Pike's Place is not a good place for me to be

Today is Teacher Appreciation Day at Starbucks. They are giving away free coffee to teachers and homeschoolers count! I was so excited as the kids drove through the drive thru for my free Pike's Place coffee.

We went home and I let each of the children have a miniscule sip (I wanted the boys to nap!) and I added a little ice cream to it and enjoyed my cup 'o joe...mmm. I'm not a regular coffee drinker, but I like it for something different. I call my self a social drinker...coffee drinker that is. Isn't that what drinking coffee is all about anyway?

I should have known something was terribly wrong when my heart started racing right after finishing my coffee. Apparently, pregnancy *can* make one extra sensitive to caffeine. I had no idea as I am not a regular caffeine consumer. Wow! It's been an interesting several hours since the initial caffeine intake. I have never actually thrown up with any of my pregnancies, but as I was leaning over the kitchen sink this afternoon, I thought my vomit-less streak was over. I was actually hoping it was over. :) But alas, the streak continues as does my headache, heart-ache, and stomachache.

Farwell, Pike, I didn't enjoy your place very much and think I shall never wish to visit again.

Out of the mouth of my babe...

Tonight I was changing Noah into his P.J.'s and he didn't want to put his arm in the sleeve. Insulted, that I would make him do something that he didn't want to do, he looked at me and said, "Mommy, my heart is broken".

Truly, putting your P.J.'s on is equal to thwarted love.

6 Random Things About Me

I've been tagged by Joy and Dawn! I'm so glad two people tagged me because I whenever I am normally tagged I read it and think "that's nice" and then totally forget to do my part! :)



Here are 6 utterly important things about me!



1. Hmm, I'm the baby of my family and the thirdborn. A great place to be in the ranks, I think!

2. I used to sleep under our full sized bed when I was little because Abbi and I wanted bunk beds. My Dad would pull me out by my legs to put me back into bed and I wouldn't even wake up.

3. Sitting still is not in my nature (wonder where Noah gets it?) and I really hope to become more of a sitting still type of person one day...you know, balance is important.

4. I baked and decorated my own wedding cake.

5. Both of my boys were born naturally (I was induced with Soph) after eating pizza the night before their deliveries. Oh, and they were both a week or more late.

6. And dum dee dum, my biggest secret is that I am a famous, gymnast, dancer, and figure skater, all on the stage of my own kitchen floor.

Such exciting facts!

I tag:

Rachel A.

Jendi

Rachel H.

Charity

Our Pastor preached an excellent message recently on The Love Chapter. It was an amazing reminder of what true Christian love should look like. How short I fall! If I remember correctly, one of the points was that 1 Cor. 13 love cannot be done on our own, we need the work of the Holy Spirit in our life to produce the fruit of true love. I jotted down several notes and definitions for the different words in the chapter. Each one is convicting and challenging, but also encouraging as I think about the love the the Lord has for me. Thank you, Lord for our church and our faithful Pastor.

Check out these verses.

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. 2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. 3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. 4 Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,

1 Corinthians 13:1-4



Here are a couple of definitions/thoughts I copied out for several of the words in verse 4. I love studying the definitions of words and then substituting them in the verse to get another angle of the meaning. Maybe that's not KJV correct, but it seems to help me. :)



4 Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,



Kind = Helpful, looking for a solution, service/solution oriented



Envy = Striving to get what someone else has



Vaunt = Does not have to be noticed



Puffed up = Inflated idea of yourself

Aren't we girls just so prone to not want solutions? Instead of talk out my problems, we want the other person to guess or to be miserable while we give the cold shoulder treatment. It's just such a girl thing, isn't it? Aren't we all guilty to one degree or another? :)

Don't we often want what others have? And let's not even start about the over inflated view of self. I think sometimes we don't even want to admit that we have any of these problems in our life, but isn't that just the over inflated view of one's self coming out?

Do you think thankfulness has anything to do with counteracting jealousy? Jealousy/covetousness isn't just about "stuff". It can be about a situation or a person or a lot of other intangible things. An area the Lord has dealt with me on is thankfulness. I am far less susecptible to be jealous over something or some situation if I am being thankful for what God has given me.

As far as being noticed, doesn't it seem like our society today paints the picture that if you are at home with your kiddos you aren't really "doing anything"? Do you think that we buy into that sometimes? I do, I think one way I believe that is by forgetting that changing diapers, peacemaking through the squabbles, cleaning up the vomit, dish washing, laundry, and dinner making are not worship to God (if done with the proper spirit). For me, the overflow of that mind frame is a lack of realization of how important what I am doing as a Mom really is in God's eyes.

Lord, thank you for your Word that instructs and teaches me. Thank you for reminding me of these truths tonight. Help me to serve you by loving others quietly and sweetly, in the sidelines of my home and heart, and to remember that this is what pleases you.

