Grow Old With Me

I'm so thankful for the new kitchen I freecycled last night!  Freecycle is a network of people who give away things they no longer use or want.  This was a huge blessing and even came with a few plastic dishes!  Elsie loves it!

Last night I made chocolate chip cookies.  This morning Jack came downstairs (in his pj's and a pink superhero cape) and said, "Look, Mom!  Santa Clause left us cookies!"  I laughed.  It pretty much snapped me out of my grumpy morning attitude I was having. Now we are enjoying a vigorous snowfall.  Too bad Matt had to head out this morning at 4:15 to get to Starbucks.  I suppose there are people who will be grateful for their cup of coffee this morning??

My beautiful Christmas cactus is in full bloom!

When our car breaks down something exciting is about to happen. Well, not only is it about to happen, but I suppose it is actually happening at that moment as well. For the past few months I’ve noticed a gradual decline in our car’s ability to make it into reverse without making awful clunking noises. I mentioned it to the mechanic a couple of times but he never seemed too worried about it. Well, it was quite bad after this weekend and so we signed it up for an oil change this morning and to take a look at its reversing inabilities. Turned out the transmission is shot and they said they couldn’t even get it to go into reverse. Well, I didn’t exactly believe them about that one, since it had reversed that morning. We picked it up to discuss what to do next, as it wasn’t really in the budget to clunk down $2,500 for a new transmission on a 13 yr old van. I had an errand to do, and thought as long as I don’t go in reverse all will be well. It was. Unfortunately I had to go in reverse, though. I thought I could make a wide sweeping turn at the end of someone’s driveway, but couldn’t, so I gingerly shifted into reverse only to find out that the mechanic was right and it didn’t have reverse anymore; just a terrible grinding sound. So, here we are at a complete stranger’s house, where I had just quickly swung by to pick up a tiny little thing I had bought from her for a Christmas present, and I was stuck. She tried pushing me backwards. The kids tried pushing me backwards. Finally my parents and friend came to push me backwards and it worked! We were a go! Unfortunately we can’t live without reversing sometimes, so we’re working on that right now! If reverse can be likened to “looking back” in life, then we can learn a good lesson! It’s good to look ahead, but we’re also told in the Bible to “remember where we came from” and not forget! Retrace our steps. See how God has worked in the past. Remember the steps by which He led us. And sometimes we need to step back a bit in order to go forward.


We are so happy our van broke now and not a few days ago when we were many many miles from home in Syracuse, NY! We visited Sherry & Aaron for Thanksgiving, and the kids had fun with their cousins! My parents came too, and we were blessed with the scrumptious Marmee Watt Thanksgiving fare! We played much speed scrabble and had a nice walk around their neighborhood before we left on Sunday. It was a great time to relax, though not filled with too much sleep. But sleep is relative when so much fun has to be crammed into only a few days.

Elsie has grown up a little bit more and is now able to get out of her crib and the pack n’ play and toddle downstairs by herself. It has been difficult to get past the cute-ness of it sometimes! She even came wandering into our room last night in the middle of the night, I think with a scary dream. But after a few minutes of cuddling, she gets a crazy grin on her face that melts my heart and signals, “Time to go back to bed. You’re fine.” She is saying everything we say and loves to pray for people. She has a really gutsy side to her that isn’t afraid of anything, and yet she cries quite easily. She is often “humbry” and likes to eat pretty much anything. She says “thank you” SO well.

Jack is a torrent of energy and force. A whirlwind of activity and agility. A mixture of sweetness and brute strength. He loves to grab a spoon out of the silverware drawer and make it into a sword and gallop around the house making loud noises. He likes to be the puppy in Nadine’s games and eat goldfish off the floor. He loves to talk on the phone and pace around the house while he chatters about everything on his mind. He still loves his man-sized portions of oatmeal in the morning. He calls me his princess.
Elijah is aching to be a man. He pointed out yesterday that he has whiskers on his arm. I told him those were not whiskers, they were just hairs. Whiskers will grow on his face. He shows me his muscles multiple times a day. He has bigger muscles than me. He prays for the day to come quickly when he can go with Daddy to work. He can be a goofball, but he is the best one at cheering people up, with his uncanny ability to see beyond himself and into someone else’s heart.
Nadine is almost always in a daydream. She dreams about horses. She dreams about dogs. She plays the piano really well and I can only imagine how much better she would be if she took lessons. Today we were talking about prayer and asking the Lord about something. She said to me, “Sometimes Jesus says yes, sometimes He says no. I hope He says yes on this one.” She is usually the first one to remind me that we ought to pray when there is a crisis about something or an answer to prayer.
Matthew has had a lot of carpentry work, in addition to Starbucks. He recently got promoted to shift supervisor, which is exciting. He is due for a Dr. visit to see what’s going on with the Wegener’s. So far it still seems like nothing. At his last ENT visit 2 weeks ago the Dr. said his nose looked the best he’s ever seen it. He has no pain and actually hasn’t been taking any medicine for about a month. We’ll see what the “official” word is when he goes in to see his bloodwork results.

