Happy Birthday, Shelby!

Today was a fun day celebrating Shelby's third birthday. We started it out by singing Shelby awake with the famous "Happy Birthday to you" song. It's always our favorite way to start any birthday. It's so much fun to see someone wake up while you're singing to them merrily.

After school we ate our birthday supper of chicken nuggets and macaroni and cheese. Of all the suppers in the world that was tops on the list. Yum Yum

After supper Shelby tried to contain her excitement while eating until she could finally open her presents. She was SOOOOOO excited.

She got a special birthday call from Grandpa Millard. That was cool!



Then it was time to start the party.



Opening a present from Grandma Millard -




Shelby got the one thing she asked for - Polly Pockets!

Shelby got a really cool Explorer's Kit from Grandma Millard. She can obviously hardly wait to use it!

Shelby was so excited to go outside and use her bug collection and explorer's kit that we immediately went outside after opening presents to find bugs! We didn't even get to eat birthday cake until after bug collecting. Finally at bedtime we got to enjoy a little birthday cake!

Happy Birthday, Shelby! You're getting so big!

A'pickin and a'grinnin

Here's a couple pics of our evening of fun in the heat and the sweating picking blueberries from the Prelocks Blueberry Farm.





Yum, Yum - Blueberries all winter for us!

Fun, Fun

Today was our last day of vacation, so we decided the most loving and fun thing to do to prepare for this day would be to help the girls get horrendous sunburns by forgetting to bring the kids sunscreen to Tropicanoe Cove yesterday. Here's a sample of what we're dealing with today.


On top of that we decided to go to Brian's softball game last night (which was a late start game), and it didn't get done until 8 pm at least. By the time we got home and got everyone ready for bed it was after 9:30 pm, which is very late indeed for our two. So in the middle of the night they both decided to bless us with a little late night screaming. When you're no longer accustomed to the middle of the night screaming, it makes it very difficult do deal with. That made for some good vacation sleeping!

So anyways, today's the last day of the vacation, and we decided it would be best to celebrate Shelby's upcoming birthday this weekend instead of next, so we'd have time to enjoy it. We spent a very relaxed afternoon / evening at Chuck E. Cheese (really, it was relaxing) eating pizza, playing games, and spending time with each other. There were hardly any other families there, so it wasn't quite as crazy as it usually is, so that was really nice. And Shelby was exuberant and ecstatic over getting to go to Chuck E Cheese's for her birthday "party."

Here's a picture of the fabulous hair accesories the girls won with 2 hours worth of Chuch E Cheese tickets. We like to call that "a good return on our investment."

So here we are, finishing off our last evening of vacation with another viewing of Milo and Otis, one of the most innocent and funny movies of all time (with some very quotable quotes interspersed throughout).

(From MILO AND OTIS)

Narrator: To keep up his spirits, he began singing a dog marching song.
Otis: Here comes the dog, strong and brave - woof! Here comes the dog, your life he... [falls into a hole]
Narrator: He then decided to skip the whole thing.

Narrator: The farm cat had just given birth to her first litter. She was determined to be a good mother and never yell at her kittens. But that approach would not last very long . . .

Our fun day did turn out to be pretty fun after all. We're all ready to get back to normal! :-)

Fifty Dollars!

Today Shelby got a wonderful surprise in the mail.


Fifty Dollars! She's rich, and she loved the card so much she carried it (and the three dollars) around the rest of the evening playing with her "book."




Fifty dollars ($3) richer because of the big birthday and still unfortunately too little. Life is rough.


Well, since we did find ourselves independantly wealthy this evening due to the unexpected windfall we decided to go out in style. Cheerio!






P.S. Mom, check out how big Oscar is getting. He got his checkup today and he's 26 pounds. He weighs more than Shelby.

Birthday / Anniversary

In our vacation of endless fun this week we forgot two important days - Grandpa Millard's birthday and Josh and Becky's anniverary. Sorry! So here's a little something to make up for that!

hjb

Swimming

During Kings Island the girls kept asking over and over when we'd be done so they could go back to the hotel and swim. Go figure. . . You spent all that money to do something amazing and they want what's free. So we spent the evening after Kings Island at the hotel pool and the next day after returning home at Tropicanoe Cove (that's my kind of vacation). The pictures are a bit fuzzy because my camera's on the fritz.

