Stories from the Week

Last Friday was our first trip up to Dollywood for the year. With this, comes standing in line to renew our season passes. While waiting, there was a lady behind us that began talking to the boys. She asked them their names, about Micah's hair and then she commented on Josiah's eyes.

"You have beautiful eyes," she said. "You're going to be a real lady killer when you get older. Those eyes of yours will attract all the girls."

Josiah blushed and changed the subject.

Later on that day, the boys went to ride the VeggieTales roller coaster. Standing in line behind them were two teenage girls. One of the girls was talking to the boys. After they got off the ride, Josiah was telling me about their conversation.

"She was talking to me, but I kept my face away."

Why did you do that?

"Well, you know what that lady said earlier...about how I would attract with my eyes? And I didn't want to attract."

Oooh, no. We wouldn't want that, would we?

"No. So I kept my face away. But I think I might have attracted some because I looked before I knew."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

At every mealtime after we pray I have the boys say something they are thankful for. Try as I may to get them to think about the intangible things to be thankful for, they usually say some item of food on their plate. What should I expect? They are boys, afterall. Emilia has started saying things she's thankful for, too, though it's mostly been repeating something one of the boys said. But on Thursday (or was it Wednesday?) she came up with her own thing to be thankful for! And it was so cute. She had talked on the phone to my cousin Emily earlier in the day and when it was time for her to say something she was thankful for she put both hands up in the air and said,

"I TALK EMMY!!"

Yesterday at grandma's she was thankful,

"I PLAY GARAGE!" (my grandma's garage is the playroom)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I've told you before about how Micah comes up with ways of describing things that are so unique and totally him that they make me smile, right? At Dollywood last week I played one of those carnival-type games and won a basketball for the boys. They agreed on the Lady Vols basketball (YAY!!) but as we walked away, Micah said,

"I was really hoping we'd get the pretzel ball."

(aka the North Carolina ball. It's blue, you know.)

Also, last week Micah fell while riding his bike in the yard. I asked him what happened and he said,

"Well, I just got tired of riding my bike in the plain place (aka the driveway), so I tried riding through the yard, but then I fell."

So Far, So Good

Much to our dismay, last year's garden a big ole failure. Something shredded (yes, shredded) all of our corn, squash vine borers destroyed our zucchini, squash and pumpkins, our peppers never grew, something kept stealing our tomatoes just before they were ripe, birds got to our blueberries before we did, something (we suspect chipmunks) ate our potatoes, squirrels dug up our lettuce, so it never grew past sprouts...oh wait--our cucumbers did great!! We're hoping for a better year this year. We put up a fence around the garden to keep all of those pesky "somethings" out and we will be spraying/sprinkling some sort of something our plants to keep the bugs off. Last year was just so frustrating!

This year will be better. So far, so good!

Last year we got maybe a total of 8 strawberries (our plants were small). But this year we already have 8! I picked these beautiful berries today.



Yummmmm.



Can you believe this sweet thing is already/almost/only 3 months old?



She's lost all of her newbornness, not that she ever had much to lose. :) She's grown into an adorably sweet baby. She LOVES to be talked to and pretty much smiles all the time. Every now and then, just to keep me on my toes, she cries. I keep telling the kids that babies do that sometimes. They think that's questionable since she's happy so much of the time. And you know what, that's just fine with me. They can discover the truth when they have kids of their own. And I hope Micah, especially, has one that cries as much as he does did.

{this moment}

A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. Happy Friday!

This Little Girl

Guess what my little girl is outside doing even as I type this...



digging for worms.



She just loves those squirmy, squishy little things to death.



Literally.

Holy Birthday, Batman!

We had Micah's birthday party today. He requested a Batman birthday party, so Batman it was. Mostly the kids just ran around and played, and since that's really the point of the party, I didn't worry about getting them to do any "activities."

I did make my first attempt at using fondant on a cake. I have mixed feelings about it. While I have no doubt it simplified making the Batman signal, it was quite sticky. I had issues getting it on the cake, because when I rolled it up to put on the cake, some of it stuck together which resulted in holes on the cake. Not pretty. I patched them as best I could, but once the fondant is on, there isn't much that can be done to fix it. I did make my own fondant, and maybe all of my problems started there (especially since I'd never done it before). But I'm a make-it-from-scratch kind of girl, so that's always what I try first. Anyway...here a picture of the batman cake and some others from his party.


I love this next picture. Most of the time Micah seems so big to me, but look at him here--he's still my little boy. I'm loving the reminder that 5 really isn't so old afterall. :)