Summer so far....

The weather has been beautiful so far this summer. Highs in the upper 60s and low 70s. We've been riding bikes, the girls did a week of Starbase camp, we have five monarch caterpillars and within the next week we're supposed to be having a splash park open! We've been having fun and staying busy. The soccer season ends on Tuesday and then next week will be the 4th of July! Craziness. I think our summer will slow down after VBS in mid July, but until then it's pretty hoping.

If you're wondering how life really looks in between all the fun (or not so fun bike trips because the kids complain the entire time)......yesterday I was taking the boys to a garage sale and Wal-mart. They were arguing in the back of the car and talking about a friend in a not kind way. I told them to stop talking like that, that it wasn't treating others like they were made in the image of God. They said the person they were talking about was not made in the image of God and I started talking to them (again) about how we are ALL made in God's image and reflect him......one of their responses? "Mom, you don't have to preach to us! We go to church on Sundays!" Wow, I'm not even the pastor :-) Obviously they haven't been listening very well at church? Anyway, lots of people have enjoyed the story, so I figured I'd share it here as well.

safety testing

The other night Nathan and I were safety testing some very hot cookies. The kids started complaining about why we got cookies and they had to wait. Nathan said "We're doing a very important job, we're making sure they're safe. You wouldn't want to be dead would you?" Damen respond "Yes, because then I'd be with Jesus!"

Out walking last week...

We've been enjoying Spring and have been on a few family walks. Last week walking our neighborhood we passed a tree that had a "For Sale" sign on it. The boys looked at it and said "Look Mom! We can buy the tree, can we buy the tree please?"

comments at lunch

Yesterday Nathan was getting some leftover homemade fried rice for lunch. Damen saw him getting it and said with disgust "Why do you HAVE to eat that?" Nathan responded "I don't have to, I like it and want to eat it" this was so shocking to Damen that he could do was gasp at the thought of liking fried rice :-)

Big Boys

The boys will be turning six on Saturday. In recent weeks we've been having issues with Damen being wet when he gets out of bed. I think this might be related to his surgery, although when asking him why he's not getting up he says because it's too cold to get out of bed. Anyway, Nathan informed him that six year olds do not pee their pants. Yesterday I had the following conversation with Damen.
Damen: I'm going to be six in five days! Then I won't pee my pants at all!! Because six year olds don't pee their pants. Won't you be so happy??
Me: That's not quite how it works.
Damen: That's what Dad said, he said when you're six you don't pee your pants.

The joy of literal five year olds! :-) I informed Nathan he gets to deal with the fall out when Damen has an accident when he's six.

Conversation of the day

Nathan and I were sitting at the table talking after dinner. We had sent the kids upstairs to play and Evie comes downstairs.....
Evie: Kaleb's dying

Nathan: there goes the stipend
Me: That's exactly what I was thinking! Is he bleeding?
Evie: No
Nathan: Is he really okay?
Kaleb heard talking clearly and enthusiastically upstairs
Evie: No
Nathan: were you playing the game where you put something on top of someone and then jumping on them with the boniness parts of your body
Evie (without thinking twice in a totally normal conversational voice): Yes, my knee went in his stomach and......

At this point I just started laughing so hard the conversation degenerated. And just to clear things up, they apparently don't actually put something on top of the other person, they just jump on them. Oh the fun games kids play! :-) 

30 churches

Sunday after church there was a luncheon for people who have recently started attending the church. As part of the luncheon everyone went around and said there name and a little about themselves. Well, we had the area regional minister visiting our church on Sunday and he stuck around for the luncheon, when introducing himself he said that he had 26 churches, meaning there are 26 churches in the area that he helps with. Kaleb heard this and turns to me and said "He has 26 churches? That's not fair, we only have two! (we go to a different church on Wednesday nights for a kids program) When I grow up I'm going to have 30 churches!" Who knew the more churches you have the better? :-) That and the fact that Damen was practicing his preaching at the podium before the lunch began was super cute. They get behind it and there was nothing on it, so Damen said "oh no, we need our papers! Wait, we don't need papers, we need a Bible!" Unfortunately he wasn't quite tall enough to see over it and preach effectively, but he was trying.

