The weekend recap

We had a fantastic weekend of nothing! No Scouts, no volleyball, no soccer, no work! Church was our only “obligation” and it was fun and fantastic. We are finally “connecting” at church and it feels good.

So Amy and her kids “hung” with us on Friday. We made French bread pizza and watched NMSU fall short of a win over UT in basketball. The kids ran around and had a great time playing together.





~I have one with Ian as well, but blogger is being a jerk. I will email them to you Amy~

Emily had a rough night and was up sick most of the night, so we all got to sleep in Saturday morning and then I went to the grocery shopping on a budget- Like Sarah I was only able spend a certain amount of money. It was fantastic fun. I only had taken the money I could spend and it was nerve racking at the end to make sure I wasn’t going to have to put something back. But I feel like I shopped better than I EVER had! I actually looked at prices and choose store brand stuff over name brand more times than not. I actually only bought name brand soup and chips for the kids lunch. And I had to think long and hard about those choices! I talked with Josh and I think we are going to make shopping a challenge for me from now on. I totally dug it!!

On Sunday we finally got around to our cleaning. We moved furniture to clean underneath it- EWW! We found stuff you don’t even want to know about. Just more proof that our son is disgusting! But while the furniture was all moved around, I decided we should just rearrange it! So we did. We completely turned the entire living room around. The TV space is cozier and there is other space now for something else, we are thinking of putting the computer in the living room now- or a piano. Josh doesn’t like the piano idea, but I have wanted one for years. I am going to keep an eye out on craigslist and see if I can’t get my hands on one!

I also watched a movie after small groups last night- Quencieniera. It was very good. Josh thought it was boring, but I thought it was very interesting~ I enjoyed it.
That is about it for my exciting weekend. It was nice to have a weekend where nothing was going on. We just had a good time as a family.

Friday

How boring am I? This weekend we have NOTHING planned. Except for a little spring cleaning. There are no scouts, no volleyball, no soccer and no money. So what will we do? Clean!

I plan to kick the kids outside and scrub. Clean closets, clean baseboards, clean blinds. So when my parents join us in a few weeks the only thing that is gross is our carpets, but they will be gross until we can replace them- which we have grand ideas of replacing the carpet with tile. We shall see if that actually happens.
SO that’s it. We are extremely boring right now. *blah* oh well, butter boring that to exciting, right?

Mean Girls

Why are little girls so mean? I just got home and Emily asked if she could go play. There is still sunlight out, so I said sure, be home in 30 minutes for dinner. She went over and those little girls played a trick on her. It is not the first time and I am sure it will not be the last. They all go inside and say "Oh, we can;t play anymore" So Emily will come home and then 5 minutes later they are all back outside playing. She is so angry and hurt by this. I am angry and hurt by this. I have never wanted to punch a little girl more than I did just now. I don't ever remember doing those things to my "friends" when I was growing up. Not that I was never mean, but this is just down right nasty. So I held her and loved on her and told her that sometimes girls are mean and try not to let it bother you. So she changed clothes and went back outside and played with some other kids. It just breaks my heart that these girls who she is trying so hard to be nice to are treating her so poorly.

ARGH!

Daylight Savings Time

I have this love hate relationship with day-light savings time. I hate it! I have an incredible difficult time adjusting. Probably more difficult time adjusting that anyone in my family. I dread loosing the hour of precious sleep. And anyone who knows me understands my need for sleep. But I love it! I love the extra light, I love that it means spring has come. I love that it came early this year-right as Spring Break was starting. This way my children can ease into the transition, rather than three of us trudging around cranky and sleepy, there is only one! It is fabulous. Just last night I got off from work, headed to the gym. Worked out, went home ate dinner that Josh had prepared then cleaned the bedroom up a little, weeded the front lawn a little, helped Emily with her volleyball watched Jacob try to ride his bike down the neighbors lawn X-games style and still the sun was up when we went inside at 8 pm. I know some of that came from Josh being home, there being no homework this week and dinner was ready when I walked in the house. But I am thankful that on Friday when Jacob has soccer practice that he will have his complete practice in the sun light. And that even Emily, who practices in a gym will leave her practice in the sun light. I love Spring. I love day light savings time, once I can get over the whole sleep thing.

