Tid Bits from the Cherubs

After discussing a friends Buzz Light Year costume Ava informed me that it wouldn't fit me because I have "a BIG, ROUND, BUTT!"

After Jared returned from hunting Nathan asks "Did you get one?" Jared "nope, but I saw one" Nathan: "did you pet it?"

Nathan asks Jared before hunting "If you get a big one are you going to put it in your pocket?"

childlike faith!

Our furry friend Clifford the hamster finally passed away. He will be missed! Nathan struggled with this and did a lot of crying today because he missed Clifford and didn't know where he was. We had a funeral, buried him, talked about the fact that Clifford's body didn't work anymore and that he went to heaven. This seemed to make Nathan feel a bit better but not quite satisfied.

But that is not the actual point of this post.

As Nathan and I were saying our bedtime prayers and singing our nightly routine of "Jesus loves me", I saw the sparkle return to his eyes. He sat up with pure excitement and joy and interrupted with "MOM!! Clifford is with Jesus now! Isn't that cool?!" I responded with "yes Nathan, he is! And it is cool! Would you like to thank God and Jesus tonight for taking care of Clifford?" and of course he did. And as I left his room he shouted, "make sure you tell Ava that prayer too!" How lucky am I to be able to witness such faith in him and his eagerness to share it with his sister?!?!

I am constantly amazed by the gift of my children and in awe that God has given me the opportunity to glimpse at life through their little eyes every once in a while.

Mark 10:13 - 16
¹³People were bringing little children to Jesus to have him touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. ¹⁴When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. ¹⁵I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it." ¹⁶And he took the children in his arms, put his hands on them and blessed them.

"God Knows Best" - Helen Steiner Rice

GOD * KNOWS * BEST!

Our Father knows what's best for us,
So why should we complain ...
We always want the sunshine,
But He knows there must be rain.

We love the sound of laughter
And the merriment of cheer;
But our hearts would lose their tenderness
If we never shed a tear.

Our Father tests us often
With suffering and with sorrow;
He tests us, not to punish us,
But to help us meet "tomorrow."

For growing trees are strengthened
When they withstand the storm;
And the sharp cut of the chisel
Gives the marble grace and form.

God never hurts us needlessly,
And He never wastes our pain;
For every loss He sends to us
Is followed by rich gain.

And when we count the blessings
That God has so freely sent;
We will find no cause for murmuring
And no time to lament.

For Our Father loves His children,
And to Him all things are plain;
So He never sends us "pleasure"
When the "soul's deep need is pain."

So whenever we are troubled,
And when everything goes wrong,
It is just God working in us
To make "our spirits strong."
~ Helen Steiner Rice ~

tid bits

The children were asked to bring in canned goods for the food bank for Vacation Bible School this year. We took the children to the grocery store and had them each pick out a few cans to give. Here is the conversation that occurred when it was time to pack them up for VBS:

Me: Let's get our cans together to take to VBS
Nathan: I don't want to
Me: You know how when you are hungry, you tell Mommy "I'm hungry"?
kids: yeah
Me: What does Mommy do?
kids: FEED US!!!
Me: That's right. But some families do not have enough food at their house and when those kids tell their mommies they are hungry, their mom and dad may not have enough food to give them. Their bellies stay hungry.
Kids: (looks of pure confusion and hurt)
Ava: They can have all my cans!! I don't want them to have hungry bellies EVER!
Nathan: Ok mom, They can have my beans, I don't like beans...... but not my corn.
Me: (hand on forehead) Nathan, God has blessed us and he wants us to give to others that are less fortunate.
Nathan: (with big eyes) They can have ALL the beans mom! Just not my corn.

By this point we really have to just get going and Nathan has gone to the pantry, put his corn away and gotten MORE beans. I guess this is something we need to continue to work on ;) I foresee us making a lot of donations to the food bank in the coming future in hopes to reiterate the concept of giving.

Just say no to stickers!

