It makes sense cont...

• bring a bucket of sand in the house (in addition to what was in their shoes)
• shoot me in the eye with a high powered "Batman" water gun (uh-huh, somebody's in trouble, you know who you are)

yup, same day people.

New Stephenie Meyer Novella.....for FREE

Stephenie Meyer is releasing a new book that is a complement to Eclipse and is the story of one of the newborns Bree. Although, I'd much rather read the complete "Midnight Sun" I am definitely interested to get more details on Eclipse (I liked that one the best!). It sounds like she will offer it for free (online version only) at www.breetanner.com from June 7th to July 5th but if you do purchase the book with the cover some of the proceeds will go to the American Red Cross. Pretty neat. Read all about it at:

http://stepheniemeyer.com/

It makes sense..

that children's brains are not fully developed. I have to remind myself of this often when I have little patience left in the pot. Like when they:

• Roll ink all over their tongue
• Pee in their pants AGAIN
• Take their pants off in the sandbox
• Use the rest of the roll of toilet paper and clog the toilet.....while I am in the shower
• Eat two grapes for lunch to get a piece of Easter candy
• Write chalk marks on the screen door and dislodge it from the track, AGAIN
• Make mess, after mess, after mess, after mess, after mess, after mess, after mess, after mess, after mess

and this is just in the last 24 hours. Sometimes though, I think my brain is regressing (and they think I am crazy), so I guess we are even.

Quote

There is no duty we so underrate as the duty of being happy. By being happy, we sow benefits upon the world. -Robert Louis Stevenson

Mission Impossible

Our family is now on a mission, to defeat the virus that never ends. It just goes on, and on, and ON! I really don't know how much more of this I can take. As if getting up at 4am for two weeks isn't enough, Peanut is vomiting more often during the day now and T-man won't eat. All due to sinus drainage? ARGH!

Weapons of choice:

• antibacterial wipes
• Vitamin water
• Blueberries (in muffin form of course)
• sleep
• COFFEE (I even pulled what I will lovingly refer to as a Julie Potter today. I made coffee at 4:30 in the afternoon. Yes Julie, if you read this you can smack me next time you see me :-))
• Mylanta, Xantac, and now Amoxicillan

Any suggestions on mission impossible, I am all ears.

Eclipse Trailer

Oh boy!

You know you are a mother of preschoolers when...

1) You cannot shave both legs in the same day

2) You are up at least 4 times a night, and only one is a potty trip for yourself

3) You miss a lot of what people say because you are trying to create your own "quiet" time

4) You are tempted to take pictures of "shapes" in the toilet

5) 75% of your time is spent in your mini-van

6) Sometimes you hide in the bathroom with the door locked

7) You feel like your main job is cleaning messes, which occur every .05 seconds

8) You do not have new couches and probably won't for at least 15 years (sigh!)

9) You always come home from shopping crabby (with children)

10) When you do finally (or annually) get some honest to goodness quiet time by yourself, you can't remember what you liked to do before you had children AND you miss your children, isn't that a kick in the pants!

Kid Heaven is...

the snack bar at Costco: pizza, ice cream, Hi-C, hot dogs. The parent perk is you can feed the whole family for $5 bucks.

Partners in Crime #9 (that I have blogged mind you)

So today, we were playing in the basement. It was a slow going day as we all were a little under the weather. I decided to get a work out in and was doing some crunches when the children decided they wanted to get out the kiddie pool and pretend they were swimming. Excitement ensued. Next they decided to run upstairs and get their suits on. I thought, they are both big enough to get their suits on and they know where they are so I will let them be the big kids they are........right.

About five minutes or so go by and they are not back, and kids their age move like lightening so I start to wonder. I also notice the upstairs is deadly silent, time to move. I jog up the stairs to find not one but two preschoolers, naked, on top of a dresser. Oh, did I mention said dresser had been scooted over to the closet and they were getting ready to scale the closet onto the top shelf (where Peanuts swimsuit was)? Well they were. How I did not hear this debacle I do not know. I made it just in the nick of time to avoid, I am sure, what would have been our 3rd (yes 3rd) ER visit of the year.....and it is March. Thank you Jesus.