Well Read

Saturday we helped some people from church move. Evie was helping unpack kitchen stuff with me and saw some cinnamon toast crunch cereal and said "Is that cinnamon toast crunch? I didn't know it's a real thing" it made me laugh, as she's read about it in books, but didn't know it really exists :-) My poor deprived children. I assured the person who owned it who felt really bad about the fact that she had a whole bunch of sugar cereals that my kids don't get that she didn't need to feel sorry for them. They get pancakes, waffles, scones and such all the time, no need for sugary cereal here!

Transition and more ER drama

The last two plus weeks have been hard. We had VBS the week of July 18th. That was every night and involved being at church at 5:15 for dinner, which was great! And not leaving until 8:15 pm at the earliest, which was not so great. By Friday night when we were getting the boys ready for bed Kaleb broke down because he was sad VBS was over and he was missing everything Connecticut, his friends, toys, swing set etc. Since he was balling Damen decide to join in and it took a good long time to calm them both down. Transitions are hard. After VBS week Nathan was around Saturday and then Sunday night he had a meeting, Monday we had dinner at a couple's house from church, Tuesday and Wednesday Nathan had meetings. It was hard, by Wednesday night one child told me they didn't have to listen to me because Dad wasn't home. I was then laughed at when disciplining that child. I'm not sure what prompted the child to decide they didn't have to listen to me when Nathan wasn't here, but it was not cool. By the end of the week I was a wreck along with the kids. Nathan and I have reevaluated his schedule and hopefully have a solution that will work that will involve him being home every day for a couple hours even if he has a meeting. I went into this week with high hopes of things going better........and then yesterday Damen decided to chomp his tongue real good while attempting to do a pogo stick. It was deep and about an inch long cut. We went to the ER, but it was really crowed, so we went to the walk-in clinic, that closed at 3 pm, 10 minutes before we got there....we consulted Nathan's Mom, brought Damen home, but the tongue was still bleeding an hour plus after he did it, so I decided to try a pediatric office, took him there at four, was told the doctors were with their last patient of the day, so they couldn't get him in even though they didn't close until five....but then someone (I think a nurse) came out a took a look at it and said to take him to the ER because he'd need stitches and they didn't do them. So back to the ER I went....had a nurse take his vitals and asked if they'd stitch a tongue or not, she told me they had just done one last night...great....so I waited for four hours to be seen and then the doctor told me she doesn't do stitches on the tongue for kids that young because it just bugs them and they use the dissolving kind and the kids rub them off in less than 24 hours. Great, thanks, so I waited all that time for nothing...wonderful. On the way out Damen says "That was fun" I gave him a strange look and said "That is not my idea of fun." He did super well with the long wait and the over crowded waiting room was very impressed with how well he did for how young he was and the fact that he was hurt. Needless to say this week hasn't started out as well as I had hoped! That is the long update, on the past couple weeks, hopefully I will be getting up pictures and such of the fun we had as well!

Conversation of the Day

I have tons of pictures and things to post, and I will soon! But for today I have to share this conversation so I don't forget it.
Hannah and I are in the kitchen. Damen walks in and looks at Hannah, he then turns to me and says "Why is Hannah dark? She should be light like you!" I was surprised by the question and said something like "No she should, God made her that way and it's just the way she should be. Why do you think she should be light like me?"
"Because she's spiffy! And I'm not. I want to be spiffy!" This turned the somewhat tense and awkward conversation around and put a huge grin on Hannah's face. We continued going back and forth a little more about spiffiness, but it was really all quite ridiculous and funny. Apparently if Hannah were lighter she wouldn't be spiffy. Who knew? Maybe we need to work on his definition of spiffy ;-)

My ears are off

The other day Damen and Kaleb were chatting in the car and I overheard the following.
Kaleb: Damen, why didn't you stop snoring last night when I asked you to stop?
Damen: I couldn't hear you because I was asleep and my ears were off
Kaleb: But I was talking to you! You should have stopped snoring when I asked!
Damen: But my ears were off!

Weird Parents

The girls were singing "It's my party and I'll cry if I want to" in the kitchen last night as we were getting ready for dinner. Hannah turns Evie to and says "Mommy and Daddy sing weird songs" Evie agrees and then says "I know why, because Daddy is weird!" :-)

Twins!

I walked into the living room the other day right after the boys had finished getting dressed. I said "You're matching!" and they turned and looked at each other not even realizing what they had done :-)

 Aren't they cute?