Thanks for reading the ramblings of a tired Momma who should be in bed. More exciting, disjointed, unimportant content coming soon! :)

Surprise!

This is our washing machine full of clean clothes getting ready to be moved to the dryer...


This is the seal of the washing machine complete with a surprise...



Apparently, a whole pocketful of frogs was in someone's pocket. :)

Odd Lot and Souvenirs

While we were on vacation the kids, of course, got their souvenirs from Odd Lot Outlet. Odd Lot is one of our most anticipated stops each year! Their treasures included: a small plastic bowling set which broke and is getting thrown away this week, a moon buggy complete with astronauts similar to plastic toy soldiers (the moon buggy was destroyed the first day....this is reel quality stuff folks!), a bow and arrow set (the arrows are gone now - oh the quality!), a couple of balls, and Sophia got her china doll back.

Last year she got a china doll at Odd Lot and through a series of unfortunate event her klassy china doll got broken. Of course, Odd Lot advertises that, "if you see it, buy it now because it may not be here tomorrow"! However, we see many of the same items year after year. I assured Sophia after the unfortunate demise of "Rose" earlier this year that, "I'm sure Odd Lot will still have another doll exactly like Rose", and we were not disappointed. Here is Sophia with Rose #2. She promises to never drop her off the loft again. :)

I thought I'd also add a few of the wonderful samplings from Odd Lot's world famous free gift bar.

Sophia at the free gift bar!




Free Gift Option #1 - a beautiful Mom's kitchen knick-knack, painted by a sweet lady in China I'm sure. Isn't it lovely and wouldn't you want to adorn your kitchn with it?




Free Gift Option #2 - a Mardi Gras bracelet. You never know when you will need one to complete your outfit!

And Option #3 - a little basketish whatcha ma callit, bauble-ish, doo-dad, trinkety, knick-knack. It's always good to have one of these on hand.



And last but not least, Extra eyelashes and eyeballs because, well, just because I guess!

There really were so many delightful choices this year, I wish I could have taken the time to show all of them to you! I am happy to report that there was one good item in the free gift bar - paper race car tablecloths! I think Elijah is going to have a race car birthday this year. The boys came home with Easter bunny plastic/cardboard airplanes and Sophia got a little plastic bird that you can balance on your finger...we got the birds last year too. The turnover of merchandise is just phenominal over at Odd Lots!

My souvenir was a beautiful, long red serving dish from my favorite pottery shop. The shop has a great nature trail with suspension bridge which is always a hit!


However, my favorite surprising souvenir was this...






This 'lil test became positive only after the allowable time limit so I wasn't sure that it was accurate and so I didn't get another test until the week after we got home (we were busy unpacking, schooling, etc), but sure enough, that one was positive too, so it looks like there will be a new kiddo at our house sometime next May. Isn't that the best souvenir of all? However, I did manage to throw this souvenir away whilst unpacking the many grocery bags that we packed to bring home - glad I took a picture of it! :)

Video Link

It looks like the videos I just posted are still "processing" on you tube so I hope they are viewable soon and I hope I didn't do something wrong! :)

The Pledge of Allegiance

Sophia had to learn the pledge of allegiance for King's Kids at our church. I know, I know, we're homeschoolers because she's in first grade and didn't know any of the pledges...ooops. Because we said it a bazillion times, Elijah caught on and I took this sweet video of him saying the pledge. My favorite line is "indibibital, with libty and justice...". I love my boy, he's just so irresistable!!

Noah, on the other hand enthusiastically says, "I pledge allegiance to da, I did it!!!!" Tonight just before I put him to be, he surprised me with his own rendition of the pledge. Listen carefully for "to the public (republic)", he says it, but you have to listen carefully to that part. The rest is pretty clear except for that he gets tripped up on "United States of America" for some reason. Maybe it's because he's not 2 years old yet. This boy never ceases to amaze with his antics. He's such a whip and I love him.

What do you think?

Does this make you laugh? I don't know why I laugh every time I watch this. Is it the silent seriousness that makes me laugh? Or is what they are doing just funny? Maybe it's both, but I just laugh.

Vacation

Welcome to the belated vacation post. I didn't download my pictures until this morning. We had a great time! When the kids saw the pictures this morning, they would have liked to go back on vacation!

Our first stop was at the Pretzel Factory.

The Antique car is a BIG highlight. The car runs as well, but we weren't offered a ride so we just let the kids sit inside.

The bathtub in our old and dated 80's unit is always a hit with the kids. This year they were asking about it before we ever left. The tub is like a big red, round barrel.

