Praises...

Warm fall days. It seems to be lately that I couldn't ask for more perfect weather. I wonder if we could stretch this until somewhere in the neighborhood of December 23rd?

Watching Dax and Lily play together without Finn. they just really played. Swinging in big kid ways with daredevil stunts and twists. No arguments, no hitting, or screaming. What a nice vision!

Dax loving Finn so much that he hates being separated from him. Not sure why he can't be a bit more kind sometimes but he doesn't like to be away from his little guy!

Watching how Finn fits into the gang. Watching how he never wants to be left behind. The reaction he had to "rejoining" the group after running errands with dad. He did a little dance, smiled from ear to ear and ran right down to the swing set.

Watching Finn dance...he's got some rhythm, that guy! I'm not sure it's the kind of rhythm that will carry him to successful high school dances but it sure is cuter than just about anything now!!

Kids who care more about mom's booboo's than mom! Watching Lily and Dax "patch up" my leg when I cut it. (minor scrape). They worked together to clean it and put three different band aids on till they were satisfied it would hold. I love watching them give care, it gives me hope!

Knowing God hears me and loves me even when I'm grumbly!

Standing outside the glass door looking in, watching my whole family move around inside. There is real perspective there. You're always in the middle of it. Outside looking in just somehow makes you smile. That warm feeling that came over me knowing those are my peeps, all four of them and the dog...my peeps. thanks God, you're a pretty great guy!

My husband who is spending a lot of added alone with kid time this week!

Finishing my first purposeless novel in at least a year. I forgot how good it feels to every now and then escape from reality into the pages of a book.

Reading lots and lots of very purposeful things lately. I'm learning so much I'm starting to feel like Lily!

A room full of teenagers signing praise songs. There was just something pretty amazing filling that place tonight. (admit it girls, even you sang, i watched!)

Getting back into the swing of youth. I always forget how much I enjoy it till I'm there.

Our new church. This is the first week we're in the building for things. It's good to see so many people. Even though it's far from perfect, God can live there. It will be good, even if we occasionally have to sit on a lap or two! =)

Coming home to 3 sleeping kids...this people, some sort of miracle! (thanks, Mike!)

I somehow uploaded these to the wrong blog...

I meant to post these to Echoes of Grace, but somehow they ended up here. I think I'll leave a few and the rest will be over
there.

Today was the last Sunday in our old church. I have lots of fun pictures I'll post later of little people and bouncy houses and such. At the end of today's service our pastors carried out the large cross and Bible that sit on our alter, each person at the service then carried out a candle representing His spirit and our light moving with us to our new place of worship.

 

Much to Lily's dismay I couldn't resist getting out the camera. I tried to resist, but the pictures seemed to be singing out to me....who could resist capturing a little piece of this spirit moving?

While I'm at It....

I bet you don't have all of these things in your parades...

A Pumpkin Cinderella Princess Carriage pulled by a tractor... Really cute Jr. High Dancer Team girls passing out gobs of candy...
Kilt wearing Bagpipers? Why do we have bagpipers?
A Large plastic moose riding on the back of a truck...
A flat bed semi full of banjo players...
A political extravaganza littering the streets and sky with a blaze of yellow...

A front row view where a toddler can hold a balloon, eat a sucker, and watch floats with Veggie Tales go by ( I missed snapping the Veggie Tales, I think I was still blinded by all the yellow!)
A Gym float that your sister mistakenly identifies as a gay pride float...

Funny, I'm most perplexed by the bagpipers! I bet lots of you have those!! I didn't get a picture of the gymnasts tumbling on a trampoline on the back of a semi or the parade of dogs followed by a man in a very revealing superman costume carrying a sign identifying himself as the "Super Pooper Scooper".

I bet you're feeling that your parades are sad and boring compared to ours, aren't you!?

Just Posting It Like it Is

I started a Pumpkin Festival Post last week, you know, when the Pumpkin Festival was happening. i started it twice. I uploaded pictures, I was going to tell you about them. blogger has successfully blocked my attempts at putting them in any type of order that makes sense. So, I give up. In honor of the one week anniversary of the close of this years Festival i present to you pictures taken during our first night of fun(the only one that was dry!)

