Does Daddy Know He's in Charge?

I've been feeling sick for almost a week now and it's all thanks to allergies. I thought it might be strep throat, but who knew that allergies could be so yucky. It's raining today, so maybe that will clear some things up along with the new meds I'm on.
Needless to say, the kids have had a lot of Daddy time over the past several days. They learned the first night he came home to sick mommy that I was happily relinquishing my role of keeper of the house and kids.
Ketchup: "Mommy, can I have some juice."
Mommy: "Daddy is in charge now. Go ask him."
Ketchup: "Does Daddy know he's in charge?"
Mommy: "I don't know. Go ask him." (Anyone noticing a theme here?)
Ketchup: runs off to ask Daddy and all too quickly returns, "Daddy wants to know what he is in charge of?"
Mommy: "Daddy is in charge of you and your brother, so go ask him for juice."
Ketchup: "OK"
and she leaves finally getting the point and I guess Daddy got it too because I got to rest in peace and quiet.

Daddy did a great job keeping up with the kids and thanks to their daily trips to the community pool, I think they may be expert swimmers by now.
For the few times when I did have to entertain them by myself, I learned a few couch-friendly
tricks: blowing bubbles with my gum, hitting a balloon up in the air to them, asking them lots of questions and of course a lot of TV (thank you Jon & Kate Plus 8 for entertaining my kids).
And then last night I had moved to my bed and Ketchup and I repeated history. We watched my favorite movie from when I was a kid together - E.T. She held on to my E.T. lunchbox and asked about a million questions, but she really seemed to like it. She also liked that she was able to stay up late with me because Bounce was a little scared and tired and had already gone to bed.
Despite Mommy being sick, the kids had a great time with Daddy in charge. Thank you to the best Daddy in the whole world!!

Ketchup's new trick & AI Finale

Ketchup stopped me today and said "look, I can make the number one with a different finger." Well, you can probably guess which finger it was and no I didn't teach her this trick. Maybe she learned it from Daddy after his encounter with Misty.
I tried to keep a straight face and tell her "Yeah, I see, but the best finger to make a one is still your pointer finger." She seemed to go right along with it.
Speaking of right along with it....she was singing right along with all the songs on American Idol tonight. Although I think our (I brainwashed her) favorite David Cook will probably lose, it was a good show.
Ketchup was excited that the winner would make a CD. She also wanted to know why the stage looked smaller-that was a sign she's been paying too much attention! She also was concerned that once the show was over would it ever come on again and was relieved when I told her they would start all over next year. She'll probably be counting down the days.

Top 10 Highlights of our Vacation

Last week we were blessed to be on vacation in beautiful Arizona. Here are our top 10 highlights
10. It was a break from cleaning our house
9. Enjoying the yummy Tucson food (eegee's and Lucky Wishbone)
8. We all attempted to catch the 6 fish in the pond at my parent's house. Attempt is the key word.
7. Ketchup had her hair braided for the first time and has now discovered a new hair-do. In fact she has a hair full of braids tonight, so she can have that crimped look in the morning.
6. Bounce wrestled his little heart out.
5. Riding the quad and learning (or confirming as we already assumed) that Mommy is faster.

4. The kids learned to cross the pond all on their own despite the super cold water. They would tell you they swam across because they paddled their hands as they walked.

3. Bella, our dog, learned to swim and now hates our small fenced in yard compared to 40 acres.

2. Daddy survived a vicious dog attack - we will never name our dog Misty. (Misty might have been small but those super sharp teeth packed a mean bite).

