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Friday, October 31, 2008

BOO!

We got booed! This was a new thing for our family. I heard about it last year from a friend, but had never participated. Basically, booing is when someone brings a treat to your door, rings the doorbell and disappears. They leave instructions to pass along the fun to 2 other neighbors.

So we opened the door and found this:



Eventually we made these

and set out to boo someone else. What a thrill to run and sneak with the kids trying not to get caught. The first house we tried caught us even before we got out of the car when the dad came out of the garage suddenly and we were attempting to sneak up to the door. It was fun and we had many laughs. It is just fun to try to be sneaky with little ones.
Hope you all have a very happy Halloween! Enjoy yourself and your kiddos! I will post pictures soon.


****I wrote this the other day with every intention of posting it this morning (I am not a technologically savvy blogger so I don't know how to schedule posts). I obviously forgot so I am posting it now at the end of Halloween. We had a little Halloween party here, I will post pictures soon.

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

The Zoo and the Park

I had a great time last week going on Aidan's class field trip. We went to the zoo and then the park and the kids ate lunch in between. It was great to get to spend some time talking with his teacher and getting to know some of the kids and other moms.


Aidan's sweet class



The crazy aggressive birds. We have fed the birds before but these were literally flocking to the stick and biting each other to get prime spot. It was wild.



Just the boys



This really is a sweet bunch of kids! It was a treat to join them and is always fun to get to do something special with Aidan and watch him in "his" element. I am still adjusting to the fact that I know so little about his days and who he spends them with so it was nice to get a little more of a peak inside.

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Pumpkin Patch

A recent trip to the Pumpkin Patch with our play group (in pictures):


Swinging together

Playing in the Play house

My sweet cooperative daughter

Feeding the Fish

Playing on the playground
More Swinging Fun

The Barrel Rides - three little blondes
A wagon ride for Andrew
And a Barrel reide for me and Andrew. The things we moms do for our kids, I really thought I might get stuck in this thing.

Happy 6th Birthday!

Aidan turned 6 last Friday. On Friday we sent cupcakes to school for his class, daddy and Aidan made a trip to Chucky Cheese to play games in the afternoon, we went to Texas Pizza for dinner (Aidan's choice), and then we returned home to open gifts. On Saturday we celebrated with some of Aidan's friends with a soccer party ( again, Aidan's choice).

6 years old feels so old to me. I think it is because it fully confirms the reality that he is no longer a preschooler. People tell you all the time that it all goes so fast and I cannot believe we are already at this point. Aidan isn't all that sentimental so when I commented that I can't believe how old he is he simply told me that it didn't take very long to get from 3 to 6 so it won't be long until he is 10. The sad truth is that he is right! In no time he will be grown.

This age is sweet and fun. I love learning who he is more and more. I love watching his personality and individuality develop. I love seeing who the Lord made Aidan to be. I can remember when I would hold him as a baby, cradled in my arms and just be overwhelmed with love. I don't get to hold him in my arms nearly as often so that feeling of love looks a little different these days. I feel it as he walks into school (so grown up like) with his backpack on every morning and I experience it everyday when I pick him up from school with excitement to hear every detail about his day (at least what I can get him to tell me). I experience it when I watch him play soccer and he looks over to us to see our reaction when his team scores. And I experience it when he comes home from school and wants to quiz me to make sure I know the things he is learning. I experience that love when I overhear him and Rebecca playing together and talking to each other and I experience it when I get to hear Aidan's sweet voice singing praise songs he made up to the Lord. It looks different but I love you more and more every year Aidan! I am so thankful that the Lord blessed me with you! I am proud of the boy you are becoming and the heart that you have!

Here are some pictures of the recent birthday festivities:

Opening Presents

What Else would Andrew be doing, but playing ball while we open presents

The Table - made to look like a soccer field. We kept it simple and did cake and ice cream. I provided all the toppings to make sundaes just to make it a little more fun.

Here is the cake I made

Blowing out the candles

Playing Soccer Style freeze tag.

I really did a terrible job taking pictures to show you what we did. We had several games that included:

1. Soccer Bowling - kick over the bottles filled with water with a soccer ball.

2. Balloon heads - a little chaotic, but fun. The kids got balloons were instructed to keep them in the air with their heads or feet, just no hands. We played individual and teams. After a little bit it turned into pop the balloons.

3. We played soccer with a soccer beach ball, a small rubber ball, and a real soccer ball. Some of the kids ended up arguing about who could be the goalie. I would have NEVER guessed that. I mean isn't it more fun to really play? Oh well, we took turns.

4. Lastly we played Yellow Card Freeze Tag. The referee was given a yellow sticky pad (post its) and was to put them on the other kids. When the kids got 2 yellow card they were out. When they were tagged they had to freeze and wait for a teammate to crawl through their legs. This was the favorite game.

Thanks to all of you who came and helped us celebrate Aidan's birthday! He had a great time!



Tuesday, October 14, 2008

After School Fun

Last week one day after school we headed to the Children's Park to climb, run, and splash. The weather was perfect and the kids had a blast. It was great to carve out some time to just be together and enjoy each other. I took my camera and here are some of my favorites.








Last week Aidan got his first report card. That means he has been in school for 6 weeks. That is wild. I imagined that 6 weeks in we would be pretty adjusted to school but I have to admit I am missing that boy terribly! I have really come to treasure my time with all three of the kids. It just isn't enough of it. I think I miss him more now than I did at the beginning of school. I will adjust I suppose, but I am a little sad about this new stage of our life. I know there is so much fun to be had and so much to learn about who he will become and I eagerly await those things, but this loss of time with him is just hard on me. We had a great time at the park and will try to make a habit out of these short after school trips all together.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

A little bit of humble pie

I was that mom today. Admit it...you have all looked at some mother and instead of being sympathetic towards her you make some kind of snide remark about how if your child ever acted like that I would...(you finish the sentence). What is with that judgemental attitude anyways? I know I have had it before, but I pray that today's experience will help keep me humble.

