Back from the Beach

More to come... OF COURSE...

Son of a Preacher Man's Daughter

Yesterday was our 8th wedding anniversary.  I wish I could say we did something wonderful but we didn't.  Next year.  :)  But I can still say that the wedding gift napkins we still have, (you know how hard it is to actually use up your favorite things,) read true: don't bother me, I'm living happily ever after.

At our rehearsal dinner we had a slideshow with images of us growing up and dating.  My pictures flashed to the song My Girl and Shaun's to Son of a Preacher Man, which was really cute, right, RIGHT?  (Because he's the son of a preacher man.)  Get it?  SO cute.

Anyway, I've been wanting to record how Madalyn preaches.  It is hilarious.  She gets on these rants- just goes on a roll preaching about this or that.  Whenever I read the Bible to them, or a specific verse, the normally Attentive-Deficient child drops all distractions to put on a grave expression and listen in earnest to the Word of her Lord.  I wish I could write how my heart swells to see that.  God is good.  He shows Himself in new places daily, and there's no place to see Him like in your very own child.

This morning I was instant messaging with Shaun and this was the background soundtrack of Madalyn's voice that played like a poetic chant or rap while she danced-

You better listen to Jesus

and do what he wants you to do

always listen to Jesus

and if you don't

He's still happy

but before you do

you better listen to Jesus

before He's mad

but He's still happy, He's still happy...today He says that to you!

He does, He does

He does

oh yeah

He says it, He says it,

you gotta listen, you gotta listen,

hooray for Jesus, hooray for Jesus!

ohhhhh........... YEAH!

Jesus loves the children of the world!

Red and yellow black and white.

Now, we obviously have a bit of theology to hammer out, some confusion, perhaps, on whether God is angry or just appeased or crazy in love with us... that subject matter comes from the kids arguing theology on the way to school.  They don't understand how God is not angry anymore and sees Christ in us, but how sin is still upsetting to Him... (I'm  not sure I understand that myself, though I try to explain how sin hurts us and others and God doesn't like our sins but loves us.)  In the car conversations, Evan argues God isn't mad, Madalyn argues He is.  Which is fitting.  Because Evan is the one who needs to give himself grace, so that's where he's coming from... where as Madalyn needs a little tough love- thus, her perspective on the matter.  

I've read/heard it's important to recognize gifts and natural talents and inclinations and preferences your children have and help define and verbalize them.  It gives them a sense of individuality and direction.  That very well might be a bunch of bunk, but to a degree,  I actually buy it... (maybe because I wish in high school someone had kindly escorted me off the basketball court and into the art department.) 

So I found myself stopping to say to Madalyn, "I LOVE hearing you teach about Jesus.  Are you teaching and preaching?  I wonder if one day Jesus will want you teach many, many people about His love.  Do you know who you remind me of?  One of my favorite Bible teachers, Beth Moore."  And then I showed her a bit of this clip:

 

She put on the grave expression I mentioned prior.  She stood attentive and silent.  And she processed.

Last Night

Evan found berries for his cooking and planting.  We tried to have a special movie night while daddy worked late.

We made popcorn and put on The Muppets Take Manhattan but it was over their heads.  I had a Miss Piggy birthday

party when I turned four or five, so I thought for sure they'd be into it.  I guess it's an 80's thing. 

But they did think planting their popcorn seeds in the backyard would be a fabulous evening activity...

 

 

 

 

That tush and belly I mentioned last post.  Why do I want to spell it toosh? Toosh is so much cuter.

  

 

 

 

Madalyn is really into stuffed animals right now.  I was a doll kid, she's a stuffed animal kid. 

Me and my friends have all said we were one or the other.  I have no idea what that means.

This animal is Rosebud.  Actually, they're all "Rosebud".  They used to all be "Golly" so they've

made a step up in the world. 

Look.  Three busy bodies.  A glimpse of life with three, right?

