BAD NEWS: Ruby and Mack wet the bed last night.

GOOD NEWS: They were sleeping in the same bed last night.

As I was sharing this bad news/good news business with Josh and saying, “At least I only have one set of sheets to wash this morning!,” he decided to capitalize on my “half glass full” mentality.

CONFESSION (from Josh): “I guess this would be a good time to tell you that I took them to Dairy Queen last night.”

Really?  See, I met at friend at about 7:00PM for coffee.  I came home around 8:50PM and found everyone together happily watching a movie in the dark. (translation: everyone was up/awake/not in bed and the house was dark which is gross to me…I don’t know why exactly, but I like lamps ON if I am awake.)

And when asked, “How did the night go?”  and later asked “Did the kids do ok for you?”— it didn’t occur to ANY ONE of the four stinkers to say, “We got an ice cream tonight!!!!,” which now that I am thinking about it is just plain weird….and makes me think that MAYBE, just maybe they had a little talk about “let’s not mention this to mom when she gets home, ok kids?”

Interesting.

So, there you have it.  A little bad news, good news, and a confession on this beautiful Tuesday morning.

Anything you need to confess?  They say it’s good for the soul.

I don’t know if I’m the only one, but Monday mornings are ROUGH around here.  Sundays are usually full and fun and late.  And then there’s the laundry that multiplies over the weekend.  And the car that has more stuff in it than…than..um, I don’t know.  It’s a lot of stuff.  And the kitchen.  Let’s not even talk about the kitchen.  Home schooling doesn’t get started til 10ish on Mondays and usually involves an extended recess so that I can get said laundry and kitchen under some kind of control.

There’s this other “issue.”  His name is Mack.  He seems to be really confused about what it means when I am teaching the girls.  To him SCHOOLING THE GIRLS=ENDLESS Wii AND NETFLIX.  He gets upset when I let him know that this won’t be happening (except it totally did today…I just didn’t have it in me).  So while today he wasn’t met with much resistance when it came to screen time, he was met with resistance when the girls where finished with their work and they wanted a say in what was on the screen. He started with whining about Molly, who happens to be feeling bad today…just some sniffles.  She evidently asked him to get her something and he went off about how “Molly is doing nothing and I am doing everything and she just always needs something and I am trying to do something (watch BackYardigans).”  I explained to him that I was concerned with his heart because his mouth was saying some unkind things.  I reminded him how Molly is a wonderful little nurse to him and to Ruby whenever they don’t feel well.  He got quiet and went back to his show.

I noticed him getting irate about something involving Ruby.  He may or may not have been yelling at the top of his lungs when I intervened.

“MACK.  That is ENOUGH.  You are tired and out of control and you will be going to bed right now.”

“NOOOOOOOOOOO!  I AM NOT TIRED AT ALL.  NOT AT ALL.  NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!”

I just smiled at him and lay him on his bed, hugged him and told him not to get up.

He kicked and kicked and cried and hollered about not being tired.

Within five minutes he was fast asleep.  Two hours later I went in to check on him, and he woke up and said, “I don’t need a nap.”

Sure.

Here’s to hoping Tuesday is a bit more productive in the schooling department and that Mack gets a better night’s sleep!

 

Tonight on the way to dinner at a friend’s house Mack was jabbering and jabbering and making endless, unnecessary noises.  After two warnings to stop, Josh told him he would be going to bed earlier than the girls tonight.  This brought on fake tears and whimpering until I turned around to acknowledge his pitiful face.

Fast forward to our drive home…

Mack:  “What are we doing when we get home?”

Josh:  “It’s 9:45 so everybody is going straight to bed.” (clearly not even remembering the pre-dinner consequence he had delivered to Mack about an early bed time)

Mack: “Oh, so it’s late and everybody is going to bed together??”

Josh: “Yep.”

Molly:  “He was supposed to go to bed earlier!”

