Happy Halloween

That is a cake John made to take to work today. It was a joint effort on the cake and icing, but the decorating was his work. I wish I was going to get a bite. It was chocolate cake with peanut butter icing (black and orange). Yum!

There is a lot of excitement here this afternoon as we get costumes ready for our party tonight. The kids have been wild since they woke up this morning and we haven't even started with candy yet! I think it is hilarious that one of my girls is going as a "school girl". They all pretty much came up with their own costume ideas and did a lot of planning on their own. Taryn wants to write all about costumes and post pictures on her blog, so I won't tell any others but I will say that David won't be going dressed like this:

(Thank you Tina for that lovely outfit)

I also wanted to mention that this is why we don't have family pictures made very often. Well that and the fact that at least one person always needs a haircut. This is what Tina's hair looks like right now:

Have a great weekend. I plan to!

Christina Ballerina

Yesterday during Tina's dance class it was so beautiful outside, the kids and I went out rather than sitting in the crowded little waiting room. There is a huge pit that I guess is meant to hold run-off water, but our drought persists and there is no water to run off, so it was very dry and made for a nice (dirty) play area. So here are several pictures of the kids exploring a new planet, racing and generally being much more pleasant than they would have been inside.

I caught this one just as Samuel was busting it. No tears, though he did ask to wash his hands and the good mother that I am told him to just brush the dirt off his hands onto his pants.

And of course, pictures of Tina. Yes, we took them on the bed because it was 1) the only clean spot, 2) had the best light, and 3)it was pink background (of course!)

The Economy

Of course I knew the economy was having trouble. But all the market numbers and rate cuts and housing price % drops can all go over my head. A few nights ago I saw a commercial for Kmart Layaway. John was next to me and we just looked at each other and I said, "Wow. Layaway? Our economy really is bad isn't it?" (A couple years ago Wal-Mart discontinued their layaway service because it was rarely used.)



I read the following verses this morning which seemed fitting for times such as these:

Don't be obsessed with getting more material things. Be relaxed with what
you have. Since God assured us, "I'll never let you down, never walk off and
leave you," we can boldly quote,

God is there, ready to help; I'm fearless no matter what. Who or what can get to me?

Hebrew 13:5-6 (The Message)

Just a couple pictures from yesterday

A picture of Taryn blogging. This is just crazy to me. When I left home to go to college, my family had never even owned a computer. And though the internet existed when I was in college, it was so obscure I never even used it once (even though I was studying in a technical, computer field). And here is my daughter who has never known life without a computer and the internet. What things will she remember and tell her kids about? Can we even imagine? (I remember when we had to use light switches, gas pumps and had a telephone attached to the wall.)
And the following I hope Uncle Shawn will see. I took these as we were getting ready to leave for karate. Of course he wouldn't normally be wearing sneakers.

Camellias

I don't claim to be a great photographer. I'm only posting these camellia pictures because they make me smile. They are growing outside of my screened porch door it cheers me up as I come and go.

Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. Matt 6:29

Balloon Baseball

Because it is World Series time (Go Phillies!) a game in their honor:


The bases are balloons, the ball is a balloon, the bat is a balloon.

(Another one for the book They Don't Need Expensive Toys Afterall)

Contradictions

I read a news article the other day about an HIV scare at a high school in Missouri. Something that stood out to me was in the next to last paragraph.

So far, the district has met twice with parents and begun to ask ministers
in the community to stress the importance of responsible behavior, Lawrence
said.

The reason that this sounded odd to me is because it is so contradictory. When things are good, people are quick to point out the teaching of the church is "archaic", it is "imposing your morals on everyone", "not practical for today's teens", "legalistic", etc. I'm sure you've heard similar arguments. However, now when schools are actually facing consequences of students living outside of God's moral law, suddenly they want ministers to step in and teach all those "archaic" and "irrelevant to today's teen" teachings they were so quick to dismiss just last month.

