Adelheid

Because of my inability to control myself when TV options are involved, we have Netflix. And I'm not coming in on some high and mighty horse against you cable/satellite/whatever people and looking down my nose at you while I instant stream. Really! It really isn't about you, it's about my lack of restraint so, now that we got that out of the way...

Netflix instant streaming doesn't always have a large selection of blockbuster movies up so sometimes you get bored and resort to other interesting options. Like this:

For some reason this movie popped up the other day and while it probably didn't win any awards, I'm certain in has enjoyed a hallowed and illustrious run on Oxygen or Lifetime or some other chick channel and we found it highly entertaining. See that cute little kid? That is Libby's long lost twin! I will confess Libby doesn't quite have the same zest for warm curded goat milk that kid has but otherwise they could be sisters! Go ahead, next time you have an extra 4 hours on hand and stream it. And when you see Miss Libby, feel free to call her Adelheid. And yes, we are hard at work on the Alpine braid hairdo.

Ironic

Didn't think twice about braiding her hair this morning before we took her in to be traumatized, huh. "Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes." ~1 Peter 3:3

If you aren't a grandparent and just want to see the carnage, start watching around 3:20. :-)

Suffering...

...for beauty.

Born Yesterday

Apparently the boys think I was. I heard the usual shrieking coming from my bathroom the other night and steeled myself to face one of the boys' fights. Danny was in tears, "Mom! Something terrible happened!" What happened was Jacob allegedly tripped getting out of the bathtub and his toothbrush allegedly flew out of his hand (of its own accord) and miraculously stuck 11 feet up on the wall. Uh huh.

Oh yeah, Halloween...

Our little ladybug...

SpiderDan

Long Jacob Silver

The Nosu Princess

The Annual Fiasco

I figured our usual photographer is busy enough and didn't even ask this year (even though I know this person will say they loves doing it and is hugely offended etc.) but I made a command decision for said individual and asked my friend Trena to do our portraits this year.

I hate portrait time because it's impossible to get every looking at the camera and happy when you start adding this many little people into the mix. I also hate it because of the compulsive need to coordinate clothes but my refusal to shell out the money and buy all new coordinating outfits. It usually ends in command decisions like "Forget it! Wear whatever you want!" or "Let's just all wear black/white/denim." Ok, I haven't yet sunk as low as the super-matchy denim but it's coming at some point I'm sure. This year I thought I had it all figured out and then I discovered I didn't about 30 minutes before picture time so, oh well.

Now the pictures that will be on my walls and Christmas cards will have our new girlie in them but she can't make her internet debut at this time so we tried a few without her and I think this is my favorite. Can you tell who was more not into this than me? You better wait by your mailbox 'cuz this year's card looks to be the best so far!

Happy Halloween

I asked the girls if we should have a scary or happy pumpkin so happy it is! I shouldn't be surprised since Libby was astonished at the lack of rainbows in the sky the other day. We're pretty sure her world is full of nothing but rainbows, princesses, princes and flowers. Life has been a bit on the chaotic side as we finally hired a contractor to finish our abysmal backyard. Goodbye barren wasteland!

Amid the power outages and water being intermittently off and construction happening everywhere and children spilling gallons of milk on the front porch during the time the water is off we got to welcome home a little 3 year old girl! She is 3 days older than Libby and they will now be referred to as "the twins." But now as we enter life with social workers again, continue schooling at home and raising 5 children, ages: 2, 3, 3, 4 and 6 we sit on our lovely back porch and praise God, for He is good! We are abundantly blessed in that

"He predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace, with which He has blessed us in the Beloved. In Him we have we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight..." ~Eph 1:5-8

Pajamarama

Dear Grandparents,
I give up. I can no longer make fun cakes and have extravagent parties for each childs' birthday. I'm a failure, I know. It's all Jacob and Maggie's fault, really, since they decided to have birthdays 7 days apart. Since they decided to share October, in my book they also decided to share a party. And for that matter, what if we just rolled out of bed and declared that a party in itself and never took off our pajamas? What if your "cake" was a pan"cake"...

