Slices of Life, Vol XVIII

When planting the garden this Spring, the kids and I had a little discussion on the necessities for getting seeds to grow.  This talk was mainly geared toward Christian, with his penchant for stabbing sticks at our newly planted seeds, or throwing rocks at them, or jumping on them...you see the picture of his gentleness, I'm sure.

I said, "Seeds need three things to grow: good soil, sun, and water.  They do not need little boys digging them up."

Daphne piped right in to say, "They also need a fourth thing.  They need you to sing to them."

Singing to the plants is up to her if she feels it needs to be done. From time to time I find her singing to her one special pot that she planted full of succulents. They seems healthy enough, I guess.  Nothing spectacular.

When I brought home basil to plant, she asked what it was.

"A basil," I said.
"A bagel?"
"No, a basil"
"Abasil?"
"Just basil."
"So what do we do with it? Does it grow us bagels?"

discovering the peas

old picture...everything is way, way bigger now

After bath the other night Christian held up this book for me and said in a most solemn voice, "Look, Mom, this book is about toilets."

Fortunately I had the camera with me, because we wouldn't want to forget a touching moment like that. 

How Jonas feels about water:

Hates it.

I'll leave you with two Life Tips by Christian:

"If there's red on you that means it's blood. Or color crayon. If it's moving, you know it's blood. If it's not, you know it's color crayon."

"If you get lost why don't you just use the guy in Daddy's new phone to tell you which way to go?"

Bye Bye Blue

We've become big fans of the Habitat for Humanity ReStore this past year.  Probably their biggest fans.

Recently we found this darling little cupboard for a mere $30. Solid wood with a cute shape, but not our choice of color and that little trim thing was unusual. 

Look at her now!

She's beautiful. 

David likes going there for lumber (new and reclaimed), paints and stains for little projects, and he got all the caulking he needed for our house exterior as he was prepping the house for new paint. 

Monday we made a visit to The Rebuilding Center.  That place is truly amazing.  If finding old things and making them pretty is your thing, you've got to make a trip up there.  We expected it to be expensive based on its location in a trendy part of town, but everything is very well priced.  Old doors, windows, cabinets, hardware, light fixtures, old toilets if you like those, lumber; so many treasures. Next time we go we will be equipped with empty car space and loads of fruit snacks to keep the kids quiet for a few minutes or maybe hours (ha).  That would be a lot of fruit snacks. 

Our current big project is getting the house painted.  David is doing most of it because I tried once when I was home with the kids, and in the first two minutes of work Christian walked on the paint can lid and left white footprints on the porch and then Jonas crawled through it and added his hand prints to the trail. 

with kids

After bedtime.  Way better. 

Our house is cute the way it is, but I really want to simplify and make it a bit more classic. My favorite look in the entire world is a white farmhouse with black shutters, so I Googled 'white Victorian house' to see if it was a look we could force on our house.  Google said yes! 

one of the 9000 inspiration pictures I have

Bonus: we found shutters at The ReBuilding Center for $1/ea!  A nicer price than $40/pair at Home Depot. 

And...one last tiny project...Our front door has never been my favorite because the inside was painted light blue and the window had a lot of pink/blue/green stained glass.  I like stained glass and all, but pink and blue combos aren't my choice of colors.  I would love an old wooden door, but for now David replaced the window and I painted the inside white.  Our living room is much brighter with the change.

it's going to be fabulous with a Christmas wreath on it

exciting new door + exciting new walking skill

Sometime in the next decade we'll paint the door knob an oil rubbed bronze and paint the exterior of the door from white to an exciting color.  Like maybe a dark grey, the most exciting color of all.

Do you think our house is mad at us for all the un-Victorian-izing we're doing?  Un-Victorian-izing might be the wrong word (and also a made up word); simplifying sounds better, maybe?  Toning down the frill?  I don't love frill.  I love our house, but all the pinks and blues were overwhelming me.  

(P.S. We put the door window in the attic in case someone wants it someday. That seemed nice of us.)

new organization of the living room, too

Father's Day and a Pie Crust Recipe Link

Remember Father's Day?  It was awhile ago.

Jonas and I left early that morning to get breakfast fritters from David's favorite doughnut place, and coffee. Christian showed love by sharing his doughnut with his dad.   

no, he didn't

Side note here, but Daphne doesn't like doughnuts.  She'll eat raw onions, and cooked broccoli is one of her favorite things, but she says doughnuts are 'fuzzy'* and therefore inedible.  It's the weirdest thing.

*fuzzy: the fluffy cake part inside a doughnut. 

