Micro-finance and Caterpillars

One of my favorite memories from last summer was a bright Sunday afternoon when K-Fab and I went for a walk.  Not for exercise.  Not to walk the dog (he wasn’t here yet).  But just because she said, “Mom, can we go for a walk?”.

Typically, this was hard for me.  I’m often goal oriented with plans, lists and agendas.  Why would I want to meander around the neighborhood?  I like walking briskly to burn off the dessert I ate the night before!  Walk with a 5 year – old!!?  Do you know how s l o w that is???

So when she asked me, I decided to go against the productive person inside myself and just go for the sake of enjoying time with my precious daughter – walk her pace.  Stop where she wanted to stop. Look at the things she wanted to look at.

And it was such a great gift.

What would you guess we talked about?  Grass?  Dogs?  Kindergarten?  Clouds?  Hannah Montana?

No.

Micro-financing.

Seriously.

She began asking about people around the world who are in need of food and water – and different ways to help them.  Since she had recently learned to knit, I explained the concept to her in reference to that (a woman who gets a loan to buy yarn in order to knit items to sell, so she can provide food for her family).  I remember praising God for those  moments of walking down the sidewalk in the warm sun, talking to my 5-year-old about how to help people on the other side of the earth.  Amazing.

About a 1/2 mile from home, we stumbled upon a giant fuzzy caterpillar.  So we hurried back to get our bikes and a bug jar to try to capture a new little pet.   I loved seeing her enjoy something so simple.

The entire walk and bike ride lasted about 2 hours (she was determined to walk over four miles).  That day was such a great reminder for me to slow down and enjoy the everyday moments with my kids.

Not everything needs an agenda.  🙂

 

End of Summer Sleepover

Last week we had three girls from the neighborhood over to have an American Girl Night sleepover.  K-Fab and I thought it would be fun for them to bring their dolls, watch a movie and enjoy a tasty dessert.  Little did I know that my house was going to be taken over by dolls!!

I asked K-Fab what special dessert she wanted to make.  I had all these great ideas – an ice cream sundae bar with tons of toppings, decorate your own cupcakes, etc. etc.  What did she want?  A chocolate birthday cake from a Sesame Street cookbook.  Not as fun to me, but since it was her little soirée, she had the final say.

Now what would you expect they would enjoy after some tasty cake?

Glass of water – check.

Glass of milk – check.

Giant chocolate chip cookies decorated with their names made by my neighbor, Janet (and mother to two of the girls) – check!!  Why not!!!? It’s a sleepover – sugar overdoses are required, right?

Next was movie time.  We got Felicity, an American Girl movie, which the girls LOVED.  And, what do you think their dolls did during the movie?  They were set up to enjoy the flick too. (duh!)

And finally, because it was a sleepover, the dolls all needed their own beds and sleeping arrangements.  And one doll in particular, Kaya, (as seen in the first photo) had her entire village, including her horse and campfire which made me chuckle.  These girls spent a good hour setting up their sleeping arrangements and K-Fab’s little room was packed to the max.

Forgive me for another food picture, but 1.  I love food and 2. I like taking pictures so therefore, I take lots of pictures of food.

After their bright and early 6:30 am awakening, we enjoyed chocolate chip pancakes together along with whatever was left of their cookie.

I kept the kids overnight – it was only fair that I send them home sleep-deprived with a sugar high, right?  🙂

 

M and His Dirt

I have the cutest little neighbor,  M. . . I guess he’s not too little – three years old and darn adorable.   I’ve told you about him before when the angels feared he had the swine flu.

The other day I was out taking photos of the kids doing the cute things they do and I stumbled upon M, working on a pile of dirt, shoveling dirt from the ground into a wagon.  Or was it from the wagon into the dirt pile?  Nevertheless, it really doesn’t matter what he was doing – M thought it was worthwhile and had a purpose for his actions.  I  loved some of the photos I took of him working hard on his project.

Check out his face – a hard little worker!

