Speechless

I've been reading in Ezekiel for awhile, and up until the end of Chapter 16, God is basically telling Israel of all the destruction that will come upon them for turning their backs on him, worshipping idols, and their lack of "moral" behavior. 

Suddenly, at the end of Chapter 16, he says, "All the same, I'll remember the covenant I made with you when you were young and I'll make a new covenant with you that will last forever ... You'll remember your past life and face the shame of it, but when I make atonement for you, make everything right after all you've done, it will leave you speechless.

Indeed.  This Old Testament, pre-Jesus writing tells of the atonement to come, to right my wrongs, and it truly does leave me speechless.  He is just, and he is jealous, yet he loved me so much he had a perfect plan to solve my problem - he sent Jesus to pay for my sin.  A Savior is born!

Merry Christmas.

Hot water

Mason:  Do you have a hot water heater?

Me:  Huh?  (Distracted but also thinking he doesn't have any idea what he's asking me, really.)

Mason:  Do you have hot water in this house?

Me:  Yes.

Mason:  Well, then you MUST have a hot water heater somewhere!!

And we do.  It's in that closet he's not supposed to play in!  Huh.

I can see clearly now ...

After 4 1/2 years of perfect vision, due to the amazing and wonderful Lasik surgery, I now have a pair of glasses on my face.  Getting old is a bummer.  I'm a little disappointed, but shouldn't I just be thankful for the years without them?  Yes.  I must say it is rather surprising to see things I didn't realize I was missing.  Maybe they make me LOOK smart?  Hey maybe they'll MAKE me smarter!

The Reindeer Pokey

One of the highlight's of Mason's preschool program today ... so much fun!  With rare exceptions he was almost mute, which I didn't expect AT ALL!

Yummmmmmmmmmm

Hot chocolate and a game of Parcheesi on a cold winter's day!

Mason-isms

Life according to Mason:

1) He wants to marry Brenda.  He doesn't think Kirk will mind.
2) When asked what a baby cow is called, he thought for a moment and said, "George.  I'm pretty sure it's George."
3) He told Papa he needed to go to bed, or he'd be "super cwanky."
4) When leaving to go get Lexi from school, he said, "Mommy hurry up!  You've got nothing to lose!" (This might speak to Mommy's speeding tendencies partly due to her no-consequences relationship with the Olathe PD!)
5) He's got a Christmas program coming up at school - according to my unnamed source, he is usually a verse ahead of everyone else and singing the loudest of all.  Can't WAIT!!  Hopefully will get video to post.
6) While playing the game "Trouble" he is only interested in pounding the plastic bubble as hard as humanly possible.  Since he has no concept of how the game is played, he cocks his throwing arm, slams it down on the bubble, then looks around and says, "What am I doing?"  Every time.
7) Brenda was driving him home from school one day, and passed a policeman.  She said, "Oh look Mason, a policeman!  He might be one of Mommy's friends!"  Mason:  "I dunno - is he ugly?"

Gotta wonder how kindergarten will go for this comedian!

It's all in the little things ...

I love this verse:  "Summing it all up, friends, I'd say you'll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious - the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse."  (Philippians 4:8, The Message.)

Isn't it so easy to focus on the hard/bad/ugly things?  In this season of sickness, holiday weird-ness, dark-comes-too-early (darn that daylight savings time), and helping dear friends to carry enormous burdens that frankly seem impossible to bear, I've found myself "litanizing" (thanks Lisa for the new word - I love it) the negatives.  And in the process, failing to even notice the positives, let alone fill my mind with them. 

I've often recommended to others that they keep a "joy journal" - some sort of written record of the beautiful, good, life-giving things that happen on any given day.  So here's a few of the things that gave me joy in the past few days.

Finding the perfect Christmas gift for Lexi, online, for a great price and without having to leave my recliner!

Pumpkin spice candle - the next best thing to baking something yummy.

Rotel for dinner.  One of many pleasures of an empty nest.

Walking upstairs and finding my bed made.

Discovering an old and beautiful treasure in my Christmas boxes.

Hearing the garage door go up unexpectedly in the middle of the day and having my husband walk in just to hang out with me for a few minutes.

OK no laughing at this one ... but this is the recycling bin that was delivered this week.  My left brain is working overtime as I'm sorting what can go in, what has to go into the regular trash bin, and how much our actual trash output will be decreased by the addition of this beauty to our garage.  I'll let you know when I figure it out.

Probably none of these things are "compelling," noble" or "gracious."  But it feels good to fill my mind with the happy little things instead of the big unhappy ones - what brought you joy today?

