Creative Kids

This Summer, as with each one for the past 3 years, my boys have gone to the library's Summer Reading Program. They look forward to this every year, and it always proves to be a great experience for them. They always have awesome activities and prizes and, of course, it promotes a literate Summer vacation and lifestyle. I love that aspect of it because it is another adult teaching them that lotsa reading is important!
This year, our librarian put some cleaned up garbage in front of groups of kids and told them to use their imaginations to build anything that they could. Here is what my boys and the 2 others in their group came up with...Introducing: The Robot King of Liberty....

How 'bout that imagination! They did such a good job that this fella was displayed in the front of the library for the month. Ty was the only one I could catch long enough to pose here, but Jacob and Caleb (our neighbor) were a part of building it, too. GREAT JOB GUYS!!
Sadly, SRP was over on Thursday and we sure will miss it.
Thanks for hangin' with me through a Momma-brag moment.
Have a great day everyone! :)

A Storm's A-Brewin'

So I went outside this evening to shirk my responsibilities...er, ahem...take pictures of the storm that is coming in and I took this one.

What do you see?

Hang back with me for a minute and cloud gaze. I just want to see if you see the same thing that I do. No pressure, but I'd love for you to participate!

Have a great day!

You are about to feel better about yourself...

I was just poking around the blogosphere this morning and I came across this post written by Karen who lives across the pond :^). I think that what she writes speaks of truth that took me awhile to get to.
Nothing special going on around here. I have been cleaning and decluttering things this week which always makes me feel like I can breathe better. My next stop is my classroom, and lemme tell ya...you have no idea what an undertaking this is going to be. I am tempted, ~but fearful~ to post the before pictures just so you can see what I have ahead of me. Hmmm, maybe that will motivate me to actually get it done because I will *have* to post the after shot pretty soon, right?...Ok, here it is...with fear and trepidation I post...

Ok, just in case you missed it...this is my desk up close:

Yeah, how bout them apples? If you can beat my mess in your office/classroom, I dare you...NO, I triple dog dare you (what the heck does that mean anyway...triple dog?) anyway, I triple dog dare you to post on your blog.

However, if you are choking on your coffee at the sight of these pictures....well...just lie to me, it'll be alright.

Have a great day everyone! And don't forget to read Karen's post (link above).

Back to the Drawing Board

So, today it's just me and the Pooze (Julianna). The boys are all off doing their man stuff and we are here trying to get caught up on the 50 million things that I have to take care of.
I hate that feeling of being perpetually behind. The feeling like everything around me has to be done no later than yesterday. Anyway, *that* is where I am.
I have begged God for a Type A personality...you know, ultra-organized, life planned out to the finest detail, practically perfect in every way kind of person...but He isn't giving in (or maybe I'm not).
Actually, my problem isn't in the scheduling/planning of it all, because let me tell ya, I can make a schedule or create a plan to beat the band. It is in the execution of said schedule/plan that my problem lies.
If you look in my planner (yes, I have one...actually, I have 3 if you're counting), you would think for a split second that I have everything under control, right down to watering the plants, until you looked around. My issue is that somewhere along the way, LIFE happens and it always gets messed up.
Ok, I will admit, "LIFE" may involve some minor self-indulgences like blog hopping when I should be doing the laundry as per my schedule, or reading my book when I should be searching for curricula, and that may be part of the reason that I live in Perpetually Behind Land, but that isn't always the case. Really.
As I mentioned a few posts down, I am learning to deal with the curve balls that are truly thrown my way with a gracious attitude, but half the time they wouldn't be such a huge ordeal if I had been where I needed to be in the first place...Is their anyone on my planet here?
So today, yet again, I am going against myself to ask God to give me the grace to get a workable schedule/plan going for the Crew and I. I will, no doubt, come up with something beautiful to behold that would make all of our lives much easier and more smoothly run. Things will work for about a week, and then the wonderous thing will collect dust on my desk until I have to start all over again in about 8 months.
Wow...how is that for hope? Seriously though, if I didn't think that our God was in the business of giving victory in the places where we have fallen (even the places where we have fallen a kajillion times), I wouldn't even be attempting this. God is a God of order and not chaos (1 Cor. 14:33) and while I know that I will probably never truly be a Type A (and I am not so sure I really want to be), I do think that he would be more glorified with a little more discipline in my life.
That being said, I am off to plan!
Have a great day everyone!