Josh: “Well, it’s too late to do that, so everybody goes to bed and we’ll have Mack go to bed early tomorrow night.”

Mack:  “What if you forget?”

Josh:  “Then you won’t have to do it.”

Molly: (said in a very serious tone) “I’ll remind you.  I’ll write it down.”

Mack:  “Then I’ll scribble scrabble through it.”

Molly: “I”ll write it somewhere you can’t see.”

Mack:  “I’ll follow you.”

Gracious.  Those two are a pair.

Of course upon arriving home Molly went straight to her room to lock her door and write it down.

Mack beat on her door and demanded justice.

We laughed at them.

I wish someone would send me to bed earlier than everyone else in my house.

Today Gran would have been 65 years old!  It’s been such a strange year and a few months without her.  As the kids grow up I realize that I miss her more and more.  She  would love to see how they are learning and maturing…and how they challenge us!   I know she would have loved having them down at her house for a week or so each summer…and boy how I know I would have loved that!  We miss her.  Things are not the same without her.  In the same breath, we know she is in Heaven and that we will see her again.

Just yesterday the kids and I were singing a song in the car—it’s a good one that really puts things in perspective!  (Building 429)  This is NOT OUR HOME.

Ruby looks a lot like her…and acts like her, too!  We love how Ruby has some strong personality traits that remind us of Gran–loyalty, a love for books, and a healthy lack of concern of her outward appearance.

I don’t always know what I am going to write about when I sit down at the computer, so titles are sometimes difficult.  I have no idea where I am going with this post, but I felt the desire to write something.

We had a good weekend.  Soccer, errands, new ferns for the front stoop, and a full Sunday.  We had our Sunday School class and then I took the girls to a class to go through the specifics of salvation and then steps of obedience.  Josh had the privilege of nursery duty.  We met back up after that and went to eat Mexican.  I have a love/hate relationship with Mexican food.  I love it when I am hungry and then I hate it when I am full of it….I always feel like a big burrito when I leave, and I always tell Josh to never take me there again!  Not to mention that I had already cooked ahead of time and was ready to come home for Sunday lunch.  Josh, however, has this addiction to eating out, so he usually wins because he has a back row of kids cheering him on to go out to eat.  We went back to church for a meeting and then for the service.    I was thrilled when it was time to lay my head on my pillow.

I spent this morning doing laundry, teaching school to the girls, more laundry and more cleaning.  I’m always amazed at how much junk is under the girls’ beds.  I regularly have them clean out from under their bed, so I am just really unsure of how it happens.  And Mack…oh Mack…that boy is too much.  He would let himself play wii all. day. long. if I would let him.  It is ridiculous.  I don’t even know or care how to work the wii.  I despise the beeps and noise and music that comes from it.

I also spent time planning out the rest of the school year.  Looks like we can stop with all official work at the end of May.  I was thinking I might want to keep going through the month of June, but I have decided otherwise.  We’ll have a three step check list to complete before we go to the pool every day….#1 Read a chapter of the Bible/devotion, #2 Math Flashcards and #3 Do morning chores.  I have a few other workbooks I can pull out if I find it is needed.  Otherwise, we’ll be enjoying our break.

I suppose I could leave you with some pics from south GA…seeing how what I have to say today is quite bland.

We spent several days in South GA and enjoyed the time with Irv, GG and Papa Mac very much.  The kids swam in freezing water, but they did not mind one bit.  We also went fishing one morning.  Friends of The Dorminy’s welcomed us into their cabin, showed us around, let the kids shoot bb guns, swing and drive the golf cart around.  They loved every second of it!  It happened to be quite cold that morning, and we weren’t prepared–thankfully, Mrs. Penny was prepared and shared her sweatshirts with us.  The kids went and played putt-putt one afternoon with PawPaw.  They swam some more, and then we had a great Easter service on Sunday at PawPaw’s church.

Mack (5), Molly (6), Ruby (7)

Thankful for the Celebration of our Risen Savior!