1. Spending a wonderful, relaxing time with family.

Sing it like a singer

When I get tired of the kid songs, I like to play upbeat Christian music in the van. The kids have a new favorite CD, Addison Road, and they request their favorite songs and are quickly learning the words to sing a long. Bounce asks what every word means. I don't know how he understands each word, but he repeats the word he hears and wants to know what it means. Good thing it's Christian music!
Ketchup is the singer. She sings her little heart out. Then Bounce asked her to sing it like a real singer and that brought out all the serious facial expressions. I think I have American Idol to thank for her serious singer faces. Too bad I don't have a video camera hooked up to the rearview mirror to share these songs.
Here is the band's website if you want to sing along, just remember to sing it like a singer!
http://www.addisonroad.com/home.htm

The Jacket

It was a little cool this weekend, so being the good mom that I am (or so I thought) I took jackets for the kids to church. Well, by the time we hiked all the way to the van after church, I realized I had forgotten both jackets. My wonderful husband and the kids march all the way back to retrieve them. What seemed like 15 minutes later they return empty-handed. Both jackets were gone. Here's the funny part. Bounce's jacket was new or new to us as is practically everything else we have. I had bought it last Saturday at a children's consignment sale. It was a nice tan Ralph Lauren jacket but I only paid $2 for it. However, I did not write his name in it (note to self - do that next time).
When Bounce's teacher saw the jacket on the counter and saw that it was a Ralph Lauren jacket, she did not assume it was Bounce's because why would a nursery worker's son have such an expensive jacket she thought. So both she and another teacher thought it was Pastor Graham's grandson's jacket because it was Ralph Lauren it had to be his, and since his Grandma picked him up, she didn't know if it was his or not. She probably thought well it's Ralph Lauren it has to be his, too.
So about every hour Bounce wants to know when he'll get his jacket back since he never even wore it. His teacher and I had a good laugh about the "expensive" jacket. We'll have to see if we get it back.

"I Love It!"

Those were Ketchup's exact words as she went across the monkey bars for the first time today all by herself. Once she had it down, she did it several more times. Who wants to bet she won't be able to lift her arms tomorrow?
So if the showing today doesn't amount to much, at least it gave her time to learn a fantastic new life skill!

Finally - Spiderman!

We've been renting the Best of the Electric Company on DVD with the hopes that on each disk we would see Spiderman. The kids have been disappointed up until now. Today they finally saw him on disc three - third time is the charm I guess.
Despite not being able to see the superhero, they have enjoyed the shows and have been learning too, so I guess the wait has been well worth it. Despite being an "old" show, it can really hold their attention and I tell myself that it's good for them too.
It's funny to go back and look at shows I watched as a kid. I don't remember the skits, but I remember some of the songs. Bounce asks me after each skit, "did you watch that when you were little?" He is amazed at what we used to do and watch when we were kids. He loves the song "Stop in the name of Love" because that is what his Nana and Tata used to listen to.
The good old days - how f------ un f---- un f--- un f-un fun!

Lesson learned (I hope)

(this may be a long read, sorry)
So I've kept the house pretty spotless for the few weeks it has been on the market. Everything ahs been pretty much under control. But we have had only one showing so far. Our open house was today, so yesterday I was cleaning even more so things would look extra perfect. I had just started cleaning the ceiling around the airvents. This made a mess as the little white specks of popcorn ceiling fell to the floor below. I knew this would happen so I had even moved the furniture out of the way so it wouldn't get messy. I thought I had it all planned out - under control.
Then the phone rang. I listened to the message stating that we had a showing scheduled from 1:30 - 2:00 pm. I looked at my watch and it was 1:45 pm. Panic mode set in. I was not in control. I started to run out the front door to tell Daddy, who was mowing, that we had people coming over. As I stepped out I saw the realtor's car out in front of the house. I'm sure they could see the look of disgust and panic on my face. Oh well. They came in and saw our house far from the "near perfect" condition that it is described as being in.
After they left I thought about how God knew they were coming. Why didn't He just give me a feeling to wait just 20 minutes before I started? Why didn't He distract me with something else so I wouldn't have had the house looking so out of sorts.
Well, I resorted to press on. I took control again and poured all my energy into cleaning. I was up until midnight and then up at 6am this morning to make things just right.
Then as I drove out of the neighborhood, I noticed a police car parked next to a fence off the main road through our neighborhood. In the biggest yellow letters possible there was a profane word spraypainted on the fence. Our neighborhood has never had graffiti until today. I wanted to cry. I had tried to make everything perfect, but I could not control everything.
Again I began to question God as to why today, why that. I continued driving and the CD in the car continued to play. Then I heard the following words in the song...

