Mishaps, Mayhem and Ministry of Me&Mine: So. How was your day?!?

Mishaps, Mayhem and Ministry of Me&Mine: So. How was your day?!?: "So. How was YOUR day?!?!"  When you hear that statement it is usually after someone has rambled on for 20 minutes about the misfortunes of ...

So. How was your day?!?

"So. How was YOUR day?!?!"  When you hear that statement it is usually after someone has rambled on for 20 minutes about the misfortunes of their day.  And lucky you- that is what I am about to do!! I won't even begin at the beginning of my Saturday morning. (Even though the piece of a waffle I found in our toilet this morning, put their by a certain someone, might give you a clue how the day started, continued and ended.)

Let me just recap the last few hours.  I took Jacob over to my mom's to watch the Razorback football game.  He has to watch it over there because we are a Netflix only household.  Hmmm...and what do I say about having Netflix only on our TV? Lets just say its NOT "wow! I am so glad my husband and boys are on the 247th episode of this show in a 3 week period! What constructive use of their time!!" 

We get to my mom's.  5 minutes into the visit Jacob and Elisabeth have already eaten her out of house and home.  Its in the middle of the afternoon and they have consumed the rest of her fried chicken, chips, cantelope and cereal.  And that just confirms her thoughts that I never feed my children well rounded meals and that is why they are always hungry.

20 minutes into the visit Elisabeth manages to push the screen out of my mom's window.  My mom fixed that window only to have a different window screen pushed out by Ms. destructive baby herself.  My mom follows her around like a nervous wreck after that and literally says, "This is EXACTLY how kids fall to their DEATHS in CABRINI GREEN!!!"  Don't worry mom, I am not going to visit the Cabrini Green slums of Chicago anytime soon. I love my mom.

On to grocery shopping at Walmart.  That is almost a weekly disaster.  First, Elisabeth either destroys or eats half of the food in the cart. Today we leave a long line of crunched cheetos and puddles of squirted out Caprison juice.  I was waiting for them to come on the intercom and say "Cleanup in aisle...umm..clean up EVERYWHERE.  Just follow the lady with the red-headed baby!"

Now, while this is going on my husband is out tromping through the woods all day looking for that ideal place to put his deer stand with one of his friends.  What Chris needs to do is to set a deer stand in my dad's backyard at Beaver Lake.  At any given time there is probably 10 or 15 deer happily nibbling on the corn my dad feeds them 5 feet away from their house.  Of course except when we are visiting and we bring our dog Matty.  Matty's favorite past time is to chase all the deer away from my dad's house.  Matty and my dad do not get along.   Now my husband deserves guy time, he works extremely hard for our family. I appreciate and love him for it.  It would just be nice if his guy time was at 2 am or something.  I am finally done with the grocery saga and heading home with 20,000 grocery bags that I am dreading having to carry in and put away by myself. (After all, that is what I have children for, who lucky for them, were not home either.)

In order to get all the groceries in and keep my daughter from running into the street and pushing out the screens in the neighbors windows I have to strap her in her high chair in the front yard.  When I am seriously taking the last load of groceries in, Matt and Chris drive up.  The first thing they say is "Why is Elisabeth in a high chair in the front yard? Then they see the groceries and Chris says "Quick! Let's drive around the block a few more times." And then they start laughing hysterically.  Chris gets out and offers to help and says as he walks by, "I know, I get the husband of the year award..." 

This was Elisabeth actually sitting in her highchair in the front yard.  You can just read her thoughts, "Come on mamma - let me out of here...I can take out those screens at the Martins in 10 seconds flat."



So.  How was YOUR day?!?!

My God moment(s) with Sarah

Sarah Joy.  My original baby girl. I swear that child came out of the womb quoting Psalm 100 and teaching all the other babies in the hospital nursery calculus. She begged us to get saved when she was in pre-school.  I remember us putting it off, trying to wait until  we thought she really understood.  When we picked her up from pre-school, her teacher was telling us she kept talking about wanting to get saved, what it meant, and how her parents were making her wait! Okay, so the kid got it and she prayed to ask Jesus in her heart that night!  She was always playing "church" with her babies. She would sit them all (15 of them) up against the wall next to a piano we had in the house at Boys Town and make them sing hymns. I knew then she had the hand of God on her and would do something great for him and I better prepare my heart then to someday "let her go."