And a day or two later while I was brushing Kaleb's teeth he says to me "Mommy, do Damen and I have the same face?" I said yes, most people can't tell you apart and he started laughing. Finally realizing why it was so hard for everyone else. I also told him the story of how when they were younger they used to look in the mirror and think they were seeing their brother, which he also found quite funny.

Hot Chocolate and Dry Mustard

Here are two completely unrelated conversations we've had with the girls lately regarding food that I thought were amusing :-) 
Today Evie come in from outside, sits next to me on the couch and we have the following conversation:
Evie "Can we have hot chocolate please?"
Me: "No"
Evie: "But I'm so cold!!!"
Me: "You could get a sweatshirt on."
Evie: "I had one on, but I took it off because I was too hot"

Nathan made mac and cheese the other day and all the kids loved it. We were talking about the ingredients in it and Nathan mentioned there was dried mustard in it. Hannah responds with disgust "Dry mustard! I'm never eating that again!" We look at her funny, and then suddenly Nathan figures out why she was so disgusted learning there was dry mustard in the dish. He asks her what she thinks he meant by dried mustard and she responds with the stuff around the top of the mustard container. I don't think I'd want to have that in my dish either!

10 Commandments

We've been listening to a new Slugs & Bugs Sing the Bible CD that they released to supporters on Saturday. One of the songs is the 10 commandments. The song involves monsters and is quiet fun, the kids really like it. They were talking about it at the table last night and one of them asked "what's adultery?" Hannah responded "I think it's when a kid acts like an adult" Not a bad answer based on the sound of the word. Slightly amusing for something you're not allowed to do :-)  Evie's answer was "It's when someone pretends they're married to someone they're not." That definition works for me right now when explaining it to a 4, 7 and 8 year old :-)

Favorite quotes from the past week

I totally forgot to write down one from Damen, so I'm writing the other two down while I remember. The first was from two kids in my Sunday school class last week when I mentioned Hannah's adoption day was the next day. Their response "really? She's adopted? I had NO idea she was adopted. I thought she was yours, like really yours. I thought you were saying she was going to adopt an animal. She's adopted? Really?" It was all said in serious disbelief.

The second was tonight from Evie. Hannah was sent to bed early for "tooting" on Evie, so I was making sure Evie understood why Hannah was in bed and warning her not to toot on her sister. Her response "I haven't tooted on her at all this month!" Great! Let's not any month please!

breakfast

Kaleb at around 4:45 this afternoon comes to me and says "Mommy, can I have breakfast?"
me: No, we're going to have dinner soon.
Kaleb: I didn't have breakfast already today (anticipating my you already had breakfast today)
me: yes you did
Kaleb: I had muffins, but they're not my favorite.
me: they're not? What's your favorite?
Kaleb: Cookies!
me: Cookies for breakfast?
Kaleb: Yes, cookies! Damen had them once.

Please note, they were chocolate chip muffins, so they might as well have been cookies!

Cleaning up

On Saturday I sent the kids to the play room to pick it up. I told them to all start by picking up ten items. About 15 minutes later Damen calls up to me "Mom, can I go outside" me: Yes, once the play room is picked up Damen: awh, but Evie hasn't finished picking it up yet! me: what have you done? Damen: nothing.

Happy Mother's Day!

I hope all the Mom's out there had a delightful Mother's Day. I just wanted to share Damen's final words when giving him a hug before leaving the room. He had not been happy about going to bed because he and Kaleb were outside "working" Kaleb had finished his work, but Damen still had work to do. Damen said to me "Well, I guess since it's Happy Mother's Day I can go to bed and finish my work tomorrow."

Stink Bugs

We've had stink bugs in a bug cage now for several months (since February I think) and they've been doing very well. We've lost three of them so far, but we still have several left.....we have lots of stink bugs in our house. They eat orange if you're wondering, they do fine with just the peel, otherwise they love the tiny middle part of the bottom of naval oranges. Just so you can keep your own friendly stink bugs :-) Anyway, Evie brought these bugs to the homeschool co-op for show and tell last week. One of the kids asked how she keeps them from stinking. Her response? "I've trained them not to stink" Yes, my daughter claims to be training stink bugs! Pretty much everyone I've told this to has thought it is hysterical, my first reaction was not that of humor, it was that of terror as I realized my six year old was lying to all the other six and seven year olds who were sure to believe her!