We had a blast in South Georgia this past week….more pictures to come!

The Dorminy Family has had a full week!  We’ve done a little traveling and have enjoyed all of our time away.  Mack turned 5 on Wednesday, and I am 35 today.  This morning Mack asked if it was really my birthday.  I said, “Yes, you just turned 5 and now I am  35!”  He went into this statement:  “And next you will be thirty-” and I had to stop him.  “Mack, I just turned 35, let’s not talk about what comes next.  I’ll be 35 for 364 more days!”

It reminded me of the rounding lesson I had with Ruby the other day.  The directions were for her to circle the number that the middle number would round to…it looked like this:

30    35    40

I just laughed and joked with Ruby that NORMALLY you’d round up, but where it concerns her mama’s age, always round DOWN.

Always.

We looked through Mack’s baby book of pictures, and I must confess that I am glad that I am not just now coming home with a newborn.  It was a sweet time and all, but we are enjoying this season of life so much!  Not to mention that the pictures of me in that book are horrible.  I had Mack at 3:54am after laboring for about 7 hours or so.  In one picture I am faking a smile and holding a vomit bucket.  Lovely.

I continue to pray that I will grow old gracefully and not fight it with all I have.  I mean, seriously, there’s nothing you can do about  getting older and aging.  I want to embrace it, enjoy it and schedule regular hair coloring appointments.

Happy Birthday to Mack and me.

I close with a few pics of Mack throughout his five years.   He’s much cuter to watch age than me!

I included the above picture in case anyone wanted to count all of my teeth.

He doesn’t sit in the sink and play anymore.

This was at his first birthday party.  I distinctly remember not paying quite enough attention to him during the cake eating and then waking up that next morning to chocolate throw up in his crib.  Yuck.

He does still do this from time to time.

You’d cry, too if you had two sisters that own all things pink and purple.

We’ve worked on getting more toys especially for boys over the past five years though.

He’s learned a little about working hard over his five years.  A little.

He’s gotten a ton of haircuts.  Just recently he wanted a mow hawk.  We worked on a faux hawk and then cut it a little to make it a “low hawk.”  It was really cute.  Then, Molly decided to cut Mack’s hair and her own, so he has a buzzed head again.

This was Christmas two years ago.  He is a mess.

And he is loved by all of us!

Let’s kill two birds with one stone and include Valentine’s Day morning pictures in with a little story about our family, shall we?

A lady who attends our church and has four very well-behaved children, offers etiquette classes for all the other hoodlums.  ha!  Seriously, she does offer classes…two hour tea parties for ages 7 and under and then four hour classes for 8 and up that includes a four course meal and how to behave well in social settings.  She even touches on how to have good conversation.  I am intrigued and will be sending Ruby right after she turns 8.  However, I need a few months to teach her a few things before she could handle such a class.

The other evening we were all at the dinner table, and I was trying to nicely point out some areas we could work on as a family.

Here are some basics:

1) Sit on your bottom during dinner and stay in your seat until excused.  Our boisterous 4 year old boy has a very hard time staying on his bottom.  And any one of the three is liable to jump up and do some sort of dance that their Daddy just HAS TO SEE RIGHT AT THAT MOMENT.

2) Eat with your mouth closed…no smacking.

3) Use your napkin to wipe your mouth instead of your clothes.

4) Do not make random noises all through dinner.

5) Dinner time is not a race.  Take your time, breathe, put your fork down between bites and enjoy being together.

As I am talking to Ruby and addressing her annoyance with the etiquette conversation, I look over and realize Molly has been sitting at the table enjoying her dinner in her jeans.  Only her jeans.

I guess I need a sign in my kitchen that says:

SHIRTS and SHOES REQUIRED

but then I am sure they would think that means that coming without pants is perfectly acceptable.

I then decided to just stop talking about it.  I was clearing the table and then I hear a loud belch from Mack.  Dear goodness!

I have a couple of months to tame the wild beasts before sending Ruby to an etiquette class.  Wish me luck!!

