This day in history....

Haha, its not really one of those very interesting facts about some thing that happened on this date in history. Its about my day today. ;-)

Which started last night when I took two night-time cold medicine liqui-gels, and went to bed at 9 o'clock. (With my heating pad under my guts which felt like they had gotten run over by a truck... if you get my meaning, great. If you don't, don't ask. :)

Woke up this am, after sleeping fairly well, probably due to the meds, at 6 am, which is late for me. Get ready for the day, wake up oldest son who has once again turned off his alarm, not just snoozed it, and fallen back asleep 45 minutes past his time to get up. Get children ready by helping them through the routine of every morning, like this;

"Girls, get dressed, its a school morning we need to have breakfast, get snacks, and get the hair basket. Jacob, remember your snack. Come on, girls, finish getting dressed, what do you want for breakfast? We have to leave a little early today, because we are picking up my friend's baby to babysit today. Jacob, sit down and finish your breakfast, did you get you snack? You have football practice at what time tonight? Phoebe, come with me and we will fix your hair, grab some socks, okay? Did you get you snack yet? Where is your backpack? Ellie, remember to grab a snack, you have practice for the play right after school, so come right out and I will try to remember to bring a snack for you to eat on the way there. Bye, Nate, love you, have a good day. Do you feel ok? Do you want to take some cold medicine? Do you want to take one with you to take at lunch? Remember you have piano lessons today after school. Ride safely, see you after school. Jacob, grab a snack and ride safely on the scooter to school. Love you! Bye. Ellie and Phoebe lets go, say good bye to Daddy, do you have your snack? Get your socks and shoes on and grab your backpacks, make sure your folder is in it. DO you need library books or anything today? Ellie, here is your permission slip, you need to cut the bottom off. Here, come here, we need to brush your hair. Ok, lets go! Yes, I am driving you today, so say good bye to Daddy." Meanwhile during this entire time John is repeating everything I say or saying things like, what are you supposed to be doing? What did Mom just tell you to do?!' (And on a 'good' day, I would have also been reminding them all to read their devotionals while they ate their breakfast and to take their vitamins...)

....

Drive to Kacye's house, pick up her 3 month old son, Cayden. We load up Cayden, his bags and his swing. Then off to Phoebe and Ellie's school. Kisses, have a good day, love you, see you later.

Then Cayden and I go home and shortly after, Aliese arrives, the 18 month old I babysit every Tuesday and Thursday.

...Cayden gets picked up at about 2:30 and Aliese and I get ready to load up and pick up the girls. We remember to pack a snack along because we are driving Ellie straight to practice for the play she is in on Saturday. When we get home from dropping Ellie off at practice, we pick up Nate, who just got home form school, and take him to piano lessons. We kill about a half an hour at home before it is time to go pick Nate up. When we get back from that, we take Jacob over to football practice, he doesn't have time to walk today b/c of homework. We come back home and unload for about 15 minutes, Aliese's dad picks her up and Phoebe and I head out to pick up Ellie, first swinging back by Jacob's football practice to drop off his wrist guard which he forgot. :) Now we drive 'across town' to pick up Ellie. Visiting with my sweet friend, Vicki, while there and making plans to have dinner together this weekend. How we dare to make plans away from our calendars I do not know! Maybe it our degree of desperation! HAHA!

After picking up Ellie we get home for a dinner/homework/shower scramble. And as John is working his dinner magic on some banana pancakes (OH YAH!) I run to pick Jacob up and whew!

Now the night version of the morning;

"Finish your homework. Did you finish? Remember spelling words and reading time. Sit down and eat your dinner. Phoebe did you find your Awana book? Read your verse to me, please. Ellie did you finish your spelling words? Jacob, if you don't finish your homework before its time for your shower and you have to stay after school to finish it tomorrow you are going to really regret your decision! (Ooooooooo.) Okay, girls, its time to get in the shower or bath. Take your clean jammies and underwear into the bathroom. Ellie, did you finish? Yay! Did anyone feed Daisy her dinner? Daisy: Rawr, rrr, rrr! Brush teeth, put on jammies. Nate, don't forget to wash your face and floss when you brush. Jacob, its time to go down and shower, brush and floss while you are in there. Girls, its time to get out, make sure your hair is rinsed and when you get out, brush your teeth, its time for bed."

There is more, you know, it goes on and on until all of their sweet, clean little heads are asleep on their pillow. But, alas, I am weary of typing out my life! As I am sure you are weary of reading it!

I thought it might entertain you to read of our day today. I hope!

Much love! XO

It's a sweet life.... *edited 09/29/09*

I am so enjoying our time 'off the beaten track' here in a small town. Y'know life is a blessing and my God is a God of A Love Story. He rescued us from the race and brought us into a spacious place because He loved us. We were in a rut in Boise and even as I finally realized it and attempted to try to get us out of it, only managed to 'dig it deeper.'