Kings Island

The only thing Shelby asked for all day was popcorn. Oh, that and to meet SpongeBob.

Brian and Hailey got to ride Plankton's Plunge together. It looked very thrilling. Speaking of thrilling, Hailey and I tried one ride "Avatar" and I was fairly certain she was literally going to fly out of her seat. I held her hand very tightly, while she looked like she needed to puke. We're not going on that one again!

Brian and the girls enjoyed the Blue Train (I can't remember it's name).

Hailey and Shelby enjoyed driving some cars together.

Brian buckling Shelby into a Jeep that looks a lot like mine.

Getting ready for Swiper's Slider. It was the FUNNEST ride. Watching the girls was hilarious!

Meeting Dora. Shelby was enthralled with Dora. We sat through the Sing Along Program with Dora, and Shelby really participated. It was funny to watch. We also got to meet Scooby, Wanda the Fairy, and several others.

FINALLY - We meet the man of the year . . . SpongeBob SquarePants. He's the man!

Hailey got to him first and hugged him like crazy.

Shelby reached him second and was so in awe all she could do was hold his hands and stare into his eyes.

Shelby sat stood there and stared and held his hands and giggled.

We love SpongeBob so much!

On vacation

We were supposed to leave this morning at noon, but one thing led to another and the leave time got delayed later and later. Finally, we launched off an hour and a half late (good thing we weren't heading to the airport). We made our way through Indy, where we took a wrong turn and had a scenic view of some odd neighborhoods and ended up meandering our way through downtown until we found the highway again.

For some reason Hailey was in an especially inquisitive mood, and she had fifty million questions. (She doesn't handle change very well, and it seems to throw her off.) So, naturally, being the sensitive parents we are, we answered every one of her fifty million questions with patience and love.

Finally we reached Cincinatti, and the fifty million and first question just sent us over the edge, so we had to invoke the "No More Talking" rule so we could find our hotel, get checked in, find some supper, and get our minds organized.

After driving around and getting our bearings in a part of the city that must have some ordinance against business signs that are tall enough to read we finally settled on a Chinese place where Shelby screamed and cried because she needed "a dwink sooooo bad." Apparently the owner was having some sort of altercation about the finer points of someone's takeout order, and they both thought that talking louder and louder would overcome their language barrier. Shelby thought that crying louder and louder would help the Chinese lady overcome her forgetfulness about our dwinks! And Hailey suddenly resumed her game of fifty million questions, all while Brian and I were trying to get everyone to stop talking and eat so we could just go back to the hotel and go swimming.

Unfortunately, Hailey's fortune cookie had this fortune for her "You have an ability, to sense and know higher truth." Please, God, don't tell me that is going to happen through asking more questions.

Luckily, my fortune read "Good things are coming to you in due course of time." That fortune actually came true. See below!

Hopefully the good things foretold for me in my Fortune Cookie will extend to tomorrow. I would appreciate my good things including remarkably obedient children, short lines all day long, and free food / drinks every time we get hungry tomorrow at Kings Island. I'll let you know if that comes true :-)

Getting Ready for Vacation

Brian and I do not like spending money. It's not in our nature. We basically enjoy it when amazing things fall into our lap for free and we can save our money for something else more exciting, like retirement, car repairs, or vet bills (or chickens and goats as I said in my previous post).

But vacations, by their very nature, require the spending of money. So we recently found out about hotwire.com from my friend, Heather, who used it to get an awesome 4 star hotel room in Indy for a weekend date with her husband a couple of months ago. She was ecstatic about the great deal they got for barely the price of a 2 star hotel room. I figured that there's no way a deal that good could come true more than once.

But being a couple not given to spending money, we thought that maybe we should check it out. So we got on hotwire.com and tried it out and found that we could get a 3 star hotel for only $69 / night. The bad part about hotwire is that you don't get to see what hotel chain or type of room was chosen for you until after you pay for it. And being a couple also not given to enjoying surprises (AT ALL - not surprise presents, not surprise guests, not surprise meals) we were not sure we could hack that little detail. But being cheap won out over being predictable control-freaks, so we went ahead and ran with the deal hoping, HOPING, HOPING that we didn't end up in a cockroach-infested flea bag motel like Super 8 or whatever that hotel is called where they say "we'll leave the light on for you."

