Sunday's

Sunday's equal insanity over here at our house.

I don't know how Sunday's go at your home, but if they are peaceful and joy filled I am not sure I want to hear about it and you can pray for me about that.

But I won't want to hear about it.

MovingRightAlong.

The funny thing is that as stressed as they are, we always ended up laughing and joking about them allllllllllllll day long.

Today it started about cinnamon rolls.  Hubs asked for them, I bought them, hubs forgot that and ate cereal after I had informed all our starving children they could NOT eat until Daddy woke up and mama made cinnamon rolls.

Silly stuff like that.

We arrived at church on time - I just may write this momentous occasion on the calendar - and immediately headed to the dungeon.

We teach Sunday School there.

I have this insane fear of rats.  And I hate to be cold.  The basement in our church scares me and makes me cold.  The hallway to the basement is not heated.  Our church is this adorable 150 year old building. It's quaint and charming.  Until you have to walk down the basement steps.  My husband knows my innate fear and teases me "What was that?" he'll jump and I'll freak and he'll laugh and I'll scowl but I have to be careful to not fall in my heels.

We have established the fact that I love heels, correct?

But the fun thing about Sunday school is the competition for best snack.  We don't have to bring snack to Sunday School but I have a class of all boys (of course) so I know they fear starvation.  Today we brought cinnamon rolls.  And I was sure I would beat Curt, who is single and young and I was convinced did not know how to bake.

He made home made cream puffs.

HOME MADE!!! I brought cinnamon rolls from a can! And his cream puffs recipe is way better than mine!  They are made with - get this - whipping cream. How can it NOT be good with whipping cream?

Our competition makes me laugh every single week.

Being Palm Sunday, all the kiddos in the church were able to wave palm branches and sing some special music.  It's always fun to sit in the pew and watch my boys up on stage.  Why, yes, I am that mom who waves insanely at their child.

When S4 arrived back to sit near me, it was then I realized his shirt was on inside out.  Yes, it was a button down dress shirt but he had managed to button it.  Thankfully, the friend who handed it down to us had taken the tags out so I may be the only one who noticed...I hope.

After church we were headed home and my husband, I swear, was doing all he could to irritate me greatly.  I called him on it and told him I didn't even know what to say to him.

To which he replied.....

"You just say I am the most handsomest man you could have married and you are just so madly in love with me and I am just the greatest specimen of manliness."

I rolled my eyes.

Back home we worked on finishing up dinner (ham, mashed potatoes, cheesy vegetables, rolls, in case you wanted to know...) and as we worked together we kept the teasing up.  It's just how we roll.

At dinner, the boys were teasing me about the parody songs they have been listening to.  They love Cletus take the Real.  Can not stand the song because I love the Carrie Underwood song.  I dislike the song so much I won't even link to it here - because it's my blog and I can do that.

But my boys love the song.

This conversation causes my husband to start youtubing at the table to see who it was who sings it, which causes him to find the song Pretty Pink Tractor which had the boys in stitches and then he found this bit that made me laugh out loud because author stories like this always make me laugh.

I had never heard of TIm Hawkins but I have a feeling we may be looking up his videos more often.

Anyhow, after all that, I took a nap.

When I awoke from my nap - bless my husband for that - S4 worried over me.  Why on earth would his mama need a nap?  He fights naps and here mama is taking one.

Mama's get sleepy too.

And that's my Sunday.  How did your's go?

The Hunger Games - A Mom's Review

Perhaps you are aware that I am a huge fan of the books The Hunger Games

by Suzanne Collins.

I feel strongly that this is a series that should be read.

That said, when my twelve year old son's sixth grade class was informed they would be reading this series, I went to the teacher and said I was concerned and did not think they should read it.  He asked me if I had read them and I said I had JUST finished reading them all and they were too adult content for the kids to read.  He assured me he knew what he was doing.

I wish I had fought harder about that.

S1 read the book and loved it.  And here is the thing, I didn't want him to read the rest of the series.  But the class started to and he couldn't wait for them so he read them all.  We talked a lot about the series as he was reading them.

And then I found out it was going to be a movie.

Now I have a choice here.

As someone who knows fully what will be in the movie I have to decide if my child should see it.

But he read the books.

And I think in a book you spend so much of your time in a book the movie is not as powerful. There is, however, something to be said about an IMAGE sticking with you.

I decided this was a great teachable moment.

And it was a great mom and son bonding time.

So, my two friends, Alicia and Korene, and I took our boys to see it.

I'll not lie, we were giddy as could be.

I wanted S1 to feel it was a real special moment.  I wore heels to be taller than him. :)

 He wore his best camouflage.  

 Korene had not read the books and Alicia was the one who had told me to read them.  All our boys had read them in the same class.  I sat between Alicia and Korene, and it was interesting to be in between my friend who knew what was going to happen and my friend who had no idea what would happen.

In the movie, the children have to fight to the death.  There is no getting around that.  The movie follows the book rather well, of course the book is better.  The book is also much more bloody, much more painful to read.