Even before there was a drop in the ocean even before there was a star in the sky even before
the world was put in motion You were on Your throne You were on Your throne.

[chorus]
You reign glory in the highest You reign let creation testify by Your name every knee will bow
and every tongue proclaim that Jesus reigns.

And you know that even before I had made such a mess of the house and another "bad guy" made such a mess of that fence - Jesus was seated on His throne. He reigns. He is in control.
I hope I get it now that I'm not in control and can't expect to control everything. In fact in spite of everything, not one single person came to the open house today. But you know what only one single person matters in this whole thing - that is Jesus Christ. He is in control and it is His power that holds everything together (Col. 1:17). That was the subject of our sermon at church last night. So do you think that God is shouting to me or what?
And since He is holding it (everything, the sale of our house, our car, our trip to Guatemala) together, I can stand steadfast and firm, strong in the Lord, not shifting from the HOPE in the Gospel (Col 1:23) (not in the hope of the sale of our house or the hope of a bigger, better house).
I hope that you have hope in the right thing too!

The winner (by a mile) is.... & the return of normalcy

Good ol' buzz has gone on to greener pastures. Last week Daddy called our insurance agent to add our new car and adjust the insurance since we wouldn't really be keeping Buzz much longer. Well, the receptionist asked a lot of questions about Buzz. To make a long story short, her nephew who has just returned from the war in Iraq needed a car for college. The great news is that he is now driving the car and we were able to help out a young man who fought for our country.

So now we just need to sell the house although it's starting to feel like that will be much more of a marathon. Our open house is this Sunday, so we'll see how that goes. We watched a show last night where no one came to their open house, so we wonder if that was a warning. We'll keep you posted!

Life is getting back to normal. Who knew that a normal routine would be so welcome. We resumed school this week and I've had time to exercise rather than just clean and complete a house project.

I've gotta run now because there is a meltdown occurring in Ketchup's room because Spiderman won't marry Barbie - see we're back to normal!

Bye-bye buzz - hello whitey!

Well, it was totally a God thing and Daddy now has a nice "new" car to drive. It's a white Camry, super clean and super quiet! I can actually hear Daddy now on his cell when he's driving.
So that means that our little "buzz" has to go; we are not only selling our house but our car as well. We'll have to see which sells first. Maybe they can race each other to the selling line.

Ketchup also had a fantastic soccer game last night. It was her team's most competitive game and it was fun to watch. Ketchup sported a serious game face a couple times when she was determined not to let her opponent beat her to the ball. She scored one of their three goals in a tight 3-2 win. She had fun and we have fun watching her.

Likely story (bad guys part 2)

Since we've been busy getting the house ready to list, Daddy hasn't had a chance to repair our stylin' car w/ keyless entry and keyless startup. That means I had my first "thief" tutorial this weekend so that I could start the car w/ our handy screwdriver and drive to work Sunday.
I was assured since I was a quick learner (maybe I'm not as innocent as I seem :-)) that I would be fine and have no problems.
Well, I was off and running early Sunday morning. I had even remembered my IPOD since our radio is now a big black hole in the dash. I was jammin to "You are God Alone" singing along that God is on His throne through the good times and bad (good thing because I was just about to get to the bad part) and I stopped at a red light at a major intersection. I was the first car in the center lane and then the engine died. I'm thinking "don't panic," so I pulled out the screwdriver to turn the car off and try to start it up again. That didn't work. I am in the worst place possible so I turn on the hazards and call 911. What seemed like half an hour later (more like a super long 10 min.), I see the wonderful flashing lights behind me. This is maybe the only time I've been glad to see those bright lights in my rearview mirror.
My next dilemma is about to begin as the cop walks up and I have to try to explain why I'm driving a car w/ no ignition and using a screwdriver for a key.
Despite my worry, he was very kind and I must have either looked innocent or too scared to have actually been the "bad guy" and he laughed about my having to drive that way.
Long story short, our little "buzz" is in the shop again and we went to look at a "new to us" car yesterday.

