{pretty, happy, funny, real} - Holy Thursday

 

 

{pretty and happy}

 

 A sweet friend of mine brought us a french toast casserole on Wednesday so we could enjoy a yummy breakfast this morning.  She made this beautiful dish and generously thought of us, though she is going to have a baby any day now.  Not only was it pretty, but it was delicious which made our morning a very happy one indeed.  Thank you Becky!

{funny}

 

On Monday another friend and her children came over to keep us company.  Fritter and her son get along famously, and while playing the two of them decided to get out the pipe cleaners and make a craft.  And then it turned into making a butterfly life cycle.  There was no prompting on the part of myself or my friend, I promise!

 



So this is part of the "habitat" and if you look towards the bottom of the picture you can see the little white "egg".

 And then the egg hatches and out crawls a very hungry caterpillar.

 When the caterpillar has had enough to eat, he attaches to a tree branch and goes into his chrysalis.

 When he emerges, he is a beautiful butterfly!  (One of the coffee filter butterflies is at the bottom of the picture.  I do have a better photo, but I don't really like to post other people's children on my blog.)

Look at these homeschooled children!  :)

{real}

 

Though we did not get to have our annual Seder Supper, because my dear husband is still gone (say a prayer for him would you?  He begins his very long travel home late tonight, and will finally arrive tomorrow evening.) we did still wash each others feet.

 

I do not have a picture of Fritter's feet being washed, since I was doing the washing, but that's how we started.  I then told him to do as I had done for Ladybug.

 



 And the Ladybug washed Sunflower's feet.

 And then Sunflower washed my feet.  This particular (almost) two year old is not the most reverent child, but she concentrated so hard while washing and drying my feet that it was hard to tell her we were all done.

I read about Jesus washing the disciples feet from our family bible to start, and then afterwards we talked about how Jesus wants us to serve each other and those around us.

Tomorrow we are attending a children's Station's of the Cross, and then we will wait on pins and needles until the time when we get to go pick Dan up from the airport.  We will have him for two short, but very full days, where we will celebrate Sunflower's birthday on Saturday and then Easter.  And that is as far as I am letting myself think.  We will deal with my husband leaving again next week when it comes.  Until then, I hope you all have a very peaceful and prayerful holy week and a blessed Easter!

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Blessed

Because I gave up complaining for Lent in honor of showing more gratitude, I thought I'd make up for my last post by showing you what I'm truly grateful for today.

After feeling incredibly sorry for myself today, I came into the front room to discover this:

 All three of my little blessing, snuggled up and reading books together.

And then the littlest (for now) decided she was going to come off the couch for a closer look at my camera:

Yes.  I am richly blessed and abundantly grateful.

Feeling Sorry For Myself

~Note: You can really just skip this "poor me" post if you want to.  Somehow, I just feel better writing it down.~

I am SOOOO ready for my husband to get home on Friday.  I feel like I'm spending every other hour on my knees telling God that I just can't do this any more.  And then I feel guilty for feeling that way because my little cross is nowhere near as hard to carry as so many others.  So I pick myself up, and dust myself off.  And then a few hours later I'm right back begging for this time to be over.

And it's not so much that I need help or that I need quiet time to myself (I do, and I have a babysitter scheduled for tomorrow morning) but just that I need my husband.  I just want to sink into his arms and sob and know that everything is ok.

This has got to be my hardest Holy Week ever.

{pretty, happy, funny, real}

 

 

{pretty}

 Since my dear husband is out of town for two weeks, and since I didn't want to bring all three of my children to my doctor's appointment today I went ahead and hired a babysitter.  And then I went ahead and hired her for the whole morning.  After my appointment, I went over to Home Goods "just to look" and found these for $2 each:

 

I think they are technically kitchen towels.  They are a nice linen and the print is so pretty that I don't think they will just be relegated to kitchen duty.  I thought I could maybe make them into cloth napkins.  Or...well I don't know yet, but they are pretty.

{happy}

 

A few weeks ago, while we were out looking at yard sales we came across an in-home day-care that was foreclosing.  We saw a very small sign posted on the garage advertising that their play structure was for sale.  We were not necessarily looking for one right this moment, seeing as the sprinkler system has not yet been installed and the grass has not yet been planted.  But my dear husband went to look at it anyway and when the guy told him that he would take $200, what could we do but say "Sold!"