Life is pretty sweet here, aside from the massive hole in our heart, longing desperately for our family and friends in Boise. Aside from that, God is sweetly wooing my spirit here, believe it or not, in the middle of nowhere.

Small town life...

Riding bikes all over town.

Walking all over town.

Running errands in 20 minutes vs. 3 days.

Seeing people you know on every errand.

Visiting with 'the regulars' at the coffee shop and hearing them greet each other and visit.

My boss saves the paper when one of our customers children is in it to give to them.

I see the people I made coffee for this morning later at the school when we all pick up our kids and smile and say hi!

My pastor is at the school picking up his child and he is visiting with one of my regular coffee customers who is picking up his grandchild.

My child's teacher comes through the coffee drive through with her daughter who is in my daughter's class.

Walking on the Wellness Path with some friends each week. (big time b/c we each only have to drive a minute or two to get there from all different parts of town!)

Running to the great little locally owned market that 1. is NOT Wal-mart and 2. is about a thousand times smaller than Wal-mart, which I LOVE! to grab a roast and some potatoes and home all in about a half and hour! There, shopping and home! Half an hour! And at this market, my children go and greet the sweet woman who owns it and she is so happy to see them and even buys fundraiser chocolate from Phoebe. (Disclaimer: I do shop at Wal-mart most of the time. ) **I know there is no room in heaven for Wal-Mart, though, only delightful little farmer's markets full of delicious and beautiful things.***

Nice people who know you and greet you and say nice things and miss you when you are gone.

Teachers who people know and can tell you how great they are.

People from your church who are the teachers and principals in the schools.

Football practice is close enough that Jacob can walk there.

Nate rides his bike to jr high and home... and I don't worry.

When John stops in to say hi to me at the coffee shop, my boss, her husband, and even a customer or two all greet him and visit with him.

Waving to everyone you pass in vehicles or otherwise. And knowing many of them!

Knowing the owner of another little coffee shop downtown.

Having a friend who owns a little shop with baby/kids clothes.

Seeing my husband's designs on windows of businesses around town.

Seeing people we know from church and Awana and VBS at the bank working.

Knowing the owner of the little Bible book store downtown, which also has a beauty chair in the back and we get our hair cut there by sweet Miss Sandy!

People figure out where you live by who used to live in your house.

My kind boss, who isn't a grandma yet, comes to Phoebe's school to be a 'step grandma' for Grandparents Day and tells me that she went to that Elementary school when she was a child!

One day we hope God will grow us up enough to be able to send us back into the 'rat race', not that we miss the rat race, but that is where our family is and we would like to be there with them. In the meantime, I am loving it here... not enough to not want to move back near our family, but I am so appreciating God's blessing us with this time here to just do the small town life thing.

Disturb Us, Lord

Disturb us, Lord, when

We are too well pleased with ourselves,

When our dreams have come true

Because we have dreamed too little,

When we arrived safely

Because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord, when

With the abundance of things we possess

We have lost our thirst

For the waters of life;

Having fallen in love with life,

We have ceased to dream of eternity

And in our efforts to build a new earth,

We have allowed our vision

Of the new Heaven to dim.

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,

To venture on wider seas

Where storms will show your mastery;

Where losing sight of land,

We shall find the stars.

We ask You to push back

The horizons of our hopes;

And to push into the future

In strength, courage, hope, and love.

[Sir Francis Drake]

She pulled one over on me!!

This is one of our favs of Phoebe. She was probably around two years old and just a dream. I mean, Look At That Face! Mm! I had to pick one of the most pure pics of her to get the full impact of this story. :)

Well, Little Miss Dream, Little Miss Innocent, has ventured to The Dark Side. I remember the first time I heard her playing Star Wars with her siblings, which by the way, was a fight I lost, the girls watching Star Wars, that is. Anyway, Ellie, my girlie-girl, of course wants to be the princess in the movie, Princess Lea, or Padme (I don't know how to spell their names). But, who does Phoebe want to be??? Not the princess, maybe Luke? Han Solo? NO! Darth Vader! My sweet little baby girl, wants to play Darth Vader. Rrrr.

And that is not even the point of my story! Last week, she comes limping down the street, with her pant leg up and a red blotched tissue on her knee. My precious little seven year old daughter comes into the living room and I ask her if she is okay, does she need a band-aid? What happened?

Unfortunately her brother ruined it for her, but I think the effect was still achieved!!! SHE WAS FAKING AND HAD COME UP WITH THE IDEA ALL ON HER OWN!!! Her knee was completely unscathed. And I had been scammed. Unbelievable!

Pretty funny, huh?!!