Happy 4th Birthday Andrew!

Yesterday was my *baby's* 4th birthday and we had a huge day. Right after he woke up we gave him his blueberry muffin birthday breakfast...He still looks a little unsure about the whole deal here:



After breakfast, we all got together to clean out my nasty-mobile, which was completely heinous and had to be done, birthday or not. Then we all showered and dressed to head out to lunch at Andrew's favorite restaurant, Moes (which happens to be one of mine too...YUM!).




After lunch, we headed up to the zoo where members could be a part of a Between the Lions live taping! How cool is that? I was just thrilled that it happened to land on Andrew's birthday. :)

Anyway, "cool" was probably a poor choice of words because it was several hundred degrees out with a humidity level that made you feel like you were in a sauna on steroids. We arrived early to ensure a good seat, but they wouldn't let us start the line for another 1/2 hour. Soooo, we looked around a little. Here is Andrew checking out the baby turtles:




Finally, after sweating our buttunski's off, we were seated in a blessedly air-conditioned auditorium which was only *supposed* to seat about 100, but since it seems that every zoo member out there showed up, we were packed in like a bunch of stinky sardines (See my purse there? That was my space for my rear-end....not good.) Anyway, once the show began, it was all worth it. We had a GREAT time!





Everyone was exhausted on the way home, including Momma, which is why I *had* to buzz through Starbucks despite almost rush-hour traffic. No addiction here, I swear.
Anyway, the poor little guy wiped out almost as soon as we pulled away from the zoo.





After a quick trip to Wally World (I hate that place), we buzzed home where it was a mad rush to get the pizza in the oven, open presents,




Eat our dinner, and then wolf down some Spiderman cake:


He had such a great day, but it wasn't over yet. I loaded up my sugar-crazed, over-tired boy and his sister and we headed out to see the movie Ratatouille. It was a really cute movie!


We got home around 9:30 and we all wiped out pretty fast. What a long, but wonderful day!
Have a great day everyone! :)

Contest @ 5 Minutes For Mom

Wow! Guess What?! Horizon Organic is giving away $300 worth of FREE dairy products in a contest over here!

I can vouch for how good (and good for you) their products are...not to mention the money you could save with milk being almost $4 a gallon nowadays!

~You oughta go check 'em out~

Eye Opener

Oh, the best laid plans.....
Yesterday, I had lofty ideas of doing some housekeeping, starting work on reorganizing the classroom and grabbing a few groceries after a late lunch with friends. Sounds totally fab, right?Well, Ty woke up with his left eye completely swollen shut.
No-can-do on the house stuff or the lunch because, of course, there were no Dr. appointments and we had to do the dreaded "work-in", which is usually translated "wait for 3.75 hours before being seen". However, we were pleasantly surprised when we were seen almost immediately after we arrived. :)
The Dr. looked around in Ty's eye with his light, but couldn't see anything, then he flipped his eyelid (completely gross) and still nothing. He ended up putting some kind of dye into his eye and turning out all of the lights before he found a small scratch caused by some unknown debris. He went whitewater rafting/camping with Mark and the scouts over the weekend, so it may have been sand or something that had already made its way out...
Anyway, the Dr. informed us that eyes are one of the fastest things of the body to heal and that it should be fine by today. So, he put some antibiotic lubricant in it and pirate-patched him up.
Here is a shot of him watching from the risers as his brother did gymnastics last evening. He was really sick of being the spectator by this point. It looked so much worse than it actually was with that gigantor thing on there!



Despite having all of that go on, though, we actually had a nice day. I am slowly but surely learning to "roll with the punches" when unexpected things arise by recognizing them as the providence of God for that day. I am realizing that my attitude about everything directly affects the way each situation is perceived by the rest of my family.
I won't lie to you; Yesterday, when I saw Ty's eye, I was so disappointed that things weren't going to get done *yet again*. But, I realized that I was at a crossroads with my attitude. I could make the best of it, still showing kindness, joy and love to those around me....or I could be a complete stressed-out hag who was worrying about my 10 mile long to-do list making everyone around me want to poke their eyes out. I had to choose the former and simply trust God with the rest.
I teach my kids that having a sweet spirit and a gentle attitude will draw people to Christ way better than a harsh, pushy or self-serving one will (duh!), but God quickly reminded me that I am not just the teacher of His truth, but His appointed example even more.
Hope you all have a great day!