Jacob and the Handbells Choir

For Easter, the Sunday school kids performed two songs they'd been practicing..."Jesus Loves Me," (for which I had regrettably forgotten to clear my memory disk, so there was no space on my camera for it-thus no performance of Andrew), and this one, "Alleluia, Amen" (quite the original title, as you'll see from the song).
Enjoy Jacob's debut! :)

Indescribable...

Jacob was playing "Jesus dying on the cross" again this morning. It's not as gruesome as it sounds...usually Elmo plays Jesus, and he holds Elmo's arms out on a cross he makes out of markers, or craft sticks.
Well, this morning he came to me and said, "Mommy, you know why I'm playing Jesus dying on the cross? Because I love him so much!"
The feeling that gave me is just, well...indescribable.

Non-stop

The funnies with Jacob are just never-ending.
Tonight he was yelling to me from his bed to come get something he dropped behind his bed. While I was in there, we had this conversation. (Background note: We always have a lullaby CD playing in there room at bedtime. Bad habit, but long story for which I really don't even know the beginning).

Jacob: He's a bad man.
Me: Who's a bad man?
J: The man singing.
M: Why is he bad?
J: He's singing bad things.
M: Like what?
J: Peas (ed. note: or pees? I'm not sure....)
M: Peas?
J: Yeah
M: (Listening to the song playing in background..."The Lord bless you and keep you, and give you peace, and give you peace, and give you peace forever.") Oh, you mean "Peace."
J: What's peace?
M: Remember, it's like not being afraid, when you can "lie down and sleep in peace, for You, O Lord, are with me" (ed note: a verse that was learned and repeated nightly during his fearful phase that lasted for months).
J: Oh.

End of conversation! :)


Now, more background info for this next anecdote, which came just 10 min. after the first!
If the boys want to leave the dinner table for any reason, they are to ask "May I be excused from the table to ______?" (For Jacob, it's usually to go the bathroom)!

Also, he has a little stuffed Elmo that he's pretty attached to, and unless he's thrown into Anna's crib in a fit of generosity and love to share it with her, he sleeps with it everynight.

So, not long after our conversation about the bad man singing about peas/pees, he comes to the door of his room.
"May I be excused from my bed to get my Elmo?"

Cracks me up! At least he has good manners!

Resurrection Cookies Update

The cookies were relatively successful...
The boys were very excited to "unseal" the oven to see what happened to their cookies (excitement to do something is a good thing when trying to drag them out of bed 2 hours early for the Sunrise Service).
Some of them were more hollow than others, most had at least hollow sections. A couple of things I would change:

1. Really beat the pecans to a good fine mess...smaller pieces would have made the batter lighter.


2. Bake for maybe 5-10 minutes before shutting off the oven. Directions say to turn it off as soon as you put the cookies in, but I think they would have been drier (and therefore more hollow) if they had baked a bit more.


3. A single batch is plenty! We doubled it to share at Sunday School and with family, and remarkable, the boys and I were the only ones who liked them!

Warning: They are very messy to eat...crumble all over!

All in all, they worked well, and I think we'll try them again next year! (Far more significant than Jell-O eggs, if I'm going to put my effort anywhere...)

Dianne does it again!

Our friend Dianne has blessed us beyond measure once again! A few days before Easter we received another huge package from her, and the boys were sure excited to see whom it was from!
I seriously regret not having all three of the kids line up with their baskets for a picture...I think not doing just that was a combination of Andrew being excited to hand things out, Jacob being excited to start opening, and Anna being excited to chew on anything and everything...therefore trying to keep her away from her basket until it was opened!
Dianne, thank you so very much for the the wonderful baskets for the kids. The many goodies are so appreciated and still being enjoyed!
You can see on Jacob's basket a baseball around the bottom...it's a little baseball rug, and Andrew had a football rug (and they had slippers to match...and some of the plastic eggs were baseballs/footballs, too)! The rugs are just perfect for the space where we have our morning routine for school...their own rug to sit on and a boundary in which they can sit still! :) Anna loves music, and the little bunny in the bottom picture plays a tune, which she started dancing along to right away! (Sorry I didn't take the time to upload the video)! I loved her bib..."Easter Egg hunt Champ!" which she wore for Easter Sunday dinner.
All of the Sunday School kids had a little egg-shaped bags to open with pencils, stickers, & candy...they were a real hit with the kids!
We have two new families this year who bring their kids to Sunday school, and when I explained where the treats came from, they were astounded that someone so far away would do so much for our church.
Dianne, may God bless you hundred-fold for blessing our family and our church!