Little Man

 

A Day at the Zoo

I took the kids and my 2 year old nephew to the zoo today.  It was GORGEOUS weather and since we hadn’t been to the zoo in forever, it was a ton of fun.  Here are a few of my favorite photos.

J-Money was insistent that he hold my nephew, J, for this pic.

I’m not sure J was too thrilled about that idea.

This next photo is not great because of the lighting but it was so interesting because the tiger was roaring right at the kids.

This was news to me – they now offer camel rides at the zoo.  Who knew?

 

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

I couldn’t help but post a simple link today to my neighbor Jane’s blog.

Our kids played together most of the day along with two other neighbor friends and she explains the touching and hilarious moments.  Enjoy!

 

Glory in the Clouds

This is the beginning of my running route.  It may look long and boring from this simple picture (which it totally is sometimes) but other days, I’m given a gift along the way of something interesting to observe.  Yesterday, I felt like God gave me my own personal sky show.  

It looked like it was about to rain right when I began at 8:30 am and that excited me because I love running in the rain.  

It’s refreshing.

It’s different.  

I think the humidy helps my asthma. 

Dark, ominous clouds hovered everywhere. They seemed like they would begin pouring buckets of rain on me at any moment, but instead they just twirled, floated and shoved their way through the sky.  

At one point, to my right, a large patch of dark charcoal clouds opened an oval shaped window to reveal bright white puffballs of fluff with the glory of the sun shining on them.  The oval window smoothly and slowly began to close, hiding the bright clouds as if they weren’t even there.  It was as if I had a sneak peak of the beauty that was to come after the storm.

I was listening to some worship songs and couldn’t help but feel like God was saying “Good Morning” in a special way to me.  

I think I’ll run again tomorrow.

 

 

 

The Neighborhood Pool

Today started off as a rainy, stormy morning.  The forcast was for thunderstorms on and off so the kids and I decided to hang out at home.  

Every time it does rain, a large puddle forms on the street in front of our house.  My kids started off playing in it at 8:30 AM in the raincoats and rain boots as the rain poured down.  However, as the day progressed and the sun peeked its way through the clouds, K-Fab and her friend, A decided that bathing suits would be more fun.  

As they became  more willing to get wet, they slowly eased their way to laying down in the water.

And as you can imagine, as the boys (their brothers) watched this, they came up with a brilliant idea – ride through the puddle and splash the girls!!!  

Of course, that would be the most logical activity.  

The girls awaiting their uncertain fate.

And loving every minute of it.

Oh, the fun we have in the neighborhood pool.

 

Christmas in August

I feel like I’ve been such a slacker blogger.  

Please forgive me.

Not that I have a plethora of people reading, but I know there are at least a solid five of you out there and since my Aunt Kathi is so supportive and  loves it so much, I continue for her.  🙂

Summer has been a happily busy time.  And now that it actually feels like summer, we’re attempting to soak in the sun as much as possible.  When not enjoying the outdoors, I have spent a lot of time locked in my dungeon (i.e. painting the entire basement before the carpet gets put in). The dungeon is not so bad though – I actually really enjoy painting and I get to watch unlimited amounts of the food network and HGTV while I do it.  So those are my primary excuses for scattered blogging (not that you were asking for a reason, but if you were – there it is).    

We have been spending a lot of time at SP – and one of our favorite holidays during the summer is Christmas in August.  Oh yes, SP celebrates Christmas – in August.  (And they celebrate Halloween in July.)

I was really hoping to get some stellar photos because it’s like nothing you’ve ever seen.  Unfortunately, J-Money was feeling terribly sick that night so before we ever really got started, we ended up heading home.  That being said, I have a couple photos but since it’s not even dark yet, you can’t really get the real feel for it.  Maybe next year.

Basically, amidst the 1800 trailers, people decorate their golf carts and sites for Christmas.  When it begins to get dark, families drive around on golf carts and admire the Christmas lights.  People dress up like Santa, others pass out candy canes.  There is a good 1/4 mile stretch where a large group of neighbors puts out luminaries.  It’s slightly crazy but very endearing.  It’s one of the many reasons we love hanging out there.  Oh – did I mention tons of blown up lawn decor?

