May Showers ...

Mama: Emma and Foofie, did you know that you will be coming with me to the shower tonight?
Emma: Yes, I know that.  You told me.
Foofie: No, I didn’t know that!  Emma, we are going to take a shower!
Mama: No, we’re not going to take a shower, we are going to go to a shower at church.
Foofie: Oh!  I’ve never had a shower at church before!
Mama: What do you think it will be like?
Foofie: I’m not thinking of anything.
Mama: Well, what do you imagine that we will do at the shower?
Foofie: Well, get in the tub and have a shower, of course!
Mama: But you know at this shower, there will be lots of other people.
Foofie: Well, of course there will!  We can’t be alone at church!

Well, as far as I can ascertain, she knows there will be food and gift opening and other people.  But apparently she still thinks there will be a bath tub and water involved, too.  I can’t quite get a picture of what she imagines this will be like, though!

Love Letters

These are just a few of the letters the kids made so that we could put together some love message for the grandmothers and great-grandmothers!  Click on any of the photos to see the rest of the letters and the notes we made for Mother’s Day.

Fruit for Mother's Day

As I’ve mentioned before, we’re not big “holiday” people.  We don’t have anything against holidays per se, we just never wind up having things together for timely and traditional celebrations within the household.  So what I got for mother’s day was fruit.  It was the best Mother’s Day gift I have ever gotten.  But it wasn’t the kind you eat.  It was the kind you get to see God producing in your children.  And I couldn’t think of a more appropriate blessing for Mother’s Day.

Yesterday evening, the children were sitting together on the sofa after dinner.
Luke: Hey, Foofie, come here and look at this book with me.  I will show you some amazing things that animals do!
Mama: (wanting to probe his thinking) Luke, before you do that, let me ask you a question.  Why do you think that looking at amazing animals is an appropriate thing to do on the Lord’s Day?  I mean, aren’t we supposed to be worshiping the Lord, not animals?
Luke: Well, Mama, let me ask you a question.  What made these animals so amazing?
Mama: (with surprised laughter) Why, the Lord, of course!
Luke: Well, then …

Later, Matt prayed at the close of family worship.  Then Luke asked if he could pray, too.  He did.  Usually, Luke’s prayers are limited to “Thank you for this food.  Please help it to nourish our bodies.” Or “Dear God, please help so-and-so to get better.”  But last night, he prayed from his heart for a whole litany of things I had no idea were on his mind.  He prayed about the message of yesterday morning’s sermon, he thanked God for Pastor Griffith (our former minister of 23 years who was visiting and preaching yesterday morning) and for Pastor Bullock (our current minister) and for his continued ministry, he thanked God for his godly Daddy and prayed for God to give Daddy more strength and wisdom, he prayed for some elderly members of our congregation, thanked God for their long life and thanked God for the church in its ministry to these ladies.  By the time the prayer was over, I was in tears.  It was an excellent Mother’s Day!

But that wasn’t all.  As I put the kids to bed, I looked around their room and, in my prepare-yourselves-to-work-cheerfully-because-I-don’t-want-to-deal-with-fussing voice, I pointed out that their room was quite messy and that we would need to tackle that problem first thing this morning.  This morning, we heard thumps and bumps upstairs (Matt and I have “coffee time” in the library in the mornings) and Matt went up to check.  He came back down and said that a surprise was taking place.  A few minutes later, all four kids walked in the room two abreast and said (more or less in unison), “Oh my most gracious mother and oh the delight of my eyes, Happy Mothers Day!  We cleaned up our room!” (followed by Bo-Bo echoing, “Kee Up Moom!”).  Amazing.

My kids are not perfect.  And there are plenty of days that do not look rosy and sweet like this.  (And there are plenty more days where my kids are nice and helpful and I just don’t notice or am not thankful for it).  But on this day, the Lord not only provided evidence of the fruit he is working in them, but he opened my eyes to see it.  Thank you, Lord.  And thank you, Lovey and kids.  I am living my dream life (when I take the time to realize it)!

(Oh, and by the way, lest you think any the worse of my husband, my “official” Mother’s Day gift is coming in a couple of weeks.  At my request, we are spending Memorial Day in our pajamas, playing board games and cooking together and accomplishing absolutely no projects what so ever!  Yea!!)

Change?

