Of Course They Did...

I guarantee you, that this is in fact not how I meticulously arranged my nativity set.

I have a certain eight year old to thank for this lovely display of the baby Jesus' birth.  


Which led me to to sigh my most favorite expression as of late...of course they did...


Boys...they keep life interesting.  Everyone should have at least three.

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Welcome to Crazy

Lately I been thinking that enjoying life means celebrating the crazy.  This is not a new concept for me.  It's a big chunk of the reason I started blogging in the first place (597 posts of crazy, by the way!)  


And boy, do we have plenty of it.  Crazy, that is.  Yesterday I started a list of the most current crazy.  I was gonna hit ya all with the list, bullet form, and then I thought waaaiit a second.  I need to spread this stuff out...people can only take so much at a time.  


Let's start with Halloween...


Halloween fell on a Sunday this year, and tiny-town chose to trick or treat that evening.  We have church at night, so we knew we'd be able to hand out candy for an hour and then we'd head the 27 steps over to church.  In order for kids to come to our home to trick or treat, I put the boys on pooper scooper duty.  Armed with the new scooper, gloves, and a plastic bag and bin they were ready to pick up poo.  I supervised out the window for awhile and they seemed to be doing a good enough job.  


I went back to my business of eating all the kit kats before trick or treaters came.  


Later on, Ben went outside to see if they'd got it all.  They'd missed some.  They'd missed a lot, actually...mostly the old hard ones.  Gross, I know.  But Life in the Parsonage involves dog poop.  Anyways, Ben and I looked at each other sort of dumb-founded.  Because, really...wouldn't you pick those first because they're kinda easy to get....rather than the new, slimy fresh piles?!?   


Not our kids.


Oh, it gets better.  


Turns out, after they'd picked up all the "fresh" piles and put them into the cheap garbage bag I'd given them, they headed through the parking lot of the church on their way to the garage bin.  


Of course they did.


That route is completely unnecessary by the way.


The poor cheap garbage bag never stood a chance as the boy swung it back and forth over the gravel parking lot of the church, where our lovely church family would be coming shortly to park and innocently walk through in order to get to their place of worship.  


I blame myself really.  Who in their right mind stops supervising three boys while they're messing with dog poo?  


That would be me.  


Some people never learn.  *wink*

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It's What We Do...

Dear Little Lu,

It's hard to believe you're already 6 months and 3 weeks old.  Even crazier, is that for the past 6 months, we've only been separated a handful of times.  


Truthfully...I can't get enough of you.  I'm pretty sure you feel the same.  


Your smile is infectious.


I breathe in the smell of you, feel your chubby little cheeks against mine and seriously believe that this must be what Heaven smells like. I have those same thoughts when I enter Starbucks and the Aveda Salon...but we'll discuss that when you're older...


I look at your pictures hanging on the walls, and can hardly believe how fast you've grown.  It makes my heart ache a little because it seems no matter how much I savor every moment...the moments are still just moments.  Gone quickly.


Yesterday, as we waited to pick up your brothers from school, I sat and watched a mom walk with her young toddler daughter, hand in hand.  I pictured you...no longer a baby, but walking along holding my hand.  It made me smile.  I think it was God's way of reminding me to enjoy today, but to look forward with joy to what is ahead, rather than long for what will have passed.


But for now, I will treasure our almost-every-day dance together.  It usually happens in the afternoon, when your brothers are at school and the house is quiet...just you and me.  You fighting going down for a nap, me, swaying and rocking and shooshing you to sleep...to this song.




I wonder if you'll remember...I will.


Love you, Miss Lucy.  

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My Find...

It's Friday morning, and I am sitting here at the computer having NOT yet watched the newest episode from The Office that was on last night.  That pretty much never happens.

You know what I was doing last night?  Sitting on the couch with my husband working on Monthly Cash Flows, and Allocated Spending Plans, Calculating, Planning, Zero balancing the budget.  We did it.  And loved it.  Thank you Dave Ramsey.  

And, that being said, I just realized that I haven't shared with you my latest thrifty find.  

It's such a good one.

So, for the past several months I've been dreaming of this:

At the rate I'm saving for it, it will be mine in approximately 5 years. ;)

Last week when I was in the local thrift store, trying to find Halloween costumes, I came across this little green beauty on the shelf.