So being a couple not accustomed to enjoying surprises, especially surprises that cost us a lot of money, we clicked the "Buy" button and crossed our fingers.

Here's what we ended up with . . .
http://blueash.place.hyatt.com/hyatt/hotels/place/index.jsp

http://www.hyatt.com/hyatt/place/virtual.jsp

Isn't that amazing!!! After we clicked "Buy," and they said the name of the hotel we clicked over to check it out online and it turns out that if we had bought the room like normal we would have paid over 2 times what we did pay. We are SAVVY shoppers, and Hotwire.com DOES work!

Here's what the pool looks like . . .
http://delivery.vrxstudios.com/50326/VirtualTours.htm?package=680&id=57293&id_type=9&locale=1&container=1&

And our room . . .
http://delivery.vrxstudios.com/50326/VirtualTours.htm?package=680&id=55441&id_type=9&locale=1&container=1&

I showed the video of the bedroom to the girls and they nearly fainted when they saw the TV in the room. They're going to get to watch SpongeBob SquarePants on TV as big as life, and then they're going to get to actually meet him in real life, all in the same day. I don't know if they're little hearts will be able to bear that much excitement!

I'm so excited. I can't wait to pack for our little getaway. I printed off the e-tickets to Kings Island and Hailey came over to gaze at them admiringly. Hopefully our map directions will work without a problem. What did they use to do in the olden days before computers did all the work for you?

Finally a Farm

I've been talking to Brian for years about wanting to get a goat. Then earlier this summer I talked to him about how I'd really, really love to get a goat and some chickens and kind of live off the land a little. He said it was not a smart idea because of the price of feed right now.

Well, guess what Brian said this morning . . . "I've been thinking that it might not be too bad to have some chickens" or something to that effect. At first I thought he was teasing me, but then I realized he wasn't, and I was so excited I could barely speak. I've been wanting chickens my whole life. I know it's not a sure thing yet, but if we get them this is the kind I'd like to get. . .



Barred Rock Chickens are a "good solid chicken, not discouraged by coldness" which is exactly what we need. They lay about 200 eggs per year. I'm so excited!

And then as if that wasn't good enough Brian mentioned that maybe we could think about a goat too, and then he asked me what kind I would want.

We talked about fencing in a portion of the yard by the apple trees. The goat could keep the ground cleaned up from the apples and the chickens could roost in the trees. I can hardly wait!!!

Perspectives

So today in the Jeep as we were driving to watch daddy play softball on the church league Oscar was sitting on the seat looking cute and Hailey asked me what his job was. I was like "What?" She said "You know his job he does for God. What's Oscar's job?" I quickly shook my head and brought myself back to reality, because for a moment my head was in the clouds as I realized that the only reason she had asked this was because we've been talking about what her jobs are - following God, obeying His word, worshipping him with the way she lives her life. I was ECSTATIC to think that she really is getting it. You always wonder if kids understand the commitment they're making when they say they're ready to get saved, so you spend all this energy investigating their lives for the evidence of the Holy Spirit's indwelling. It's been pretty cool to see the Holy Spirit popping up all over her life.

So then we talked about Oscar's jobs - worshipping his Creator by obeying his master, watching our house, biting burglars in the butt, loving us. He does a good job of it. Every day I come home and wonder (when I see the newly chewed items on our porch) if having a pet dog is worth the amount of money it costs to adopt, neuter, feed, take to the vet, buy toys for, etc, etc. Tonight I was sitting in the car helping Brian bleed the brake line (I believe that was what I was doing by pushing down and letting up on the brake a couple times) with Ozzy's head on my lap and him looking like he couldn't think of one place in the whole world he'd rather be and I realized that yes it is worth it to have a pet dog. Right about then Brian walked by and said "He's a good boy, isn't he? I think he's going to work out to be a pretty good dog." Coming from the King of Understatements, I think we agree.

