Kiddie Book Club, at our house

Our playgroup is so fun! For over a year now we've been doing a monthly event called "Kiddie Book Club". Each month one mom coordinates it, picking a book and a theme and the kids always have a great time. I've been wanting to host for a while, and I knew without a doubt what my theme would be--garbage and recycling! We have so many books on the topic that I couldn't even pick just one.

I decided to host at my house, because I really like having people over. We have a small house, but in some ways that makes it more cozy. We were in the middle of home renovations when everyone came last week (I'll post pictures of all our improvements as soon as we get done!) but I was just hoping everyone understood the chaos and mess.

First the kids arrived at our house and got to play with all of Aaron's garbage trucks in his room. He had gotten them all out and separate from his other trucks and I think there were at least 8 garbage/recycling trucks. The moms had a fun time too!



Next we had a snack of apples and bananas while I told the kids about the different materials you can recycle and reuse. Aaron was so funny because he stood up next to me and started taking over the lesson, telling the kids about recycling "alumimum". I even shared that we could take our apple cores and banana peels and start a compost pile, and it would turn into dirt! The kids got really wide eyes when I told them that. How cool! (And now Aaron really wants us to get a composter!)

Then I read our books. I had several out, but ended up reading:

Trash (Matchbox book)...this one has bits of information about the different ways the pick up the trash and how they compact it.

I Stink...the kids, and moms, were cracking up laughing at this one. The garbage truck has an attitude, and eats a nasty "alphabet soup", including "Puppy Poo" and "Rotten radishes". Yuck!

Trashy Town...which Aaron and Claire helped me recite. I think all kids love this book!

Next the kids played a recycling game. Aaron had helped me set up 4 boxes at one end of the living room, and he labeled them Plastic, Paper, Aluminum, and Reuse. I had a garbage bag full of recyclables and the kids lined up, pulled an item from the bag, and ran to throw it in the right box. They seemed to have a fun time with this game, especially the running across the room part!

Finally we had craft time. I had lots of recyclable and reusable materials set out and several ideas of crafts the kids could make--a drum, a shaker instrument, a little cardboard house, egg-carton flowers in a toilet paper roll vase... I was so amazed at the kids' and moms' creativity as they got started!

Some of the sample crafts:


Aaron saw my Family Fun magazine opened to an article about how to build an entire fire station play set with recycled materials. He was ENAMORED and wanted to build it all! Right now! I was hostessing and trying to keep Claire from whining, so I kept telling him I would help him when everyone left. He got tired of that and decided that Mrs. Amy could help him build it. He sat next to her talking her ear off about it until they finally rigged up a hoopty fire truck out of an egg carton, some pipe cleaners, and a couple of paper towel rolls. Thanks Amy!!


Claire enjoyed coloring with markers at craft time!


After everyone was gone, I asked the kids about their favorite part. Claire said, "Playing with Emma Kate." (They had played with her doll house while the boys did other things!) Aaron liked the recycling game the best. Then he told me wants to open a "Trash to Treasure Museum". This boy has some ambitions!

A good nap

Let me just say that some days it is all I can do not to go ballistic on my sweet, precious little two-year-old daughter. Did I mention she's TWO? Do you realize that means she wants everything HER WAY RIGHT NOW? She has a way of whining and crying that will make you want to scratch your fingernails on a chalkboard just to make her stop. I can't tell you how many times a day I send her to her room just to make her stop the whining. Our newest battle is the back-talking. "But I don't WANT to!" is a phrase I hear so many times a day!

Yesterday we had lunch with a sweet friend whose little daughter is only a month older than Claire. Claire and Emma Kate are such sweet little friends...and they had a great time eating and playing together at Chick-fil-A. When it was time to go, however, Claire had an absolute meltdown. First it was the half of an ice cream cone she had left at the table 20 minutes earlier that was no longer there. (I won't mention where it went. ;-) Then it was the fact she didn't want to leave. Then it was the fact that I was getting on to her for screaming and yelling and crying about the whole situation. Needless to say I was embarassed and so ready to get out of that restaurant!

When we got home, Claire went straight down for her nap. She woke up just over two hours later looking like this.




I think she had a nice long nap, don't you?

And yet the whining continued. Her chair was stuck and she couldn't scoot it where she wanted it. The game she was playing broke. Her brother sat in the chair that 2 minutes earlier she told me she did NOT want to sit in. I could go on and on.

And to think, more estrogen, coming this May!

Lake Forest Pictures...and the zip line!

I just love looking at these pictures. Lake Forest is an absolutely beautiful place. The lake is so serene and the trees so majestic. I could sit out by the lake for hours.


This is one of Chris's favorite things...the "tram road". There's a bunch of deer in the woods down that road!


Looking the other way, across the levee...


Our nature walk





Chris getting geared up for the zip line!


I think this would be the hardest part of doing it...climbing all those staples to the platform at the top! Chris handled it like a pro though. As if he doesn't climb trees all through deer season!


Almost there!


Look how crazy high it is!


And he's off!