I feel bad that every picture I took of my kids on the roller coaster had this grandpa type gentleman in them. Honestly thought, I wish i knew who he was, I have some really great pictures of he and his riding partner (not displayed here!)
Dax loving the Carousel Horse Dax showing Finn how to drive (oh Lord, please let the next 13 go slowly!)


Hey Boys, pay attention to the road! Awe of entering the festival grounds!

Shhhh...don't tell anyone they were holding hands!
Finn on his first ride ever!

It's all good as long as he's got his big bub and his bink!
Good thing he made it through without losing his lunch! Looks like it may have been a close call! She's not big on the camera thing...

We ran into three of our favorite people!
Yeah, I'm scared too, Dax, I'm scared too...
Slow Down!
Road, boys, Road...those blondes are not worth crashing over!
Maybe I'll even post some faceless ones over at Echoes of Grace if Blogger doesn't eat that post again!

That Ike, he's a mean guy!

I think I'm the last person in my town with a blog to post pictures from our weekend festival. Believe me, I have them! I will play catch up tomorrow.

For tonight I just want to send out a prayer request for all those affected by Ike. I was a bit bent out of shape because we have a good 1/2" (or more) of water covering our basement floor, plus at least that much in our "dry storage" area. We have a leak in our living room ceiling as well. You can hear it running like a nice little babbling brook in the basement. So I was a tad grumpy because I live in the midwest, not anywhere near a coast!

My wonderful Mama and Sister in law were here for the weekend. They returned home to Ohio this afternoon, just missing a killer Ike spin off, this is Ohio people! They had 3 to 4 hours of 55-70 mile an hour winds. Several people in Southwest Ohio and Kentucky were killed this afternoon due to falling trees. My mom said their town looks like a war zone. My sister in law's car was sitting in mom's driveway while they were out of town. It was covered in tree when they got home. The windshield is crushed and things are bent, totally not drivable. There are a million people without power in Ohio and Kentucky. Kentucky has been declared a in state of emergency. Mom is not expecting power for at least three days. Some reports I read said it could be a week. There are no working gas stations and no open restaurants or grocery stores at the moment. Hopefully these things will be open soon.

My little brother in special services has been on standby to go to Texas, but is now on standby to go to Chicago. The flooding in Illinois is pretty heavy.

So, I now feel really bad for whining about my little basement stream. I know there are a lot of Texas bloggers out there who haven't posted for a while and my prayers are with them and their families too!

My praise for today is very simple, we are all safe and sound. The chaos here kept Mom and Carly from leaving for a bit, keeping them from driving in the windstorm in Ohio. This is such a blessing! I'm also grateful for my power being on, because the thought of entertaining three kids with no power for several days does not sound fun! So all of you out there who can't read this, I hope you can feel the prayers headed your way! Love you!

62 years, random ramblings of a daughter...

Today would have been my Dad's 62nd birthday. He's been gone a little over 5 months. I tried to sit down and journal. I know that I will write something profound someday about he and I. for the last couple weeks I've felt something brewing and thought today would be the day. I took the boys, my tea, and my journal outside in the beautiful fall air and the warm sun. I took pictures of the boys. I wrote about the weather, the boys, and then tried to write about my dad. I mostly just rambled, I write memories that popped into my head, moments of weird connections, random thoughts. I thought I'd share something from my journal with you, but I'm not sure I wrote anything you'd understand other than "I miss him."

I sorted through memories of him climbing in bed beside me the night I had my first migraine and was terrified, the warmth of the red hot water bottle I used to use for ear aches, the way he took me out and bought me a recliner after my ectopic pregnancy because I could not sleep laying flat after the laparotomy, about how he stood up at my wedding as I turned around to leave to kiss me, about the hugs when I'd go home after I'd moved out of state. My Dad was not overly affectionate with me, but there were moments that stood out. I thought and I cried. I thought about how I'm not sending him pistachios or tootsie pops because I can't come up with any better ideas for his birthday. See....rambles, just rambles, memories of a man I miss. A Man I wish I could watch sitting on the back deck with my teenage boys talking football.

