Happy Easter, 2008

Posted March 23rd, 2008 by Mom | Comments (0)

Wow – what a fun filled day!!

We started the morning with going to church. The boys were dressed in new clothes – beige dress shorts with green shirts and white sweaters with argyle diamonds down the front in beige, green, yellow and blue. C’s age group had a special Sunday School lesson filled with puppets and skits. J enjoyed making a mobile in his class.

After church we came home and the kids played with their Easter baskets until it was time for relatives to arrive to celebrate Easter (and J’s 4th birthday) with lunch and an Easter egg hunt. We had fried chicken and my homemade biscuits for lunch with delicious side items. J’s birthday cake and ice cream was for dessert. I made J’s cake last night. It was a brown runway with white lines and bordered by chocolate morsels. On either side was green for the grass that is near the runways and I had one of J’s toy airplanes landed on the runway. The runway was numbered “04.” J requested vanilla cake, and I happily obliged.

After lunch J got to open his birthday presents – clothes and a police car from Nana and Pop, from Grandma and Grandpa B – a box of cotton toddler gloves in various styles and a stuffed animal from Horton Hears a Who that is wearing blue gloves (how perfect!), and a bouncy ball and toy motorcycle from Aunt E. B and I gave J several DVDs (Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Fox and the Hound 2, and a Bob the Builder DVD) and a AWANA Cubbie stuffed bear. B and I had also compiled a bunch of photos of relatives and people that J knows into a book. Each person is wearing some kind of glove (baseball, rubber, golf, dishwashing, etc.) J loved the book, especially the picture of his preschool teacher, Mrs. S. J said, “I love her!” I think we are seeing J’s first crush. How sweet!

While the boys played with their toys, B and Grandpa hid the 80+ Easter eggs in the back yard. C and J had an incredible time finding the eggs. It was hilarious to see one of the boys find an egg and have so much excitement! At one point, J had to put down his basket and put on his rubber gloves. (Smart, it was a chilly day today – in the 40′s.) Once C and J had found all the eggs, they were tired of hunting them. I guess this means that I filled enough/enough were hidden to entertain them.

Yesterday evening the boys got to dye hard boiled eggs. It was not very eventful. I got the towels on the table and the glasses out. The boys watched me put the dye tablets in the glasses and then I measured the vinegar and added it to the tablets. Once the tablets were dissolved, I added the water. We had 9 cups of colors. I boiled a dozen eggs, this meant that each boy had 6 eggs to dye. Like I said, this was very uneventful. It required more set up time than actual dying time. However, since neither boy likes to eat boiled eggs, it worked out well without a lot of waste, but quite a bit of entertainment.

Now I have the kitchen cleaned up and have the boys in bed. B is eating his dinner and I will prepare mine. What a busy day! What a fun day!! Happy Easter! The Lord is Risen!!!

Can you take me there one day Daddy?

Posted March 20th, 2008 by Dad | Comments (0)

Tonight we had a crystal clear brilliant full moon. I love the moon, and try to share the wonder of the skys to both our boys. I was laying in C’s bed after tucking him in and he asked to get on my shoulders to look out and see the moon, which is something we had not done in a while. I was happy to oblige. I did so, and he tells me what a pretty moon it is.

He asks, in a way only a child can, Will you take me there one day please Daddy?

Oh son, how much I would love to. Maybe you can go one day. I hope so.

Icky dreams

Posted March 20th, 2008 by Mom | Comments (0)

Have you ever had a nightmare, so vivid, that you woke up terrified? That happened to me last night. I remember dreaming and then I woke up, feeling like I screamed out loud (although B didn’t awaken, so I must not have really screamed). When I woke up, it was still dark, but I don’t know what time it was. I won’t go into the details of the bad dream, even though I remember it distinctly.

