The Lodge

(My apologies that this is one big huge long paragraph. Blogger is being dumb and won't let me make new paragraphs) Whatever. ONWARD WITH THE POST! ...After MUCH anticipation we were finally able to use our gift certificate (that my mom, dad & brother Richie gave us for Christmas) to go up north to The Lodge- hotel and indoor waterpark! It was one of the most fantastic weekends I have had with the kids on any type of vacation! Isaiah got to stay at Grandma Bonnie and Grandpa Rob's house while Jeremiah, myself, Jonah & Aphia jonted off to the north woods. Now don't get me wrong, I LOVE my Isaiah-baya-boo, but man was it nice to go do something like this without the constraints of a one year old! We actually got to do stuff we wanted instead of chasing him around. We also got to spend our weekend with some of our best friends- the Pack family (Taylor, Jessica, Julia & Jillian). Jonah is just a titch older than Julia and Aphia is just a titch older than Jillian. They had so much fun together playing and playing and playing! Some of my favorite things were: *Going down the waterslide with each of the children (separately). *Hearing how quiet the kids were in the next room and seeing their priceless faces when I came in to check on them. They had taken a whole bag of jellybeans, divied it up into 4 cups and were ferociously mowing on them. I didn't really care, they had been eating candy all day long, what was another bag of jellybeans?! *Following Aphia around, just letting her set her pace and what she wanted to do in the waterpark. She's quite a little fish. Her favorite thing to do was swim in the plain-old-swimming pool part of the entire place. *Watching the children play "Tangled" on the huge king/queen log bunk bed that looked like Repunzel's castle/tower thingy. Jillian would wrap a long blanket around her head and drop it over the side, while Jonah would climb up her hair aka the bunk bed ladder. SO CUTE! *Letting the kids stay up several hours past regular bedtime because we were ON VACATION!! *Spending great, quality time with great friends! *Relaxing, vegging out, and playing. This really is the summary of the weekend. I cannot emphasize how awesome it was to actually do a vacation with the family. I usually feel exhausted after "vacations" with the kids. This time was quite different and I'm so refreshed and rejuvenated!

Here are some pictures from our adventure. I didn't take too many, I was busy having fun myself instead of being the photographer!

Jones and Daddy coming down from the tube slide

Aphia and Jillian on the little green slide together.

My sing-song girl, singin' a made up song about the pool while in the pool!

Jones loves his goggles so he can swim underwater! He's also somewhat of a fish.

My little fishies sitting on the side of the hot tub.

Mixed Messages

Apparently our third born is getting mixed messages

Me too kids... Me too.

Oi vey. Really? Snow? I mean C'MON!!!!

Jeremiah's cell phone gave off that horrid noise this morning at 5:30. Yep, it rang to say, "Come in to work and plow." Now really, I don't ever mind this, it doesn't matter to me. As long as we have cereal bars or pancakes in the house so that I don't have to do crunchy cereal which drives me nuts first thing in the morning, I'm game. But when it's March 23rd and the mountains and mountains of snow were almost completely non-existent, the fact that Jeremiah had to go plow did nothing to blow my skirt up.

So I pulled myself from bed and got Jonah up and ready for school. At 8:15 when the bus should have been at our driveway and there were no kids, I thought, "Hmmm, maybe we have a late start." Checked out Kare11.com to find that there was NO SCHOOL! I was a little shocked to find this, since there really wasn't that much snow. I mean, we've definitely had more! But I suppose the rain yesterday, turning to ice and snowing on top of that did the trick. And a bit of me wonders if since we haven't had one yet this year if they were a little more liberal with their doling out of the snow day at hand. Whatevs. Works for me!

So Jones (which I was informed today is what he always prefers to be called now instead of Jonah) ran up to change out of his uniform and into his Twin's jersey. I looked at his Twin's jersey and almost started to cry. Twin's means baseball. Baseball means Target field. Target field means warm, non-snowy weather. Something I'm almost convinced that God has forgotten about.

Although he was delighted to see the amount of snow covering everything this morning, Jonah did make mention of also wishing for spring and summer. All I could say as I (irrationally) felt like I couldn't promise anything in regards to weather anymore, "Me too Jones... Me too."

It really helps when my mom and dad are down in Missouri, "Chillin with an ice cream cone" (as shown by the picture my darling mother just texted me). And it really helps that my sister is leaving this weekend for Louisiana for a week. But hey! I get to head UP NORTH next week! Oh goody. No... I'm actually very excited to head up north, because my in-laws are coming to watch the kids for 2 days/1 night while Jeremiah and I have our first get-away by ourselves since our honeymoon! The time alone together will be so very, very appreciated, cherished and treasured!

Just Curious

On Friday I woke to an email saying that there had been a massive earthquake in Japan and we needed to pray fervently for a friend who was vacationing in Hawaii, where the tsunami was supposed to hit. We were informed later, by said vacationing friend, that she was just fine and was not even affected by the waves.

I flipped on the tv to see the devistation and calamity that the biggest earthquake in recorded history had caused. Holy toledo! To watch as the waves hit the island of Japan and wash away so much was chilling.

I thought of this earthquake and how big it was. In church this morning our Pastor said that it moved the country 8 feet. EIGHT FEET! I saw pictures of roads being slip in two and the shaking that just kept on shaking and shaking, causing buildings to fall and destruction in so many places.