Yesterday our next-door-neighbors had a yard sale.  Luke picked out a few items and was able to calculate that he would owe $2.50 total.  When I handed him three dollar bills with which to pay, I realized that he didn’t have any concept of getting change back (in a world where most of our purchases are done with plastic).  Our neighbor was very kind in talking him through how much he owed, how much he was paying and how much he should get in change.  When we got home, I was attempting to explain the concept of change and why it is that you might over-pay for an item.

Mama: Well, sometimes if you don’t have the exact amount you owe, you have to pay more than you owe.  If you pay less than what you owe, you won’t have paid enough.  So you pay too much, and then they give you back the amount that was extra.

Daddy: Except when you buy Apple products.  Then you pay too much but they don’t give you back anything.

(Luke, with a puzzled expression on his face, looks back and forth between Mama and Daddy while they laugh.)

Recent funnies ...

Luke: (discussing the plot of Journey to the Center of the Earth) Then, Axel fell and hit his head and lost his conscience.

Foofie: (getting ready for afternoon rest time) Oh!  I have to go and ask Lukey if I can borrow his head-bones so I can listen to this CD!

Chunky Love

Here’s our version of a blogroll …













Now, don’t you feel slim and trim? J

Our Cousin David

On Tuesday evening, Ryan and Donna had an appointment with (at) the Birth Center where they hope to deliver Ellie (um, YEA!!!) and so David got to come and hang out with us for a while.  He is the sweetest and cutest little boy.  His Uncle Matt says that he has very handsome eyes.  His Auntie Lynna says that he is a smart little man.  And his cousins just love to be with him!  Here are some pics from his visit.


Here are David and Robyn putting silverware into the dishwasher.


He’s wearing a very manly apron (from Home Depot) which originally belonged to Cousin Gregory (Risavi).  If I had thought about it, I would have given him the one that said “David” on it!  (Which Emma was wearing.)


And, speaking of, here she is spreading hummus on bread for dinner. (Luke is in the background reading “Luke’s Loose Tooth” to Foofie.)


Bo-bo insisted on sitting by David for dinner.


And later when Henry began to escape. Emma found a good way to contain him … literally!

All in all, it was a warm, cheerful time – a kitchen full of people I love working, eating and playing together.  Oh, the joy of little people … times six!  (No, this is not a hint or an announcement … but the kids have started praying again!)

Perspective

Luke: So you were the first-born in your family?
Mama: That’s right.
Luke: Wow.  It’s really funny to think of you being older than Uncle Ryan.
Mama: (thinking this is an obvious comment on the height difference) Oh, why’s that?
Luke:  Oh, because you’re a girl.

All Quiet on the Sutherland Front

I’ve been out of the loop recently with social contacts for the most part, because our family has been in the middle of some house projects – most notably getting our garden up and running!  Only the Lord knows if it will be a success or not, because this is really my transition from book learnin’ into actual practice.  We started most of the seeds inside throughout March and April.  It took us about five days of Daddy being off work to get the ground ready, build the boxes, etc. (which really isn’t as bad as it sounds, because realistically with kids, one “day” means “two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon”.)

Also, in the midst of growing little green things, some other notable growth was happening.  Matt has been slowly teaching me (mostly by example, but occasionally with some carefully worded reminders and encouragement) about the value of allowing children to work along side of us.  I get so uptight about things being done “right” and nothing being “messed up”.  But he put it this way, “If you went to Lowe’s at the start of this project and they told you, ‘The materials for this project will cost you $500 if you do it alone or $550 if you involve your kids and there is some resultant waste,’ would you include the children?”  Of course I would.  And we did.  And as it turns out, they are marvelous little workers, and they loved it.

A neighbor who crossed the street to see what we were up to asked all about the boxes and soil mixing (we spent a LOT of time mixing bags and bags of soil enrichers).  She said she’d be really eager to see what we were growing.  I told her I wasn’t totally sure that we’d be growing anything!  She responded (and this has become, in my mind, the summary of the project), “If you’ve got the kids involved, then you are growing something.”  I love it.  Lord, grant me the grace to see the bigger picture! (Btw, this “growth-spurt” coincided nicely with my reading of “Loving the Little Years” by Rachel Janckovic.  Perfect timing, Lord.)

