Another Meme

I've been tagged by a friend of mine over at 'You've Got To Be Kidding' for a new meme. Sorry it took me so long to get it done, Ellen!


Favorite person outside of family? This is hard because I have several....Lisa, Becky, Robin, Shelly, Betty.

Favorite Food: Mexican

Quirks about you: I didn't see a need to drive past 14 mile till I met some of my favorite people....now look at me, the world's our playground!

Any regrets in life? My first marriage

Favorite Charity or Cause? Karmanos Cancer Institute

How would the person who loves you the most describe you in ten words or less? A quote from Bob: Sensitive, Loving, Wife and Mom, Friend, Coffee-lover, Wonderful Cook

Favorite Blog recently? A pondering heart has been a new favorite. She's a 17 year old young lady trying to follow Christ.

Something you can't get enough of? Hugs from my kids

Worst job you ever had? Kentucky Fried Chicken. The assistant manager didn't like me for several reasons so he gave me the gross jobs like cleaning out the bottoms of all the garbage cans and bathroom duty. I quit after two weeks. I thought that was ample time to give it a shot.

What job would you pay not to have? Garbage clean up. Gross!

If you could be a fly on the wall, where would you be? I think it's better to just not know about stuff sometimes.

Favorite Bible Verse right now? Psalm 34:18...The Lord is close to the brokenhearted; he rescues those who are crushed in spirit. This verse is full of comfort and brings me a sense of peace. Knowing that God is close by, warms my heart.

Guilty pleasure? Chocolate and coffee

Got any confessions? I like what Ellen said.....between me and Jesus

If you had to spend $1,000 on yourself, how would you spend it? I could really use some new clothes. Oh, and I would love to buy several pairs of shoes.

Favorite thing about your house? The bathroom. It's usually where I get two seconds to myself.

Least favorite thing about your house? My laundry room.

One thing you are bad at? Organization

One thing you are good at? Cooking

If you could change something about your circumstances, what would it be? More 'paying' customers.

Who would you like to meet someday? George Bush, our president.

Who is your real life hero? My Grandpa. This is a post in itself. He is a living example of Christ. I've seen him back up his faith with his actions time and time again without complaint. He is gentle and kind and is all around amazing.

What is the hardest part of your job? Not much time for myself and not enough of me to go around.

When are you the most relaxed? In the evening, when the kids are all tucked in and the world is quieting down for the night.

What stresses you out? When the money doesn't stretch as far as it needs to, when I have too much on my plate and when I do not get enough sleep.

What can you not live without? Christ

Why do you blog? To capture the events of my life. It's the story behind the picture.

I'm not tagging anyone in particular but if you would like to share your answers with me. Please let me know. I'd love to read them :-)

Okay - rules:
1. Answer ALL the questions
2. Link back to whoever tagged you
3. Tag eight bloggers to do the same, 2 from each category.
New/ newer bloggers (since we want to share the love and send them traffic)
Bloggy friendsBloggers you’d like to get to know better
Bloggers you don’t think will respond, but you hope will

Addiction

Our two year old is an addict. That seems like such a crazy age to have addiction problems but she does. It's kind of like her coffee fix. She wants it, when she wants it. If you don't move fast enough, she will start hitting your arm repeating the word's "frog", "frog" till you finally give in. Then, she takes your hand and leads you to the computer.

What in the world am I talking about? I'm talking about Youtube.com, of course.

When Barbara and Sharlene were staying with us, Kara was so hysterical most of the time. In order to calm her down, Bob would whisk her away to his office and play some 'youtube' videos just to get her mind off of all that was going on. She fell in love with one in particular.....Crazy Frog. I don't know why but that one just tickles her fancy. Now she wants to watch it over and over.

I need to get her on video to show those crazy frog producers what effect they have on young viewers! She dances to the music and she has the crazy frog 'beep beep' down to a science.

What did we ever do before Youtube? I've just recently seen some music videos to songs that were popular in my teen years. I didn't even know they were out there.....boy, do I feel old now!