I'm reminded of the verses in Revelation that say, "The seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and out of the temple came a loud voice from the throne, saying, “It is done!” Then there came flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder and a severe earthquake. No earthquake like it has ever occurred since mankind has been on earth, so tremendous was the quake." (Revelation 16:17-18)

I think about the earthquake that is to come that Revelation speaks of. It will be so catastrophic that it will destroy everything. EVERYTHING. That is a sobering though eh? However, this event, as you can see, is when the angel declares, "It is done!" I won't be here then. So I'm just curious, will you? I pray you won't be here to experience this. If you know Jesus as Savior, you won't be here either. If you're not sure if you'll be here... you will. So I'm just curious, a life of hope in Jesus or to experience the most devistating earthquake there will ever be? So I'm just curious, what will you choose today?

Musings from the Sofa

We have been a sick household for a few weeks. It just keeps on cycling between us. The kids have run the gamot of ear infections, fevers, sore throats, runny/stuffy noses, more fevers and headaches. Jeremiah and I have had our share too, boo.
For the past 5 days we have really, really laid low. Friday we sat and watched tv. The. Whole. Day. I gained a few thoughts and insights while on furlough from actual life.

*Jeremiah and I watched the movie Inception. If you've seen it, you'll know what I'm talking about here. I proceeded to have a dream that night and in my dream I kept trying to go back to how I got to where I was in my dream to see if I was really dreaming, even though I knew I really was. It was like I was testing the theory of the movie in my dream.
*Isaiah found out that he can do the following things when mom is couch-bound and sick as a dog: Take frames off the wall, tromp through the dog's water dish, empty the tupperware cupboard, pound on the piano, unravel all the toilet paper, take out all the tissues from the boxes stashed around the house, play in the toilet, crawl into the dog's kennel, and undress himself.
*Isaiah was busy when he wasn't sick, but these were minor things, he was actually a very good boy. He spent A LOT of time with me reading his NFL and John Deere books. He is a boy, through and through. He was quite the snuggler while sick too (isn't every mom's secret favorite time when kids are sick because they want to snuggle???).
*Kids who are sick don't get bored watching 8+ hours of PBS, they just keep watching and watching.
*I'm SO glad we got our new couches a couple weeks ago. SO. SO. GLAD.
*I haven't been really sick, besides a cold, in a long, long time. I forgot how my brain also ceases functioning during this time. It took all I had to be able to send out reminder emails for nursery duty for Sunday. Sheesh.
*Sick kids ask to go to bed at 6:30 and that is cute to me.
*Grandma's/Mom's who come and bring us dinner and do some laundry are amazing.
*Having an oven/stove that don't work, while being sick, is not fun. I'm going on 2 weeks here of no stove/oven and I've had enough sandwiches to last a lifetime.
*Being sick during the only warm streak stinks to high heaven. It just added insult to injury that we couldn't even get out for a walk.
*Little boys (whether 6 or 1) like to play "Pretty Pretty Princess," just not as much as 4 year old little girls.
*God is good, allowing life to basically cease normality during the past 5 days.
*God is good, restoring health on this snowy day. One more forced day of hunkering down, I'll take it.

Perfect Princess Party

Today we had what Aphia called the, "Perfect Princess Party!"

There was PINK PINK PINK everywhere we turned. Pink tablecloth, plates, cups, napkins, streamers, balloons, a pink castle cake, pink jello, pink lemonade, pink applesauce (and we also had white pb&j finger sandwiches with no crust & chunked white cheese) and plenty of pink dresses to be had.

With 7 little princesses and 1 strong knight, it was a fantastic day for my little Princess. She adored the day and loved spending time with her friends.

Above are the 8 little ones in attendance at the party

Here's Phia opening some of her gifts! She wanted to sit on her princess chair that Grandma Bonnie and Grandpa Rob bought her for Christmas.

Here's the castle cake. It's the first actual "creative" cake I've ever attempted.

Having lunch! A party of 7 little girls and 1 boy is amazingly quiet. I've only done two other birthday parties for a child of mine and it was Jonah with lots of little boys... Boys are not quiet, nor do they like to sit still for long. The Princess Party was a walk in the park. It helped that all the children that we had over are super great kids who are a joy to celebrate with!

I like them

I just love these 3. They are what get me through (well, them and the incredible friends and family that I have).

Christmas morning in her new robe!

Jonah on his birthday with his "new" Lego set! (Jeremiah's mom had saved all of Jeremiah's Lego sets- Jonah had/has no idea that we have them all, packed away for such occasions. Shhh, don't tell him our little secret.)

You should see the other kid! Naw, just IJK after a little bout with pink eye before Christmas.

I kind of hit a wall last Monday. My "Christmas" season was finally over, having celebrated the much anticipated and wonderful Christmas celebration at our house with Jeremiah's mom, brother, sister-in-law, our nieces, and his sister. Along with little to no sun these days, the winter gets long 'round these here parts.

My mom asked the other day, "How are the kids?" I said, "They're great! I spent much of the week before last preparing for the family to come visit and I'm not going to do anything again until they come next year! So since I've just been sitting around with the kiddos, they're great!"

So as I said, it's these three munchkins that get me through... Or force me to get through, either way, I'm grateful for them.