I had a doctor’s appointment the other day and being that I tote my kids around just about everywhere with me, they of course came along. They were E X C E L L E N T, so good in fact that my doctor let them choose something from the toy chest and pick out stickers. GREAT! Since we were all the way out at blue Ridge Rd (don’t get me started, we have tricare), we of course had to stop and see Aunt Amanda at work. As we pulled in I caught a glimpse of Nathan in my rearview mirror ………….. he had placed his stickers over his ears like ear muffs. I chuckled, thought nothing of it and didn’t feel like a challenge so I left him alone with his earmuff stickers. He walked around the entire mall and went to lunch with those things. By the time we got to Grammie’s he was zonked (maybe it was the peace and quiet). Take a look. Remember, there is one on each side ………

Hahahaha ………… funny!! But oh wait, Nathan wakes up and we begin to realize that the stickers are NOT coming off. Though Grammie was able to loosen the edges a bit with some magical remedy, we still had no luck. At bath time we soaked and soaked and soaked and they started to peel off! Unfortunately the stickers actually separated from the glue and the glue was still attached to Nathan’s face. After more soaking this evening we are almost rid of all traces of the sticker crisis!

Did I mention that Nathan has a blue fleece blanket ....... after it combined with the glue on his face he was the cutest little blue bearded man :)

Dear Martha ............

Dear Ms Martha Stewart,

I am writing to inform you of the serious damage our relationship is having my confidence and self worth. When I eagerly committed to begin making your "cookie of the month" posted in each Living magazine, I was under the impression that it would be a positive or at least enjoyable experience. After several months of failed recipes and attempts I am kindly asking that you cut me a break. Would it be possible for next month's cookie recipe to be something I could possibly reproduce? Though I am not a culinary expert, I don't consider myself to be half bad ....... at least I didn't before venturing on this cookie journey. I value our relationship but if things don't change soon Betty Crocker may return to my top go to girl for recipes. I do hope you take this request into consideration.

Sincerely,
Aubrey

Nothing

I have gotten on here everyday .................. and I have nothing to blog. I can't come up with anything that seems even mildly entertaining. So I will go with the dull .............

We were driving down 96 the other day and saw a mailman who's vehicle was broken down. He was attempting to have it towed by the oldest, most run down Jeep Cherokee I have ever seen. Now don't get me wrong, I have absolutely no problem with run down vehicles especially Old Jeep Cherokee's (right Amanda ; ) ), but here is my question. HE IS THE MAILMAN!! So what, the government couldn't manage to toss a tow truck his way?!?! Now I'm sure someone out there has the logical answer to this that will make this post even duller ............. but I haven't come up with it. So comment it!

Nathan never fails to provide us with some entertainment, though I'm not sure where he got his golden sense of humor from. We were grocery shopping the other day and John was pushing the cart that Nathan was riding in. As they passed a woman in an aisle, Nathan leans out of the cart and shouts to her "watch out babe!"

What do you even say to that??? Ummmm ............. "Good job using your manners buddy. It was very thoughtful of you to watch out for her." WHERE DOES THIS KID COME UP WITH THIS STUFF???

Vaseline and perfume

Yes, Vaseline and perfume........ a delightful combination. That is what my children got into the other night. It was EVERYWHERE........... the walls, the furniture, the bedding, the stuffed animals and of course them. Let me tell you Vaseline is tough to get out........ especially of hair. After some googling I went to work on the kids heads with cornstarch and then peanut butter.
























Now at first glance it may seem as if Ava got the short end of the stick since she has more hair, but this was not the case. You see Nathan had managed to get what seemed to be most of the jar on his head while Ava only had a little bit. Bottom line........ Ava's came clean, Nathan's did not. I had to shave his beautiful blond head.




So if any of you Faither's missed us Sunday morning, now you know what we were doing. And if anyone comes to visit in the near future, be prepared for the lovely scent of Mary Kate and Ashley's Coast to Coast.

note - getting your daughter perfume for her 3rd birthday may not be the greatest idea.

Don't Flush!!!

What?? I'm sure someday I will be saying just the opposite but for now it's "don't flush that". I realized today that in our household the toilet is a HUGE deal. Between encouraging our kids to put the "correct" things in the potty or "reminding" them of what shouldn't go there, it seems to be a constant topic of conversation. Of course what shouldn't go there seems to find it's way no problem..... mostly with the help of Nathan. Today Nathan came running to me in a panic saying something that sounds like "it won't turn off! it won't flush!" Luckily for us a) he came and told me before the flood and b) it was only the entire roll of toilet paper. We weren't that lucky when he flushed the top to the shaving cream. John had to morph into Mr. Fix It and disassemble the entire toilet.

On that note, we are off to NY!!! Be back next week!