This photo would have been much better fully lit:

 K-Fab embracing the holiday with her Santa hat

Merry Christmas!!! 🙂

 

The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

In my previous post I already discussed the bad and ugly parts of our summer vacation (last week).  Now for the good parts.  

On Monday, our group of friends came over for dinner.  If you’ve read my blog this summer, you’ll know we get together on Mondays to share a meal and fun times with each other and our kids. You may recall the burnt chicken and strawberry shortcake incident  or maybe the joy of the salmon burgers that our friend Angela made.  Well, on this occasion, we just had the pure joy of witnessing kids being kids.  Exhibit A:  Kids like to choose their own outfits

Exhibit B: Kids like to finish of the very last lick of ice cream 

 

Our kids also went to Vacation Bible School that week at SP and loved it.  There is a tractor that rides around and picks up the kids to bring them to Bible School.  It’s awesome.

KFab waiting for the ride to begin:

We also had a lot of fun seeing my grandparents who were visiting from Florida.  We had a family competition of ‘chuck-o’ a.k.a ‘cornhole’ but I’m waiting for my mom to send me those photos that I took on her camera (hint hint, mom). 🙂 

 

An Inconvenient Week

Have you ever had one of those days where nothing really goes right?  Not that anything terrible happens but more that you have many tiny inconveniences that make your day simply inconvenient?  

That feels like today.  And the day before.  And the day before. . .  and the day before.  Actually, I don’t remember when these mishaps began – perhaps it was when Ryan violently sprained his ankle – or when J-Money got swimmers ear – or when K-Fab had strep throat.  Oh wait – that was all the same day.  So I guess it started then.

Like I said, nothing too major but lots of little things – I’ve been spilling/dropping/tripping over everything and anything.  My favorite mess I made was when I dropped an egg on the rug at SP (where we don’t have a washer/dryer). . . or actually, spilling 1 1/2 cups of feta cheese on the carpet was truly awesome – oh wait – those were both the same day also.  Thankfully the feta vacuumed up but as I finished vacuuming the rest of the trailer, then wouldn’t you know it, our vacuum broke. 

K-Fab also had a physically traumatic reaction to the antibiotics for her strep throat – a bright red spotted rash over her entire body. Everywhere.  And bright red.  And seemed to be exacerbated by the sun.  Thankfully, we realized it was an allergic reaction to the medicine and not Swimmer’s Itch which is what the nurse on the phone originally thought it was.  (And I’m thankful it wasn’t that b.c. Swimmer’s Itch is a reaction to the feces of water fowl from swimming in lake water.  Wouldn’t that have just been lovely.)

Since we  happened to be on ‘vacation’ at SP this past week and K-Fab’s rash began on Tuesday, for the second half of the week we needed to keep her out of sun – not an easy task when the main activities here are outdoors.  Indoor Pool on a perfect 78 degree, sunny day.  Splendid.

Speaking of outdoors – yesterday Ryan and J-Money were going to swim across the cove but quickly noticed the yellow papers attached to all the boat stakes – the water was just treated with chemicals to control weeds.  Awesome.  Not appealing for this organic, all-natural mom.

So, here we are on ‘vacation’ and Ryan can’t walk, J-Money can’t swim in the lake, K-Fab looks like she has chicken pox or some violently contagious disease and needs to stay out of the sun.  What’s wrong with me you kindly ask?  Nothing that a good psychologist can’t help me with.  🙂

Let me tell you, I’m ready for a vacation from this vacation.  However, lest you think I am mad, bitter and seriously going insane from all these events, I assure you I’m really handling it all quite well.  Like I said in the beginning, we’re thankful that nothing has been majorly bad  (all wounds/sickness/rashes are now on the mend) – it’s all just minor inconveniences that coninue to happen day after day after day after day.  . .

To be continued. . .