Noah was especially fond of the the big tall bathtub and he jumped around in there until he had bruises. It was quite painful to watch, but he was happy nonetheless. :)

This was a new attraction for us. We've been to Bushkill Falls a few times, but this year we heard about Dingmans Falls and decided to give it a try. The trail was sooo nice, we could push the stroller and it was entirely free.

The "big" waterfall

We climbed the 124 steps to the top of the big waterfall. That was fun and left us out of breath!

Noah at the top of a waterfall = dangerous situation

Thankfully, there were railings.

Elijah and Sophia found this "Pet" as they call any animal or insect that they catch. Of course, they wanted to bring it home, but we convinced them it was best for the caterpillar to stay in the forrest.

Still to come...the latest Free Gift Bar offerings for Odd Lot Outlet. Stay tuned for this great excitement!!!!

Home

The vacation is over, we are home, and I am *trying* to get everything/everyone unpacked, put away, cleaned up, home schooled, laundered and everything else. It's slow progress. We left the house dirty and came home and it was still dirty. :) Not to mention full of all of our bags from vacation. When I say "bags" I do mean literal bags. We packed for vacation entirely with plastic grocery bags! It was the only way everything would fit in the van with the bikes.

We had a great time and visited new places as well as a few old places. I wasn't ready to come home, but coming home is always nice, kwim?! I hope to download my pictures soon and I will post some of them after that.

Happy Monday! I'm so glad it's not as hot today!!!

One week down and lots more excitement to come.

Well, the first week of school is over. Praise the Lord it went better than I thought it would. Sophia did a great job. Elijah loved doing MathUSee with us. After Math he said, "Mommy, this is my school!". It appears he may have the math bug passed down from his Father before him. And me, I was just so glad that Sophia remembered how to write her numbers and sentences. Perhaps I'm silly, but I am just so amazed that she can even write at all. To me, it's a miracle because I don't feel qualified or confident to be her teacher. Some teachers worry about penmanship, I'm just wowed that she writes! :)

We also had impromptu music "classes" this week. Sophia and Elijah asked if I would get out "that guitar under my bed" - it's a violin - we're very cultured over at the Anderson Place. Well, I got out me ole violin and they wanted me to play something. I started with my trademark, "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" and I wowed my audience! I finished with several rousing renditions of Twinkle Twinkle (of course) and a flat and squeaky Amazing Grace. It was a grand re-entrance to my violin career! Sophia took to screeching, I mean playing the violin and Elijah was phenominal on the pitch pipe. Noah and did a duet on the piano and I cannot imagine what the neighbors would have thought had the windows been open. I'm glad the Bible says, "make a joyful noise".

We tried other new things this week. I put stickers on a few of the piano keys so Sophia could learn to play Mary Had a Little Lamb on the piano. She wasn't interested at first, but today she played it over and over and over and over. Did I mention that she has been "playing" the violin several times a day as well? Maybe this impromptu music was not such a good idea. :) My favorite memory of the week was playing some new, exciting tunes on me violin. Almost as soon as I got "that guitar from under my bed" out, they asked me to play some children's songs. Yes sirree, I had never heard of "Rolled Away" on the violin until this week. Another favorite was "Deep and Wide". Never has a violin sounded so graceful until it has squeaked out Deep and Wide!

Our annual Poconos vacation is coming up soon. I just remembered that we get to go here this year. Yes ma'am it's a happenin' place with aisles upon aisles of --- junk! The kids love it. Graeme loves it for about 20 minutes when he announces that we are leaving. I can never get through all the aisles of useless junk in just 20 minutes but we always end up coming home with useless contraptions and cheap toys. Did I mention that they have the Poconos' only Free Gift Bar? You get a free gift just for stopping by. The free junk, I mean gift is usually something incredibly useful like a paper mache trinket box with a cherub on top or a wooden doorhanger advertising the 1996 olympic team or something klassy like that. It's a real quality place...that's why we frequent it each and every year and it is looked forward to with great anticipation!

We also lurve this place. It has such a nice nature path...there's a suspension bridge and a stream and pond. It's very nice. We utilize the nature trail while I go into the pottery shop and look at all the pretties by myself. I can't imagine Noah aka Blaze in a store with stacks upon stacks of pottery and glassware. It would be a very dangerous thing. I usually never buy anything, but it's fun to look at it all.

We have some other places that we visit every year like the bakery where you can get a hot dog and apple pie for $1.50 - we're so cheap, The pretzel and chocolate factories, the bread bakery shop (Graeme's all time fav. stop), the outlets (I get to go sans kids, yippee), and a couple of restaurants where we get great coupons from this site. Why is food linked to a good vacation?! We don't do a whole lot each year because the Poconos is a very slow paced place and there's not that much to do, but it's fun. Fun to anticipate all of our favorite spots, fun to be together without the normal distractions.