When I got the mail this afternoon there was of course a beautiful note from my mom and these pictures...

This is a picture of him at his 32nd birthday party. I bet he was fun to hang out with. I wish I could remember him at my age. It would be nice to sit down with him at thirty two and talk to him like a grown up, but after seeing this picture I'm not sure exactly how grown up he was!!

I made it through the day pretty well till Mike innocently mentioned that he needed to call his Dad tonight. I looked at him funny and asked why? He said just because he hadn't talked to him for a while. I started crying. I just felt like a 4 year old in my head saying "It's not fair!"

So my praise in all of this is that today was the day my dad was born. If he had not come into this world September 10, 1946, this blog and all of it's contributors would not be in existence and you would have to have found something else to do with your last 5 minutes! =)

Random thoughts and Praises...

As much as I love this girl, I loathe this instrument. Who decided 4th graders should play the recorders? Or maybe, who decided they should practice them at home? Why did they tell us it was only 4th grade and now in the 5th grade there is a random recorder performance? She says this is the last one, hallelujah!!! The pitch of this beauty rivals the pitch of little Finny's screech. Imagine the joy of both sounds at once...delightful, isn't it? Make you want to stop by for a cup of tea?
Now imagine the joy bursting through my soul when this child picked it up. The neighbors even came out laughing. they seemed thrilled that their children were past the recorder phase, imagine that!

On the subject of this child, he again cried when dropped off at preschool this morning. He tells me he had a great time, lots of fun. He also told me he will cry again on Thursday, sigh... According to a random expression of feelings at dinner tonight, "I hate school! I just really hate school! The toys are good, the teachers are good, the kids are good, it's not so bad. I just really hate it." Any parenting tips on this one??
I love that this one lets me follow him around with the camera and isn't hiding from me today! It's rare I get a willing participant for a photo shoot. It was a beautiful day for it!!

Ribbonless Praises...

Praises...

I learned so much from going to the photography critique. Just walking around as the judge talked about other's work, even before I asked her about my own was so rich. Once we got to mine I could have almost critiqued them myself! You may have noticed I've "fixed" the header picture. Critique was, great picture but it's flat, it needs to be bumped in contrast so that there are true blacks and almost whites, so that the eye is drawn to a focal point. Funny, one little tweak and it makes a huge difference. Her favorite of mine was the city street. She said there were two things separating it from being a great shot to an amazing shot. A little cropping to move the lamp post to a different place and if I had had just enough difference in angle (bent down more) to make the lamp post with the flag on it pop up above the building line. Now have you learned something? I also learned that maybe I should have entered more unique things. There were some incredibly gorgeous photographs, but the ones that one, would not have really been the ones I'd have picked, they were much more artsy. I think I would have had a better chance if I'd have entered this one I took of the Hobby Lobby Ceiling!

I didn't get one of the three ribbons, but that really wasn't my quest. Not to say that each time they pulled up a print my heart didn't beat so loudly I surely thought that the people around me must hear it! I'm not sure if this was excitement or fear of having to stand up and be recognized if I did get a ribbon! The judge turned out to be a woman I had just read a little about online the night before when looking for area classes. Hmmm...maybe that was a clue that I need lessons!

I spent sometime with my camera manual this afternoon and learned a few new tricks. It'll be a long time before I get all the way through that thing! I'm a visual learned. Manuals are almost torture for me!

My neighbors did not call DCFS when my boys shed all their clothes after getting them wet and instead of rushing them inside I just started taking pictures.

I have one baby who is continuing to listen to me. I asked Finn if he was ready to snuggle for nap, he shook his little head no while he played. I told him he had one more minute and then I walked out of the room. Sure enough that guy was climbing on my lap not two minutes later all ready for nap! I'm loving this...but I slightly afraid of how long it may or may not last!