 

Because it is so large, and because Dan was leaving for his trip so soon, and because the sellers were foreclosing, time was against us and we had to hire someone to move it.  This raised the cost some, but not much and in the end, we have a very fun play structure in our backyard for much, much less than we would have otherwise paid.  

 

Fritter and Ladybug have spent most of their waking moments playing on it.  This makes them (and me) very happy. 

{funny}

 

We are a relatively low tech family as I think I may have mentioned before.  We do not own smart phones and our children do not play video games.  So when we go to a doctor's office or somewhere requiring patience on the part of the littles, we pack a bag with crayons and stickers and coloring and reading books. 

 

Yesterday Ladybug had her Little Gym dance class and while waiting Fritter and Sunflower were entertaining themselves very well.  Another little boy came over, curious about the story Fritter was making up as he colored in his pirates coloring book, and the two of them sat and made up stories together.  They were both being quiet and well behaved and it was fun to listen to their imagination.

 

And then the little boy's mother came over, and for whatever reason handed the boy her iPhone and the boy proceeded to go into lala land while Angry Birds took his attention.  The noise of the game attracted Fritter's attention and he stood in awe watching as the little boy...did whatever you do in the Angry Birds game.  I tried to draw Fritter's attention back to his book, but to a six year old boy the flashing lights proved much more interesting. 

 

Today, during Fritter's quiet time, I saw he had built this:

 

When I asked him what it was, he told me he was playing Angry Birds, and that the towers were the city and the animals were the egg stealers, the cars were the bird's spaceships and the building was the jail.

I'm sure this was much more entertaining than an iPhone could have been.  And a much better use of the imagination.

{real}

 

With Dan gone I'm doing my best to keep busy in the evenings.  This includes pulling out all the cloth diapers and making sure they are washed up and fixed up for the new baby.

Unfortunately, our BumGenius diapers all need replacement elastic and velcro tabs.  I ordered the kits when Sunflower was a baby and never got around to fixing them.  This is high on my "must be done before baby gets here" list this time around.



A diaper with the elastic fixed and the tabs off.


The yellow diaper is completely fixed and the green one is yet to be touched.

 

The diapers all have a slight odor to them as well, so I think I need to strip them when I'm done fixing them.   

 

And because my husband is gone (did I mention my husband is gone and two weeks seems like such a long time?) we haven't been eating dinner at the dining room table.  It has become my catch-all for miscellaneous projects and the dumping ground for my purse and coffee and water cups.  This is one thing that will be cleaned up before Dan gets home.

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March

I have a love/hate relationship with March this year.  On the one hand, the evenings are blessedly cool and whatever breeze we have carries with it the scent of orange blossoms.  Orange blossoms, March, Arizona.  Heavenly.  On the other hand, we've had hot weather already (in the 90s!) and this pregnant mama has already turned on the air conditioning.

On one hand, Miss Sunflower turns two on the 30th.  Two is an exciting age, me thinks.  However, an example will better serve to explain that negative other hand.  Today while snuggling my little snuggle bunny, I told her she was going to soon be two years old.  To which she replied with a resounding, "No!"

The biggest downer this month though, is that my dear husband left for a two week business trip.  And he's really, really far away.  So far, in fact, that we cannot even use our cell phones to communicate and the time change is so big that it's complicated even trying to figure out when to talk to each other.  I received my first real phone call from him this morning around 2am, just as he was getting off of work.  So yeah.  Downer.  I'm 32 weeks pregnant and my husband is gone.  You can bet my emotions are all over the place.

BUT... (that other hand still has something to say)...

Dan will be home on Good Friday, and though this will be the first year we've ever not done a family Seder supper on Holy Thursday, he will be home in time for said two year old's birthday and then it's Easter.  Blessed Easter.

And then he leaves again for another three days.

But then he'll be home.  And it will be April.  Maybe there'll be showers.  I could use some cool weather right about now.

And then we can really prepare for our newest baby to come.

Did I mention I gave up complaining for Lent?  *snicker*

We Have A Pope!

As the bells rings out in joy in St. Peter's Square, so they do here also.