Easter traditions...

One of the goals for creating a less hectic Easter was to decorate the eggs before Saturday, but that didn't happen. (Christmas and Easter have proven to be extremely hectic for us the past several years. We aren't sure whether the seemingly excessive craziness at these two holidays is really no more hectic than other families experience, or if it's due to pastoring. I guess we'll never know for sure, seeing as we started pastoring and having children at about the same time)!

At any rate, we did cut out some of the unnecessary time-consuming activity of Easter by only decorating 9 eggs! I intended to do a dozen (I think we usually do 2 dozen, simply b/c I have always enjoyed coloring eggs, but 3 of the dozen cracked, leaving us just the 9). Great, unintentional move on my part! They each got to do 4 and I did one, too!
Besides doing pictures the night before, the other intentional great move I made to make Easter more enjoyable was foregoing the Jell-O eggs.

Indulge me while I share this story:
While in high school, my friend Darlene and I had a brain child...creating Jell-O eggs to give to our families. They would be sparkling, bright jewels on a bed of Easter grass, a delightful centerpiece for the Easter dinner table.
Magnificent in the mind, nothing but hard work and ingenuity to create. We started with the age-old practice of blowing out a dozen or so eggs; poking tiny holes in each end of the egg, then blowing the eggs out of the shells into a bowl. (Yes, that is an awful lot of head-ache inducing activity...akin to blowing up several dozen waterballoons. Which is one of the several great reasons why we did this together...no one in their right mind would try all this work by themselves. And no, I don't recall if we had scrambled eggs for dinner that night. Dar, do you remember)? Then, since we were going to be putting Jell-O into those same shells, they certainly needed to be rinsed out. So, we used the now-empty egg as a straw, sucking water from a bowl up into the egg, then shaking and blowing it back out...probably at least 3 times. And then finally, we were ready to add the Jell-O. Again, using the Jell-O like a straw, we sucked the liquid Jell-O into the egg, and we knew it was full when we got a mouth-full of the sugary stuff! Now, you may be wondering how we managed to keep the Jell-O in the egg, seeing as there were holes on each end. A simple solution: Candle wax over the hole on the bottom. If you can imagine what Darlene's kitchen looked like at that point, you can also imagine how gracious her parents were! And then the painstaking process of removing the shells after the Jell-O had hardenend. A great deal of tedious work, all for the experiment of it all. But, the end result was exactly what we had hoped for; smooth, transparent jewels perfect for the celebration. The end.
Actually, not quite the end. The very next year, what appeared on grocery aisles everywhere? Jell-O egg molds. I kid you not. And that's how Wendy and Darlene missed the opportunity to become wealthy inventors...and I've been compelled to make Jell-o eggs, using the traitorous molds, every year since. Until this year. And I was much happier and less stressed because of it. And, happily-or sadly, depending on how you look at it, no one seemed to miss them. The end? Perhaps...

HAPPY EASTER!

Happy Easter, albeit a few hours early! I love Easter, in it simple profundity and profound simplicity. The Son of God will take all the punishment for our sins, which we fully deserve, simply because He loves us? Forgiveness and the gift of eternal life are ours just by believing in and trusting Jesus' substitution for us? The most profound truth of the universe, yet so simple you need just a childlike faith.

It is our prayer that if you've never been able to get around the facts to get to the simple faith salvation requires, that this is the Easter you get it, that you trust in Jesus, that you accept the gift He offers...eternal life through His Son, who died for us all. Our Redeemer lives! Any other religion on the face of the earth can't offer a Savior who has conquered death so that we may life!

In an attempt to make our Easter day a little less hectic, I decided to take the pressure of "keeping them looking neat and tidy in their Easter best till we have a chance to take pictures" off both me and the kids. We instead gave them their baths right after an early dinner, dressed them up, had a photo shoot, then got them to bed! I'm pretty pleased with the results...seven keepers out of the bunch!

Actually, we didn't put them right to bed. I bribed them (I promise I only bribe them for a cooperative photo session) with helping me make "Resurrection Cookies" afterwards. Unlike the slightly creepy "Resurrection Rolls" I've recently learned of, the cookies are a fantastic picture of the whole Easter story.