 

I kept a prayer book of sorts for my kids. I would jot prayers and the dates and scripture that went along with 2 year old temper tantrums, lost papers at school, and ear infections that wouldn't go away.  I remember when Sarah was in 1st grade and I felt so strongly that she would become a missionary that I actually wept and prayed thinking about her leaving us to go off to some third world country to be eaten by Indians.  (I was really into Elisabeth Elliot at the time- lol) Yes, that was my irrational prayer that didn't even make sense. But I kept writing those prayers for all my kiddo's, crazy fears and all.

The summer of 2010 we took our youth group to Glorietta, New Mexico to participate in MFuge.  This is part mission trip, part youth camp.  We have never pressured Sarah to become a missionary.  In fact, since she knew all the down and dirty of ministry growing up in a ministry family - we would consider ourselves lucky if she didn't leave the church all together some day! :) But she went forward during MFuge on a Thursday night and gave her life over to full time ministry - and felt special call of God to missions. She felt God calling her to be a sports missionary, possibly leading basketball camps in Africa. Her dad and I rejoiced and hugged and prayed and I secretly prayed for protection against those Indians!

     This is one of my all time favorite pictures of us - and it was taken during that week of Mfuge!

Several months after we returned from camp and the school year was back in full swing I was looking through old prayer journals for the kids. 

I came across this entry (look at the bottom of the picture). This was written 6 years before she gave her heart over to the call of missions.

I called Sarah into the bedroom, showed it to her and it was another tear filled, goosebump, God moment.  Everything that we both felt like God had spoken quietly to us over the years was confirmed in that moment.

She finished out her high school years, playing basketball, ministering in her school and through our church.  She spent time as a summer missionary through the Southern Baptist Convention in Kentucky.  Her major at SBU is in Intercultural Studies with a plan to go to the mission field.  Now don't get me wrong - we had our share of normal teenage knock down, drag out, yelling, slamming doors nights.  She's been grounded from her car, and had her bedroom door removed from its hinges and stored in the garage much to her teenage horror. But her heart always returned back to Jesus.

This summer we had our big garage sale.  (You can read about it in my previous blog "Cow skulls and Kids not for sale") Sarah put out all her stuff, and as I was looking through her things I noticed some basketball shoes she had put a $1.00 sticker on.  I actually plucked them out of someone's hand because I noticed something on them that made those shoes absolutely priceless to me. 

         She had written scripture on her school basketball shoes.  Those verses went up and down the court with her every single game. 

                     That's my sports missionary whether she goes over seas or not.  That's my girl. And Sarah Joy, if you happen to come across this blog in the middle of the night during a late night (hopefully study break) - we are praying that verse over you which carried up and down the court during basketball season Ezra 10:4 "Rise up, this matter is in your hands.  We will support you, so take courage and do it."  You can accomplish everything God has for you.  Love you baby girl.



Life in the Big Brother house

As Elisabeth started her tackle-spree on the first child she sees in the nursery this morning (and I'm trying to loosen her chubby fist out of Claudia's hair)  her teacher tries to excuse her naughty behavior by saying "She has brothers! It's how she plays with them!"  I heard it again a second time when I picked her back up after church. And then I heard it tonight. "Oh... I know she plays with her brothers that way.."  Really, we are family at church.  Its not gonna hurt my feelings at all if you just tell me what a mean little booger she is. 

I have been getting my classroom ready for the new school year. Desks are pretty much a thing of the past and now everyone sits in groups at tables.  Except of course I do have 2 separate desks saved out for "those" kids.  You know, the kids that end up being your favorite but are as mean as snot and likes to poke everyone with their pencils and scissors so they end up getting to sit at the "special desk". Well, I'm gonna save Elisabeth's teacher the hassle and tell her before school even starts just to go ahead and stick Elisabeth's name tag on the "special desk" sitting away from all the others. :) That would save me and the teacher the embarrassment  of sending home a student with a chunk of hair missing and bite marks up and down their arm.

I DO have to attribute some of her behavior to her big brothers.  They are so crazy about her.  She bangs on their door, chews up their xbox remotes, hides their ping ball balls in shoes etc...and they are endlessly patient. But they rough house her to no end.  Just tonight after church Jacob, Elisabeth and I are playing outside.  She finds this ball and throws it gently to Jacob. I tell him to throw it back to her. He just BEAMS it at her, hits her with it and yells "DODGEBALL!!!"  She's stunned for a second and then starts laughing.  He keeps hitting her with the ball, she keeps laughing...until I tell them that's enough.  (I'm thinkin' bruises here.) So yes, when she is purposely hitting other kids in the head with a ball, we can accurately blame it on her brothers.