Proof positive

Those of you that know me well know I have a decidedly "bah-humbug" attitude when it comes to decorating for Christmas.  I think it started the year we moved out of our Clinton house - I just didn't feel the urge.  Worse, I didn't wanna.  And then over the past few years I got out of the habit, purposefully I suppose.  Now I have decorated half-heartedly a few times (under duress I must add), but today we cranked up the Christmas music and went to town.  SO I thought I should take a moment and prove that I actually did get over my listless, I-don't-give-a-care approach to making my house look and smell like all things Christmas, at least for this year!

I may have to update these pictures after the cats have had time to adjust and/or the kids come over the next time ... rearrangements are almost sure to take place!  Merry Christmas!

Giving thanks

I think yesterday was the strangest-feeling Thanksgiving I've had.  It was hard to pinpoint just what felt so weird and off.  Yes, there was the fact that Brandon was in San Diego, alone, all day.  And Christa had to stay here and work while the rest of her family went to Lincoln to see J.R.'s family.  And there were only six of us at Mom's Thanksgiving table.  And for some reason all the "Black Friday" news was just so irritating to me this year.  And Greg and I went to Walmart and got groceries last night - Thanksgiving night!!

But the more I thought and talked to Greg about it, I realized I'm mostly just nostalgic.  The Thanksgivings I remember from my childhood were all day events that included every single member of the family (and then some), because we all lived in the same town.  The food array was predictably enormous, and we never stopped eating all day long.  We watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade every year, looking forward to it like we looked forward to Christmas morning ... almost.  And the most startling difference is that there were no stores open.  None.  No convenience stores, grocery stores, of course no fast food or restaurants or retail stores.  There was no missing the fact that it was Thanksgiving!

So that is what I finally came down to ... it would be really easy to just skip over Thanksgiving entirely.  Our families are all spread out and the whole retail and news world not only keeps moving but ramps into overdrive.  I didn't even think about the parade - I assume it was on yesterday?? 

I miss those simpler times!  My age is showing for sure ... nostalgia is creeping in ... and having said all of that I'm so thankful that our little piece of the family celebrated together yesterday with traditional food, football, and games. I am also thankful, however, for the wonderful memories I have from Thanksgivings gone by.

Get your head in the game!

First of all, a big WOOT for the Kansas City Chiefs' win yesterday! 

We had the kiddos Saturday night for awhile, and I caught all three of them working intently at something they love:

Awhile ago I taught Lexi the basics of reading music, and she has retained it amazingly well!  She is so cute plucking out the little songs in her beginner book, and so proud of herself when she "hears" that it is right.  This time she caught the concept of a half note vs. a quarter note, and was correctly holding the half notes (roughly) twice as long as the quarter notes.  Keep reading, you'll hear her doing improv in the video at the end of this post.

One of Mason's claims to fame is the (OCD?) lining up of his cars ... he focuses on this to the exclusion of all other things, especially instructions from anyone who is the boss of him.  He is QUITE effective at tuning out Callie, until she destroys something he has built, then his focus is lasered in on her in that way that only brothers seem to master ... screeching and pushing and stomping his feet ... one of these days he will learn that that usually gets him in more trouble that she caused him in the first place.

And Callie Anne, messy curly headed dolly that she is, stuffing dominoes in the fanny pack.  She and Papa spent a fair amount of time working on this project!  One of the feet on her pajamas has a big-toe-sized hole in it, and everytime that little big toe poked out of there she would freeze and yell "PRETTY!" because there is just a sliver of toenail polish left on it from eons ago.

This is my favorite picture of the night actually - this calendar gets more attention than anything else in my house.  And this particular version reflects my scattered brain pretty well these days!

I'm pretty sure today is June March October 36th.

Just like it takes 400, um, 36, I mean 950 hours to get to Lincoln, according to Mason.

And the grand finale ... Papa giving Callie a ride with chaos all around! 

Trying to store up these hours and moments, for I know they are precious and fleeting.

Sick days

I know it's time to post again, but 1) I can't top Brenda Beautiful, and 2) I've been sick for a week and my brain is not functioning well enough to be insightful, witty or any of those other things I can't think of right now that make for good blog posts.  Back soon.

Brenda Beautiful

My sweet friend Brenda has a birthday tomorrow.  She and I have been through the grinder together ... we met when a young foster son of ours (Branden - who remembers him?  Funny kid.) noticed them moving in and stopped to help.  Thus the new-neighbor gift exchange ensued ... I think I sent some bread over with a  note, and she sent back cookies with a note.  We realized quickly that we had much in common, and here we are, some five years later.