Resurrection Cookies
Preheat the oven to 350. Crush 1 c. pecans to remind us of the way Jesus was treated after He was arrested, 1 t. vinegar like Jesus was offered to slake His thirst on the cross, dash of salt to remind us of the salty tears the disciples must have cried to see Jesus crucified, 3 eggs whites, eggs reminding us of new life we can have through Jesus, 1 c. sugar, which reminds us of the sweetest part of the story-that Jesus went through all of this out of love for us. It brings together all of the other ingredients that wouldn't taste very good otherwise, just like the Easter story wouldn't seem very good if it weren't for the very ending. Whip together on high for 12 minutes. They become very white, to remind us of the purity we can have through Jesus forgiving us of our sins. Fold in the pecans, and then drop by teaspoonfuls on greased cookie sheet. The mounds of whites look like a rocky tomb. Place the cookie sheets in the oven, and have the kids tape the oven shut, just as the soldiers sealed the tomb. Turn off the oven and go to bed! Disappointment just like the disciples must have felt when their friend was buried. In the morning (which we'll see if they worked or not!), unseal the tomb, take a bite of a cookie, and it's hollow, just as the tomb was empty! I'll let you know the results!

We're pretty impressed with our evening. Dinner, baths, dressing up, photo op, pj's on, making cookies while telling the whole story, reading The Three Trees, prayers and in bed by 7:30 p.m.! (We have a sunrise service tomorrow, so we need to leave our house by 6:15. Ugh!

Off to finish my last-minute preparations, and then to bed! Happy Easter!

Spelling

A few months ago, during a quiet Sunday evening supper, I asked Mark if we were going to play a family g-a-m-e before the boys went to bed. Andrew chimed right in and asked "We're going to play a game?!"
Well, this week, I asked a similar question. But, knowing Andrew's spelling ability, asked "Should we have a backwards e-m-a-g?"
Still no good, as Andrew came right back with, "We're going to play a game backwards?" Too funny and too smart!

Speed Limit

I know Mark's not terribly fond of his new age, and that I tried to not to post it before. But, for the sake of sharing and remembering something terribly funny, out it comes!
We were driving to town on Mark's birthday, and had to go through a small community in which the speed limit is reduced to 35 mph.
Andrew, ever the observant one, piped up from the back, "Hey dad, that sign says just like you...35! There's another one! It says 35 and you're 35!" And yes, it continues whenever we're in a 35 mph zone, so Mark occasionally gets called "Speed Limit Mark." :)

New perspective

Jacob has been enamored lately with the little tract for kids that came with The Story of Jesus for Children. He has spent lots of time reading it, ans asking all kinds of questions about why Jesus died on the cross, why Jesus took our punishment, etc.
This evening, he was looking in the tract at a picture of Jesus being nailed to the cross. Jacob said, "Jesus was dying on the cross, and he said 'Ow, ow, ow, ow...I need a band-aid."

To make a peanut butter sandwich...

Last week, Andrew made a peanut butter and honey sandwich, and we wrote down step-by-step how he did it. The next day, I mixed up his recipe cards to have him make a sandwich again, to illustrate the importance of following a sequence (such as following the writing process, which we're starting on). He thought it was hilarious when I put the "chomp it up" step first, and it really seemed to make sense to him! And, he was extremely proud of the recipe cards, and had me put them in my recipe box, in case I needed to make a sandwich again. :) He now more frequently offers to make the sandwiches, but says that he doesn't need to recipe anymore!

Boy reading in Laundry Basket

This boy loves to read...and will read anywhere!

Missions Fest

This past weekend, our sponsoring church held a women's "Missions Fest." There were displays set up for various ministries (ours included), a speaker who shared about her missions trip to China, as well as other churches in the area sharing on how their churches are involved in missions. Our church has a unique position in that we are still a "mission project" ourselves, while at the same time being involved in missions outreach through our finances and working towards sending out a short-term missions team to a bush village.

One of the things our sponsoring church did for the missions fest was to bring donations of supplies for our church...when you have a small congregation with a limited budget, every little bit helps! So we were blessed with a supply of paper goods and snacks for the Sunday school kids. Thank you, CH!

Anna's got teeth!

Her first two teeth finally poked through! I checked this morning while getting her dressed...and let the boys actually feel them, since they are hard to see! (I made them wash their hands first)!
They were summarily excited for under a minute...and then Jacob commented, "Now she can have vitamins like us!" He was a bit disappointed when I let him know that she would need more teeth than just these to handle a chewable vitamin!