Hearts At Home

What can I say about Hearts At Home? Honestly, it's hard to describe how good it was. I laughed, I cried, I learned, I truly felt God's presence, I had FUN, and mostly I was reminded that the most important thing I can be doing right now is being a Mom. Mom's are world changers.

Some highlights:

• Sally Baucke - HILarious mom comedian that had material from driving her minivan to buying a super sucker for her boys toilet (if you know what I mean)
• Nicole Johnson - A writer, speaker, and dramatist who went from a funny monologue on "The Case of the Missing Mind" to a most tearful "Arsenist Mom" about how a mom's angry words can burn in her families heart
• Mark and Jill Savage, Hearts' founder, who talked about their book "Living With Less So Your Family Can Have More" and how living with less stuff and activities produces closer and happier families
• Christy Nockels - beautiful singer and worship leader, you must hear her song "No Not One", she also provided some awesome testimony on being a Mom and listening to God (you will need to pause music at the bottom)
• 
  
  
• Mom's Night Out - which not only included some great entertainment the night before the conference started but also a great dinner with some great friends :-)

I told the girls that I want to do it again next year but want to add some down time, it was a whirlwind! I also want to lasso some more Mom's to check it out. Good stuff!

Today I am thankful for...

1) A beautiful day!

2) Great kids

3) Energy

4) Coincidences (or God's nods)

5) A new prospect in Hubby's career (prayers please!)

Kid Sign

The Law of Undulation

In this book of a demon writing a student, God is referred to as "The Enemy", Satan as "Our Father", and the man they are after as "the patient".

Humans are amphibians—half spirit and half animal. (The Enemy’s determination to produce such a revolting hybrid was one of the things that determined Our Father to withdraw his support from Him.) As spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time. This means that while their spirit can be directed to an eternal object, their bodies, passions, and imaginations are in continual change, for to be in time means to change. Their nearest approach to constancy, therefore, is undulation—the repeated return to a level from which they repeatedly fall back, a series of troughs and peaks. If you had watched your patient carefully you would have seen this undulation in every department of his life—his interest in his work, his affection for his friends, his physical appetites, all go up and down. As long as he lives on earth periods of emotional and bodily richness and liveliness will alternate with periods of numbness and poverty. The dryness and dulness through which your patient is now going are not, as you fondly suppose, your workmanship; they are merely a natural phenomenon which will do us no good unless you make a good use of it. -The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis

Another sign

Kid Funnies

Peanut found the perfect place to take some notes...

T-man decided to try on Papa's jacket, that he left on the chair...

Greatest Invention Ever

......in my opinion is the baby wipe. I will probably buy them long after we have the "original" need for them.

Age affected

So I am not going to sing the "I'm old" song but I have to say, I have definitely noticed some differences in myself and my only explanation is I'm getting oldER.

Case in point: If there was anything for me to brag on myself, it is my memory. I used to be able to remember almost all names, faces, situations, even from when I was very small. I think my son inherited this trait from me (not from my math geek hubby :-)). Anyway, it is difficult to remember things now. For example, Peanut and I came out of the store today and I had to wander to find where I parked (and this isn't the first time). I didn't even go out the same door I came in. I can still remember a lot of names but not quickly. Sometimes, when on the spot, I can't even come up with a simple number (phone, pin, etc.) that I have in the vault. It drives me crazy! I know this is pretty typical but I don't like it. Combine it with my changing hormones, oily skin, and backACHES and you have a crazy woman. Thank God my hair is still light so I can't see the gray hair.

Sidenote: Dierberg's has some great sales this week! Boneless skinless chicken breasts $1.99 lb, General Mills cereal (Cheerios, Kix) $1.88, Dierberg's OJ $2.50, Ground Turkey $2.50. Great time to stock up!