Month: February 2010

We all went to church tonight.  When we got into the car I asked Molly what she learned in her class.   It went something like this:

“You know Saul and Abel?”

Me:  “You mean Cain and Abel?”

“No.  Saul and Abel were in a fight.”

Me:  “You mean Cain and Abel and Cain killed his brother Abel?”

“No…one was hairy and they tricked their dad.”

Me and Josh: “Oh, you mean Jacob and Esau?”

“Yeah.  Jacob or Esau was hairy…Esau or Jacob was hairy….or Jacob or Esau…ummmm….”

Josh went on to tell the story a bit and help her out.  I had not a clue from the start that she was headed to the story of Jacob and Esau.  BUT, I am glad she is learning….in her own special way.

What a weekend this has been! GiGi came over to play with Molly, and they had a very fun time together. Faith and Alex stayed the night and played and played with our kids all day long on Saturday! Josh burnt our Christmas tree in a fire outside…that was scary. We had a family over for lunch today…it was so fun. Here are some pictures. I am running low on energy at the moment and should really be sleeping. Forgive me if it isn’t as fun to read. 🙂

Sweet GiGi and her popsicle

Faith and Molly with their popsicles

Mack. He cracks me up. He got to spend the night with Molly b/c Ruby stayed the night with Katherine. He also played with GiGi and Alex and Faith–all girls. On Sunday when we had a family with two boys over, he said, “EVEN boys are coming!!!!” I think he was ready for some boys in the house, rather than only girls.

Josh overlooking the fire pit after he burned our Christmas tree. The tree has been laying out back in the yard for a couple of months now. When any branches went in the fire it was amazing how quickly they burnt up! I missed a golden opportunity to get a picture of Josh burning the top part of the tree. I guess I was too nervous to take a picture. I thought he was gonna burn something down. It made the hugest burst of flames, and he thought it was great. I made all of the kids come and sit with me over by the swing away from the fire. Josh said, “You are just like Druie. She would worry Irvin to death when he would burn.”

This flame doesn’t even begin to compare with the flames that were rolling around when Josh threw in the top part of the tree.

Alex and Molly

Mack!

Big feet, little feet

Mack got to spend the night with Molly. He slept in Ruby’s princess bed with pink sheets. Hilarious.

He was extremely excited.

Molly held his hand and told him not be scared because she would be right there with him all night. Sweet sister!

Glad that our weekend was such fun. We have a busy week ahead, so I think I will try and steal a few minutes of sleep! Bye!

Last night I re-read Chapters 5 and 6 of SO LONG INSECURITY by Beth Moore.  It is a wonderful book.  I mean, I moaned and groaned through much of it, but in the end, I am very glad I read it!  And now I am going back through it and answering questions that Beth Moore posts on her blog.  Here’s the challenge of the book/the journey to security:  “to let the healthy, utterly whole, and completely secure part of us increasingly overtake our earthen vessels until it drives our every emotion, reaction, and relationship.”  Wow.  I could go for that.

You should definitely get the book if you don’t already have it!  Here are a few excerpts from the first couple of chapters…maybe it will peak your interest.

And, by the way, this is NOT a man-bashing book AT ALL.  It does encourage us to look to God to meet all of our needs and release any human being of meeting needs that they were never intended to meet!

“…if you are a real, live, honest-to-goodness secure woman who is neither obsessed with a man’s affirmation nor nursing a grudge against one, you did not arrive at that place by accident.  None of us will!”

“Men are not our problem;  it’s what we are trying to get from them that messes us up.”

“I want some soul-deep decurity drawn from a source that never runs dry and never disparages us for requiring it.”  (Sounds good, doesn’t it?)

Now this little bit  below really spoke to me because I can talk to myself about how ridiculous it is that I fail in the same areas over and over again (like, once a month, like clock work).

“Setbacks, on the other hand, just make us feel weak and stupid: I should have conquered this by now. I happened on a question not long ago that perfectly expresses this mentality:  How many times must I prove myself an idiot?”

Beth Moore lists a few questions and adds her answers, of which some are quite comical.  Here are some of the questions of an insecurity inventory.

Do I cry easily?

Do I avoid the spotlight?

Do I have a strong desire to make amends whenever I think I’ve done something wrong?

If someone gets mad at me, do I have a hard time not thinking about it?

Do I sometimes feel anxious for no apparent reason?

