It's Spring!

It's spring! It's spring! It's spring! It's spring!
Hooray!
God did what He promises and brought spring back!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Well, gang, I still don't have this whole blog thing figured out - I thought I did and I am quite obviously blogging but this is how it went this morning had you been listening in at my house "wait, I DO exist!" "No! I DO have a blog!" "Wait wait wait - it is ME!" then I'd call my husband "HONEY! HELP!" and he'd look and say " I have no idea", which didn't help. At all, really. But I am here - hooray! But just in case you don't here anything from me for awhile, you will know I'm having 'issues' over here.

And now, on to the story of the day..................

Today is St. Patrick's day. So, at some point, I will dig out my Gone With The Wind book as well as my Scarlett book to read about the holiday. I have a few marked passages I have to check out to read, it's my St. Patrick's Day tradition. I am, in very teeny tiny small part, Irish. I like to think I would do well if I were to ever visit Ireland. They have no snakes and they walk around barefoot and keep a bucket of water by the door to wash off their feet before coming in (at least according to the Scarlett O'Hara book) and I could be all about that. But, since I am mostly Dutch and my husband is as Dutch as Dutch can be, I'll probably never see Ireland but may get to see a cool documentary on the Netherlands. :)

I regress...

Anyhow, today is also one of my dearest friends birthday. Her husband surprised her, got her the day off and is taking her out for a day of pampering at a spa and lunch and so on and so on. She told me how surprised she was as she was about to walk out the door with her husband and I was all like "awwwww, that is the sweetest ever!"

So, I am telling my husband this as he is looking through seed catalogs (I'll blog more on farm things soon, I know you all want to hear how the asparagus is doing) and he says "I got you a massage once and you never used it."

Can anyone feel my instant anger? Oh, I was mad! Wondering why I had ever given him my cute little Happy Saint Patrick's Day card and all that. I quietly went off to wash dishes because I had too many for the dishwasher and the dishwasher has a few problems right now so I can't really over use it and we have a TON of dirty dishes (we ran out of spoons, I am stirring my coffee with a fork this morning) and that gave me a bit of time to think.

Drat that new Bible study I just started! Wouldn't you know that we were talking about how we handle conflict and so on and I had to learn a verse about being honest and so on because I am the whole 'not say anything til I explode' type person just to avoid conflict and my verse is in Ephesians about being honest. I really began to wrestle with this, badly. But there is no better time to put to practice what I am learning than the present so I poured my husband some coffee (silently, not obviously so he knew I was working in the kitchen) with is favorite yummy mix (Hills Brothers Cappuccino Double Mocha mix, you can find it right next to the cans of coffee and it is SO yummy! He calls it 'special coffee') - I stirred his with a knife it was such a big cup - and I set it (not slammed, so it spilled coffee on his work) in front of him. I sat next to him and listened to him explain the different kinds of squash we would be growing and waited for him to finish so I could say "that really hurt my feelings when you said that about the massage."

He didn't know what to say so I used that to my advantage. "You got me that massage when I was pregnant for #3 and they didn't have a pregnancy massage there and after I had him they wouldn't let me bring him and he was so little to leave behind so I went and got the pedicure instead and Mom sat out in the van with him in case he cried and I had to leave suddenly and I really loved the idea and if you remember I was really really excited, it's not like I just threw it to the side and I DID use the certificate."

"Well, that was a long time ago and that's fine, I'm over it."

"Obviously not."

So we chatted it through and got it all resolved, rather quickly and totally peaceably and now I don't have to give him a cold shoulder today and just enjoy the whole day with him, which is good, because it's going to be nearly seventy so we will be working outside all day as soon as I finally finish those dishes which I'll do as soon as I am done blogging and our youngest gets out of the tub (but he is crying that the tub is so boring that he can't pick up his toys) and our #3 leaves brother #2 - who is home sick with an ear infection and THAT is a great story I hope to write about later today - alone so he can do his homework. And I am thankful for the lesson I learned and applied from Bible study.

Got any lesson you should be applying to your day? I'm telling you, I am thankful I applied mine to the day...I think my day is going to seem blessed (with peace and joy) because of it.