Our friendship did go through the wilderness, and we were completely estranged for a long painful period of time.  I mention this only as an encouragement and a witness to the fact that God is bigger than we are.  He not only healed our relationship, but has knitted us together with unbreakable ties ... kind of like those zip-tie things the toy companies use to hold your child's precious gift tight to the packaging, that is nearly impossible to remove?  Well she is the gift and I am the packaging most of the time, and no one's pocket knife or scissors can cut through these ties.

She is sweet, encouraging, a gifted teacher of pre-schoolers (this alone gives her the right to wear the crown in the picture above), strong, steady, and passionate about her faith and her service.  She has a wicked sense of humor and is also the source of much entertainment for me, some of it unintentional ... like when she doesn't get my jokes and and I have to explain them to her, or when she talks to me on facebook after taking Nyquil, or when I take her out in public.  For a knee-slappingly-funny story in this vein, click here.

She will HATE that I'm posting all about her.  Which is a good enough reason to do it.  But really, I just want to say, Happy Birthday my friend - I love you!!


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Are we there yet?

Not a shocking story.  But funny.  Apparently J.R. kept a tally of Lexi's questions on the trip they took this weekend ... a whopping 209 questions in three hours!  According to my calculations, that's 1.16 questions per minute.  Very impressive.

I'm actually more surprised and amused that J.R. kept track of them than the fact that she asked them.

Yum-o!

DELICIOUS!

Dinner was a great success last night!  Baked potato soup in a bread bowl ... good stuff!  If you want recipes, go back to October 16th and 17th of 2006 - I posted them WAAAY back then and found them this weekend when scrolling back through pictures of the kids.  They were so little when I started this blogging adventure - had some good laughs and remembered some poignant moments.  If you're a blogger, I highly recommend going back and re-reading some of those old old posts!

Have a wonderful week.

My favorite things

Lexi is going to Lincoln with her daddy today, just the two of them, to visit his family.  She is super excited about seeing her cousins - she told me yesterday has "lots of them, I think 24!" and frankly she may be right.  Kuchtas, anyone have an exact count?

So Christa goes upstairs to start packing Lexi's overnight bag, and finds that Lexi already has a head start.  She is forever bringing her "very special things" over here with her, to remind her of home, she says.  (We are a whole block away after all ....)  So I was not surprised to hear that her bag was already packed with:

1) An 8x10 picture frame, one of those name and birthday things that tells what her name means and all the stuff that was going on in the world the day she was born ...
2) Her prayer rock
3) A two dollar bill
4) Four pennies
5) A 3 foot-square poster that has to go back to school on Monday
6) Two "guys" - her favorite stuffed animals.

A fine collection of necessary items for any trip, don't you think?

What's the Point??

A new blogger asked me today, "What is the point of blogging?"  Can anyone answer that better than I did?  It's pretty much just my selfish way of getting my grandkids and their funny, sweet stories out there for all the world to see, and to get the stuff out of my head that keeps me awake at night.  :)  I'm sure there are MUCH better reasons ...

Peace

I had a sweet young friend tell me a story last night.  He talked about the wonder and seeming impossibility of experiencing complete peace while being completely heartbroken.  He spoke of the paradox, and the difficulty of explaining it to others, even believers.  He reminded me that we often think that peace and pain are mutually exclusive.  And then he described how, in the midst of this driving thunderstorm, his questions about God and for God, and his excruciating sadness, God has gifted him with peace.  The peace that truly passes understanding.  The peace that makes no sense, and is beyond our comprehension.  The ability to experience joy in the wake of trials he never in his wildest dreams he expected to face. 

What a reminder it was to me of the beautiful complexity of our Lord, and a reminder that we experience no pain that He hasn't experienced before us and that He doesn't experience with us.  And yet, while we still feel the heartbrokenness, He holds us close to Him, and gives us a peace and yes, even joy, that cannot be attained from any other source.  Blessed be His name!

Equal Time

Here are my latest and greatest shots of Mason and Callie Anne.  I don't think Mason was feeling very well - notice how docile he looks?  And sweet.  He is sweet.  In a really loud sweaty kind of way.  Callie, on the other hand, was in fine form!

Those eyes ...

Yes, yes, I know, two Lexi posts in a row.  But I got this picture of her on Sunday, and her eyes just speak to me!

Am I right or am I right??  More pictures tomorrow.

Things to be thankful for ...

Spent the afternoon with the Kuchtas, and all three kiddos were up and running.  Played hide and seek for about an hour; my best win was hiding in Lexi's top bunk with Callie.  I nearly killed myself getting down, but it was totally worth it.