$7.50.  I drove straight to my grandma's house to show her.  She sweetly admired my find, and then asked me what I was going to use for the bowl.  I smiled, and then opened my mouth with my answer (proving that I am indeed, a mixer moron beginner.)  My bright idea was just using my pyrex bowl I already had at home!  (Why I thought that would work...I have no idea) Grandma's are the best.  Instead of making me feel like an idiot, she leads me inside and says, I used to have a mixer just like that, when it broke, I kept the bowls.  

Of course she did.

Sure enough, she walks over to the pantry and and pulls out the mixing bowl, marked Sunbeam on the bottom.  It's a match.  

It's old and has a story.  Now it has an even better story, just like the parsonage.

It was absolutely necessary that the first item of business for the avocado mixer be the famous pumpkin bars.  She runs great.  

It looks just as cute on my counter as the orange one would, and it will totally do for now!

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The Reading That Consumes Me

I'm behind.  I have all sorts of good stuff to share with you, but a couple really good books are sucking my time (along with a husband, 4 kids, a dog etc etc etc)


So, lets start backwards and begin with the books I'm reading simultaneously.


The Bait of Satan by John Bevere.  I'm moving through it at a snails pace because I really, really want it to settle deep into my soul and stick there.  The "bait" it's referring to is offense.  Turns out, being offended happens waaaay more often than I realized, and sticks around waaaay longer than I thought it did.  Not for me, of course.  *cough*    


Let me share a little gem that I read this morning.  He says, "hurt people become more and more self-seeking and self-contained.  In this climate the love of God waxes cold."  And then he gives a very cool analogy, which I'd like to put into my own words and thus butcher for you.


Here goes:  The Sea of Galilee has water flowing into it, and then flowing out of it.  It has all sorts of plants and fish living the dream.  The water of the Sea of Galilee flows into the Jordan River which feeds into the Dead Sea.  The Dead Sea takes in the water, but GET THIS, it does not give it out.  There are no living plants or fish.  The living water from the Sea of Galilee become dead when mixed with the stagnant waters of the Dead Sea.


He goes on to say, "an offended Christian is one who takes in life but because of fear (of being hurt again) cannot release life.  As a result, even the life that does come in becomes stagnant within the wall or prison of offense."


Being offended happens all the time really.  Why just this morning, I logged on to facebook only to find that someone referred to anyone who voted a particular way in the election (which would be me) as judgmental and a bigot.    My already elevated blood pressure skyrocketed.  How dare they, I thought to myself as I deleted their newsfeed from my reader.  


Soap Box Minute:  Why is it that my opinion that is contrary to theirs is considered "judgmental" yet they can call me a bigot and it is not judgmental?  Really?   Is my vote being judgmental?  Ab-so-lute-ly!  Is theirs?  Um, yeah.  Same thing.  AND, if they call me intolerant ONE MORE TIME, I may scream....because they have no idea how tolerant I am being.  


Stepping down now...anyways, see...totally offended.  Fortunately, the offense came from someone distant, so it doesn't hurt deeply.  The ranting releases it.  But when the offense comes from someone close...that's where it bites.  And festers if not dealt with.


Good book.  Go read it.  Unless you're the type who's never offended.  In which case, you need to find a book on denial.  ;)  Feisty today, no?  It's the season, I can't help myself, I'm a political junkie...


The other book is Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey.  It's all-consuming right now.  I never thought I'd say it, but I. Love. it.  God is bringing some much needed peace and direction through this books plan, and through other resources we never even imagined.  It's humbling, and hard, and wonderful all at the same time.  I can't stop talking about budgeting and such.  I'm quite annoying.


So there you have it.  Have you read either?  


Next time, I promise cute pictures and no ranting.  Or less ranting at least.  

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but it'snot

So...I've had some sick kiddos.  Fevers are lame.  Lucy and I spent Saturday morning visiting the Doctor and perusing the aisles at the local pharmacy....where I found this little gem:

Look at the picture!  Both momma and baby smiling as she sucks the snot out with her mouth.  I died laughing...silently of course.

So, none of the snot actually gets in your mouth, still... I'm not sure I could suck on it.  

I need to know...could you?

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Just Kidding...

My sister in law is one of the funniest people I know.  I adore her.  


Her most recent influence has been the "Just Kidding" skit originally from SNL.  Every time she does it, I laugh my butt off.  Now my boys do it, and it still cracks me up, even when it's annoying me I can't stop laughing at it.  


I should have recorded her.  Or them.  But for now, here's the skit from SNL so you know what I'm talking about.  


It's clean.  But I warn you, you're likely to add "just kidding" to everything you say.  


Just kidding, you probably wont.  Just kidding.

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