Look at that grin!




He was going so fast, I snapped these pictures one right after the other!


At the end...


Another view of the lake. Ahhhh...

A weekend retreat

Chris and I just returned yesterday from a fabulous weekend at Lake Forest Ranch. It's a Christian camp in east central Mississippi, and they hold different camps and retreats during the year. Their big thing is the children's and youth camps during the summer.

Chris and I both went to LFR for retreats with Campus Crusade for Christ during our college years, and Chris goes back every year for a men's retreat. LFR holds a special place in our hearts, and we were so excited to go back as a couple.

Just last week, the CCC director from our days at MSU mailed us his monthly newsletter, and randomly included 3 pictures they found of me and Chris from college...and one of them was this picture, I think taken in fall 2000, of me and Chris on the lake at LFR!


Once I saw that picture, I could hardly contain my excitement about our retreat!

We had a great drive to LFR on Friday afternoon, getting an opportunity to talk and listen to a radio show together. We had fun laughing at the callers on the show! We checked in Friday evening, and got settled into our cabin. We had a great dinner where we met some of the other couples who were attending the retreat. The first worship and teaching session was that night, too.

And let me tell ya, the worship was awesome! It was led by a guy named Chad Lewis, whose name I had heard from Chris before. He plays acoustic guitar and sings some great worship songs. He is a big fan of the modern hymn, so we sang songs like In Christ Alone (you MUST listen to that one!), O Church Arise, and Come Thou Fount, along with some of my other favorite worship songs, including some I sang when I was in the CCC praise band in college! (Ah! Memories!) I absolutely loved the music and the spirit in the room when everyone was lifting their voices!

The main speaker was a guy named Bill Reif, who I had also heard of from Chris. He is a great speaker. A counselor by trade, he had lots of great advice for married couples. The LFR director's wife, Sandy Malone, and a good friend of hers from Australia, also did a couple of sessions on temperaments and how they affect our marriage relationships. It was all very interesting, and Chris and I have discovered that he is a "Thinker" and I am a "Feeler". Which explains why when he gets quiet I think he's mad (because that's what I do when I'm mad), but really he's just thinking and is not mad at all... I can't tell you how many times we've had that discussion!

The theme of the weekend was John 15...Jesus is the vine and we are the branches. Our desire for a good marriage is not our goal...our goal is a relationship with Christ. The great thing is that our relationship with our spouse (and others) will drive us to Christ because our spouse was not designed to meet all our needs. But God will give us the desires of our heart...a good marriage! We learned so much and were very encouraged. I even gleaned some wisdom to use in my parenting (with my "thinker" son and my "feeler" daughter), even though parenting was not actually a topic of the weekend.

There were fun recreation options to do on our beautiful Saturday afternoon. We walked a nature trail, and then wandered over to the ropes course and climbing wall. Chris did the zip line and said it was lots of fun! I will soooooo do that when I go back and am NOT pregnant! They had horseback riding and paddleboating available, among other things, but we opted to go back to the cabin for a nap before the evening activities.

There was a beautiful, delicious candlelit dinner with live violin music on Saturday night, and after the worship/teaching session, we had a hay-less ride around the lake and a bonfire. We really enjoyed some of the couples we met, especially two from Birmingham. Chris already knew one of the guys from the men's retreat, and I enjoyed chatting with the wives. We exchanged e-mail addresses and will hopefully see each other at more retreats in the future.

It was sad to leave Sunday afternoon. I was glad to see the kiddos again though--they had a good weekend with their Mimi and Pa--and today we're catching up on laundry and getting back into routine. I actually have to COOK to get food on the table!!

PS...pictures to come! I didn't take many, but I did get some of the zip line experience!

Our First Valentine's Day

Today I'm reminiscing about our first Valentine's Day. It was 1998, and I was a freshman at Mississippi State. Chris was a sophomore, but he was co-oping that semester back at home, so we were doing the long-distance relationship thing. I came home EVERY WEEKEND to see him though...and Valentine's Day was a Saturday that year!

I don't remember what I got him...but I do remember he got me a white teddy bear with a red bow (and I slept with that bear for the next 3 1/2 years!). But what really shocked me was when he gave me this, in a little brown frame:



See the date? 01-03-1998. That's what we considered our "anniversary". We had been on a college trip to Gatlinburg that weekend. I remember we took the two church vans, with our fearless leader George Ross driving one van, and Chris's brother Allen driving the other one. I was in a van with all my girl friends, and Chris was in the other van with his brother. Chris and I had become good friends the previous semester and had hung out a good bit during the Christmas break, and I was crushing on him BIG TIME! The NCAA national championship football game was on TV during our drive, and we had a portable TV in our van. I sat up at the front of the van talking to Chris on the CB radio back and forth for much of the trip, relaying plays I was watching. It was driving everyone crazy because we were so loud on the CB, so at one gas station stop, the girls in my van kicked me out and told me to go! Sit with Chris already!

