Just Thinking

For some reason during church yesterday, I was thinking about Valentine's, and the punch we had at dinner. Hubby swirled his around in his glass to mix it around and melt the sherbet. And a few minutes later, Speedy swished his punch around in his cup and onto the table. We just had to laugh. It's funny how your kids don't want to do what you TELL them to, but they are ALWAYS watching you and want to do what you DO. Made me think of this poem, I'm sure you recognize:

Little eyes are watching you

There are little eyes upon
you and they're watching night and day.

There are little ears that quickly take in every word you say.

There are little hands all eager to do anything you do;

And a little boy who's dreaming of the day he'll be like you.

You're the little fellow's idol, you're the wisest of the wise.

In his little mind about you no suspicions ever rise.

He believes in you devoutly, holds all you say and do;

He will say and do, in your way when he's grown up just like you.

There's a wide eyed little fellow who believes you're always right;

and his eyes are always opened, and he watches day and night.

You are setting an example every day in all you do;

For the little boy who's waiting to grow up to be like
you.

--Author Unknown

I feel very blessed, because I think my hubby is a pretty good example for my kids to be imitating. Even if there's occasionally punch spilled on the table and licked up. :)

The Shack

I finished another book last night: 'The Shack' by William P. Young. http://www.theshackbook.com/ My sister-in-law passed it on to me. Anyone heard of it or read it? I guess you'd call it sort of an allegory. I had a really hard time getting through the first four chapters (if you read the back cover of the book, you'd know why). I was wishing I hadn't started reading it, but felt like I had to keep going to get it out of my mind. If you can make it to chapter 5, you'll be okay, I think. It touches on so many aspects of Christian life and questions that come with the hard stuff in life. And presents such a loving, intimate portrait of God--the whole trinity, even--and presents the essence of each part with neat clarity. What's presented seems to mesh with the Bible to me, but I'm not an expert that can vouch for the soundness of all the 'theology.' This sounds cheesy, but the descriptiveness (of ch. 5 on) is also a 'feast for the senses.' :) All in all, it's a pretty thought-provoking book. If you've read it, let me know what you think.

Best Buddies

• Speedy found out yesterday that he got to spend his best buddy's birthday with him (which was today.) As soon as I told him he was going after he woke up in the morning, he said, 'no, I can't wait!' Last night he had trouble settling down to go to bed because he was so excited. During the night, he came to our bed (a nightly occurrence) and wanted to know if it was time to go play with his buddy. Later in the night (morning?) Speedy again asked Hubby if it was time. Hubby told him not till the sun was up. :) This was one of the first days I haven't had to fight him to get a coat and hat on, and he burst out the door when the suburban pulled in to pick him up. They had a good time playing, fighting over toys, and touring a caboose. I guess when Speedy was getting his coat on to come home, he asked A. D, 'When the sun peeks up, can I come back and play with my buddy?' It was surprisingly quiet and a little dull today without our Speedy around. He fell asleep with his headlamp on (on his head AND turned on) tonight. Doesn't sound comfortable to me...
• We did dress up and have a tea party this afternoon, which we usually don't do with Speedy (I get in enough trouble when he's wearing lip gloss or toenail polish). Honey kept hoarding all the tea spoons. We also played 'babies,' it's not quite as enjoyable when your real baby is being quite a fussypants and wanting to be held all the time. Princess is doing quite well coloring in the lines all of a sudden--today it was Larry the cucumber, neatly done, including eyelids of a different color...
• Honey had 2 greenish BMs today; with a chunk of turquoise in each...
• It was freezing cold tonight, but we had steak, grilled outside...