Does it hurt my feelings when I learn that someone doesn’t like me?

Do I fear that my husband might leave me for someone else?

“Security in any earthly thing simply cannot be sustained.”

Do you have “one thing that you think would make you more secure in all things?”

Oh my goodness.  I do hope some of those quotes from Beth Moore will get you interested in reading her book if you haven’t already.

Here is what my sweet little family was doing while I was reading and commenting on the blog:

They look comfy, don’t they?  Makes me want to go climb back into bed myself, but laundry calls!  I must get up from here.

We are planning for a fun weekend….GiGi is coming to play with Molly, Alex and Faith are staying the night while their mom and dad enjoy some time together, Ruby has her first soccer practice tonight, and she is spending the night with Katherine on Saturday night.  Hopefully, we will get our act together enough to have a family over for Sunday lunch.  Maybe I will snap some pictures to share!  Stay tuned.

I said, “Look, Mack, I am making fruit punch!”

Molly pipes in, “OOOOH! I want some fruit punch.  I haven’t had any of that in YEARS!”

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Earlier today Mack was in Ruby’s room and, inevitably, messing with her stuff.  She fussed at him and told him he had to get out of her room, and he told her, “NO, I do not, YOUNG LADY!”  It was hilarious.

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Ruby was playing with the little army men and the Indians with Mack and said, “Let’s pretend like I defeated you in the battle.”  Really?  Defeated?  I am so proud of her  broad vocabulary.

Gran and PawPaw came to town during the week of Ruby’s show and tell date at school.  Gran is retired from being a Media Specialist.  She knows all about elementary kids, and she can read-aloud with the best.  Ruby had decided that she wanted to show her friends at school all of her “Ruby” books.  I thought it would be perfect to have Gran read a few out loud while she was in town.  It all worked out perfectly!  Gran and PawPaw met at Ruby’s school around 11:00 and did show and tell, then they ate lunch with Ruby!  What a fun day.  Ruby said it was the best show and tell ever.  And that is how I had hoped she would feel about it.

Gran said that Ruby was very comfortable with her friends.  Ruby introduced her guests and then showed each of her books.  She was funny when she got to RUBY’S POTTY book.  She said, “I did NOT want to bring this one!”  She had told me that I could leave that one out, but I didn’t think she really didn’t want it there at all.  Gran said it was cute.  They read TEA FOR RUBY, Ruby’s favorite.  They also read RUBY IN HER OWN TIME, and then they sang a duck song after that.

These are the “Ruby” books and one “Molly” book hanging in the girls room.

RUBY IN HER OWN TIME  was the first book we got with Ruby’s name in it.  Gran gave us the first one; a friend of mine sent me the same book a few months later.

It is about a little duck that takes a little longer to do things than the other ducklings.  The dad keeps telling the mom that she will catch up “in her own time.”

This is my favorite excerpt from the book:

Isn’t that the sweetest thing?

This is the most recent one we bought.  It’s about a little girl who is so excited to have been invited to have tea with the Queen.  She is a loud, fun-loving girl that others seem to think won’t have a clue how to act at tea with the Queen.

You have no idea how my Ruby hates getting her hair brushed.  It can be maddening!  I tell her that I don’t mean to hurt her and that I just have to brush her hair out.  She grunts and whines until it is over.  I may or may not tell her that we can cut all of her hair off if she wants to not have tangles.  Sometimes perspective is in order.

In the end, Ruby finds out that the invitation is for tea with her grandma!  How fun!  Now she can just be herself and not worry about all the rules of having tea that everyone was telling her.  It’s a very cute book.

By the end of the book, Ruby knows how to use her potty!  I have read this so many times in hopes that it would magically potty train my girls.  It didn’t potty train them, but it is a good book.

Here, her teacher is using her buttons as “volume control.”

This book has great pictures, too.

This book is about a little girl named Molly who has a wonderful grandmother.  She tells her to “smile big and the world will smile with you” or “sing loud and the world with sing along with you.”  The little girl uses her grandmother’s advice when she moves to a new city and has to make new friends.  See, Molly is a bit different, but in the end she makes lots of new friends!

At the end of the book we get to see her grandmother…small and different, just like Molly.  Molly writes her grandmother to tell her that everything she told  her was right!

Well, well, well…I am sitting at a computer that works completely.  Josh did a great thing and took the computer in to the APPLE store.  They fixed a very expensive part of the computer that was still under warranty.  Yipee.