Hailey sees that Oscar can do the job God gave him, Brian and I finally agree on a dog we both see some great potential in, Oscar is FINALLY learning to not jump on the girls and freak them out, and we are all happy. Life is good! Sometimes Hailey's perspective shocks me. She is very deep.

So since she's got a deep perspective here's another way to explore it. She recently got her hands on my camera and decided to document our day. Here's a couple of the (way too many) pictures she added to my memory card. What kind of perspective do you see?







Shelby on the other hand is getting to be less introspective and more expressive. She recently discovered that using the word SOOOOOOOOOO adds a great deal of (what she considers) necessary emphasis on many words and expressions. So everything Shelby does these days is SOOOOOOOOOO . . . . "Mommy, I'm SOOOOOOO tired." "I'm SOOOOOO hungry." "I have to go potty SOOOOOOO bad." Along with SOOOOOOO, she's discovered that anyone could be corrected if only she speaks up quick enough by using the word "Actually" which comes out "Ak shu ly." "Well, actually, I'm not a baby (when she wants to wear her big girl panties and I want her to put on a pull up for bedtime)." or "Well, actually, I'm not hungry (when I tell her to eat whatever meal of the day she's now choosing to hate.)"

Well, actually, I'm exhausted . . . and it's off to bed for me.

Crazy Week

For some reason this past week has felt like a blur. I'm not sure if it was because we were getting ready for our "staycation" this week or because it actually did fly by.

We started our week with our annual trip to the County Fair where we enjoyed our yearly fair food, customary three rides, and walk through the animal barns. Either the fair keeps getting smaller every year or we keep getting broader horizons, but whatever the case it felt a little disappointing this year. It could have been the oppressive heat we were dealing with, the supper that was not tasty yet outrageously priced. I really wanted to ride on the Ferris Wheel, but Brian has this quirk about him where the thought of allowing his family on a ride that is several stories high is not permissible, especially when that ride has been carried around on the back of a truck, set up by people making less than minimum wage (who also smell like cabbage), and maintained negligibly (to say the least). Whatever the case, we got our yearly fair participation in and here's the highlights.







So here we are on vacation . . . really "staycation" since we're not really going anywhere and we're not really doing anything (except I did forget that I have a board meeting this week, so I'm going to work one day of our vacation). We are planning to go to King's Island on Tuesday. The girls are VERY excited to meet SpongeBob. It has gotten them out of several attitude problems this week - to be reminded of the meeting of SpongeBob SquarePants in person has been very motivating! We're hoping that mommy and daddy are as excited as the kids are when it happens.

The other big news this week:
- We ate our first ripe cherry tomatoes from the garden. They were DELISH!

- We went on a picnic on Friday to Adam's Mill. We took Oscar with us somewhere for the first time. He was really well behaved, had a great time, and we learned that he LOVES, LOVES, LOVES to swim in the river. He splashed, chased the current, and swam like a fish. We can hardly wait to take my sister and her family there the next time they visit. Hailey and Shelby, our two little scaredy-cats who can't go to bed without a nightlite, dove right into the river headfirst like they were created to be river rats. Who would have thought?

- The brakes on my Jeep went out this morning. I thought they felt a little weird on the way home last night, but I poohpoohed it. But turns out they actually were broke, because this morning when I went to drive to work for a parent meeting my foot went to the floor and nothing happened. Luckily, Brian's amazing and fixed them, and we have an extra car that I hurriedly switched the car seats to without missing a beat and wasn't even late for work.

- The girls found a baby bunny at Lukey's house, and now they're determined that the only thing that will make life worth living is if we get a pet bunny.

- It was my niece's half birthday and we sent a cool present (that she loved).

- Along with that present, I promised my sister to pay her for my part of a gift on Monday and it only took until Wednesday to remember to send the check. The fact that I got someone their check the week I said I would has to be some kind of world record for me.

- I was on national TV. That was cool. I was on the 700 Club about Vision of Hope. I don't quite know how to add links yet, so go to www.cbn.com, click on the 700 Club, and watch the show from July 14th. Our segment airs at 54:28.

- And finally, I love my husband for lots of reasons, but here's a big one this week. I left for the day with a huge pile of dirty dishes and here's what I came home to . . .


Isn't he wonderful!!!!