So my encouragement to us is that God's Word is relevant to everyone, all the time. Those we share it with may choose to reject it, but that doesn't make it untrue or irrelevant.

One of my least favorite jobs

I love the changing of the seasons. But the task that comes with it? I could do without it. What's that? The changing of the clothes. That dreaded task of putting away the past seasons clothes and getting out clothes for the new season. I really don't know why I dislike this job so much, but I do. Admittedly, it is getting easier because the older kids can do so much of it on their own now. But somehow I don't learn to like it more. Probably because it involves making lots of decisions (small though they may be) and I'm not a good decision maker. Anyway, we started this task last night... actually John started it Tuesday night. It usually takes us several days before we are completely finished.

The task begins when I sweetly ask my husband to please get down all the clothes boxes from the attic. He does so and piles them in the hallway. We walk around them and the kids climb on them for a few days. We threaten the kids and plead with them to stay out of the boxes.

When I finally decide we can begin to go through the boxes, there is great excitement and shouting. Strangely, the kids do not dislike this task like I do. They are thrilled to see what's inside those boxes... it's like a great big surprise. They find stuff they've forgotten about and stuff they loved. And they just like to play in the boxes:

Then as I try to help the little boys, the older kids come to me one after the other asking, "Does this fit, Mommy?" This one clearly didn't (yea for easy decisions).
We start getting piles everywhere of fits/doesn't fit/give away/trash (why did we pack that up anyway?) ... times 6 kids.

Eventually we'll pull summer stuff out of drawers and put winter stuff away. Everything will go back into the boxes and boxes will go in the attic. Aaah. And I won't have to do that again for at least a few months. But in the meantime, if it's late and your bed looks like this:

Well, you'll just have to adapt:

Adaptability

Taryn doing schoolwork at the dining room table:

Joseph doing schoolwork at the ping-pong table in the basement:

Rebekah doing schoolwork at the desk in the living room:

My kids are so studious and so devoted to their schoolwork, they prefer to work in separate areas so they will not be distracted by one another. This way they can work more quickly and have more free time. .... What? Oh, that? Uh....

Please never mind that school table that is too full to actually work on. It's all part of my plan to teach my kids to adapt to whatever situation they may be in. Yeah, that's it. Exactly.

At least "organization and cleanliness" isn't a required subject. They'd never let me teach at home.

Humility

When I was a new mom, I had an adorable little girl and enough clothes for an entire nursery full of little girls. All the clothes were new and all as adorable as my baby (well, almost). So every day she had on beautiful little dresses with matching tights, onesies with matching socks, or sweet little baby blue jeans and frilly shirts. I could have had her picture made every single day. At some point in the parenting journey, this attention to detail and desire for my kids to look well-dressed translated into "Just put some clothes on, please." And when they finally were able to dress themselves, I certainly felt proud of whatever they could manage. I would console myself with the fact that I wasn't planning to go anywhere and nobody was going to see them anyway. Beware of this thinking. Because eventually you will end up going to the library with this:

Clothes that are too small:

Pants, long sleeves and flip-flops (flip-flops not shown).

Boxer shorts (on backwards), black socks with Christmas teddy bears and candy canes on them.

Completely mismatched clothes

I'm sure nobody at the library noticed, right? They just saw my sweet, angelic children sitting with me and listening to me read and thought, "What a wonderful mom". Sure, I can dream right. And of course this day at the library I saw an old friend from college who I hadn't seen in several years. But come to think of it, I didn't notice what her kids had on.

Hi!

Well, I thought that I could just join Taryn and post on her blog occasionally, but she nixed that idea real quick. That is her blog and she wasn't willing to share. So I went through a lot of iterations of changing things around so that she has her own blog with her own email and I have one too. Maybe between the 2 of us we can keep at least one of them reasonably up-to-date. Working with a blog satisfies a bit of that repressed computer nerd in me. I can't wait to really dig into the html code and learn more of it. Anyway, I hope you'll enjoy reading along.