The Doldrums

I have to admit I'm coming out of a brief period of discouragement with motherhood and being a stay-at-home mom. We've had three straight weeks of at least one person in house having a stomach virus. And this is no 24-hour virus, no sir! This is a full 6 days of grossness. So after a few weeks of cabin fever, isolation, and washing load upon load of laundry, I'm a little tired. It culminated in Jacob throwing up in line at Walmart. Sunday night we had planned to join several other couples to see the Los Angeles Philharmonic perform Bach's Mass in B Minor. The babysitter called 30 minutes into the trip to inform me that Jake had begun throwing up. Ten of us were halfway to LA in one vehicle and there was no going back. She called later to ask where the carpet cleaner was, he had throw up again. She called again to ask what to do with my "dry clean only" comforter because another boy had accidentally been put to bed without a PullUp and he wet our bed. Disney Concert Hall is amazing and the music was beautiful but it wasn't exactly a restful evening. We are all starting to be a little touchy with each other, pray for us as we re-enter normal society.

We finally broke down and mowed last night, we were quickly becoming those renters that move in on a block of homeowners and let the yard go. After the palm tree incident, I was feeling the pressure to keep the yard looking nice. The boys were most helpful!

Miss Libby did what respectable young ladies do and sat by looking pretty.

She has also discovered the joys of swinging. The boys are not as thrilled at this as she is, the local usually have two little kid swings and two big kid swings. Jake can use the big kid swing but he tends to jump out at the top of the arc and I have no desire to repeat the broken leg. Jake and Dan have also had to learn to keep their toys a little higher off the ground as she has learned to pull up and see what excitement awaits above the floor.

Danny seems to have decided to live up to society's standards for 2 year-olds. Almost overnight he went from a relatively compliant, shy child with a small tendency to whine to a child who excels at whining and belligerence. Please pray for the sanity of our household through this change! It is exciting to see him identify with Erik more and want to be Daddy's helper instead of Mommy's helper, that is always a bittersweet adjustment for moms though.

Danny is Two Old!

Danny turned 2 today and we had a big party! This morning I asked him to say "I am 2 years old." He said "I am two old." Depends on your point of view I guess. Once the party started, all that was to be heard were sounds of little boys giggling, running, wrestling, fighting, crying and playing trucks. Aren't birthday parties great? Here is the enormous cake fully decorated.I'm pretty sure blowing out the candle was the best part of the entire day for Danny.But eating cake with all of your best buddies isn't so bad either...

Circle Time

We have banded together with a few friends to start a sort of cottage preschool for our children. We meet one morning a week to play, sing songs, do crafts and learn a little lesson. We start off with "circle time," where we sit "criss cross applesauce" on the floor and pray, sing and read a book. Last night I caught Jake having "circle time" with his Hot Wheels on the dinner table. Another funny Jacob tidbit: we were working in the barckyard and I filled the trashcan with assorted dead plants. It was so full the lid wouldn't close completely. Jake turned to the trashcan and scolded "Swallow your dinner Trashcan! Close your mouth!"

Danny was having a horrible morning on Wednesday with the transition of Erik leaving. He fussed and whined and ignored instructions all morning and no one was happy. I made the mistake of attempting a Walmart visit. Dumb. After repeated show downs throughout the store we finally got back to the relative safety of the van. I placed him in the van and told him to get in his chair but he decided to show me who was boss. He took a swan dive out of the van and landed on the asphalt on his face. So there I am, trying to get Libby and the groceries out of the cart and get Jake in the van and Danny's laying on the ground weeping and gnashing his teeth and bleeding. Public judgement is flying at me from all directions by all onlookers. Wonderful day! Thankfully he has left the dark side and is again my sweet, sweet boy. Two years old tomorrow! Tonight he had his first experience with a brain freeze. He placed a large quantity of ice cream in his mouth then started crying and holding his head. After it passed, he threw the spoon down and pouted "All done ice cream!"

Let Them Eat Cake

Have you ever experienced one of those conversations where you think the two of you agreed on one thing and later found ot they thought you decided something else? A sweet lady in the church offered to share her years of cake decorating experience with my friends and me by helping us each begin a cake. I had spoken with her of my desire to learn to do wedding cakes and how to use rolled fondant. I thought we decided to tackle rolled fondant in this lesson and do tiered cakes another day, she understood we would be doing both. I diligently baked my 8 inch round cakes, levelled, layered and iced them and was ready for fondant lesson. Imagine my surprise when she arrives with two 12 inch cakes to layer beneath my 8 inch cakes! And thus,

we will have enough cake to put an entire school into a diabetic coma, rather less the 9 toddlers that were invited to Danny's birthday party this weekend. I am a little overwhelmed at the prospect of decorating this monster at the moment. I suppose it is a good thing 20 college students show up at our house every Saturday night. The price of entry this week will be eating you weight in cake.

On a more joyful note, here is our sweet Libby cruising around the house. The boys are having a bit of trouble with her adjustment from babyhood to toddlerhood. Jake has informed me several times that the baby is too little to eat whatever treat I have handed her and he should have it instead. Danny will come tell us, "Baby Libby is walking!" in case we didn't notice.
Erik will be out of town for the rest of the week while he attends The Shepherd's Conference hosted by John MacArthur. I think it will be a refreshing time for him to learn more about pastoring. He will be greatly missed at home.