My favorite moment of today... We slept in, all of us, so I guess my second favorite moment was waking up at 8 am and not hearing any noise. So, we didn't make it to church. I was slightly bummed about this, only because a friend was singing and I like hearing her. I figured if everyone was sleeping and it was one of the last Sundays before our Sunday morning commitments kick in for the year that we should take advantage of it. The kids finally got up and started rambling around, climbing in and out of our bed. Then the day really started when Lily and Dax started arguing. Dax went running to his room and laid on the floor under a blanket. Finn took off running out of our room. He rushed in beside Dax, laid down, and wrapped his arms around his neck. He laid there and hugged him until Dax stopped crying. He even put his two fingers together and put them in Dax's mouth, which is what he does when he's upset and can't find his binky. It was so sweet!

To keep me from getting a big head about the extreme listening and empathetic behavior of my youngest, he got really ticked off about something in his dinner and slapped the food bowl right out of my hand in a rage. Lets just say, this didn't make me a happy momma. It did make the Dog a happy dog, though.

7 minutes to spare...

At exactly 3:53 I climbed back in my van after dropping my entry's off at our local festival's art show.

I have to admit, I got all teary eyed. I completed this. It would have been more like me to have thought this was a great idea, stressed out, asked everyone I knew for their opinion, and then somehow sabotaged myself. There were a few close moments, but my patient husband made sure I didn't quit. It ended up requiring 2 trips in 24 hours to Hobby Lobby with all three kids and the man did not even waiver. (For your future reference, two stores within 15 minutes from my house have completely different pricing systems!) He hung wire, he drilled hangers, he cleaned glass. You've got no choice but to love a guy who works so hard to make sure you don't cause yourself to fail! My sweet friends who have listened to my endless insecurities and rambling, have continued to gently encourage me, (or print out last minute Hobby Lobby coupons!) thank you!

Mike hung each picture on the wall after it was framed and took a picture of the picture. I'm not exactly sure why he did this, but I thought it was cute and it made me feel like they were "real art".

Honestly, I don't care what any judges say, I dropped them off with 7 minutes to spare, so in my mind I won!

Rocketships, Sunsets, and Praises...

It's amazing what little boys can do with a toy kitchen! Logically, you'd think, cook! Maybe even use it as a tool bench or something creative like that, right? Not my guys! I walked into the family room this morning to find Ole Chef Tony and his kitchen looking like this...

Dax looks at me and says "Our wheels are stuck on our rocket ship and they have holes in them" Hmmm...so the kitchen has now become a "rocket ship?" I asked for a demonstration, and this is what they showed me...

Ingenious I say! You notice Finn's extreme agitation? That is cause he wanted to be captain.

That lasted for about three minutes followed by some sort of unexplained tantrum. Who took my sweet baby and brought me this toddler??



Praises...

Dax went to school Thursday even though he told us he would not on Wednesday night. As we walked down the stairs to his classroom he looked at me a with a puzzled look and said, "I told you, I'm not going to play at school today." I left him with a smile, a kiss, and an I love you. He fell to the floor crying saying he was not going to stay. Sigh...I thought it was all going so well!
I returned to a happy guy who seemed to have a good day, and so far, he's going back Tuesday.

A husband who picked up pictures for me tonight on his way home and then willingly took us all to Hobby Lobby and dinner, even stopping the vehicle to allow me to take some pictures along the way!

The sunset tonight! It was incredible!

Simple Grace. This morning started out with me all frazzled, yelling at my peeps. About 9:30 I sat down with my Chai Tea, my Bible, and Him. His grace and peace alone let me get off that couch with a softer, kinder attitude and continue the day with patience and joy.

My little Finn who hears me even when the others don't or tune me out. I asked Dax three times to go grab the new bag of Diapers. Next thing I know here comes Finn with the diapers and a smile. I asked Dax to pick up his trash and toss it in the trash. I hear the lid banging around and see Finn trying to throw it away. H is always tuned in. Lily argues everything, Dax pretends he's completely deaf. Does this mean, maybe, just maybe I have one that can not only hear my voice but even comprehend the words I say?? If this continues it would only be a bit of a miracle! I know, it's probably just a stage, but I'm grateful for it while it lasts!