These Kids of Mine

Anyone who says that being a stay-at-home-Mom is nothing but boring has not met my three bright, funny, crazy kids. Their quirky, innocent remarks and antics keep my days entertaining. It is anything but boring. In the last week or so, they've been especially full of nonsense :).




Emma, my spunky, busy 2-yr-old is usually ready to eat her vegetables. But Monday night, when we I served broccoli casserole for supper, she took one bite of the broccoli, spit it out and said, "Yuck. Chicken poop!" I attempted to ignore the reference, hoping the older two would not catch on and make an issue out of it. But it was stuck in her brain. When her Dad sat down at the table, she pointed to her bowl and said, again, "Chicken poop!" I sent him a message with my eyes that said, "Nuh-uh. Don't acknowledge." I mean, who wants those words to be a part of their toddlers vocabulary? I can just picture us in church and her shouting out the words at the quietest possible moment. After supper, we walked over to a neighbor's house for a visit. When asked what she had for supper, Emma replied, "Chicken poop!" Stinker, I tell ya. Rotten.

Gracie, the middle child at 4 1/2, is going through a phase of talking about what she is going to do when she grows up. She recently excitedly told me, "Guess what, Mama! When I grow up, and all my family dies, I can ride in the car all by myself!" Well, I'm glad she'll be spared the pangs of grief. Ding, dong, the family's dead! Let's go for a ride in the car!



Elijah, my eldest and most impressionable, never forgets anything. He has a photographic memory like his Father, which makes it of the utmost importance that we shelter him from viewing anything we don't want to be stuck in his brain for the next 25 years. After our last trip to the library, I will now be scanning any books prior to his viewing them. Or maybe I'll leave them all at home and pick their books out myself. Anyway, he chose a "No, Dave" book, which {I did not notice until it was too late} has an illustrated picture of the incorrigible little tot running down the street in his birthday suit, from the backside. Elijah looked at the book for approximately 1 1/2 minutes while we drove from the library to church. Upon sitting down in the service, he promptly picked up his notebook and drew the exact replica of little Dave's exposed backside, plain as day. You can imagine my shock at glancing over and being mooned from off the page! :) In church, no less!



Yes, there's always something to laugh about, which cancels out those frustrating moments when I feel like I don't have an ounce of energy or patience left. These moments are like little doses of strength giving me encouragement to keep on going. "The joy of the Lord is my strength."

{For those of you who have seen these stories already on Facebook, please forgive the redundancy. I wanted to post them on here for the sake of record-keeping :)}

Preserving Children's Art

My little boy Elijah has a fervent passion for drawing. The first thing he does in the morning is grab a notebook and a pen, and at bedtime, we have to double-check in on him to make sure he has put it away. He draws for literal hours during the day, and we go through notebooks and packs of markers like toilet paper (if you have kids, you understand this analogy). I want to save his best drawings, but it gets overwhelming.



I started a binder for this purpose, but he wants to add/remove drawings as he thinks appropriate. It kinda defeats the purpose. An aunt of mine suggested I take pictures of them and keep them on a disc, and my husband recently suggested I scan them (which makes great sense).








Has anyone else had this challenge? Do you have any better ideas than the ones I've mentioned?

Sick Week

{Or two}.

This is a break in the usual monotonous, post-less state of blog broadcast to inform you that the author thereof is not dead. Yet. I mean I thought I was near it last week, but my health been restored, though not completely at this state. And the week before that the kiddos took turns with near-death episodes of chronic yucky crud-y-ness. The ear-aching, throat-burning, fever-raging, bone-chilling kind of crud. Then they handed it off to me. Ungreatful whelps.

Through it all I learned one thing.

*Tylenol is my friend.

*Honey tea is a sore throat's friend.

*Pity parties are not beneficial.

Wait, that's 3 things.

It was very, very exciting to load up the ole Dashboard and see that I have two new followers! And very, very frustrating that my blogger is apparently having some cosmetic issues and cannot show me who they are. So, new followers, I welcome you! Whoever you are. Please, leave me a comment if you have a blog so I can visit and return the favor :).

Being that I am on the mend, I hope to post something read-worthy soon.

Til then, have a great rest of your weekend!


p.s. FYI, that is not me in the above pic, but a quite accurate portrayal of my state of being this week. And it makes me chuckle. :)

Wardrobe Malfunction

Last week, we received an invitation to preach on Sunday night(last night) for a little country church that is currently without a pastor. We always look forward to going to this church. The congregation is made up of mostly elderly, country folks who are genuine and sincere in their experience. It is refreshing to see how they put everything they've got into the service. Some places won't get behind the singing/preaching unless the tempo of the song is fast enough or the preaching is a certain style. Not here.

So, they turn the service over to us and my husband called me to come sing. He chatted a little while the piano player picked out the tune and we adjusted the key. That's when it happened. I felt my pantyhose roll up and begin a slow, but sure, descent down my hips. What is one to do? My first reaction, however unwise, was to ignore them and hope they'd find a stopping place soon. As I gave in a little testimony and told them how glad we were for the invitation, they continued their slow retreat. What is a girl to do? I reached down and tugged one side, then the other. I glanced up from the spot on the back wall where I had fixed my gaze to see my husband looking at me with an expression of confusion and horror, as if I'd grown another head. He gave a curt shake of his head. So I chose the only other alternative: I grabbed a handful of pantyhose on the side and hung on for dear life while I sang my song.

Somehow, miraculously, I made it through the song. I don't recall feeling any special anointing. I fixated my eyes back the spot on the wall to avoid seeing the expression on people's faces. I can only imagine. What is wrong with this sister who is pulling at her underwear and singing with one hand on her hip like she's posing for a Chadwick's catalog photo shoot? As I was replacing the mic in the stand, one lady called out, "You got anymore songs?" I politely smiled, but made a beeline straight for the lady's room. Next time I'll remember to put my other, stomach-flattening unmentionable on TOP of my pantyhose!

I can only be thankful that this happened before a small congregation of mostly dim-sighted elderly saints. I'm hoping the few younger members do not completely write us off because of my strange, unladylike behavior.

And once again, the saying is proven: "The Funniest Things Happen In Church".

I hope I brought a smile to you face on Monday :).