We got to host a little dinner that afternoon.  David requested fried chicken and strawberry pie for the meal. I don't particularly enjoy making pies, mostly because I don't like to eat them, and partly because I have a hard time getting a pie crust not be too dry.  A quick Pinterest search provided this crust recipe and...winner!  It was SO easy that I ended up making two pies and taking one to the neighbors.  That's saying a lot because, for reals, making pies is not fun. 

 the picture David took that day

a pretty good group, if i do say so myself

Papa Great's intro to Bob Books

3 generations

post dinner naps

A Father's Day comprised of food and naps; I think there could be worse days. 

How to Host a Craft Night for the Christian Mom

Man, doesn't that sound like a wild party waiting to happen?

step one: Bible on the table

Have you ever wondered why my kids are so obedient, respectful, gentle and kind, with impeccable self-control?  (HA!  Oh man.)

My favorite, favorite, favorite of all parenting books is Don't Make Me Count to Three by Ginger Hubbard.  Amazon shares a fine review so I won't do that, but this book has given me the most practical help on how to use the Bible in everyday life with my kids. It's helped me look past their outward behavior of whining, complaining, fighting, arguing, etc., and use God's words to encourage their little hearts to change perspective, and eventually, hopefully, change their attitudes, actions and responses.

(And I just saw that there is a Six Week Study Guide?  I could probably go for that.) 
 
Now the fun part...combining this great book with Craft Night! Craft Nights have been a favorite activity lately because I love the dual-purpose of them: a child-free night with friends combined with getting something accomplished.  All dependent on the level of multi-tasking skills of the attendees, of course.

(My personal skill level is low, btw.)

Following this book's method of discipline requires much diligence on the part of the parents.  For instance, it's easy to yell, "stop fighting with each other!" and much harder to have verses stockpiled in your brain to be able to instead say something like, "Remember that God's word says in Phil 2:5 that 'As you deal with one another, you should act and think as Jesus did.'  Are you treating your sibling/friend the way Jesus would?"  And then to have more verses that proove how Jesus acted.  Whew.

So we got together and made pretty cards and wrote verses on them to have in easy reach around our houses.  I'm so thankful for a table full of wise friends who willingly share their creativity, experiences, verbiage, and favorite verses/translations with me.  These women are great resources with large washi tape collections and font-like handwriting skills.   

I should've taken more pictures of finished products, but, you know, multi-tasking is hard.

I hung my finished cards in easy-to-see locations, above the kitchen sink being one since it seems 90% of my day is spent there.

hallway clipboard

Two more things:

1.  Crafty friends are good for many reasons, one being the amazing things they make for you.

sorry about hiding our last name under that discreet gray slash

Each of our names are hidden in an arrow.  I just love it.

*made by the talented Michelle.

2.  Daphne knew what we were working on last night, so this morning she made a card and asked for a verse to write on it.

These friends are treasured gifts who make excellent role models for me and my kids.

He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm.  Prov 13:20

When the Cat's Away

Daph had VBS a few weeks ago and I wasn't sure how the boys would do with her off having fun while they were stuck with me.  I assumed they'd be really mad and crabby or something.

(Enough with the minute-by-minute pictures?)

I was wrong!  They love me!

The only activity that was maybe a little over our heads was the berry picking, but it's hard to expect much from a baby who's missing his nap and being forced to hang out in a berry patch in 90+ degree weather.  It was my PR for Lowest Amount of Berries Picked in a Trip: 4 lbs.  Embarrassing. 

Otherwise, my time with the boys was great.  Really great.  It was my first time hanging out with just the boys for any significant amount of time, and I love being able to say 'the boys.'  I say it as much as possible, because being obnoxious like that is fun. 

Now Daph is home and that's great because we like her, too.

When Cleaning is Futile

So I don't forget what things look like when the baby is mobile:

don't buy toys, buy potatoes

 

 Mobile and messy, but happy.  And that's a good thing.   

A Little Birthday Party

Based on Jonas's love of food, it was my estimation that he would be the first of our babies to eat his birthday cake.  (The older two were scared of theirs or something.)

fire on food = confusion

this seems good

yes

and yes

He's such a tidy little eater, and there was nary a crumb left over. 

But he was up FIVE TIMES that night, so he's never eating cake again.

He's all over the house and constantly getting into stuff, but he's much happier for his freedom.  I suspect he'll be walking any second. 

You kind of breathe a sigh of relief after making it through another baby year, right?  Keeping a baby alive is a big job.  I kind of want to tell people, "Look! He's one. We made it. We survived. Now I would like to go take a nap."

What a good, long, hard, wonderful year.