Happy 13

We recently celebrated Brad's 13th birthday. Ack! I'm a mother of a teenager. I knew it would happen one day but now that it's finally here staring at me in the face, it's a scary thing. Not only that but having a 13 year old and a 2 year old all at the same time, it's craziness. I'm always up for an adventure and I guess this would definitely be considered one.

Brad, Grandma and I went to Coney Island for dinner which is his most favorite restaurant other than somewhere where they have a buffet. Probably because there isn't a long line, you get lots of food (it's all about the food) for pretty cheap prices. We then headed over to the Coldstone Creamery for some delicious ice cream.

I also made him a Boston Cream Cake which he absolutely loves. How can you go wrong with pudding and chocolate ganache.

Brad is truly an amazing young person. His heart, his sensitivity to honoring God makes me so proud of him. One of his biggest fans is his little sister, Kara. She adores Brad. It's neat seeing those two playing together or snuggling on the couch.

Happy 13th, Brad. We pray that this year will be full of happy times and that it brings you closer to God. We love you, son!

Happy Mother's Day!

On this Mother's Day, I was woke up by a two year old yelling emphatically that she's was 'hungy' (yes, I spelled that correctly). So we went downstairs to see what we could find. It's one of those kinds of days, old mother hubbard's cupboards are in desperate need of filling. Sometimes, it's hard to get to the store when you are running here and there. One would think if you are out, that would naturally be one of the stops. However, for us, it seems I'm always out in the opposite direction of the store.

Anyway, I'm off on a bunny trail it seems. As we entered the kitchen, Grace had made us a beautiful breakfast table. She put a table cloth on which we hardly ever use because the little one's like to pull it off. If that happens, everything on the table comes with it...yikes! She set the table very nicely along with our collection of 7-eleven Halo cups. It was all quite nice. She served blueberry Eggo waffles and since she knows those weren't my absolute fav, she used our one and only egg to make me a special omelet. She really blessed me today.

My husband's gift to me was him staying home with the kids while I went to church. I know that may seem incredibly weird to some of you, but if you could just picture me going to all there is to go through getting this family to church, only to walk the halls with at least one kid, you would understand what an incredible treat it is to actually hear the sermon and my most favorite part....to participate in worship. What a blessing that was!

I am truly blessed. I've been entrusted with five fabulous kids and the best husband I could ever have asked for. Thank you , Lord, for your unending blessings.

Happy Mother's Day, my friends!

My Tree

We have this beautiful tree in our backyard. When we first came to view this house when we were looking for a home, this tree is what really drew me to it. It was in full bloom at the time. However, I am clueless as to what it is. If anybody has any ideas, please comment.

Last year, I noticed that the blossoms were not as vibrant nor were there as many flowers. I sloughed it off and thought maybe it had something to do with the kind of winter we had. Then last summer, one of the kids was trying to climb it and the whole limb just snapped off with hardly any effort. I thought, uh oh, something is not right.

My husband then went there to see what he could see. He was able to snap another limb off. As far as we can tell, it's dying. I want to cry. I love that tree. This Spring, it still bloomed but again, not very vibrantly.....just enough to bring out the bumble bees.

Aaron came running in the house sobbing. I inquired as to what all the fuss was about. He told me that the neighbor kid said if he looked right at the queen bumble bee which he informed him was what was out there hanging around my tree, the bee would chase him down and sting him. I love neighbor kids. I ask myself daily why we don't have a few more of them on our street. (note: sarcasm)

It just wouldn't be Spring, if I didn't have one child decide he was crazy scared of bugs, spiders or bees. My Spring is now complete along with the sassy neighborhood kids who have now come out of hibernation.

Spiritual Growth

As a mother, I love to experience life with my kids. To me, experiencing their spiritual growth, is one of the most important. I cannot put it into words to properly describe how much it means to me.

We had a great service on Sunday. Yes, I actually got to sit through it and hear it, all at the same time. It was one of those rare moments. It happened to be the Sunday that communion was being served. Now, I know that many parents allow their kids to take communion at a young age but we have not allowed it.