Fish out of water

I decided to take my first pilates class last week at the YMCA. I thought I would do great being that I had been doing the time warner on demand pilates videos .......... I was wrong. Though everyone was very nice (no one pointed and laughed) , they all seemed like happy little goldfish gracefully swimming along in their element. Not me. The only thing that I could think of was that I looked and felt like a goldfish who had jumped out of its bowl and lay flopping around on the floor. "Now.............. lie on your back , rock your legs toward the ceiling and now touch your toes to the floor above your head..................... doesn't that feel great!"

WHAT?!?!?

kids photo shoot

A few weeks ago the kids decided to grab my camera and sneak it into their bed with them. The photos were not what you would send out to the family but I couldn't get rid of them so this is what resulted from nap time that day......

And We're Back................

were we gone? Maybe not physically, but I for one was definitely not with it. What have I learned from this mental hiatus? That denying that you are sick when you are just too busy to be, does not actually deminish the sickness. It either a) gives you the strength to just push through it or B) makes you even sicker. This particular time the latter applied to me. Doing some last minute Easter outfit shopping yesterday, I realized that walking through the mall was just about killing me. John turned around and said "here, let me help you keep up" and he gently "nudged" me forward (thanks for that honey). We came home, I admitted defeat and took it easy. Low and behold, this morning I am healed!!

So what were we so busy with? Well, the kids haven't been feeling well..... mostly Nathan. The poor little guys tubes became plugged and infected. Our awesome specialist got him right into surgery Thursday morning and fixed them. And now except for a couple scratchy throats, everyone is back on their feet. John also joined the National Guard Reserves. He was very pleased with himself for keeping up with the twenty year olds and he should be! So the next time you see him know that he is back to being a man in uniform :)

burning down the house

I'm sure everyone has began pre-heating their oven to find that there was something in it. This happened to me recently. Normally, after detecting some odd smell, I would open the oven to find a pizza box but this day was special. I opened it up to find a project that Ava had made at church .......... a beautiful creation of construction paper and images of Jesus. The edges were curled, turning black and very close to bursting into flames. We almost burned down our house with Jesus!!!!! Ahhhh!


Another quick tid-bit for those who don't appreciate our wonderful feline friend ....... the cat. As I am writing this I am watching Ava play tea party with Pippin. He has a full bowl of food and water yet he is happily slurping up the water Ava has put in a tea cup and nibbling at the cat food on the saucer. CATS ROCK!!!!

Slide Show!

Parenting at its finest

I'm sure every parent has days when they feel they have no right having a the well-being of a child in their hands. Yesterday was one of mine. Yes, there have been others.

An important tid-bit to know is that here in NC for some reason unbeknown to me, the rule of moving over to the right hand lane when you are going slower than most of the traffic does not exist.

Trying to maneuver down Capitol Blvd at the apparently unreasonable speed of 55 (aka: the gosh darn posted speed limit) was proving unsuccessful. Here is how the conversation in our car went"

Me to the car in front of me: "Just get out of the way!!!"
Ava: "Are you yelling at that white car?" (I think yelling was a little bit of an overstatement, lol)
Me: "yes honey"
Ava: "Why?"
Me: "Because they are a bad driver"

Not my proudest moment but we continue on our travels. A short while later my attentive daughter boasts

"Mom! Mom! There he is!! There he is!!There is that bad driver!!!"

And sure enough he was in the lane next to us. Well isn't this one for the baby book......

First road rage: Tuesday, February 19th 2008. Age 3.

Second incident of the day:

We are back at home, kids are playing, I'm cleaning up. No biggie. Nathan asks me for a drink and I tell him just one minute. Well I forgot. It had to have been about a half hour later and I turn around to see that he has gotten himself a cup from the dishwasher and was pouring himself a glass of whatever he could reach that resembled a beverage........... red-wine vinegar. He looked up and said in his proudest voice "I thirsty. I get a drink!". I felt so much shame and guilt that I immediately whipped up a full sugar batch of kool-aide.

An exciting week!

This past week was hectic for us but full of fun and milestones.


Ava attended her first birthday party for her friend Savannah from school. Ava, Savannah and Marathon seem to becoming quite close. They not only go to school together, but also took ballet together. So this was the trio at the Chuck E Cheese party. Ava had a great time at the party while Nathan thought it was great going to work with Daddy.