Coming of Age

My sister and I have, over the years, had many conversations about how to prepare our kids to be prepared to fly the coup one day. How do we teach them? What do they need to know? How do we organize the info they'll need to be prepared to be adults on their own loving and serving God because they want to, not just because their parents tell them they have to.

Over time my thoughts about how to do this have changed and evolved. Now that I work where I do, and see the results of hundreds of girls not being adequately prepared for the real world I can see some very pragmatic and realistic things that our daughters will need to be taught before we'd consider them officially "ready" to be on their own. At work, we spend a lot of time evaluating each resident as a staff team and deciding when the girls are ready to graduate, to move out on their own or to go back home. It's hard to decide, but when they're ready it gets more and more obvious. You can see instances where they totally "get it," and every day after that they are just getting brighter and brighter and more and more eloquent in understanding and sharing what they've come to know is true - we are created to worship God and everything we say or do should reflect that fact.

As we look at our two little girls we want them to be ready. We want to look at them some day and say "they totally get it." They're ready to be out on their own. Some day we want to celebrate their "graduation" from being children to being adults. We both know that will be a long process - lasting many, many years - but it's really exciting to see our little babies getting prepared to really start that process. There's a reason we work so hard at getting them to obey and submit and be willing to listen. We're not going to be able to teach them all the things they need to know if they can't even listen. Hence, the repeated trips to Time Out, and the many instances of wanting to pull our hair out as we struggle with not only behaviors but attitudes.

Today, was our first step toward the "Graduation" - the coming of age celebration that we'll be having in 12 years. Today was Hailey's first offical Mommy Date, where we got all dressed up, went to the fanciest restaurant in town, and talked about grown up things. It was so much fun - way more fun than I would have ever imagined it being. Soon there will be Daddy Dates and more Mommy Dates, but the first one was priceless.

We ate at Hour Time Restaurant. Hailey got to try the most amazing Chicken Salad and Fruit Plate ever created.



While eating I gave Hailey a beautiful gold cross necklace and explained that since she had asked Jesus to come into her heart and save her from her sins, every time she looked at that special cross necklace it would remind her that she was a Christian.



Then I gave Hailey her first grown up Bible. She was so excited to get her own Bible, and she even showed it off to our waitresses. She said she was going to show me her favorite Bible verses and flipped it open to some random spot and pointed at a spot so proudly. Then she asked me to find John 3:16 for her and read it to her. She crawled up on my lap and we read it together. Then I told her that I wanted to read my favorite verse to her, so I read II Cor 4:16-18. Then I read her II Cor 5:15 and explained that if Jesus had died for her, like we talked about when I gave her the necklace, then she needed to live for him. She knew exactly what that meant, and explained it as when Shelby is mean to her and takes her toys she will not be mean back because God tells us to be kind and that would be hateful.



Then we had lots of silly girl talk, ate lots of yummy fancy restaurant food, and went to see Kit Kitteredge - An Americal Girl. We HIGHLY recommend it. It was wonderful. Throughout the movie Hailey kept reaching down to rub her new necklace. She promised to wear it forever and remember that since Jesus died for her she was going to live for him. We capped the night off with a little drink at Starbucks before going home.

I had lots of "visions" of what our first official Mommy Date would look like and none of them were even close to as wonderful as it actually was. During dinner I promised Hailey that we would keep on having Mommy Dates and Daddy Dates until she was all grown up and ready to be an adult. I promised that we would do all kinds of fun things and share all kinds of secrets, and she squealed with delight at the thought of sharing secrets with me. She's going to freak out some day when she finds out that those secrets include information about body parts, and making babies, and how to handle the world of boys and dating. But even though I know that those uncomfortable moments will be coming up, I am so excited. I thought I might be kind of sad when we started the process of preparing for the girls to leave home, but instead I am so excited. To see the struggles that we have so much every day to get our girls to "get it," and then to see one them start to see the light. It's priceless.

One day we'll have a graduation ceremony of sorts, a coming of age, and I'll look back on this first Mommy Date, the first step in the process. One day Brian and I will look at Hailey and say "Fly little birdie, fly. You're ready."