Oh, and I know the 2 x4 Evan is hauling up onto the fort is not the safest game out there,

but you should see the game they play when throwing them back down.

 

The kids woke up with eye infections... I wonder how that happened:

So we are headed to the doctor today before leaving town tonight to go to Ocala.  And now I must return

to the mound of clean laundry in the bedroom... and the potty training, (which by the way, is going REALLY well

as long as I remember to take him, he goes.)  Not one accident yesterday.  When he finishes pee pee'ing he looks up

at me and claps for himself and says "yay, good job!  yay, pee pee!"  Sometimes he does that just to try to get down, actually.

(You have to keep a close eye on the pee pee.)     Happy weekend!

Jack's Baby Voice

The kids LOVE Tom and Jerry.  The other day an episode was on with the most adorable baby duck, Quaker.  A few days later we were swimming in the pool and Jack was chatting to me about something and the way his words got caught in his cheeks kept reminding me of something I couldn't pinpoint... then I realized it was the duck from this episode.  So since I have a lack of home videos taken, and though his vocabulary isn't this high yet, and he speaks in a higher pitch, here is a memoir of what Jack's baby voice sounds like, the way his words get caught in his precious, chubby cheeks:

 

Way Impressed

Jack is something ELSE.  He knows how to lower our expectations- with the fits and the whining and the scolding, (and by scolding I mean shaking his finger at us and scolding, na stop dit na ga gin! clipped and forcefully as though he were the parent)- and thus sets the stage for when he does do something unusually mature for his age for us to be all the more impressed with him.

Yesterday, for example, we were all swimming and he had no swim diaper on and he kept grabbing at the back of his suit.  Lately he'd been telling me just before he went #2 that it was about to happen, and I took the grabbing and glances my way as the same thing, so we headed to the potty.  I wasn't about to put him in a diaper to do his business and then be back in the pool- 

"Wanna try the big boy potty?" I asked him, and set him on it (not really waiting for an answer.)  Nothing.  Back to the swimsuit and pool.  More grabbing- back to the bathroom, and sure enough, he did it!  Completely. 

We have a lot going on this week- Evan's school interview tomorrow morning, a movie at the dollar theatre in the afternoon, play dates with friends here and there, so naturally, it was not a good time to start potty training.  (Not to mention we go to Ocala this coming weekend to pick up 6 shoots, and the beach two weeks after that.)  This morning, however, when Shaun went to get him out of his crib, Jack had taken his pants off, then his diaper off, and then went to the trouble to put his pants BACK on.  Evan is still learning that, so we were floored. 

Then I FORGOT he didn't have a diaper on underneath the pj shorts and realized he was still dry after breakfast.  So we'll give it a go, I thought, let's see if he's ready or not, and the pants stayed on all morning. 

Come 11:30, and after me having him sit periodically on the big potty, he was still completely dry.  We went swimming and when he started grabbing at his pee pee we tried the big potty.  Not the first time, but the second time he pee pee'ed!  And SO, we are officially potty training...  I guess.  Which means I will be running to Target tonight to get the smallest big boy underpants I can find.  And OH MY GOODNESS is that gonna be the cutest tush America has ever seen in bog boy pants.  And belly.  (Says me.)

Well, naptime is LONG over, wouldn't you say?  But the kids are playing so well, it's hard to pull myself away.  They are listening to Cedarmont Kids videos upstairs and I just heard them sing all of Father Abraham at the top of their lungs.  When it ended Evan said, "You wanna do that AGAIN??"  Madalyn, the cheerleader, said "Yea-UH!" 

Nonetheless, I better go get dinner started.  We're having burgers- Shaun's grilling- and corn on the cob and homemade mac n cheese and baked beans and strawberry shortcakes (the mini ones you make yourself, because the kids think that's cool.)  Does that meal scream summer or what?  Every time we're in the pool, I smell some neighbors' grilling burgers and I have wanted my own ever since...  well tonight, my friends, that dream's a-comin' true... mm, mm, MM!