Friday, October 31, 2008

Halloween

Here are some pictures from Halloween. Both kids loved dressing up in their outfits to be the Cowboy and Indian. Aphia, amazingly, left her headband on the whole night and it didn't bug her! They both loved going around the neighborhood to get candy (or "nanny" as Phia calls it) and loved to hand it out to the trick-or-treaters that came to our door. Aphia had a death-grip on her bag when we got home and was not about to let it go! I had told them they could each have 2 pieces when we got home, so they each got to pick out what they wanted. Jonah also shared one with Mommy and Daddy (without prompting!)... Phia, not so much. It was a great night!


















Monday, October 27, 2008

There's a Mergency Mom!

Jonah's always been pretty good at pronunciation, and I've worked with him on it. So I think it's kind of funny that when he says, "There's a mergency!" instead of E-mergency, I just chuckle and don't really correct him.

Today I was helping get the last of the daycare kids out the door, Jonah had gone out to the car because we were leaving shortly for some errands. He ran back in, as I was talking to the mom that was leaving with her little ones and says, "Mom! There are sirens!" I said, "What kind?" "I don't know, but it's a mergency mom! We need to pray!!" I thought this was really sweet and said, "Ok buddy, I'll be done talking in a second and then we will." Well he was apparently not ok with that because he waited about 3 seconds, then folded his hands, looked at me for another second and then started to pray by himself, outloud, but not loud enough for me to hear. It was REALLY sweet!

Later, I told him how proud I was of him, for praying for the people in the emergency. I asked what he had said to Jesus and he responded with, "I said, 'Thank you Jesus for the day (which is pretty much how he starts every prayer), and for the mergency. Help all the people to be safe and healthy. Amen."

Makes my heart happy as a mom... These are the moments God uses to affirm that I'm doing a good job, which God knows I need :)

Friday, October 10, 2008

Instead

Today we had nothing on the calendar, except to bring Willy to the vet at 9:00.

I made a HUGE list of things I wanted to clean and get done. But then I reconcidered. Friday's are my only day with just my children. I wasn't going to ignore them.

I WAS going to clean out my van. Instead, we drove around (in a messy van) looking for beautiful trees, whose leaves were brilliant oranges, yellows, and reds, marveling at God's creation.

I WAS going to clean my entire kitchen, top to bottom. Instead, I made a great, big building with giant legos.

I WAS going to clean my bedroom. Instead, I did a project with Jonah and spent time talking with him.

I WAS going to clean up and scrub down my bathroom. Instead, I sat on the floor singing songs with Phia. (The Wheels on the Bus, Three Little Monkeys, and The Choo Choo Song are some favorites.)

I WAS going to clean up the living room, it is a disaster as you can see from the pictures below. Instead I spent a few moments visiting with a wonderful friend who came by to drop off something and also brought me Jimmy John's for lunch!

So this is my life today. Messy with toys everywhere. I wanted it to be spic and span. Instead, I made it enjoyable, extremely enjoyable for me and my kids.

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Family Vacay

Last Thursday we started our lil vacay by heading up north. First we made a stop in Duluth to visit with Josh, Stephanie and the girls. We had a wonderful dinner together with cheers to hydrogen and cheers to the History Channel (right Stephie?!). We never did get to cheers "Modern Marvels" like I thought we would. (Sorry JJ, "They're makin' fun of you!")


Friday morning we continued our trek up the shore of Lake Superior. It was a GORGEOUS day and so we took the scenic route along the lake.


We liked that we had broken the driving trip up, into two days instead of making it all in one. The kids were great riders because of this too!


We had a great time at Lamb's Resort with the Ennen Family (NeeNee's Mom's side)- there was about 40-50 of us there.
Saturday we had a leisurely morning then headed to the Alpine Slides at Lutsen in the afternoon. Jonah LOVED them and had SUCH a great time! I got a free ticket from someone so I got to go once with Jonah (Jeremiah went the other times with him.) Well since Jeremiah was going alone this time, he thought he'd be big racer man- go real fast. Not smarty man. He lost a little control, went over the edges and gouged his hand on a rock/root/stick or something. He came FLYING down and said he was hurt, but I couldn't see how bad, so was like, "Do you need a bandaid or something?!" yeah... the EMT came over and sent us to the ER in Grand Marais where they spent 1 1/2 hours just cleaning out the gash, then another 2 1/2 hours stitching it up. He had SEVERAL interior stitches and 13 exterior in the palm of his hand. It was a really bad, jagged, dirty cut and was no fun.

Well, we were supposed to leave Sunday afternoon, but since he only had one hand to drive, that wasn't going to fly since he'd be driving a big, full sized truck and big trailer down the windy north shore. PLUS he was on Vicodin and wasn't supposed to drive with that. I wasn't about to attempt my first trailer driving experience under these circumstances (with my father in law's truck nonetheless), so we waited until Monday morning to leave so my dad could drive the truck instead.
I guess we got one more day of vacation out of the deal!

Here's Jeremiah and Jonah coming down the slide the first time. And the next is a picture of the leaves on the mountain. This one is just from the parking lot... I was going to send the camera up with Jeremiah the next time he went up, but his lil mishap prevented anymore pictures of the beautiful red leaves.