So, besides trying to maintain our home, keep four children from harm and starvation, cleaning clothes, surfaces, and dishes all while NOT driving in reverse, I have a few spare minutes to read and write and crochet. My favorite time of the day is cozying under the covers next to my man. We usually get as far as saying how that is our favorite part of the day, before that favorite part is dissolved into unconciousness and we wonder how it lasted only a few minutes. And that time is swiftly approaching, so I am going to go enjoy every second of it before I wake up to a new day! Happy December!

So, one day Matthew and I were outside of Starbucks having some coffee on a rare date and he said to me, "You should get your nose pierced."  I was quite flabbergasted.  Never thought of it as something he would like on me!  Well, a few months later, I off and did it! =)  Jack thinks it's "bootiful."

We enjoyed watching Daddy play flag football at church last Sunday!

Sometimes mothering has pangs of joy.  This morning was one of those times.  Nadine was crying about a great many things, all before 8:00.  So at last she came out with the fact that she really really misses her best friend who lives far away in Jerusalem.  We are about to do a lot of fun things today and she is so sad that she will not get to have her come along to enjoy them with her.  She cried, I comforted her and told her that most of my best friends also lived very far away so I understood how she felt.  Then Jack, out of his own accord, came over, leaned his head on her shoulder and patted her gently.  She was holding tightly to her new stuffed bear that she won at church and slowly handed it over to Jack to hold.  That was a big step!  Then Jack slowly gave her his most precious possession, his ratty bear, and they both hugged eachother's precious-es.  Then the exchange ended and they smiled shyly at eachother.  I was so touched!

Who would have thought one dollar could stretch so far? Last week each of the kids got a dollar from Grandma, so Matt took them to the dollar store for a treat. Nadine picked a jumprope and the boys each picked a gun. Those guns have already been taped together, but they’re still going strong! Right now they are marching around the house in the hands of two warriors. They sleep on top of the refrigerator when things get out of control, but for the most part they are in active duty.


Swords have also been a constant love for my warrior boys. I found a really cool book at the library about swords and this morning Jack was on his tummy, knees tucked under him, bottom in the air, looking intently at the pictures. So cute! Last night I went into the boys’ room to look at them while they were sleeping. Jack was all curled up with a big smile on his face and he said in his sleep, “Hi, Levi!” I guess he was dreaming about his friend! =) So cute! Today he and Nadine have been inseparable and Nadine told me that it’s a “me and Jack day all day!” as they danced around in a circle. Then Jack told her, “Let’s get married, deen! Let’s get married!” So they danced again. The other day Jack decided to jump out of his bunkbed. He landed on the trundle bed below, that happened to be pulled out, so he didn’t hit the floor at least. I heard a loud thud then a loud cry. I thought for sure there was a broken bone in my future, but amazingly he only bumped his ankle on the side of the trundle bed and it made a bruise. He learned that trundle beds are not trampolines and that you can’t jump that high unless you have a parachute.

Elijah is persistent in things he wants to do. Like figuring out how to fix things or find things. His prayers are so cute. One day they were pretending to be puppies ALL day. He prayed, “Thank you SO much for helping us to be puppies. Thank you so much for making me a Christian and help us to have a GREAT day for Mommy.” Yesterday he and Jack found a HUGE puddle and went jumping, swimming, dunking and dancing in it. They shed their shirts and every care in the world while dousing themselves in brown muddy water. It’s hard to dampen that kind of joy when a mere washing machine cycle and warm bath will wash everything dirty away. The memories will stay with them forever, though.


Elsie is repeating everything we say. She LOVES to sing “This little light of mine” and holds her finger up so we’ll start to sing it. She starts to giggle and smile. She also gets pumped up singing, “the B-I-B-L-E” and shouts, “BIBLE!” at the end. She is a precious darling, especially today as she wandered around in her rainboots and pink fairy-wings.

Besides all of the regular “dailies”, life continues. We are thrilled as we work with the new college/young adult group at our church. It’s been a real joy and we’re excited to see God growing us all up in Him. Our house is still for sale and we continue to trust the Lord that He knows the best timing for every single detail of our lives. We know that as we do the “little” things in front of us and obey His whispers, He will shed light on our next steps at just the right time.