Our next big day was Nathan's 2nd birthday! We went with the Elmo theme and me being the daring mother that I am, decided to make the classic Elmo face cake.......... what a mistake and a huge pain in the butt. The cake looked amazing but by the time I got the icing to be the right shade of red, it tasted horrid (and yes , I did use the right kind of food coloring....... I think). Being that I of course left it to the cake thing to the last minute, that is what we went with. As I got up to clean up the mess from frosting a red, orange and black cake............ our power went out. We ordered pizza. For those of you who don't live in the area (or do but happen to live under a rock) Sunday was a VERY windy day and as well as power outages many large forest fires were sparked. So after pizza we went to check out the fire in our area, grab some candles and batteries and came home to have our Elmo party in the dark.... lol.

We made it up to him though...... Monday we went to the circus! The kids were amazed! Ava watched intensely without missing a beat and Nathan couldn't believe the Elephants were sitting on stools. We had a great time and the expression on their faces were priceless. No laughing ............ just intensity and bewilderment.














And last but not least, the cats got a new bed!


Thanks for reading!

Our New Additions.....

PetSmart is a very dangerous place for us. A simple trip for cat and dog food sent us on an adoption spree that spiraled out of control. For the very first time ever, Ava was begging for something in a store and being that this was our first experience with that, we caved. Meet Clifford, the fattest hamster on the planet.

Now, what I didn't mention was that the day we got Clifford, PetSmart was out of Gerbils....... John loves Gerbil (news to me too). So low and behold on our next trip to PetSmart,to pick up a new house and wheel for Clifford of course, they had Gerbils!!!! John got one. We load up our Gerbil and head to Home Depot. As we are leaving what Nathan calls "The Depot", John starts heading in the wrong direction. I say "honey..............." to which he responds, "I am so sorry to do this, but I feel bad leaving that other Gerbil behind". So meet Smokey and Tiger (who won't sit still long enough for me to get a picture, they are too busy trying to chew their way out of the cage.


One last image to leave you with.......... three rodents each running around the house in their separate balls being stalked by the dog and 2 cats. Amazing. Thanks PetSmart.

Family Shopping.......

Let me set the scene for this story............

We have a 21 month old, a 3 year old and a John and we need to do our personal grocery shopping as well as our Thanksgiving dinner shopping.

Step 1: Organization - Being as ridiculous as I am, I had created a written plan on how to accomplish this task including lists for each store which included the corresponding coupons. I was determined to save $$ and get great deals. This required hours of planning, snipping, comparing and compiling.

Step 2: Implementation - John takes Nathan and our personal grocery list while I take Ava and the Thanksgiving list. A plan which I think is AWESOME!!

Step 3: FInalization - So we met back at the front, our full grocery carts and cranky children in tow. "Did you get everything?" I ask, "yup, and more!" John replies. The woman rings John's cart first (of course I had them rung seperately for organizational purposes), its going well. List complete - check! Loews card discounts - check!, coupons - uh oh! The woman hands back the aluminum foil coupon. I say "John, did you get the aluminum foil?" John replies "no, it wasn't on the list. Let me see the list!" (like I POSSIBLY could have made a mistake). And then another coupon is handed back. "John, Did you get the Snuggle???" "No", he says. "Probably because I was shopping off the Food Lion list and we are at Loews". SIGH..............................

(And in case anyone was wondering, I did go back in and get the original stuff on the Loews list by the way. Couldn't let those coupons go to waste!!)

Ballet

Well, Ava started ballet on Tuesday at the YMCA and loved it! Two girls from her pre-school class were also there. Her first week she learned how to "tip and twirl" which she demonstrated quite nicely. It is a 4 week class so we will see how she feels about continuing her career as a ballerina when it is over.

Hillridge Farm

This is our first post to our family BLOG and though our visit to Hillridge Farm was weeks ago, we had so much fun that i thought I would post it anyway. The kids went on a train ride, a hay ride and went down the giant slide many times. The pumpkins this year were rather small due to the drought but that ended up working out well since they both carried their own pumpkin. Ava couldn't decide which pumpkin she wanted and kept swapping them around while Nathan became immediately attatched to his (see him sitting on it in the picture). All said and done, we had a successful family outing.... despite the fact that the pumpkins are sitting on the front porch..... not carved :(