Day 9

Gasp! I just realized that Christian gets back on day 13, not day 12. I'm going to try not to think about that. Ok. As I was going to say, happy first day of Fall! We celebrated by ordering cool, rainy weather (thanks, God!), visiting with an old friend over some tea, eventually doing school and chores, making a blitz run to Safeway, going to birthday festivities for my brother in law and mother in law, and turning the temperature dial into the red zone on the way home! Oh yes. And I made banana bread. I thought it was gross- really mushy- but the kids like it. More power to them. Quote of the day...Peter, reading from the Bible story book: "Jacob had 12 sons and lived in Canada." :) Easy mistake. Following are some pictures Christian e-mailed of some places he's been so far...

Day 8

Our excitement of the day was taking a trip to Walmart. Of course I completely forgot to get the main thing we were going there for. My swell brother will save the day and get it tomorrow for me- yay for not having to drag five kids in to Walmart two days in a row! And of course as soon as we were done shopping, pretty much all three big kids decided they had to go to the bathroom really bad. So we made a quick detour and stopped at a friend's house for a quick potty break. And she's planning on bringing her kids over tomorrow, so that'll be more excitement! :) Anyhoo, here are the pictures from yesterday...

Early morning snuggles

Waiting for breakfast

Sporting Daddy's tour guide hat that he never wears...

Taking a turn about the kitchen- their pony tails kinda remind me of those flags they stick on bumper cars...

Day 7

Hmm. I'm officially tired of this. Even though we had a great day as far as attitudes (at least the two oldest kids), and I got laundry done, and canned ketchup and tomatoes, remembered to water the garden (and remembered to turn off the water!), resisted the urge to eat chocolate or ice cream, exercised a bit, did school with the kids, didn't lose my temper, and got a couple cute pictures of the kids, I'm just worn out. I want to go to bed and wake up in the morning and Christian be there. No call from him tonight- I assume no cell phone service. And the babies are being incredibly fitful sleepers. So there's day 7, and 7 too many. :( I'm sure tomorrow things will cheer up a bit.

Day 6- Sunday edition

Things I love about my church (in no specific order):
- I love the exposed wood beams on the ceiling, the cool hanging lights and the stone work.
- I love how our pastor preaches straight through the Word of God and is brave enough to address and not skim over the controversial issues.
- I love how focused our church is on missions.
- I love that we pray for a small group of believers by name in a jail in CA.
- I love the careline ministry I'm a part of that helps out with meals and cleaning, etc. for people with health issues or moms with new babies. (Or in my case when I was still pregnant with the twins!)
- I love that my brother and sister and I all go to the same church.
- I love the children's ministry that does a great job teaching our kids.
- I love it when Christian teaches adult Sunday school (well, that's kind of a toss up, since he's distracted all week before a class... :) )- he's a great teacher.
- I love meeting new people.
- I love getting to know people that I ordinarily wouldn't have any contact with throughout the week- especially the older women. And younger women, for that matter- high school and college girls.
- I love that at least five random people told me yesterday that I could call them if I needed any help during the week while C's gone.
- I love that we have completely different kinds of worship leaders from week to week. A band one week, a choir the next...
- I love Fall/Christmas time when all the craft sale stuff is set up. I love that 100% of the proceeds go to missions, often supporting national missionaries.
- I love that there is always someone expecting a baby at our church. When my twins were born, three other ladies all had babies within a week on either side!
- I love that we don't have to dress "nice" if we don't want to.
- I love that we usually have a few homeless people coming regularly to our church.
I could keep going, but a little one grabbing my leg and smelling rather foul in the lower regions is compelling me to wrap this up. On with the week!
www.fcfonline.org

Day 5- that's it?!

I swear time has slowed WAAAAY down. 12 days is a lot longer than it used to be. The day started out ok, though rather groggily from lack of sleep (partially my fault, partially BOTH twins waking up at 5:30- it's rather difficult to snuggle with two one-year olds at the same time). Got in some garden/tree watering by my lonesome while the kids entertained themselves doing who-knows-what-and-I-don't-really-care inside. The babies were taking their nap by 7:30. Took the kids to Ya Ya's while I got some grocery shopping in. They were out of strawberries and I forgot the blasted juice. Oh well, it was fun hanging out with Ya when I got back, but we had to come home. To a mess. And crabby kids. Pretty much didn't get better till they went to bed, which worked wonders for my morale. I was going to go to bed at a reasonable time, but then thought about starting up the pro-life newsletter for our church again, and the ideas just kept coming and spinning around in my head. So. I've worked some of them out and I think I have enough closure to at least get to sleep. Here's to sleeping kids- and may they wake up nice and late!