Today I took Ruby to school and Molly to her Art and Music classes.  I always get to talk to Mrs. Mary, a great friend, while Mack plays with Ben and Katherine (Krafferine, as Mack says).  Their family is moving a couple of months or so.  It is a sad thing to think about for me, so I am choosing not to think about it too often.  Ruby and Katherine are such good friends.  They have been friends since they were little, little, little and bald.  Ok, enough about that.  I only tell you that sad news to tell you that we got some toys for our house that Mrs. Mary no longer needs/wants in her house.  She gave us a million little soldier and Indian men.  We also inherited those awesome cardboard bricks like you used to play with in Sunday School when you were a toddler.

Molly and Mack tore into all of it as soon as we got  home today, and they played for at least an hour and a half without coming downstairs.  Right now they are all three upstairs playing with all the new stuff.

And, Mrs. Mary, I think you will see that they like what you gave them.

I don’t know who will even begin to start putting any of this in it’s proper place, but that’s ok….cuz when you look at this cute, happy face, you just have to smile, too!

Ruby is all dressed up and telling me who is playing who and where the beds are and where “Pa” sleeps.  Though they are playing like they are on Little House on the Prairie, I cannot imagine that “Half Pint” ever saw such clothes as Ruby is sportin’.

Molly is a “princess” taking a nap.  I thought maybe she was a dog in a cage.

Ruby’s bed usually looks like this these days.  She reads all of the time.  So proud of her!

I hope I will be posting more regularly these days.  Josh wants to try to connect wirelessly again.  I don’t think I can take it.  Maybe I will go for a walk or do SOMETHING besides be a part of messing with the computer right now.  🙂

Well, it seems forever since I have been able to update the blog. Our internet service is working, but our computer ethernet port is defective.  We cannot connect directly to the internet from our computer to the new modem our IP provider brought out today.  SO, after a very frustrating week (really this has gone on at some level ever since we moved here 8 months ago), we now think we know what the main issue is.  I hope it will be handled by then end of this week.  We surely will see.

In the meantime, I will share that Josh and I just got back from a Marriage Retreat weekend at Winshape Retreat in Rome, GA.  It was phenomenal.  I loved, loved, loved getting away with Josh.  Our sitter did great;  I was very confident that she could handle whatever may have happened here with the kids.  And she did!  The kids had a fun time.  They played outside, watched Little House on the Prairie, and ate lots of food.  Mack managed to wet his bed and himself each night.  Oh well.  It couldn’t have gone perfectly…..but it nearly did!

Back to the retreat.  Winshape is a beautiful, Christ-centered retreat facility.  The workers there are Christians.  The ladies who clean the rooms pray over the rooms and over the people who will be staying in them.  The men who keep up the grounds also pray that the beauty of the place will direct us towards the Lord.  It is amazing.  The food was so very yummy.  I felt like we ate every couple of hours.  Oink, oink.

The speakers did a wonderful job of challenging us as a couple and as parents.  I definitely know that I need to watch more carefully and prayerfully what comes out of my mouth because it is shaping someone’s heart, potentially.  I got to know others in our class even better, too, and that was so much fun.  One statement that stuck out was in regards to time with Josh.  During this season with our kids and considering their ages and their needy-ness, we need to learn to “capitalize on the minutes.” I am a quality time person, and I usually enjoy large chunks of uninterrupted time with Josh, but that is not a reality on an extremely regular basis, BUT Josh is home most evenings and weekends and can even stay later in the mornings than most dads….I want to use the minutes I have to encourage him, love him and build us up as a couple….rather than waiting until we have a whole day together, ya’ know?

And while I am telling about what I am learning and how I am growing, I finished SO LONG INSECURITY by Beth Moore.  I highly recommend it.  I soaked it up and am going back through it with a large group on Beth Moore’s blog.  There is TONS of scripture to meditate upon, and I am very much enjoying that part of where I am.  The Lord is so good, so faithful, and so merciful to me.  I can hardly make sense of it all.

“The Lord, the Lord, the gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love!”  That verse is in Exodus somewhere.  I don’t know where my purse is with my Bible and Scripture rolodex thing.  BUT, that is a good one and has ministered to me as I have meditated on it.