When we left the movie, Korene was reeling.  We stood in the parking lot as the boys played catch and talked over the movie and the symbolism of it.  Alicia loves it for the story.  Korene was in shock that her son had read the book and she didn't know it was about THIS.  That evening Korene, Alicia and I were messaging more ideas about the movie and themes and so forth.

It's just that kind of book.  It's just that kind of a movie.  It does not leave you.

S1 and I chatted about the movie versus the book on the way home.  I asked him why it was he thought the movie was so popular.  He shrugged, "The love story in it, I guess."

"Is that why you like it?" I asked, quite surprised, I'll admit.

"No," he stopped to chew some of the fried chicken I had picked up for him after the movie at his favorite place to eat, KFC.  "I liked the book because when you read it you felt you knew that character and why she did what she did.  Some books you read, you read about the character.  This book you really felt you knew the character.

And I liked all the woods scenes.  How she had to think fast and act."

I asked him what he thought about the kids killing each other.  And this is when we began to discuss the underlying parts of the book.

As a mom reading/watching this, I could not ever fathom being able to watch my child's name being pulled out of all the names to be sent to near certain death.  I would protect them from all harm.

But the book and the movie portrayed it so well....the people had no hope.  None.

I cannot fathom it.

It scared me, the parallels it made.  My heart broke for those who have gone to war.  It pierced me to think of a world without any hope in a God to save them.  It concerns me how easily a large group of people can look to one dictator to think for them unquestioningly.

All this my twelve year old son and I talked over.

When we arrived home, he wandered off to hang out with his brothers and my husband and I chatted.  "Good movie?" he asked.

"Yes...and no.  Yes, because it's what I expected.  No, because I shouldn't have taken him to it.  Because he should have never read those books."

I know, shocking because I love them so.  I fully understand why someone does not want to read them.  I fully can appreciate the outcry against it.

For me it was because it took just more of my son's innocence.

And yet, I am thankful - so thankful - that he and I have a relationship that we can talk the books and movie over.  That we have that open dialogue.

I would rather have done what we did...see it together, not just pretend it wasn't the biggest most talked about thing in the entertainment news right now, made it a special mother son day, and made it as fun and memorable as possible.

But the rest of my boys?  No. Not a chance.  S2, who is nearly ten, would have nightmares.  And I will be more adamant he will not read it in sixth grade, I believe.

If it's not this book, it will be another.  And every situation is different.

But S2 I know could not come close to handling this.  And I feel terrible for the kids who may have struggled with the book.  Because it is just that kind of a book.  It's just that kind of a movie.

I had just read this quote before we went to see the movie. "Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act." - Bonhoeffer

Katniss acted on what she knew was right.  Peeta refused to let "them" dictate who he would be.  There are amazing lessons to be learned in the book and movie, amazingly GOOD lessons that make their point poignantly well.

If you loved the books, you will like the movie.  The scenes are beautiful in the mountains. The music is touching (can't wait to get the soundtrack!) and when it comes out on dvd, I'll buy it.  I'll watch it again because I like it so.  It's a powerful movie and I can't wait to see what my husband thinks of it as well, especially him knowing what a fan I am of it.



And, on a totally different soap box rant, SERIOUSLY, did a bunch of us need to see a movie trailer where the couple is undressing each other before the movie began?   My son was more scarred by THAT scene than anything in the entire Hunger Games movie.  Heads up on the previews....

Embarrassing Moments

Because I know these things would not ever happen to you, I thought you might enjoy laughing at me.

Since I am sure I will be hearing about them over and over again I might as well share them with you all.

In an effort to be friendly and talk to people more (not really my thing, you recall), I got myself in trouble.

Sigh.

I was chatting with the teacher who loves S4 ever so much and keeps a good eye on him for me.  I would truly be lost without Mrs. W.  S4 loves her to pieces.  Anyhow, I was telling her how S4 had been sick but seemed fine and if he seemed sickly at all to call me and I would be there right away to get him.

As I was chatting with her outside the school, a truck pulled in.

The truck looked just like S2's friend ( and near twin ) Jakob's dad's truck.  I did think through that it was odd he would be dropping Jakob off at school.

Then I remembered I was going to be friendlier like the old lady at the library.

So I grinned a friendly hello and waved to him.  I could tell from his tinted window that he seemed surprised but did wave back.

Sheesh, I need to be friendlier, I thought.

And then I seen the boy leave the truck.

The boy was not Jakob.

I have no idea what man I grinned and waved happily too.

"Oh, Crap!" I muttered in my head.

I called my husband.  "Hey, hon, I was trying to be friendly and just waved at some random guy.  Have no idea who he is.  If you happen to hear your wife is a flirt, it's because of this."

This story only makes the next one even better.

On the SAME DAY, I was working on making plans for our family to get together with one of our favorite family's we haven't seen in forever.  We haven't gotten together at eachother's houses in may be years - all of us, that is.

Anyhow.

Her husband has this incredible zip line he made for himself their three boys.  An mentioned that the zip line was broken and she would be sure that Jeff had it fixed before our boys were there.  So I tweeted Jeff to tell him we had the date planned and to have the zip line ready.  But that isn't what I thumb typed on twitter.  Oh no.