Bad Guys

Today I answered the phone to hear the words ...."This is 'so and so' with the Dallas Police Department...." Those are never good words to hear. Well, the bad guys struck and broke into Daddy's car at work. They broke the ignition and stole the radio. They drove the car from the first floor of the garage to the sixth floor.
We are ready to get rid of the car anyways, so I wonder why they just didn't take it. Come to think of it the car is so LOUD (Ketchup and I unaffectionately call it Buzz because it sounds like a giant bee), they couldn't have snuck away with it so they gave up.

Daddy just told me that another good thing is that the cd I had just given him for Easter was not in the car because I took it out to put it on Itunes. The other cd's in the car were sermons on the holiness of God. Too bad they didn't take those; they could have used them.

The dreaded words....

We went at lunch today at McDonalds (our normal Wed. routine), and I asked Ketchup if she played on the playground outside or inside at church. I was not prepared for the words I heard next.
"Me and a boy played boyfriend and girlfriend on the outside playground."
Oh, I can feel the knife in my heart as I type this. Boyfriend & Girlfriend- eeck!
I tried to calmly find out more about this "game" as my mind started racing to her wedding day (ok, I'm exaggerating a little:-)) She said she doesn't remember his name (oh, no!), but can remember what he looks like. He has blond hair and the last time he was there, he wanted to play this game with her. I asked if there were other "girlfriends" and she said she was the only one. She said today she planted flowers for his birthday. I guess that can't be all bad.

If I'm not posting as often (like I did anyway), it's because we're putting our house on the market. We would love to be closer to daddy's work and our church. Less time in the car equals less money on gas and tolls. God willing, we can sell quickly and get back to a normal life. Until then, we have to have a clean and clutterfree house. Needless to say, I'll be busy around the house for a while.

This is a picture of what the kids were doing as I blogged. They're going to hate it when I have to pack up some of their toys. Now they have proof of which ones they might be missing.

Meet our new family members!

SnowKetchup and SnowBounce. They joined our family yesterday, but have just about melted completely now. We had lots of fun in the snow. We got about 4 inches of really nice thick snow. Winter isn't bad when you just have it for about a day and a half. I can't imagine having to bundle kids up like that every day for a few months.

Snow!

We were supposed to be studying plants this week in school and take a field trip to the arboretum, but this is Texas. That means that it did not snow one flake all winter long and this week it has snowed twice (each time on soccer practice night - thank you God!). There are big, fluffy flakes falling as I type. So we will be studying the fine art of snowman making tomorrow. Hopefully, I'll have some good pics to share.

A Tale of Two Teams

Since we have 2 soccer players, the past two Saturdays have been soccer filled. The difference between Ketchup's team and Bounce's team is striking. Ketchup's team is the one scoring all the goals and every player is interested in playing and does a great job. Bounce's team is much younger and is the team being scored on most of the game. The coach is often just looking for a player who isn't crying and who wants to play. Bounce was a "cryer" the first game, but since has improved so much. He is excited to go in and play and actually played a large portion of the game today. We are proud that he didn't quit. He is so much smaller than most of the boys (who are older) that he does well to keep up.
Ketchup had a great game and scored 2 goals. She is very fast (her long legs help a lot) and often breaks away from the rest of the players to score. Today we were proud that she was a great teammate and didn't take the ball away from her teammate as they both ran down the field to score.
It is interesting to experience both sides of the game: the dominating team and the team just trying to play and learn the game. Regardless of the score, they both had smiles at the end of their games and were happy to devour their snacks!