Thank you for not judging me. Thanks to my neighbors for not mocking my pink leopard granny jammies I wore in our front yard until 3:00. Thanks to the real estate agent who didn't tell us people we know and work with would live across the street from us and see me outside at noon in undignified pajamas.

Love,

Missy

Today I Made it Out of Purgatory

Really the only reason I'm writing this entry is for that title. I'm in a book club with some other book geeks. We started about a year and a half ago on the Breakpoint Great Books List (a list of great books with a Christian worldview).

Everyone is forced to read good books in high school, precisely when you have zero appreciation for them. We thought it would be nice to hold each other accountable to read good books now and enjoy them instead of read them and squelch all the joy out of the process by slaving on a 20 page dissertation about "the role of verticality in the novel" or "the influence of religion in 19th-century Russian literature." I had to write one of those essays in college and believe me, joy squelcher.

One of our most recent books was Dante's The Divine Comedy. The crazy people who made the list assumed you would read all three parts in one month. Might as well have picked the entire Encyclopedia Britannica. I'm just Type A enough that it's been nagging me that I never finished it so I've continued through Inferno, Purgatory and here comes Paradise!

MRLRAPCFRCCYSD

I'm thinking of sponsoring a 5K. Really. I was walking a 0.0005K to the mailbox the other day and was attacked by an extremely vicious dog. The breed is not relevant. I learned many things:

1. I hate dogs.
2. I am a good parent. The dog went for Maggie, I picked her up and took a bitin' for her.
3. Erik loves me but delights in my pain. I have endured many rabies jokes.

Thus, my 5K. The Missy Reynolds Lancaster Rabies Awareness ProAm Celebrity Fun Run for the Cure and Controlling Your Stupid Dogs. Because rabies doesn't discriminate.

Quiet Endurance

There are those ladies (ahem, Emily) who love a good trip to the salon. And then there are Reynolds girls.

Maggie's first haircut! She loved it, can't you tell?

Ole! Ole! Ole!

That's what they say at soccer matches right? What about soccer matches involving children and border collies? I was picking the kids up from childcare at the gym the other day and they asked if I would be interested in pitting my children against dogs in a soccer match for the nightly news. I figured this is my shot to get my kids discovered by talent scouts, do some commercial work for a while (you know, Juicy Juice and a few Gap ads), then head on over to sitcoms and work their way into major motion pictures and eventually we can all be on E! True Hollywood Story after a quick stint in rehab.

This was a demonstration to promote an upcoming City of Lancaster event called Bark in the Park and raise money for the local animal shelter. This dog's name is Ms. Z and for that reason, I don't like her.The dogs might be better trained than the children... Patiently waiting for a turn...

The dogs never had much chance against this crew.

1992 Chevrolet Camaro RS

That was Erik's first car. Mine was a 1992 Pontiac Grand Am. Have you ever noticed that when you ask people, especially teenagers, "Where do you see yourself in 10 years?" they see themselves in a particular car living a life that is exemplified by that car. Side note: Some people make decisions based off of what they desire to happen and others out of what they desire to not happen. I'm the latter. Back to the point: I don't know that I pictured a certain car but I absolutely said on many occasions that I would never drive a minivan. If you recognize this vehicle then you know it was my beloved minivan. Of course I made all of those proclamations before I tried to wrangle 3 carseats into the backseat of a Camry and before I realized how handy the sliding doors are and before Toyota sought to make minivans cool.


But even with as many rash words from adolescence that I've had to eat as I entered adulthood and parenthood, I never in my wildest dreams could have imagined that not only would I cave and join what I perceived to be a very non-hip, not-with-it minivan crowd, but that I would leave the minivan-driving, 2.1 kid toting crowd behind and blaze into this territory.


Seriously! I didn't set out to be here, driving 4 stairstep kids in a Ford E150, homeschooling and getting ready for two more. How, in less than 8 years did I go from the cute little Camry I drove in college to upgrading into a "bus van" (as the children call it). The big thing that changed was in the summer of 2002 when Erik and I first realized that we were living a life that worshipped ourselves instead of Our Creator.