I hope everyone has a great week.  You will know as soon as my internet is up and working at my house!  I will have to post some pictures.  The grandparents surely must be missing that part of the blog!  Surely.  🙂

Ruby is reading so well these days.  She told me, “Reading is my favorite thing to do.  It used to be coloring before I knew how to read.  But now it is reading.”  I am so proud of how much she reads.  She reads signs on buildings.  She reads her books, she reads my blog, she reads the cereal box, and more.  There are definitely some precautions that come with having a reader in the house.  One of Josh’s Anniversary cards had an old couple on the front.  The man was doing a crossword puzzle and asked the wife, “What’s a three letter word for hot?”  Her reply was, “You.”  Ruby read it out loud and wanted to know what it meant.

Last night Mack fell off of Josh’s back while they were wrestling.  He landed right on Ruby’s nose.  Ow!  I got her an ice pack and wrapped it with a napkin so it wouldn’t be so cold.  She put it on her nose and then after a second she said, “The Johnson girls wondered why they always had yellow snowmen.”

We ran out of plain napkins and paper towels, so we have been using old Christmas napkins.  This one happened to be the one she got wrapped around her ice pack.  Funny.

We had a fun weekend.  We stayed at home and watched it snow AGAIN.  I don’t really have much good to say about the snow because when it snows, it is really cold, and I will take really warm rather than really cold any day.  So, we let the kids have their Valentine gifts early since we’d be stuck in the house together for the weekend.  🙂

It was mostly tacky, Valentiney stuff…pink calculator, stuffed animal, coloring book…we got the girls a Dick and Jane book, too.

This is where I stayed when it snowed.  The others went out and played in it.

This picture totally cracks me up.  When I saw it on the computer, it immediately reminded me of NATIONAL LAMPOONS CHRISTMAS VACATION.  It looks like Josh is about to ride that thing (I can’t remember what it is called, but we use it for fires out back) all the way down the hill.  He didn’t.  Thank goodness!

We caught up on school today.  I am just about all caught up on laundry.  I am also still in my pajamas because “I am just about to exercise.”  It’s amazing all the things you can do to put off what you need to do, but don’t want to do!!

Oh, by the way, we got a new router for our wireless set-up and it is working great.  Josh spent quite a bit of time on the phone getting the answers we needed.  He is such a good husband.  He also made Vegetable soup this weekend.  I didn’t cook at all.  Very nice.  The Valentines gift he got for me was great!  A facial and massage….he knows me well.

Last night at church we took all the kids in with us because it was a short service.  Mack was facing me and grabbing my face and would say, “I’m goin’ eat you up.”  It was hilarious.  I am so thankful for the preschool department of our church!  I couldn’t handle listening AND keeping the kids quiet.  That would be misery.  Molly has a lot to learn before August if she plans to sit with us in church….or maybe I should say if Josh wants to sit with us during church.  He is very strict about being quiet in church and not being distracting.  I am glad he is.  I just don’t know if Molly is ready for it or not!  We’ll see…..

During our trip to Augusta, the girls went to the dentist.  Not just any dentist, I tell you….my childhood friend, the friend who watched out her window waving good bye to me as a drunk driver hit our car in her neighborhood, the friend who endured many, many violin sessions next to me as we shared a stand during several years at a Fine Arts school, the friend who rode the front seat of the bus with me and even survived a very scary bus ride one afternoon on the way home, the friend who heard about my first kiss and how disgusting I thought it was…while on a church trip, mind you (where were the counselors?!), the friend who put together a dance routine with me that we had to perform in front of our class, (there’s more, trust me!),  the Dr. Kelly W. Hughes.  It was so neat to see Kelly “in action.”  She did so great with the girls.  Ruby and Molly did great.  I was ecstatic to hear that there are NO CAVITIES in their candy-loving teeth!  I had already mentally prepared myself that if they had cavities it did not equal me being a “bad mom.”

Dr. Kelly was counting Ruby’s teeth and giving one last look…and I saw sweet little Molly’s hand and Ruby’s hand….so sweet!

Mack was in the waiting room with Sweetie making sure all of our coats were getting hanged on the coat rack.  Twin boys came in completely dressed alike from head to toe, and he looked at Sweetie and then looked at the boys, then told Sweetie, “Those are two boys.”  He paused and then said, “That one is bigger.”  I think he was trying to convince himself that they were not exactly the same.  He’s never been around twins before.

So our first trip to the dentist was extremely positive for all of us!  Thanks, Dr. Hughes!  🙂