A Little Time...

With Gammie and Papa Mel. Bedtime stories...

Lots of hugs and kisses...

A sweet pic of Papa and his only brown-eyed granddaughter.

The Thrill is Gone...

Our last night with Bepo...

Ava's Sleeping Criteria

--"Momma, when I go to Nana's house can Poppop sleep at William and Heather's? Acuz (because) He tries to take me off the top bunk and I always wanted to sleep on the top bunk."
--"Momma, can you not sleep with me for the whole night? Acuz if you sleep with me for the whole night you might have bad breath."
--"Momma, that baby is crying and it's keeping me awake!"
--"Momma, (two minutes after she has a little drink) I'm getting pretty thirsty."

She's Dedicated!

Last Sunday (one week ago) we had Brynne dedicated at Eden Bible Church. She says she feels a little different now...

Be my Friend?

I loaded a new video onto my Facebook. But you might have to join in order to watch it. Sorry...but, heh, it's just one more way to get more friends than my sister (you know it's a competition!)...plus, it's totally worth joining just to see a funny video that's too big to load onto blogger or YouTube.

These are for...

the Papa and the Poppop!

Homeschooling...

A few of you have asked me how homeschooling is going...
So far it's going really well! I think that for so long I was so set against it, and expected it to be horrible (and I'm sure we'll have days like that!), but so far it's just been really easy and dare I say natural? The kids (especially Ava) LOVE it. She was so bummed that yesterday was field trip day instead of a normal school day. The curriculum is easy and just involves a lot of reading so far in normal books, which we do all the time anyhow. It takes just about two hours each morning and then we are free to play, run errands, go to the library, play with friends, go on walks, do our co-ops, etc.

Ava Lou

 
Was wishing she could have a sleep-over with her friend Paige last weekend. Jon and I decided to have her wait until she is five. "Oh, man, I should have turned five at my four-year-old birthday!"

Kid-onomics

-Gammie gave Jonah and Ava each a dollar bill. Jonah's response? "Gammie, can I trade this one dollar bill in for a five?"

-I was tucking Ava into bed last night and she gave me a really long hug and said "Momma, I love you soooo much! Like fifteen dollars!"
Then tonight, I tucked her in and said "I love you fifteen dollars!" Ava said, "That's what I was gonna say!" I then asked her what the biggest amount of money she could think of was. "Um, fifteen dollars. No, sixteen dollars! Then I love you sixteen dollars!"

-This morning Mindy and her kids were over and when they left her van wouldn't start. We unloaded the kids to go play while we figured it out and they were yelling, "Hooray! The car broke down! Now we can play! We're staying here forever!" The adults, of course, see dollar signs while the kids would gladly give up any extras for the month just for a few more minutes to play with their friends. So sweet.

A sweet moment with Bepo in the backseat

 

Hair...Oh how we miss thee...

 
Brynne's got the "Monk-Doo" goin' on...

I miss my hot tub

A lot has been going on in my brain lately. It would be kind to say that I have only been "fuzzy". Consequently I haven't been able to remember the smallest of details (just ask April). Like why I am going to Gresham on Thursday night? Or that I am even going to Gresham. Where's Gresham again??
My little boy has been in school for three years (yes, he's 6 and no, he's not stupid. Two preschool years and one year of K) but last week when asked by his Sunday School teacher when he starts school he replied, "I'm not going to school this year. I think I'm just going to stay home." He's right. We start homeschooling in just two weeks. Tonight my friend Mindy and I went to a coffee shop to organize our individual homeschool curriculi (curriculums?) and I could hardly focus. I reread everything at least three times.
What's on my mind?? I'm glad you asked:
1)My sister recently sold almost everything she owns and packed the rest into boxes (now snug in my attic) so she can move to Romania and serve others for the rest of her life. That's a BIG thing on my mind.
2)Homeschool. I am inwardly FREAKING out while outwardly saying I'm OK.
3)I have three kids now. And one of them just started eating no-so-solid food (why do they call it solids anyway?). That's a lot of cooking and freezing into ice-cube portions to remember to do.
4)Life group just restarted again last night and I felt mildly punked about something in my marriage, namely letting my husband be a MAN and being his helper, not the other way around.
5)One of the girls I grew up with lost her dad to cancer not long ago. Life is so precious and so short. Her kids are now growing up without their Grandpa.
6)A friend of mine who was almost full-term with a baby boy has to make funeral arrangements for him instead of painting the nursery.
7)My son has been pretty naughty lately. And I am so drained from talking and talking and talking and it not sinking in.
9)I've been thinking about people I grew up with in the Inland Empire of California. What they are doing? How many kids they have? Do they still walk with the Lord?

I'm really not trying to complain. And I am not saying that I am even worried about these things. Just that they are on my mind. I guess I could say something really trite now about casting my cares on the Lord. But the truth is, that's...really... hard.
And aren't blogs really just online web logs/journals? The diary that everyone reads? The fact remains that any time in my life that I have ever kept a diary it has been written with the thought in the back of my mind of "What if someone reads this?!" (you know you think that every time you pull out that journal at Starbucks!). And really a blog is the ultimate form of exposing ourselves to the world-wide-everyone-else. Or at least the parts that we want seen.
So (raise your glasses with me) here's to the guy who bought our house in Clackamas and subsequently a hot tub. May he relax many a night beneath its hot waves. Tonight I could have used one.

Dessert, please!

Last night we went to The Screen Door to celebrate Louise's birthday. At home earlier in the day Ava said to me out of the blue "I can't WAIT to eat cake!" "What are you talking about?" I asked. "I can't wait to eat birthday cake for Nannie's birthday!" I informed her that the restaurant might not have cake, but we'll be sure to have something for dessert. When we got there we saw a HUGE chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. Then, when the waiter brought our food out, he asked if we needed anything else. Ava (who was face down in her macaroni) said, "I need dessert after this!" Oh, and by the way, Jonah and Ava attacked an enormous slice of chocolate cake all by themselves. I think Poppop would have liked to try it, but then Ava sneezed on it...

Jonah and Ava love this...

A parody on the reigning movie series in our house for at least the past year...