A pretty cool necklace (50% off) - $13.00
A new Big Girl Bible - $25.00
Restaurant at the fanciest restuarant around (slim pickin's in Lafayette)- $48
Movie with my big girl - $15
Seeing her "get it" - PRICELESS

Fakey Green Day

So last night I worked an extra hour to help deal with a parental crisis at work, bringing my total work hours this week close to 4,005. (Or so it seems.)

I walked in the door to a sad looking husband upset about the longness of the grass outside that desperately needed to be cut, and two little girls squealing with delight over the fact that they'd stayed on green all day and would surely get an obedience treat.

So I flopped my tired self on the chair, ate the food offered to me by my dear husband, and then rejoiced in the details Hailey reported about Shelby of "perfect obedience" at Miss Teena's house. Then they reported that neither had been in Time Out all day, thus making it a GREEN DAY. We get to have obedience treats tonight before bed!!!! All the world can begin rejoicing!

After watching a rerun of ICarly that we have literally seen a million times I decided that if I had to keep my mind on the show that we had seen that many times I might as well has some fun doing it. So I restyled the girls hair . . .

Obedience Treats get passed around at the end of the night, as close to bedtime as possible, in case someone decides to disobey at the end of the day, thus forfeiting their right to the sugary delights which are Obedience Treats. But we made it to 8 PM and I thought that meant we were home free, so we enjoyed a little Obedience Treat action.

Around about then the words "bed time" exited my mouth, and it was like the sweet delightfulness of the Obedience Treat (that was still probably on their tiny little tongues) was forgotten and it was like the floodgates of anguish opened and poured out. I took my tired self to bed, and sweet daddy dealt with the insane crying and wailing and pleading to "just let me stay up 5 more minutes." Thus making it FAKEY GREEN DAY. It always seems to work out that way - be good all day to get your obedience treat, and then be bad anyways. I think I want to go back to bed. I'm too tired.

But here I am trying to talk myself into getting up and getting a shower, so I can go work some more - this time cleaning, laundering, potty training, playing, reminding to be nice, breaking up arguments, etc. But right now I'm planted watching for the Million, Billionth time a rerun, but because it's Princess Bride I really don't mind it. And even though I'm tired, I'm good. Even though I'm good but tired, I'm really looking forward to the eternal rest that's coming. Tired, but good - INCONCEIVABLE (I really do love Princess Bride).

Sisters

Okay, you know how sometimes you have this blissful dream. You awake and say to yourself "How lovely. If only it could come true." And then you set about to make it come true.

Only, once it's true you realize what an absolutely foolish moment of insanity it was for you to comtemplate that the blissfulness of a dream would match the reality of the situation.

So, keeping that in the back of your mind while you read this, picture me telling Brian "I refuse to have an only child. They never learn how to share their toys or relate to others." Why did I not see that the method of learning how to share and relating to others included a parent standing over them 24 hours a day 7 days a week with a pitchfork in hand demanding of them that they MUST share their stupid toys, and they MUST quit arguing and whining, or SURELY their mother WOULD go insane?

Oh wait . . . that's me . . . and I am INSANE.

So we have this wonderful gift from God called a "Behavior Contract." We, the darling parents, contract with our children, little gifts from God, that, upon their active participation in the appropriate heart attitudes and actions of the Contract, they will be rewarded beyond measure with an overflowing bosom full of delightfulness also known as Chocolate Drumsticks, Rocket Pops, and other varieties of "Obedience Treats" and withheld from the suffering of the dreaded "Boring Little Stool" in the Time Out Area (aka the pit of despair). We get the latest version of the amazing "Behavior Contract" all organized, implemented, and operational and VOILA a new trick of treachery and deceit pops out of the little gifts from God to wow us with the utter foolishness bound up in their very tiny hearts. And then we have to start all over with the crazy cycle of identifying the top three issues we are working on, matching it with appropriate rewards / consequences, teaching it, reviewing it, enforcing it, teaching it, reviewing it, enforcing it, etc, etc, ad naseum.

So here's the newest little trick of treachery and deceit popping out all over my nice clean house - arguing between the two little angels about who is right, who touched it first, who touched it last, who's it actually is, who needs it most, who needs it least, who breathed on it last, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, until the Mother standing over them surely WILL GO INSANE!!!!