Vacationing with little kids isn't completely relaxing, but it is refreshing because it's a break from the norm. After the day 3-4 I start to relax and get refreshed (by that I don't mean sleep refreshed :)) and the last days are filled with re-prioritizing, evaluating, and setting new goals for the days ahead. It's good to come apart once in a while. It helps me think about my values because I am removed from the normal routine.

But, before the vacation comes preparation, of which I have done next to none. I'd better get busy! Happy weekend all!

My Sweetie Pie two years ago

This is my Elijah two years ago, right around this 2nd birthday. This is one of my all time favorite family videos. He was just so cute and chubblicious at 2! He hardly talked at this age, but he did his trademark pig impersonation. He also didn't know how to say the word "yes" so any answer in the affirmative was "I do". That made for some funny question and answer times.

Right now Noah is about the same age as Elijah was in this video. I can't believe how much Elijah has changed and how I know Noah is going to change just as quickly. Seeing how much E has changed makes me want to relish in my baby Noah all the more because I know that I will blink and he will be almost four just like his big brother! Time, slow down!

New Look

I was getting tired of pink. It was starting to hurt my eyes, was it bothering your too?

We have enjoyed the last few days in the great out of doors of our back yard. It's amazing how dirty the kids (boys especially) become after playing outside. I discovered from one of my friends, the secret to removing all the sand from the little boys...baby powder. You probably already know all about this, but it was news to me and it helps sooo much! I can't tell you how many times I have opened Noah's diaper after playing outside to find it full of sand, and I could never figure out how to get it off short of a bath. Now, not only is the sand gone, he is powder fresh, voila!

We have finished school day number three...woo-hoo!

First Week

The first week of school is going fine. I think I am going to like our curriculum choices this year, but I won't know for sure until the end of the year. What I like about them is that they are simple and to the point.

Sophia is still into catching butterflies. She has caught several of the common types so now she lets them go because she has so many of them pinned (poor butterflies). We don't have many of the larger kinds in our yard because we don't have any plants, but Graeme caught a monarch at our park and I caught a couple of Eastern Tiger Swallowtails at my Mom's. We need the black Swallowtail yet, so hopefully we'll catch that one soon. I am so amazed by all the different varieties and the beauty of each one. She caught a tiny little butterfly the other evening and the detail of it was just amazing. I never realized there were so many varieties of butterflies in our area until Sophia took up butterfly hunting. It's so fun to watch her run around the field till she's red faced and out of breath, net in hand, shouting at the butterflies as she goes about. I love that she has taken up an interest that she enjoys. It gives me another glimpse into her and what she is all about.

I hope to soon finally have curtains up in her room and do some decorating in there. Can you guess what she wants for her bedroom? Butterflies, of course! Thankfully it seems butterflies are a popular decor choice.

The house is mostly "done" (I use the word done loosely) except for the main living areas (kitchen, family room, LR/DR). Why did I wait til the end to do the areas I look at all day long? Anyway, onward and upward, tomorrow is another busy day...

Ready or not...

here we come! We are starting school tomorrow. Sophia is in first grade this year and Elijah is in wannabe school. Noah is hopefully still going to be in "nap school" when we do school.

Last year we started in the very end of July. I was so nervous to start school because I had no idea what to expect. This year I know more of what to expect, but truthfully, I'm not ready. I'm ready as in I have a lesson plan book with lesson plans, all of our school books and a basic plan for the year, but I just don't feel ready. We going on vacation soon and I've got that on my mind not to mention curtains and house stuff. Sometimes you just have to do what you know to be right whether or not you feel like doing it, kwim?! I know it's time to start school, so ready or not here we come!

BTW, my sister and I went curtain/fabric shopping today and did anyone else go to Chick-fil-a for the free chicken strips if you wore a team logo shirt? One of us didn't have a team logo shirt so she printed out a logo on a piece of paper and pinned it to her shirt. We'll stoop to new lows for free Chick-fil-a! We also used coupons for free chicken sandwiches at McDonalds. It was so much fun! However, after an unfortunate incident, I locked Abbi's keys in her car....can you believe it!!!! After last week. Fortunately, we were close to home so Scott came and rescued us. It was a very embarrassing moment. :) When will I learn?

Ps. In case you were wondering, I don't think Sophia was trying to assassinate her dolls, I think she was just playing with them and swinging them. It just looked so funny! She loves yarn, she does all sorts of unique things with it. She pulls cars and trucks with it, she plays horsey with her brother with it. When Graeme got a remote controlled heliocopter for Christmas she wanted to hang one of her toys from it so it could go up in the sky, and I cannot begin to tell you all the many items she has hung from the loft in our family room all with a $1.50 skein of yarn from Wal*mart. It doesn't take much to entertain in this house. :)

Signing off so I am rested and ready to take the homeschool plunge tomorrow...