Our museum

Yesterday Ketchup was drawing on the white board and asked me how she could put her artwork in a museum. She was disappointed when I explained that you have to be asked by the museum, but then I suggested she could make her own museum somewhere in the house. This idea was the hit of the year! Both kids plotted and planned how to organize their museum and what they would put in it.
They never want to sleep together, but last night they wanted to so that they could wake each other up early to open their museum bright and early in the morning. After one hour of talking, I had them go to their own beds to get some rest. Ketchup explained that they were only talking about the museum, so I should have let them stay in the same bed. I told her that if she didn't go to sleep, she wouldn't be able to wake up in the morning to open the museum. Minutes later, both kids were asleep.
I should have gone straight to sleep, too because they were both up bright and early this morning moving their "art" into the room. (By the way, Ketchup kept telling Bounce as he was doing his art that "It's OK to scribble-scrabble because it's just art.")
The big moment finally arrived, and I was invited to be the first guest at the museum. They each had a picture (Bounce-first pic & Ketchup-second), and they had Sandman there to be a sculpture to show what "bones really feel like." This was by far my most memorable trip to a museum. Hope you enjoy the pics.

Our newest soccer player

The kids are busy playing, so I thought I'd steal a few moments to update our blog. Bounce is now a soccer player too. He is on the Pirates soccer team and he thinks that is pretty cool. He had his first practice on Monday and was tired and eager to stop, but he got a second wind when he got to play "Star Wars" (a soccer drill in disguise). After practice I asked him what his favorite part was and he said it was getting the goodie bag filled w/ candy at the end of practice. That's my boy-the reward at the end is the best part!
He was so tired that whenever he wasn't doing anything, he was the first one to sit on his ball. He's got that skill down really well! The Pirates actually have 2 games this Sat., so we'll see if our little Bounce has enough energy to keep up or not.

Transportation

Last week we studied transportation, so I thought this would be a good opportunity to take a field trip using public transportation. We took the lite rail to the train to the bus which ultimately took us to the Fort Worth Stock Show. The kids had a lot of fun riding the trains and bus and Mommy and Daddy actually enjoyed relaxing for a while instead of fighting traffic. The relaxing was quickly replaced by a lesson in patience. A trip that normally would have taken a little over an hour took 3 hours. That's right - 3 hours of public transportation and that is just one way. Needless to say we only spent a few hours at the stock show. We still were able to see a baby chick hatching from its egg among numerous other animals.
The kids did have fun and I was sure glad when we finally made it back to our van, put the kids in their reclined seats and drive off on my own schedule as the kids quickly fell asleep. Ahhh-that is relaxation!
Speaking of the van, we were in a car accident yesterday and thank God are all fine. My airbag deployed, so we need to have the van put in the shop. We picked up our rental van last night and as soon as I pulled out of the parking lot, Bounce started saying "Don't bump, don't bump." He was worried I was going to "bump" into another car with our "new van."
All in all we have had several lessons in transportation over the past week and I am glad to be sitting at home not having to use ANY transportation at this moment!

Rainbow Brite

I can't believe it's been that long since I posted last. Anyways, I think we might have to change Ketchup's name to Rainbow Brite. She thinks that she has to have every color in one outfit. I mainly let her get away with this at home or for bed, but if you ever see us out and wonder what was I thinking letting her dress so ridiculously, well I just couldn't break her little stylin' heart. The other night she was so proud of her purple pants, yellow long sleeve shirt with a pink nightgown on top. She was excited she had so many colors in one outfit.
Tonight she started soccer practice again. I bundled her up and then Bounce and I sat in the van and watched. It was so cold outside, but she said she didn't feel it because she kept all of her clothes on. This time I was the one who dressed her up in countless layers of various rainbow colors, not for style but for warmth. No wonder the poor girl is so confused why mommy lets her wear these rainbow brite outfits one day and not the next.