_________________________________________________________________________________________

On another note, Ruby wrote me a little note on her math paper the other day.

“Dear Mom, Mack is NOT a baby.  He is almost 5 years old.  Love, Ruby”

I read it and laughed to myself and then at lunch she asked me if I had found it.  I told her I did and wondered what she meant by it.  She then proceeded to tell me that I baby Mack and that it isn’t fair that he doesn’t have to do as much school as she and Molly have to do.  I listened to the freckled-face cutie-pie and then told her that if she had issues with birth placement in our family, then she needed to talk to God about it.  He is the one who just knew she’d be the best at introducing her mom and dad to parenthood and that she was, indeed, the most well-equipped to be the leader of these three kids…you know, take care of them and boss them around keep things in order when Mom isn’t around.  I then told Molly that she was picked to be right in the middle JUST LIKE her dear Mom, to be second born like her dad, too!  And to be able to handle NOT being the oldest and NOT being the youngest.  And to Mack I told him he was picked because he would do the best at being rotten.  No, really, I just told him he was who God wanted to end our family with…a cute little funny boy that  we can all squeeze and hug.

They all added their own good things about their position in the family and it ended in a fun conversation.  I just love my three little kiddos.  They are sometimes a lot of fun to be around!  Imagine that.

Amazingly, it’s time to remember…to really recall what the Lord has done for our family.  One year ago today, March 12th, we were moving back into this house.  Not just moving IN here, but moving OUT of our “dream home.”

You can read the whole post from March 30th 2011.  What started as a “dream” turned into restless days and nights as we knew we were off course and needed God’s major help.  We prayed Daniel 9:18 often, “…we are not presenting our supplications before You on account of any merits of our own, but on account of Your great compassion.”

We had set our sights on the temporal.

We worked hard for what we wanted.

I wanted a place we would call HOME forever…a place my kids would come home to for years and years and years….

Josh did a great job with details.  He spent many, many hours at the house during construction.  He spent lots of money to make it what we wanted.

At the time we didn’t have a clue at what kind of adventure we were in for…the route we had chosen, what God had allowed in our life, the lessons we would learn…the hard way.  There were many seasons we experienced during our stay on Gantt Road.  Spring, summer, fall, and winter—-physically and spiritually.

I can truly say that I am thankful for the journey we took to this house, even though we didn’t stay there.  What happened there is nothing short of a miracle and opened up amazing ways for God to show Himself to be extremely personal, overwhelmingly gracious, unquestionably holy, and able to redeem any situation for His great glory.

Just this morning….and just like God…I was reading in Nehemiah where the people were gathered listening to Ezra read the law, which they had wandered from as a people for many years.  They were all gathering back into HOME and realigning themselves with God’s Word.  They read “how the Lord had commanded through Moses that the sons of Israel should live in booths during the feast of the seventh month.”  In Leviticus 23:43 you can read that this feast is called The Feast of Booths where the sons of Israel live in booths (tents) to remind them of how the Lord had delivered His people from their wanderings and out of Egypt.  Here’s what Kelly Minter says about it:  “Though Israelites had regularly celebrated the Feast of Tabernacles, which was a time of harvest and celebration, they had not been observing the part about living in booths.  But this was vital to their experience because it was a tangible reminder of how the Israelites had once lived when they wandered through the wilderness.”

I just loved reading about this this morning because here in our home we are doing this same thing—Remembering the faithfulness of our God that led us out to lead us in and to remember the amazing work He did withIN our hearts.  He has continued to be extremely personal, overwhelmingly gracious, unquestionably holy and able to redeem.  And just like in the days of Nehemiah, “There was great rejoicing.”  We are rejoicing around here these days.  So thankful the Lord doesn’t give up on his stubborn people.

Psalm 130:7  “O, Israel/Kristy, hope in the Lord; for with the Lord there is lovingkindness, And with Him is abundant redemption.”