That's why...

Every so often, Andrew will at random say "I really like this house." The reasons vary, from having so much snow (ha!), being close to the pool, being able to see in the window to ask a question instead of coming all the way in the house (ties in with having so much snow to make that a possibility!), etc.

Yesterday's reason took the cake: "Because Daddy gets home earlier so we can play with him in the afternoon." Yep...that's why we like it, too. On our list of reasons to move to S. from MP, that was in the top three.

Kids need their dads, and I'm thrilled with all the extra time they get with Mark. (He, too, is thrilled with the extra time, and also with the fact that from their perspective, play can equal shovelling snow together, when you throw in building a snowman or a snowball fight or two)! :)

I have tons of great memories from my childhood. But if you were to ask me to pick one single memory from all of them floating around, it's an easy pick. No debate necessary. The best day I can remember as a child was a day with my dad. Olders sisters got to go on a day trip with friends, and so dad made the day all better for what would otherwise have been pretty lonesome. He took me to the big playground in town, with the brand-new "Eagle's Nest" climbing gym (which, when we got home later, was the front-page story of the newspaper-the new equipment, that is...not me climbing on it). Then we went over to the lake (couldn't tell you what lake it was, or if it was just a pond or something), and we went out in the paddleboats and fed the ducks. Then we got to go the best swimming pool, and I'm sure there was an ice cream cone thrown in there somewhere.

Point is, it wouldn't mattered a whole lot what we did that day. We could have been out working together at various surveying sites, or stopping downtown for a polish sausage from a street vendor, or bouncing along a desert road laughing at the tumbleweek rolling along. (Hmm....all of those things sound strangely familiar)! It was the time my dad took with me that made me feel special. Thanks, dad...

So that's why we like our new house. Kids need their dads.

PS to all this: Keep in mind, this is a mom writing this. A mom who still needs her own mom, and who knows her kids certainly need her. So this isn't intended to undermine the role of a mom. Dads are just on my mind...that's why we like this house! :)

Lil' Miss Snowman

Too adorable...








...she finally got it off her head!

To the beat...

Andrew is the proud new owner of his own set of drumsticks! Our drummer at church had given him a pair, and one of the pair rolled into some crevice somewhere, never to be seen again.
He actually needed a smaller, lighter pair (5A's, he'll tell you!), and so we set up a system for him to earn the money to buy them.
After calling the music store to find out the price, I drew a set of drumsticks and marked them off into increments, each standing for one dollar. The first space was for his tithe on the money he was earning, and the rest of the spaces went towards the drumsticks. And then he was a busy, cheerful beaver, vacuuming, carrying in groceries, collecting the trash, starting the boys' laundry and then getting it into the dryer, etc.
It was a great experience on many levels. He is so proud of his drumsticks, and practices diligently. (Our drummer at church gives him mini-lessons of drills to practice...nothing we push, as he's so young-it's just what he wants to do)! Having earned the money for them himself, he does take very good care of them.
It was a good step into the whole earning/tithing/spending arena, as we have struggled with the best way to implement allowances, etc...and so in our indecision of what's best to do, we haven't done anything with it! Any suggestions on that are welcome!
And one other grand thing about the drumsticks scenario is that it helped us re-vamp our chores structure. Andrew graduated from feeding the dog to alternating every other day between vacuuming and collecting the trash, and Jacob began his solo on feeding the dog! It's been working great, though Abby is starting to look a little thin...

Hopes dashed...

The last week or so has been pretty warm (hovering at 32-34 degrees), with a constant mix of rain and snow, generally more rain. So everyone has been speculating, "This could be break-up, but we're likely to get hit at least once more, but maybe not..."
Maybe not is right-we got another 14 inches of wet, heavy snow last night. I love winter. I love the snow. And this is the first time I've ever said it before in my life: "Enough snow, already!"
So, much of our day was spent clearing off vehicles, shoveling them out, getting the plow in, shoveling the walks, clearing the shed roof, etc, etc...
So those pictures of Mark shoveling out the back door? We should have just put them on a loop, because that will be the activity du jour again!
I do have to say, though, that it was spectacularly beautiful out this afternoon, with all the fresh snow and the blue sky and the sun shining! "Give thanks in all things..."

Happy Birthday, Mark!