So now that I have shared that, I assume you know that I expect no medal for my parenting skills that I showed today. Let me tell you how it went. We went to chick-fil-a after BSF because I needed to run an errand and I knew that the kids would not tolerate running errands on an empty stomach. Little did I know that they were not going to tolerate Chick-fil-a well either. I ordered our food, got to the table, tore the chicken into pieces and distributed ketchup and drinks. Finally, I was sitting down to eat and Andrew got upset because he wanted to drink my drink (which was tea and I don't give my babies caffeine right before nap time). I said no here is your cup. He took it and angrily threw down on the ground. Oh joy. But it did not stop there...he started running his hand back and forth where his food was and chicken went flying everywhere. I did reprimand him for both of these, but evidently that did not matter because he kept at it. While all the fun is happening with Andrew, Rebecca goes to play for a few minutes before we leave. After a little bit she comes out to ask for ice cream. I told her no because we need to leave, because we have errands to run. To this my sweet three year-old began yelling NO NO NO NO NO (You get the point) while she runs for play land. I told her to come on, fought with her to get shoes on, and began gathering our things. At this point Andrew gets upset because of who knows what and he literally began slapping me in the face multiple times. My warnings for him to stop where ignored and it seemed to turn into a game for him. Rebecca is still being extremely rude with arms crossed and tons of attitude and my one year old won't stop hitting me in the face. Plenty of drama to turn many eyes our way. Wow! Any parenting dignity I had went out the window. Just when I start to think parenting is getting easier for a second something like this happens and I am totally humbled once again.

Just in case any of you are having a bad day...maybe this glimpse into our world will help. I know I keep telling myself that everybody has bad days...if it isn't rue don't tell me, I need to believe that right now. To the joys of motherhood!

Monday, October 6, 2008

The Tooth Saga

My 5 year-old is a little (or more accurately A LOT) on the dramatic side. He has had a loose tooth for several weeks and we kept encouraging him to wiggle it and get it out. It was not coming at least not the way he worked at it. We told him several times he needed to get it out or we were going to take it. He obviously didn't really believe us and it remained attached in his mouth. Last night I decided it was time to get it out. We spent at least 30 minutes trying to get tie floss around it and get it out, but he was tearful and afraid and he kept pushing the string off with his tongue "on accident". Finally we gave up. He is so good at this dramatic roll that within minutes of being awake this morning he was crying because his tooth hurt. I just kept telling him that when he gets it out it will never hurt again. Well, I sent him off to school tooth in mouth and when I picked him up he did this


to proudly show me that his tooth was no more. I assumed he pulled it out at school, but no that was his teacher. She told him to come with her, grabbed a paper towel and pulled. I asked him what he did and if he cried. He said "I almost said ouch". Seriously? We had tears, tongues, and protest to deal with and she almost got ouch. I guess we know who will be pulling his teeth from now on. Now I just wonder what other parenting responsibilities we pass off onto her...

Friday, October 3, 2008

Apostolic Passion

I hung out with some friends a while back and the topic of missions came up. One of my friends made the comment that how can we know that God does not have that for us. He only reveals things to you when you are ready to accept them so how can people say I know God has not called me to that (I am sure I am butchering the way it was said, but this is what I heard...I'm sorry). The next week I was reading for Perspectives and I came across the most challenging article yet for me personally. I think that part of what was said in it fits perfectly into the conversation we had. I wanted to share a few things that have stuck with me and I keep finding my mind returning to. The article is written by Floyd McClung.

McClung writes about Apostolic Passion. He says that apostolic passion is a deliberate, intentional choice to live for the worship of Jesus in the nations. "It's the quality of those who are on fire for Jesus, who dream of the whole earth being covered with the glory of the Lord." He goes on to say that "if you live without the vision of the glory of God filling the whole earth then you are in danger of serving your own dreams of greatness, as you wait to do "the next thing" God tells you. There are too many overfed, under-motivated Christians hiding behind the excuse that God has not spoken to them. They are waiting to hear voices or see dreams-all the while living to make money, to provide for their future, to dress well and have fun." He goes on to make the claim that if we do not make an attempt to cultivate the passions of God, a passion for the Nations, then we should not be surprised that we never hear God say go. He further explains that once we nurture the desire to see the earth bathed in Christs praise, then we can truly trust our heart when we hear the Lord say stay.

I think that all too often I care more about the things right here in front of me that are pleasurable but not eternal than I do about Jesus Christ's name being worshipped by all peoples. And I think the biggest crime is when I live as if that is OK, as if that is enough. Christ tells us to love the Lord with all your heart, soul, and mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself. I am coming to believe that I cannot truly love the Lord fully when I don't even think about His name being worshipped by all and I know I am not loving my neighbor when I don't ever dare to offer Jesus to them. He is love so to offer love in some form I must be focused on offering Him. When my thoughts do not turn in this direction then I can likely rest assured that I am not experiencing Apostolic Passion. McClung encourages us to beg of the Lord to be ruthless in revealing our selfish ambition and our lack of willingness to die to ourselves if we find ourselves in this place lacking passion. I think that is a hard prayer to pray because I believe the Lord will answer and I am pretty sure I am not going to love the response.