worse....

Often. Too often, God steps in and shows me that the faults I find in others are the same faults I have in my own life.

Last week, someone I love was crabby, quite crabby, unusually crabby. This individual is usually very nice. I reacted with some crabbies myself. I felt crabby for crabby was quite justified. I gave all kinds of reasons why this person was acting so - "terribly" -  and why they shouldn't be, and how it was affecting others. And oh, I felt pride build up in my heart, because I was being a much better - "kinder" -  person.

Then I went home.

Alone with my Heavenly Father.

And He spoke to my heart, quite loudly.

He informed me that so often I let my circumstances, or my children, or my mood determine my behavior. I'm pretty good at being kind most of the time in public, but what about every day with the people whom I love the most..... What about when my day is not going as I planned it, or my children are acting like they were raised by apes, or maybe not raised at all, or my husband doesn't do what I want?
At those times I can be:

 unkind.

 crabby.

I am a wretch before a Holy God.

How I need Him! I need Him to create in me a new heart, new eyes, a new perspective. Sometimes I am sure he allows people around me to act unsavory to show me my own heart. Oh! But I'm grateful he does.

I'm so in awe that the Creator of the Universe cares enough about me to take the time to speak to my heart and "spank" out the grime that looks like me, and replace it with righteousness that looks like Jesus. I'm glad He's given me 4 precious children and a sweet patient husband to practice on.

I don't just want the ones outside my home to see Jesus in me, I want the ones who live with me to see Him....and WANT Him because they can see Him...and He is beautiful. Even when I am not.

Thank You Lord Jesus for this everyday life. Thank You that when I mess up today there is a new  tomorrow. Thank You that You are making a new me.

Farming in my mind

I've decided I want a farm. A mini farm that is. I want chickens and a cow. I want chickens for eggs and the cow for meat. My hunk of a husband says that there's no way the children or I would eat Lou Lou Bell after we raised her, but I think we would. Maybe we just won't name her Lou Lou Bell. Maybe we'll just call her Steak, or Hamburger, or something less personal.

I think I want a goat too. I'm not sure why. I certainly don't want to milk a goat! Maybe we would keep the goat around to eat the children's toys that they leave in the yard....  Maybe we could eat the goat too. We'll name him Lambchop.

Actually in reality I probably don't want a farm at all, but in my mind I think I do. I do this every once in awhile. I think I'm a farmer in my mind. The last time it happened, I wanted a garden. My sweet husband who knows me better than I do myself suggested we start with a pot garden. (Just for clarification that's not a garden where you grow "pot.") It's the type of garden where you have 8-10 pots of plants on your back deck. I excitedly planted my plants thinking of all the salsa I was going to put away for the winter. I think I got one tomato that year. I don't like to water or care for plants. In return my dear plants didn't want to give me any fruit.

Dan sweetly told me that spending the money at the farmer's market was probably more cost effective than growing our own produce. So since that time, I go to the farmer's market in the summer and to the grocery store in the winter.

Time makes me forget though, and now I'm sure I want a farm. We just won't have a garden, we'll have animals! Of course, I won't even let my children have a dog because I don't like animals. But I'm sure it will be different once we have our farm.....

We live in the middle of a neighborhood right now and Dan says we are NOT having a backyard chicken coop. (I tried that one last week.) He's taking the "someday approach." "Someday when we have a few acres you can have your chickens and cow," He tells me.

Until then, I'm going to dream about my farm.......and shop at the grocery store.