Today my wonderful husband turns ___! (He's not thrilled about his age, so I'll just leave it out for his sake). He's still young and handsome, so he doesn't have anything to worry about! I am a truly blessed woman to have him...he's an attentive, helpful husband, a patient, loving, and fun father, and he faithfully and wholeheartedly serves and loves his God! (And he's pretty handy to have around, to boot)! Happy birthday, honey!

These pics are from the surprise birthday party I had for him last weekend. It was definitely a surprise, being almost a week early. Ironically, today was the only day we could get appointments at the chiropractor (to check Jacob's ear progress and to get Anna adjusted, as she's getting an ear infection). So, we'll be over in Soldotna celebrating with my family again!
You can check out even more pics from the birthday party here!

Coffee

My friend Heather told me this funny story of something Jonah said a few years ago, when he was about 3 years old...
Her husband is a coffee drinker, through and through. She doesn't touch the stuff, but loves to drink tea. Just to be polite one blustery afternoon, she offered her husband a cup of tea. Jonah looked at her in surprise and said, "Mans don't drink tea! Mans drink coffee!"

I was reminded of this story this morning at our own breakfast table. In our family, I'm the coffee drinker...Mark can't stand it! Andrew said to me, in a somewhat quizzical tone, "Mom, did you know Gramps drinks coffee? And he's a boy."

Oh, the influence your own family has on your perspectives on life!

Our House!

Here's the slideshow of our house! It's also running the side-bar, but the captions aren't visible. So, thought I would post it here, too, for those of you wanting the narrated tour!

It's an Anna-Train!

...though it's kinda slow-going when the engine only army crawls!

Snowman!

Mark had intended to get some shoveling done, but the boys won out and a snowman got built instead! The snowman brings new meaning to asking "Do I have anything in my teeth?" after eating broccoli!

Jacob lately...

Jacob has been a stitch lately. He's just changing so much, and is becoming more and more his own little man.

Every morning, the boys do their chores before breakfast (getting dressed, making beds, Andrew alternates days on vacuuming and collecting the trash, and Jacob feeds the dog).
Jacob is generally very cheerful about doing his chores and gets right to them (hunger will do that to a body, I guess).
One morning I was asking him what he still had to do, and he said "I need to make the dog and feed my bed." Oh, how he giggled when he realized what he had said!

One of his new games is to replicate a scene from a book about a ball game...he puts on his hat, gets his bat and ball, instructs me to say the line about the grandfathers cheering from the stands, and then acts out the ballgame. Sometimes he invites others to play in the ballgame to. But he has one prerequisite to anyone else playing along, which Andrew discovered when he asked if he could play. "Yeah-go get a hat!"

Now to set the stage for this antecdote, you must know that Andrew's reading curriculum is titled "The Scaredy Cat Reading System." (If anyone really wants the title explained, just email me)! It includes a few audio lessons on cd to which Andrew listens, generally Jacob is done with school and is playing quietly with toys by that point.
Today, Andrew had the word "bit" in his spelling list. Not long after that, I saw Jacob pretend to bite Anna on the arm (it really was pretend). I asked him why he was pretending to bite Anna, and he said,
"Remember, mom? It's from Andrew's Scaredy Cat Reading System." Ha!

And the final note on Jacob...
Below is a picture of what he was doing at dinner last night. When we understood what he was calling this little trick, Mark and I busted up laughing. Be the first to post a comment with your guess as to what Jacob actually called this, and you'll be the winner! Check back tomorrow night for the answer!
UPDATE: Yes, Tom, he had been eating with both his fork and spoon...fork for the salad, spoon for the applesauce. I'll post all the comments when I post the answer tonight!

FINAL ANSWER: It is indeed a "forklift!" The grand prize was an all-expenses paid trip to Alaska...regrettably for all the other contestants, my sister Tricia was the first to post the correct answer, and she already lives here...thus she forfeits all rights to any prize claim, and will instead be treated this weekend to a big hug from Jacob himself! Thanks for playing!

Puppet show!

When I got home from water aerobics the other night, there was a puppet theater group anxiously awaiting my return! Andrew had instigated a puppet show (the writing of which he did...it was a list of his spelling words-lol), to which Mark added some dialogue!
It was quite cute!
(They simply tipped the dining room table on its side for the theater stage)!

Boys will shovel...

...girls will stay in to make dinner and snack on avocado!

Shoveling

Most people go outside to shovel their doorways clear...










Day 1







Day 2

Funny Baby Bundle