We started attending church, reading the Bible and seeking His will instead of ours. We were slowly convicted to make little changes here and there. I wonder what my reaction might have been if God had instantly asked me to quit working, trade my Camry for the bus and fill it with children. The scene I imagine is quite colorful but, all that to say, I'm thankful God has walked me from there to here. I love here! And driving a "bus van" is totally worth it for these guys and for the next two, Lord willing.

Packback School

My children have difficulty with a few words, namely syrup, airport and backpack. Yeah, I don't understand either but they come out "syry-up," "airy-port" and "packback" no matter how many times we practice. They must get this from Erik because I have perfect diction.

This year we are breaking ground by moving into a charter school. This essentially means Jake goes to "packback school" one day a week but still does the majority of his learning at home. Erik and the Dan walked him into class and picked him up on his first day, apparently I couldn't be trusted to not do something embarrassing. Apparently I seem like the type that would try to *gasp* kiss him in front of the other kids or yell "Make good choices!" across the parking lot.

Of course I wanted every detail at the end of the day and all I get out of "What did you do today?" was "I don't know but it was fun and I want to go every day instead of doing work at home." Essentially what this boils down to is food from a lunchbox just tastes better and I like to color with the markers you won't le tme use on your tablecloth. He was given free time with markers to draw whatever he wanted and he did this:

Just waiting for the teacher to call! :-) So this is what school looks like at home. See! It's fun! What isn't fun about a white board and standing on a chair and phonemic blends?

And cute little desks are fun too, right?

Not to mention the bubblegum I give out at the end of the day! Beat that packback schoolteacher!

Yesterday's Impromptu Science Discussions

Jacob's:
Me: Jake, take this diaper outside to the trash can.
Dan: Mom, can we just put it in the kitchen trash?
Jake: No Dan, it's bigger outside so it doesn't smell bad.
Me: That's right Jake! Dilution IS the solution to pollution!

Dan's:
Dan: Mom, what's in my heart?
Me: It's a big muscle.
Dan: But what's IN it?
Me: Blood.
Dan: But what's in blood?
Me: Cells and water.
Dan: What's in water?
Me: Molecules.
Dan: But what's in mol-culs?
Me: Atoms.
Dan: But what's in atoms?
Me: Subatomic particles.
Dan: But what's in subatomic part-culs?
Me: Quarks.
Dan: But what's in quarks?
Me: I don't know.
Dan: Oh, okay. Can I have some Goldfish crackers?

Summer Flashback

We trekked to Texas for the first third of summer this year and though I've been too lazy to blog this until now, it's been in the back of my mind. Every year that we've ever (and I mean ever) taken Jacob to Texas, he has found a new and exciting reason to go to the emergency room. It started out simple enough as a newborn with an eye infection and HMOs that don't allow you to go to Urgent Cares when out of state. We had a couple other nice random illnesses in there and then in 2007 he stepped it up with a broken leg. Not to be out-done he pulled a skull fracture on us the next trip and we got to go to 3 ERs and overnight in the PICU with a couple ambulance rides in there too.

That being said, I was nervous about our trip this year. My dear father wanted to take the boys to do fun stuff at his office and I thoroughly reminded him of my reservations. I was promptly assured they would be kept out of harm's way. And then I see these pictures from that day.

Pump jacks, blow torches and air compressors. Nice, Dad, totally safe. I love the progression of Daniel in the last 3 pictures though! First thing Daniel said when he got home was "I cut steel with fire!" Love you Papa!

The Calling is the Coolest

We really like our Sunday school class. It's called The Calling (Erik and I ate alot of Pazookie at BJ's while trying to come up with a name) and it is for the 23-30 year-old crowd. And for two more months, I'm still technically in the age range and then I don't know what's going to happen. We had a really fun BBQ for Labor Day because we are good Americans and here are some of the extremely adult, career-oriented, mature folks eating popsicles. Um hm. Jolly Rancher popsicles I might add!
Most of us swam, except for Erik and Brad. This is Brad, he's nice, plays a mean guitar and recently discovered motorcycles are dangerous.

Here is Erik. Scoring a kiss from a cute girl.

I got to be a floating bus for toddlers! I love hearing people yell, "Mommy's a bus!" when I'm in my swimsuit!

Happy Labor Day!