I look at my sister and think lovely endearing thoughts. I remember nothing of the arguing that I witness on a daily basis. My mother may have different memories. I think of my sister and think of how God has especially blessed her, and how I do not want what she has, I will not want what she has, and I don't care if she touched it first, touched it last, actually owns what I want, needs it more than I do, needs it less than I do, or breathed on it and thus making it hers. She can have it! I LOVE her, so I will not react selfishly toward my sister. But that has been 31 years in the making. Although my mother may disagree that these have been 31 years of sheer blissful obedience!

How can my two darling angels look at each other, and not see the sister who their mother painfully brought to life, dangerously grew in her belly, and dramatically birthed just so that they would not be "only children who do not know how to share their toys or relate to others"?

Somedays lately, since this has only begun lately, I feel that the dream . . . my beautiful blissful dream of two daughters running in a field together with the wind through their curly blonde locks, combing each other's long flowing hair with flowers of the field, and embracing each other's ideals during long passionate conversations is a whiff of fairy dust. But then I think, I maybe do remember a cat fight here or there with my sister, and we've turned out pretty fine.

She's my hero, and I really don't want anything she has even if I DID breathe on it last.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

Brian and I used to be all into a huge garden full of produce that we didn't really know what to do with. Brian loves it when I make Corn and Cilantro Salsa, so for the years before the babies we had this massive garden that kind of sucked the life out of me. I would usually end up tending it until it steamrolled over me. At first I would keep up with it faithfully. I would weed, prune, stake, and wish sweet wishes over my gently growing babies.

I would labor and invest my time and my money, and I would get some good plants. But then the stupid Japanese beetles straight from the Lake of Fire would come descend on my plants, so I'd spend more money to spray the fire out of them (we're definitely not organic), and watch my baby plants grow.

Then all of the sudden some emergency would happen or we'd go on vacation and my beautiful garden would be taken over by weeds, and I'd lose my mental capacity to keep up with it, so I'd let it go. Stupid sin-cursed world full of weeds. I'd start visiting it less and less, trying to pretend that I could keep it beautiful in my mind if I just didn't face reality. Then I'd go out there and stare at my beautiful useless brussel sprouts still on the bush, all covered with little stinky bugs. Then winter would come and the brussel sprouts froze to the stalk. They're super healthy that way!

Then the babies came and the garden was the last thing on my mind. In between the babies I thought about restarting the garden, but I couldn't quite handle it. Then last year I thought about it, but I spent the summer laboring over some pretty difficult stuff. Then this year I thought "This is the year. I'm ready to tackle it again." Then I started organizing it, and planning it in my mind, and eventually our garden went from a huge, yard dominating deal with a life of it's own to the cute little deal we've got going on now.



So now every day, I scurry out to admire our little piece of paradise. I don't even change out of my fancy work clothes. I tell Hailey to go grab a bowl, so I can pick the produce. Then I yell to the swing set across the yard where the babies are playing that they are going to die when they come see how big stuff has grown overnight. Then we sit there and exult over the tiny little tomatoes that are suddenly appearing on the the most massive healthy vines I have ever grown. And Shelby runs to the strawberry patch and screams "I found one" and she picks it nice and green and throws it down the hatch. And we all sit there and wonder what it's going to be like to have a garden in our back yard in heaven and what it will be like to have Jesus over for tea on our front porch.

And we sit back and speak kind words of love to the baby peas that are growing so sweetly on the vines and the purple "banana" that Shelby can't believe is growing on our amazing little plant. I swear it seriously grew two inches overnight.

And we kick the stupid dog for running into the cucumbers and breaking a sweet little baby off the vine and wish the rest of them extra vigor to stand against the wiles of the gangly beast.

So our huge garden has shrunken considerably, along with the adulation we'd receive from every person who'd drive by our house admiring it. Now it's in the back, tiny and hidden. Tiny but magnificent. Loved by us and held in fascination by children who've never grown anything before. But it's so much sweeter, enjoying it with little kids who get as excited about every new baby vegetable that suddenly appears out of thin air as they did about the Christmas presents they got last year. It's like little gifts from God growing on our vines, making us long for home in heaven.