Tuesday Musings

We saw a Papa John's flyer with a heart-shaped pizza, so Princess wanted to try making one for our Valentine dinner. Wasn't too hard. She was also excited about our pink punch (1 c pink lemonade, 1 c raspberry sherbet, 1 can 7up).
Speedy has latched on to Sam the bear; Sam sleeps with Speedy; Sam is sometimes Speedy's pillow; Sam takes trips in the van with us; Sam even sits at the table during meals sometimes. (Yes, he's wearing his jersey again!)
Just a cute one of Honey and Hubby. :) Honey's latest exploits include still putting everything in her mouth, and passing some interesting things into her diaper; LOVES grapes; can climb onto the bathroom stool and reach onto the counter; very interested in everything in the bathroom--today was already seen dragging around the toilet brush, then the bathroom rug. She cried herself to sleep for a nap today...for the first time ever--usually I am her pacifier to soothe to sleep. She has never been interested in an actual pacifier for more than about one minute. She's waving, clapping, bouncing to music, putting phones to her ear, trying to run, and I'm pretty sure, has repeated a couple words. :)

Princess & Speedy always want to try yogurt, then don't like it, so there's all these partially eaten yogurts lurking. Finally, we discovered that they love the Yoplait Whipped yogurt. Especially the chocolate mousse flavor. Does that really count as yogurt??

Speedy was reading 'Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see?' out loud to himself after lunch today. Very cute. And hard to believe he's growing up so much! He was helping me in the kitchen this weekend (he likes being close to the food, I think, and the opportunity for snacking). He was leaning over a pan just out of the oven, and I said "that'll burn your face, honey." He kind of glared at me and said, "I not HONEY, I SPEEDY!" Hubby agreed. :) Speedy has come up with his own word for when he toots--he calls it a peep. Like, 'I peeped' or 'I made a peep.'

We (the kids and I) started a new chapter book--Stuart Little. We're only on chapter 3. Need to enforce some bedtimes, I guess. I finally finished 'Making Children Mind Without Losing Yours' (I hear you snickering) by Kevin Leman. It was slow to start, but had some good points--main focus is 'reality discipline' basically letting logical consequences and your (the parent's) actions do the talking instead of arguing, wheedling, bribing, etc. Also had some pretty good chapters on single parenting and blended families. The verse it was based on was

Eph 6:4 "Don't keep on scolding and nagging your children, making them
angry and resentful. Rather, bring them up with the loving discipline the
Lord himself approves, with suggestions and godly advice." NLT

Also talks about how as a parent you want to aim for an authoritative approach, in between permissive (robs child of self respect and initiative by doing so much FOR her) and authoritatian (robs child of self-esteem and sense of independence by doing so much TO her). Interesting.

So Hubby thinks my blogging is kind of silly--I can't blame him, he actually gets to talk with other adults throughout the day instead of pseudo-conversing via a blog. :) It's also a good way for me to savor the everyday stuff, share info with others as I think of it (that I usually end up forgetting to tell them in person), and hopefully be an encouragement, or at least mildly entertaining to others. Time to end this long post that has only taken about 40 minutes, in between interruptions. One of which was Princess asking me if God and Jesus would take care of her if she didn't have a Mommy and Daddy in heaven. (sniff, sniff) Yes, Princess.

Fancy Nancy

Here's Princess in her girly skirt and tights, after PAT storytime on Wed. (she won this 'Sam' bear from 'A Snowy Surprise' in a drawing).

We read our first 'Fancy Nancy' book this week--pretty cute. Princess' not quite as over the top as Nancy is, but I felt for her when we read this page in Fancy Nancy (they're trying to decide what kind of dog to get) "Too big. Too brown. Too plain. Sometimes it's hard being the only fancy person in a family." I'm glad she has her fancy cousin to hang out with.

February 14

Happy Valentine’s Day!
John 3:16

For God so loVed the world,
That He gAve
His onLy
BegottEn
SoN
That whoever
Believes In Him
Should Not perish,

But have Everlasting life.

'Mine jehsey'

If you haven't caught on, most of my pics of Speedy are in this shirt, his favorite shirt, his 'jersey.' His 'r's aren't quite there yet, hence the spelling on this title. This was one of Hubby's shirts when he was younger (or his brother's, or both), and Hubby is also quite attached to shirts of the jersey type with numbers on them. :) If Speedy spots this in the dirty laundry, clean laundry, anywhere, all of a sudden he just HAS to have his jersey on. He usually gets one arm in without any trouble, but then is looking for help.

Totally by accident, I got this great pic of Honey's sweet curls during her party. Awww.