We spent the rest of the trip sitting next to each other and hanging out, and on Jan 3rd we rode the skylift together. I remember I had wanted him to hold my hand soooo bad, but it didn't happen. Apparently when we got to the top they handed him a little ticket so we could order the picture they had taken. I didn't think anything of it, and didn't think he had either.

That night we watched a movie...I think it was Last of the Mohicans? Or maybe Braveheart? I don't remember because I wasn't paying attention...Chris and I held hands for the first time that night and I felt like I was floating!!! We knew we were officially a couple.

By the time Valentine's rolled around, we had been dating a little over a month, and when he handed me this picture, I was pretty sure I was in love. He had held on to that little ticket, come home and ordered the picture of us! We still have the picture, in the original little frame Chris gave me, sitting on our nightstand.

I am still in love with that sweet, thoughtful man today. This afternoon we are leaving for a weekend couple's retreat and I am looking forward to spending some precious time with my love!

Bowling!

The kids just love to go bowling! It's expensive for us to go as a family on the weekends, so when our playgroup got a deal to bowl one afternoon for $2 a game, we were sure to be there!

This picture of Aaron and his friend Cody cracks me up...they're like two men just shootin' the breeze between frames.


Aaron watches the ball creep down the alley...


It's a miracle our lane didn't have a hole in it...you can see this ball is in mid-air.


Claire sits to roll her ball. She is so precious!


I can't believe she was carrying this ball! It's about 1/5 of her weight!

Daddy's helper

Aaron just lights up when Chris tells him he is going to ride in the truck with him to be his helper. Even if it's just a quick trip to Lowe's, Chris enjoys taking Aaron along. Aaron asks all kinds of questions and really seems to grasp alot of technical details about the things Chris is doing.

So a couple of Saturdays ago when Aaron got to help Daddy and Pa dig a trench to run an electrical wire to Pa's gate...Aaron was ready!! He had to get up early and eat breakfast in the truck, but those are the sacrifices of a hard working little man.

When I picked him up around lunch time, I knew he had a great time. How did I know? He was FILTHY. And loving every minute of it.





I still haven't gotten his boots clean. That boy sure knows how to get dirty!

Chronicles of a sick house

We've been a sick house for the last couple of weeks!

It started when Claire was a little congested for a week or so, but no biggie. Then on that Saturday, she wasn't herself at all and started *screaming* that her ear hurt when she woke up from nap! She has never said that something specifically hurt like that so I was just sure she had an ear infection. I rushed her to the new pediatric urgent care close to our house, and they were great. They flushed out her ears, and got two huge pieces of compacted wax out of her ears. It was so sad to sit and hold her hands while she cried and cried, asking "Are they done yet Mommy?" through tears. She felt better when they were done, but she had a raging infection in both ears so she got some antibiotics.

The next day I stayed home from church with Claire, and I felt horrible! I had been fighting a cough all week but all the congestion really seemed to hit me hard that morning. I just laid on the couch and had a hard time staying awake while Claire watched TV all morning long.

That night was the super bowl, so Chris went to a party without us. I was sad to miss the party food but enjoyed the quiet evening after the kids were in bed. Plus I turned on the TV just in time for the last 3 minutes of the game, which were probably the most exciting anyway! And, Chris brought me home a plate of leftovers. :-)

All last week Claire was fine, but Aaron and I both had all the congestion. We still went about our normal activities...neither of us have had a fever or anything...just the typical runny nose that everyone gets this time of year.

Then on Friday I started feeling bad again and my ear started hurting. My left ear completely clogged up and it feels like I have a bucket over my head. I knew I had an ear infection but hoped it would just go away (yeah, that's logical). I finally broke down and went to the doctor this morning for antibiotics. Of course I'm pregnant which means I have to take plain ol' Amoxicillan...3 horse pills a day for over a week! It better work! They offered me the sinus cocktail shot, saying some pregnant women get it, but if I'm not hurting maybe I should try something a little less risky.

Aaron still hasn't seen a doctor, and I'm starting to wonder if I should take him. His nose is still snotty, and he never complains when he has an ear infection.

When does spring start??

ABC Bible verses...A and B are done!

One of my New Year's goals was to let the kids learn Bible verses all year. We have decided to do ABC Bible verses (there is a book for this but I don't have it--we are making up our own!). We're doing a new verse every 2 weeks or so, and by the end of the year they should be all the way through the alphabet. We may be done sooner, because once they have mastered one verse, they are anxious to learn the next one.

To make it easy to learn, I make up a little tune and say the verse to that tune. Claire really loves to SCREAM the letter before she says each verse. It's fun because I can randomly say "B!" and one of them will start saying the B verse!

Our verses so far:

A: "As for me, and my house, we will serve the Lord." Joshua 24:15
B: "Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved." Acts 16:31
C: "Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right." Ephesians 6:1

They have mastered A and B, and they love to say them for the video camera.

Here's Aaron, with some bed-head going on!

And Claire, who can't stand still and always gets really high-pitched for the B verse.

I'll post more videos as they learn more verses! I just love the fact that they are hiding God's Word in their hearts.