Also, in the spirit of working and helping, here’s perhaps my favorite story from Daddy’s time off.  It has less to do with planting and more to do with, ahem, composting. ;-)  On Friday, I sent Emma upstairs to tell Robyn that she could get up from her nap.  After a while, I realized that I hadn’t heard from them in a while and (with trepidation) went up stairs to find out what was happening.  I found Emma trying to button the back of Robyn’s dress.  They were facing the wall opposite the door, so I was able to stand and listen without being noticed.  Emma was talking to Robyn all about her siblings and how much they loved her and how much she loved them.  When they turned around and saw me, Emma told me what it was that had taken so long.

Apparently when Emma arrived to get Robyn, Robyn said that she needed to go potty (which she has been doing semi-sporadically but not at all consistently over the past couple of weeks).  However, when Emma checked her diaper, she was poopie, so Emma cleaned her (yes, there was the dirty diaper with about half a dozen well used wipes tucked neatly inside – no mess on the carpet) and took her to the potty.  She sat with her, helped her up, put a fresh diaper on her and was in the process of buttoning her dress when I arrived.  Amazing.  Apparently I should give my kids more credit.

So, for any of you who are interested, here are a few shots of the garden and of the kids getting playtime at the end of the day yesterday.  (I wish I had gotten some pictures of the kids at work – hoeing, mixing soil, carrying tools and buckets, etc. but that will have to wait for another time.)


What you see in the background are actually our neighbors’ house and vehicles.  The garden beds are to the left of the house if you are facing it from the street.  The two frames on the back of two of the beds will eventually hold trellis netting for climbing plants.


The strawberry bed.  This definitely will need a bird-net covering.  We’re hoping to build a frame for it so that it can be easily removed and replaced for harvesting (yummy)!  The strawberry plants arrived from Burpee in a manila mailer.  They were in a plastic bag and looked shriveled and rotten.  But a few weeks in potting soil in SOLO cups and they’re lookin’ quite lovely!  The Square Foot garden can support four per square, but we’ve left room for them to self-propagate with runners (i.e. free plants and a rotation system).


Tomatoes and peppers are in this bed.  We planted three varieties of tomatoes: a slicer-sized one, a roma-sized one and a cherry-sized one.  But I love the names: Big Boy, Little Mama and Sweet Baby Girl.  Perfect.  Now we just need tomatoes named for Foofie and Henry!


Squash (back left) and bush beans (direct-sow in the back right) and Jalapenos.


This is the front border with the new box we built for it (to replace the rotting landscape timbers).  In the foreground you can see our blackberry bush flowering.  As this is the second year, we’re hoping for some fruit!  (Just have to get to it before the birds do, I guess!)


This is the grapevine (also from last year) right in the middle of the front border.  We added the wires on hooks attached to the frame and porch and trained it to grow up onto the porch.  Are we naïve to think that we’ll be able to sit in our lovely porch chairs and pluck grapes?  Maybe so, but it’s fun to imagine!  Also, you can see that we took down the white lattice that covered the space beneath the porch.  We are hoping to build hinged frames to put it on so that I can lift the frames and have access to the plants from the back for weeding (which is really hard to do by leaning across a three-foot-deep bed).


This is one of the two blueberry plants, another tomato plant (under the mason jar) and the raspberry bush.  (You can see the white lattice laying in wait under the porch for its forth-coming frames.)


Marike Mericle gave me this idea.  I put the little seedlings under a mason jar so that they’d have a chance to get a good hold in their new home, especially considering all of the rain and wind that was in the forecast for today.


While Mommy finished up the fine-motor-skills gardening jobs, the kids played in the sprinkler and then flew a kite with Daddy. 


It was almost windy enough.  Rather more comical than technically successful, but what does it matter.  They had a grand old time! 


A few more pics and the video of Luke being knocked over by the kite can be found by clicking on any photo.

Well, we’ve been out of the loop, but we’re back!!

That's Emma

Emma is playing house in the little tent/fort she’s set up for herself.  She came over and said:

“I have a schedule all set up for my family.  And every day we do it and we don’t miss.  I have a little pencil and a notebook next door of my house for whenever I want to write notes down.  And I have clothes laid down and a hat and a purse.”

Fiction doesn’t so much imitate life, but she role plays what I aspire to be some day! J