The Dodgeball trainer and his trainee

If you keep up with my facebook posts you remember that not to long ago Jonathan called his dad at camp to ask where his gorilla mask was.  When Chris asked why, Jonathan said, "because I want to scare Elisabeth." Chris is like, "ummm...NO!"  Youth minister's offices are a gold mine for cool, unusual things.  Last week, there was this reddish rubber gooey pig in Sarah's room that Jonathan was throwing against her wall and it would stick.  I asked her where she got the strange pig toy and she said "daddy's office."  Case in point.  Anyway, Jonathan could not resist the temptation of the gorilla mask.  One day after church JZ retrieved the mask and gloves out of the office and took them home.  He put them on to try to scare Elisabeth, but the little smarty knew it was her brother.  She just looked at him like, "You weirdo!" and then probably bit him.  She seriously will hunt Jonathan down to bite him.  She also bit a piece of Jacob's fingernail off including the nail bed.  I do remember Jonathan getting removed from a church nursery for biting.  They actually called us out of the service to get him and would not let him back in!!! I don't believe in Karma but just maybe....

I am so thankful for my boys.  They are the best.  Elisabeth is a lucky little girl. Despite the tackling, hanging her upside down by her ankles etc...  she has good Christian brothers who will not only protect her, but will teach her all the ninja moves she will ever need to be the biggest bully on the playground.  But the best thing they do is LOVE.

"Love is patient, Love is kind..."  (1 Corinthians 13) Elisabeth has turned their world upside down and messed up more than one controller but they show nothing but love.

"Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me." Mark 9:37        Thanks boys....

Mishaps, Mayhem and Ministry of Me&Mine: Crickets on the menu for today

Mishaps, Mayhem and Ministry of Me&Mine: Crickets on the menu for today: People probably don't believe half the stories I tell about Elisabeth.  I am almost glad that yesterday one of our sweet youth got to witnes...

Crickets on the menu for today

People probably don't believe half the stories I tell about Elisabeth.  I am almost glad that yesterday one of our sweet youth got to witness the hair pulling, back biting (literal), clothes tugging, children chasing terror spree that Elisabeth went on at the Chick-Fila play place yesterday.  I just looked at Madison and said, "I'm glad you saw this so you know I don't make this stuff up!" 

So before I start my "you won't believe it unless you were there" stories, let me just say that it is perfectly acceptable to eat crickets in Thailand.  Several years ago, Chris and I went on a mission trip to Thailand that was one of the best experiences of our life.  To immerse ourselves in their culture (and come back with a really great story to tell our kids) we snacked on crickets that were being sold at the night time market. I just closed my eyes, plugged my nose, and tried really hard to ignore the crunching sound that was going on in my mouth.

The crickets we ate literally came from this pile right here.

The purpose of our mission trip was to go into the schools and teach them English, which would eventually lead to telling them about Jesus.  As I was teaching English words for food using pictures (I had an interpreter with me) I would ask them what their favorite food was.  In almost every school, at least a couple of children would say "crickets!"

I am really trying to keep a straight face when they tell me their favorite food is crickets and they point to a picture of a boy and call him "sister."  Precious kids.  Just looking through these pictures makes me want to hop on a plane and go back tomorrow.

Elisabeth would fare very well over in Thailand.  In fact, she would fit right in.  A few nights ago I could tell she was chewing up something she shouldn't.  I told her to "spit it out."  That is actually the one command she understands and follows quite well.  She starts spitting out pieces of something that I couldn't quite figure out what it was.  Until 5 minutes later.  We are all sitting in the living room and a cricket jumps across the floor.  She spots it, crawls like lightening speed towards it and catches it!  We get it from her and then start to look at the brown little bits still in her drool on her chin.  Then I remember the deceased little cricket I saw by the dishwasher earlier.  The dead little guy was no longer there and I seriously doubted he was raised like Lazareth from the dead.  Then it was like slow motion from a movie when we all realized at the same time what the brown little bits in E's drool was.  "NOOOoooooo....oh my gosh she just ate a cricket!" 

I'm keeping this story for when she's called to the mission field one day.  I'm gonna tell her, "Honey, God started preparing you for this when you were 11 months old.  You are gonna adjust to that culture better than you know..."

Mishaps, Mayhem and Ministry of Me&Mine: Just a little unfriendly competition

Mishaps, Mayhem and Ministry of Me&Mine: Just a little unfriendly competition: I have not won a board game, video game, card game, or ANY type of game against my husband in 20 years. If I think about it beyond 5 seconds...