Hang in there with me!

You know, years ago, my high school teacher told me in typing class (yes, typing. Not keyboarding) that typing was not really my strong point. She passed me only because I kept trying. Later, I had to take computers and I have no idea how I passed that either...I think only because I showed effort and that I was truly a blond who just "couldn't get it".



So, here I am with a blog. On face book. Just got a blackberry. Giving my Mom pointers on the computer (scary, I know).



And the whole point in telling you this is that...my e-mail has to change and that changes my beloved blog so while I am restructuring and getting things settled, hang in there with me til my all knowledgeable computer helpers, Randy(http://http://www.lessonsfromtony.blogspot.com/) and Sue (http://www.praiseandcoffee.com/) get me all fixed up over here.

Where is my Birthday?

Our youngest turned three this month. Now, it’s hard to describe to a three year old that it’s his birthday and hip hip hooray. I put up a Happy Birthday banner above his chair at the table so he could see it when he came down for breakfast. All he knew about his day is everyone was singing one of his favorite songs and he wanted a Bob the Builder cake at some point. As we were taking his older brothers to school that morning, our birthday boy asked us all a question not one of us could answer….

“Where is my birthday?”

To read the rest (and you don't want to miss it!), check out Sue's great blog at http://praiseandcoffee.blogspot.com/2009/03/march-winner-and-life-with-4-boys.html

Spring is 17 Days Away!

While Michigan temps plummet, I just wanted to remind everyone it is 17 days til spring. And today, I heard song birds out my window.

Spring always does come back to us! It's one of God's great gifts! :)

Sunday evenings

Usually on Sunday evenings, we have chips and cheese. Tonight we had leftover taco stuffing's because of a much too large meal Friday night. It's funny, the boys HAVE to have something with salsa on Sunday night. We must have cinnamon rolls in the morning and salsa at night, no matter what. Funny how they plan their week on these two meals.


Lately the boys have had an infatuation with our photo albums. I buy regular slip in photo albums and then just jot a note beside them. I am about a year behind and have been just sorting the photos and sliding them in without writing in them yet. Just the same, the boys are constantly being found in front of our heater vent, staring at photo albums. DS3 has realized he has grown into some familiar clothes his brothers have worn and that has made for some interesting style decisions lately - the other day it was six degrees in the morning and he was wearing summer sandals and a summer shirt cuz his guys had worn them and they fit him now.


The most fun is hearing DS4. He can't figure out where he is in most of the photos. He sees photos of DS2 and claims it's him and tries to convince us that it is him and when we try to tell him he wasn't a baby yet he just looks at us like "hello! I have ALWAYS been here!"


DS1 and 2 keep looking at the photos and telling their younger brothers stories they are sure they have forgotten..."OH! Remember this! This is the day you got mad and threw your boot out in the lake and Moma had to catch it with the fishing net before the turtles got it!"







(acutual photos of the incident...is that turtle not huge? I took these with a disposable camera!)



And even my husband and I get caught up in looking at them when I keep taking care of the photo albums. It seems like just yesterday that DS1 was DS4's age and now DS1 is nearly as tall as me! I knew that this time in my life would go quickly....but it is going SO quickly.

So, from this mom who is thankful for the tons of photos I have taken
(those who know me are rolling their eyes right now because they know how many that is), take some photos of your kids...and be sure to make some memories with them. I've heard before "the problem with life is that it is so
daily".
I get caught up in that too....PLAN on making memories
with your kids before they don't want to make memories anymore. And I do
mean PLAN...or you never will do it.

My Prince and Princess Night

I haven't too much to say on this....it's just I wanted to show off the photo of my family as we were off to the Prince and Princess themed dinner at our church that the Word of Life Teen Youth Group put on. It was so much fun to dress up! Jake wore his only tie..a gag gift..Ds1 is the Prince of Hunting, Ds2 is the Prince of Hockey and Ds3 and Ds4 are dressed in whatever Moma put them in! :) All the boys had Burger King crowns, and the four boys wore fly swatters that had been 'turned' to swords. It was a LOT of fun! Enjoy the photo!