Anyway, Lexi was running down the list of what meat came from which animal.  After all the cow-meat, she told me that bacon comes from a pig ... and said, "Nini I'm glad the bacon comes from the INSIDE of the pig, and not the outside, 'cause they like to roll in the mud!"

I agree.

Things skittering around in my head ...

1) Charles Martin is a great author - I just discovered him, but if you haven't read his stuff do it!!

2) Going to Walmart early definitely has the advantage of less screaming children; however, having the aisles blocked by numerous vendors and employees restocking shelves might be just as bad.  It's a toss-up.

3) If you have the cart that goes thump-thump-thump, that is worse than either scenario referred to in #2 above.

4) "It is better to go to a funeral than to a feast, you just might learn something."  Ecclestiastes 7:2

5) Blueberry donuts rock.

6) I spend way too much energy on things that don't matter.

7) KU plays K-State today ... which will probably lead to #8 ...

8) I need a nap!

That's it for now ... brain dump complete.

You will know ...

... we are Christians by our love, by our love ..."

This song is based on John 13: 34 &35, which says, ”A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

It has been my privilege and blessing this week to watch the body of Christ love on my friends the Munyans during their grieving and heartbreak over the loss of their son Jesse. Watching them love each other, and seeing all the love flowing in and out and through that home, has been the closest thing I think I've ever witnessed to the way Jesus loves.

Peace and comfort and love to the Munyan family. May you find rest in the arms of His mercy.

Where to start?

Wow do I have a lot of catching up to do. I have sadly neglected this blog in favor of Facebook, but talking with a friend who is a blogger reminded me today of how much I enjoyed this. So, no promises, but I think I'm going to try giving it more of my attention again. I've missed it without even realizing it.

The kids are good - here's a Halloween picture - that was such a fun night and the kids did remarkably well. A couple of lessons learned though:

1) Callie will NOT wear anything on her head - second year in a row we've tried this, with complete and utter failure.

2) Mason doesn't understand the concept of getting out of the way of door when the homeowner is trying to offer him candy.

3) People who just hold the bowl out in front of the kids are guaranteeing they'll take a handful, regardles of the instructions the child(ren) have been given by their parents!

4) Mason may very well be the sweatiest guy alive.

Lexi started kindergarten this fall ... she made it six whole days before landing herself in the principal's office for "noncompliance." I could go into more detail, but you know that you don't go the principal's office for the first offense! I was highly amused; her parents, on the other hand, were completely mortified! Thankfully it seemed to make an impression because at conferences last week the teacher said she has had absolutely no more problems with her - I say smart teacher for nipping it in the bud! Apparently tomorrow is pajama day at school, and Lexi is super excited ... Christa thinks she will want to wear her "flowy" tinkerbell jammies, which should be interesting. SUCH a unique child!

Mason's doing well in preschool two days a week, and he has our lovely friend Brenda for his teacher, which is a huge blessing! He is currently obsessed with Lincoln logs, and has built some quite impressive structures.

Callie is in the throes of the terrible two's. No doubt about it. REALLY no doubt about it. :)

I started a new job at Olathe Bible Church October 1st working in the Women's Ministry department as the program director - so far I am absolutely loving it.

Brandon was home from his year-long missions adventure on September 5th, and headed back to San Diego last weekend to his buddies and to look for a job. It was great to have him home for so long ... the down side is that I got used to having him around and I miss him terribly!

Well there you have it ... my catch up post. Wonder how long it will take anyone to notice ... can't imagine anyone's still checking after all this time! Maybe I'll post it in my status on Facebook!

Lego Creations

We had the kids overnight Saturday night, and the big kids spent most of their time with the box of Legos, building and building.

The whole family stopped over today to wish Papa a happy father's day, and I got this great one of Callie belly laughing ...



This is Lexi's own creation - it started as a house, then was a castle, then was ... I'm not sure what it ended up being but she was mighty proud of it. Love that expression on her face.

Papa and Mason built this garage/carwash/gas station together, and all his cars were full of gas, clean, and jumping on and off the awning repeatedly ... at which time it was bedtime!

I told them to pick up because it was bedtime, and Papa said "I'm never going to bed!" Mason, without missing a beat, said, "OH NO! Then you'll be SUPER CWANKY!" Wonder if he's heard that somewhere before??

The girls stayed up jabbering until 10:15 ... it was cute as can be, to me of course who sent them home this morning ... not surprisingly I heard they took good naps today.

Happy Father's Day to all!