More Monday Adventures

This entry has been a long time coming! Daniel found the laptop open and running and decided to play the prankster. He somehow managed to change the keyboard assignments so that when you hit the "m" button, it typed a "5." There were many other interesting changes and it has taken some time to undo his work.

Libby is crawling all over the house and pulling up to cruise down bedsides and couches (and I thought I was busy before). Emily actually got her to laugh the other day but we have had no repeat success. I feel sorry for any young man who tries to impress her with his wit because it takes serious effort with little encouragement in return.

We have remained faithful to our Monday adventures and have even recruited friends. The Branner family joined us in an exciting field trip to the Bass Pro Shop in Ontario last Monday. I know, I know, the Bass Pro Shop but the boys really enjoyed themselves. First, we shopped for a boat. The Branners' 3 year-old Micah was "test driving" a party barge and I asked him where he was driving. He was going to Vietnam. I was impressed. Jacob and Micah thought this must be Bruce from Finding Nemo.
The store has a large waterfall the feeds a huge tank which holds about 20 varieties of fish. The boys were fascinated and had to be dragged away crying. We walked around admiring the taxidermy and then had lunch and headed home.

This week we drove down to Santa Monica to play on the beach and walk down the pier. Jake immediately ran into the waves fully clothed so we stripped him to his underwear and let him have at it. The waves overtook him a few times and once Erik or Mark pulled him up, he ran up the beach to dry off and find his bearings for about 5 seconds, then charged back into the water fearlessly. These is a small amusement park on the pier so Mark and Erik were kind enough to indulge Micah and Jacob in a quick ride. Danny sat in my lap and sulked at being left behind. I felt sorry for him as it is never fun to be left behind but the last time I took him on a ride was ugly and no repeat was needed.
After our frolic on the beach we headed to Bubba Gump's for lunch. Libby was quite happy! Notice the note on the table in front of her: I may be an idiot, but I'm not stupid.

Here is the note I got:

Very true! Mark took us by his old stomping ground for ice cream at a favorite stop by UCLA in Westwood Village. We bought ice cream sandwiches from Diddy Riese's for $1.50 each and drove over to a grassy spot on campus for a dessert picnic. What a great day to be a little boy! After our adventurous day, we crashed on the couch for rest, relaxation and a little Planet Earth, our family's favorite video.

Work, Work, Work

Erik returned from house-building in Tijuana on Sunday and the boys were so excited to see him. They really didn't want to give him 10 minutes of privacy to take a shower once he was home but I insisted as the overall aroma was powerful. This trip is always convicting as the team constructs 12x12 plywood one-room "homes" on hillsides where you can easily see across the border to million dollar homes in San Diego. Here is the team framing a wall. This is the family who will live in the house. This particular house is an addition to another 12x12 home in which the family currently lives. They have dealt with many break ins recently so the man built the wall around his home and procured a very large dog in order to protect his wife and children.
Here is the family, cute girls!


Jacob has been hard at work protecting his baby sister. Erik has taught him that Libby is our "Treasure" and he is her protector. He has taken it literally! At the mall playground this weekend, a boy came over to look at Libby as she was playing on the floor. Jake ran over and wagged his finger at the boy saying "Watch out! That's Baby Libby and she's our treasure!" He has also been helping Erik with important man tasks such as selecting the evening's entertainment.

Daniel has been doing repair work around the house. He was borrowing Libby's jumping contraption a few weeks ago and used it a bit too close to the wall. Being the responsible young man that he is, he felt obligated to do his share in repairing the damage to the paint.


And Miss Libby, as any young lady who hopes to be accomplished, has begun her training in horseback riding. Here she is with Katie riding Rocky.

Erik worked into his lesson last night that he didn't buy a Valentine's gift for me. He said he went online to see what last minute gift ideas others had and what he arrived is truly a marvel. Three homemade coupons! The first: Relax...I'll watch the kids while you clean. The second: Unwind...the dishwasher does most of the work. And finally: Treasure..."He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the Lord." Proverbs 18:22 Do you think the last one makes up for publicly presenting the first two?

Moms are Mean

Erik left with a team of high school students bound for Tijuana yesterday. They will be working with Caravan Ministries to build small homes for the poor. It is wonderful to be able to help those living in poverty but the true purpose is to disciple the students and give them an awareness of how blessed they are as most have never seen true poverty.

I told the boys that Erik would be riding a bus to Mexico and Jake immediately latched onto the bus. Dad's leaving? So what! LEt's go see this bus. So we drove up to the church to "see the group off" and maybe check out the bus. We handed Libby off to a swarm of cooing high school girls and headed for the bus but it was a lot bigger in person than the boys expected. This is how far Jake got. I carried Dan onto the bus and tried to tempt Jake up but he would not have it! Coming home to Erik's truck but no Erik was really hard for the boys. They keep looking out the window and shouting "Daddy's home!" I'm such the downer when I have to set them right. To add to that I promised them we would go to the library yesterday afternoon. We went out and got buckled into carseats and once I walked down to check the mail I noticed that I had a very flat tire. They were none to happy to bypass the library in exchange for a tire repair shop. I know, I'm completely evil!