Reviews by Susan

I was out of town last week in Little Rock for work and had a chance to “digest” some works that I would not have been able to if I was home, as time would not have permitted.

So for the three people who read this I will be giving my review of both a movie and a book. I could have written this right after I finished these works, however I am glad I waited and had time to digest the information given to me.

The first will be the movie “Jesus Camp”. This is an Academy Award nominated documentary about the evangelicals and their training of their children to be “warriors” for their cause. This was a difficult movie to watch, in fact I had to stop it more than once to digest some of the material. On one side it really made me think, it made me wonder what I tell my children about God and religion. How I want to raise them up knowing God and allowing their faith to grow in ways that I can not ever understand. How I want them to grow into faithful adults, if I was getting the message across enough. But it is another thing altogether to have a 6 year old crying because she is being told by a “preacher” that she is a sinner and that the world is the way it is because of her. The fact that they either do not believe in grace or the documentary choose not to show them teaching this aspect of their faith. I tend to think they just don’t allow these young children to know the grace God has given us. It was difficult seeing these children being taught to be extreme pro-life. Not just pro-life, but EXTREME. Bringing out plastic dolls the size of an unborn child and waving them around and taping their mouths shut in protest to abortion. These are children who have no idea what they are being taught. They don’t know what it is that they are protesting. How could they? The families that were followed all home-schooled in order to keep their children from the evils of the world (no disrespect Amy, but I know your reason and theirs. Yours in a good reason, theirs is questionable). If they are kept from knowing the evils of the world, how could they possibly understand what it is these adults are having them protest? I feel like it was showing these people in their lives as they live and they are totally living their lives for Christ, but teaching their children things which I just do not agree with.

The second is a book “come back”. This is a true story about a mother/daughter relationship during the daughters fight with drug addiction. It is written by both the mother and the daughter displaying their different views on the same situations. It was incredibly interesting to read this right now. Not that Emily is having a sudden problem with cocaine, she is simply starting the pre-puberty mess and I feel like I am going to pull my hair out. This showed through their journey how they learned o have a better, more firmly connected relationship. We don’t have near the problems that this family has/had-but I can take some of the practical advice given in the book and apply it to our relationship. This is however a heart-wrenching story in which you hurt for both the mother and the daughter. It was moving, I read it so quickly trying to engulf it as quickly as possible because it was that good. It is so scary how easily and quickly the daughter is taken into the world of drugs and how her parents had no idea. But looking back they noticed the signs, they just weren’t that obvious, everything was very subtle. She didn’t want to hurt her mother, she just felt like that was the life she needed to lead. An eye-opening story that I enjoyed immensely.

So, there you have it. My two horrifically written reviews. But I needed to get my thoughts out on paper-to help me remember what I was thinking about these things at the time.

New eyes

So I am sitting here right now wearing birthday present from my parents, my brand new hard contact lenses. Ow, they hurt. But ever so often they don’t hurt, my eyes stop watering and I can see clearly. More clearly than I think I have EVER seen. With my astigmatism ridden left eye. I haven’t seen clearly out of my left eye in 15 years. And now, I can. But it is a learning experience. I think that taking them out is going to be the extra sticky part. You see, you have to put your eyelids behind the lens and pop them out. Yes, POP THEM OUT!!! Is that not horrifying. Plus, unlike my soft lenses, which can move when you touch them, they are hard. Not a harder soft, but a HARD-like plastic. I have plastic in my eyes right now! I am supposed to wear them for at least 3 hours today and progress from there. I am at 2 hours right now, so I think I can make at least 3. I hope I can at least. So thanks mom and dad for allowing me to inflict horrific pain in my eyes, you’re the best!