To me, communion is a very personal and special time between the Lord and oneself. It is a very serious thing to take it and before I allow my children to partake of it, I want them to understand what it means. I don't want them taking it, thinking that it's snack time or sitting through it snickering, poking fun at it nor do I wish for them to take it for granted, leaving it with no meaning.

Grace has been asking about it recently and after much discussion, we've decided that she is ready to take that step. She's also been asking about baptism and expressing interest in doing that. I'm so excited that she's feeling prompted in that direction and is feeling God leading her there. It will be interesting to continue to see that play out in her life.

She took communion with us on Sunday. I thought it was her first time, but found out later that she had taken it at Jerusalem Temple, a church she visited with some friends of ours, down in the city. I was a bit disappointed at that because I really wanted to be with her when she decided to take it but after she explained what happened and how connected she felt, my disappointment dissipated a bit. I'm just grateful that I was there with her this time.

I want to explain that I'm totally not an overbearing, controlling parent, just a very involved parent who desires to experience all that I can with each one of my children. I am amazed at her spiritual growth as well as some of my other children. I don't remember being that way when I was their age. My mom was always talking to us about God and she was always willing to answer any and all questions we had. We went to church all the time. I had Grandparents always talking about God and His affect for change on our family. I knew from all of these things, that God was very real and I could see very real evidence of his care in our lives.

Perhaps, it's because they are home with us for their schooling which integrates God through every subject, along with all the other ways we help them understand their relationship with Christ through His blood sacrifice. Perhaps, it's the prayers their Grandparents have said over the years. Whatever, the reason, I'm am so grateful for it. I pray that their hearts will continue to be tender towards God and that they continue to seek Him out everyday of their lives.

Celebrations

We celebrated Kara's 2nd birthday this week. Boy, I can't believe how much she's grown. She loves to talk and she loves to 'go'. Bob always takes the birthday kid out for breakfast. Since she doesn't sit still and most certainly won't make it through a breakfast, he took her out for 'Timbits'. (thanks for the great idea, Lisa!) She loved it! She was so happy to go with Daddy and was so happy to sit in her car seat and eat her cup of donut holes.

We had some family over for the celebration too! She was running around kissing and hugging everyone. She's so precious when she's not screaming, no..no...no.

In the middle of our little party, I happened to glance out the window and saw an ambulance right in front of our house. When I opened the front door, I saw a little old man laying on the ground behind our car. Fortunately, the neighbor's across the street had seen him fall, got him a pillow and a blanket and called 911. He ended up being alright, thank goodness.

It was a bit unsettling that all that was happening in our front yard and we didn't have a clue. There is this older couple that lives down a bit from us, that keeps up on everyone. Not in a nosy sense but in a sincerely caring way for people. They are always out there during the winter, shoveling everyone's driveway, doing what they can for the neighbors. We are really blessed to have them in our neighborhood. They jumped right in and were going to check on him and make sure his family got called. That is the kind of neighbor we want to be.

The neighbor lady came back around later that evening to let us know that the little old man was doing ok and that they had gotten a hold of his family. She thanked me for what I did, for being out there with them. I thought to myself, I really didn't do anything but lend a listening ear and a kind word to him. But I also thought that it was neat that she came back to give us a report and to, in a way, encourage people by thanking them for what they did do. As the lady was leaving, Kara called out to her for a hug. Of course, she got one. Who could resist? However, my thought was why would she want to hug an unfamiliar person and be all cute with her but won't go in her Sunday school class without a screaming meltdown. Another question that goes down in the unsolved mysteries along with, 'why on earth are there wasps'.....again a mystery to me.

Brad told me he was already to go out there and put his new CPR skills into practice but realized the ambulance was already there so maybe he's catch it next time around. So I, being the teacher and mother, decided to quiz him a bit to see if he remembered what to do from his class. He told me that he was to ask him if he needed some help. Then, he proceeded to tell me he needed to turn the man on his side. I quickly let him know that you only turn someone on their side if they happened to be unconscious...which he was not. I think, perhaps, we need a second course on CPR.....maybe a daily DVD.....