I was able to get back to sleep awhile later, only to have another bad dream. (What’s up with all these dreams?!) In this dream I was going to go on a railroad trip with some friends to a ball game for my college alma mater. However, for reasons unknown to me, the trip was to begin at a rail station a few hours from here. Strange. Anyway, B and I were late in getting to the rail station and I was very upset about missing the trip. We ended up looking at a house that we were going to purchase (that the current owners were refurbishing). The new flooring tile was a speckled pale blue (wouldn’t be my first choice, nor my second, nor my third for that matter…) and the upstairs bedrooms were not finished/no walls on one side – it was like they looked out over the living room. The biggest problem was in the kitchen. The floor of the kitchen had a huge crack in it where the concrete foundation of the house had broken.

In my dream, B told me that it could be easily fixed with a load of dirt and some concrete with new tile (hopefully not blue!). I was already upset about missing the train ride and ball game and the messed up house was the final straw. (A note to the parental units… no, we are not thinking about moving! And if we were to think about moving, it wouldn’t be several hours away from here!) And it certainly wouldn’t be to move into a house with a faulty foundation!!

I told B that there was no way that I was going to purchase that house. There were too many problems and I don’t remember anymore of the dream from this point.

Suffice as to say, I’m tired. I feel emotionally drained from the first dream and annoyed at even having the second dream. I needed restful sleep, not such a busy, pointless (and totally unattractive) dream. I would prefer to dream about warm spring days at the park, watching my kids play on the playground with me pushing them on the swings and sliding down the slides. Feeding the ducks a loaf of bread is fun too.

Any ideas for forcing good dreams to occur?

Ooooh, Clean!

Posted March 18th, 2008 by Mom | Comments (0)

A couple of days ago, my mom called me and asked me if I would like her to come over today and help me wash my wooden blinds and my windows (inside windows, not outside). Of course, I was thrilled with the idea! It is very hard sometimes to accomplish large tasks with C and J. It is very easy to get side tracked and this results in nothing getting done.

We were able to get the kitchen, living room and dining room windows cleaned. This might not sound like a lot, but it is 2 double windows and 7 single windows and 1 glass door with floor to top blinds. All the wooden blinds were removed and washed, windows cleaned and the blinds put back up. It took me 4 hours and took my mom 6 hours! (I had to take C to a doctor’s appointment – that is why I didn’t help the whole time.) My mom worked so hard, even while I was gone, with Jared playing in the fort during this gloriously warm weather.

The only remaining rooms are the bedrooms and the playroom. Taking 1 room at a time, I should be able to finish with the boys being my helpers. (After I would take the blinds out of their rope holders, J would carry them to my mom to have them washed.)

At the beginning of the cleaning process, the boys were very active/overjoyed to see Nana. After a while, they calmed down and went about their normal day-to-day activities. As I was cleaning one of the windows, I would just drop the used paper towels on the floor since I knew I could pick them all up at one time. To get J involved in the process, my mom suggested that J pick up the paper towels and put them in the garbage. J replied, “It’s too hard for me” or something like that. I did hear my mom’s reply, “You’re not the first male to complain that work would hurt him!” This brought some laughter to a drudgery task.

While we worked, we talked about my upcoming birthday and plans for Easter. The boys are going to dye Easter eggs on Saturday and we are celebrating J’s birthday on Sunday. I can’t believe my baby is going to be 4!

Thanks mom for doing the lion’s share of making my home clean and look so much better! I’ve known that I needed to clean the blinds, but have been sidetracked with so many other events and projects. You’re awesome!!!

The Negotiator

Posted March 17th, 2008 by Mom | Comments (0)

This evening I told J to get ready for bed.  He asked me how many books I was going to read to him.  I replied, “2.”

J then walked over to Daddy and asked, “How many would you read to me?”

I’m going to take J with me the next time I buy a car… (or am face to face with a police office that is about to write me a ticket…)

The Everlasting Mommy

Posted March 14th, 2008 by Mom | Comments (0)

I have been working with the boys on them learning the Easter story.  I’ve told them about Jesus being nailed to the wooden cross and him dying.  After 3 days God made Jesus come back to life and now Jesus lives in Heaven and our hearts when we believe in Jesus as our Saviour.

A couple of days ago, the boys were playing good guy/bad guy.  J came up to me and told me that he was going to kill me.  I replied, “It’s not nice to talk like that.  I don’t want to be dead.”

J replied, “It’s okay.  God will make you alive again.”

Me, “Um…”