This is what I tweeted...

@DeGraafJeff texting with An planning the --th at your place. Have the zipper ready :)

Oh, yes, I did.

And he, being him, wondered WHAT ON EARTH I MEANT.

I saw what I had tweeted and wanted to die.

So I tried to shake it off, but then I texted An (who is not on twitter) and told her what I did.

She laughed hysterically (via text).

Then I called my husband.

"Hey, hon, guess what I did now? Um, you wouldn't be able to guess so...."

He then about died laughing.

Ugh.

So, I am thinking I may go back to being a guarded shy person and I will be double checking what my auto correct changes my words to.

You all my now laugh at my expense.

The Boy Who Cried Sick

Once upon a time there was a little boy.

He loved his mama very much and liked to spend time with her.

It was hard for him to spend too much time with just mama because he had three big brothers who needed a mama too.

But he would go to the library with her and spend the whole day with her and Aunt Alicia and he would have all kinds of fun.

Then he got so big he had to go to school everyday.

But...

If he was sick on a library day, he would get to come to the library and spend the whole day with his mama and Aunt Alicia.

So sometimes he would have a sorta tummy ache.  It would ache - a little - until he got to the library.  Then he would feel better and get to color pictures and make crafts and check out lots of books.  There was a train track to play with and he could hug his mama whenever he wanted.

One morning, he woke up and didn't feel very good.

But he knew what his mama would say.  "You have to go to school." So he didn't tell her he felt sick.

After not even an hour, he said he needed to go home.

But, mama didn't believe him.

The teachers didn't believe him.

His big brother didn't believe him.

But when he puked....

Everyone believed him.

When his mama, who rubbed his back as he puked into the garbage can, took him home to rest he said, "Mama, you know those super moms they show on tv?  You really the super mom."

And she smiled and told him she loved him.

So he cuddled up with the pillow pet mama had known he would need and fell back asleep.

But he learned a valuable lesson this day.

Don't cry sick unless you really are sick.

(Alice and I thought we should read him The Boy Who Cried Wolf, but then after hearing him puke - again - we decided we could wait to read him that story when he was feeling better.  Thanks to wonderful "Aunt" Alicia who sent us home.  You really are a genius, you know. :) )

Frogs

My boys love frogs.

 Do you recall when they brought one down to me every night?  Those Night Frogs were quite the mystery for a bit.

The boys are already on the search for a new pet frog.  They have been trying to catch a few bull frogs they found in this 80 degree Michigan weather we have been having.

The other day S4 said, "Frogs are my favorite because they are never mean and they never bite. Wait, do they have teeth? No? Then I love frogs, don't you Mama?" 

So the other morning as I was sipping my morning coffee watching Fox 17 news, I nearly fell off the stool I was sitting on when I saw this video of Emily.  

Then Sat Truck Troy made a mini clip video that is even funnier and I had to share with you all.  I guarantee it will make you laugh.

Emily's Video

A Trip to Kalamazoo Valley Museum

As you know, I work at a library.  I am super blessed to work with Alicia.

In planning our summer reading program (Dream Big - Read theme, focusing on night and Brian Lies' artwork), Alicia and I talked about how cool it would be to tell the kids about the stars in the sky and how to find the different constellations - but pretty much impossible on a summer morning for our library kiddos. That's when Alicia found a link for the Kalamazoo Valley Museum's Planetarium.  They were showing a winter sky special.  We decided we would take our boys out of school for the afternoon and bring them to the museum ourselves.

Seven boys. Two country girls. 

We could do this.

I baked the boys, and Alicia's boys too, some chocolate chip cookies.

When I went to pick them up, S1 mentioned that Miss Alicia's cookies are better than his mama's.

He is now forever regretting that statement.

He's pretty sure his mama isn't making him cookies for a good long time.

But armed with chocolate chip cookies and lots of excitement, we headed to downtown Kalamazoo.

My boys can't recall ever being in downtown Kalamazoo.

It was a bit of shock to my country boys.

And when we DROVE INTO A BUILDING to park...they were shrieking.

Seriously, I could have just driven to the parking garage and it would have been a field trip.

 Because the parking garage was sooooo cool, we needed a photo.

 The planetarium was impressive.  At one point, S4 leaned over and said to me, "Mama, is it night time right now?"  We were the only ones in the planetarium which made it more memory making.  Will I be able to find the stars in the sky now? I believe I will still struggle.  But did I learn a lot?  I surely did!

Outside of the planetarium there was a tornado machine.  I so wished I had taken a picture of that because the boys were enthralled with the tornado.

We headed upstairs and came onto the how to produce Energy race track.  Really, this drew the boys in and we could hardly get them away.  They worked to build a car like the demo.  With an electric type engine, they could race the cars around the track.  

 Even my husband, when I told him about this, thought it was cool.

 The boys had all kinds of fun modifying their cars to race them.  Well, everyone had fun but S4 who you can see crying.  He wanted to make a car, he wanted to race a car and he really needed nap.  Fearing a breakdown, I suggested we go explore.

 Honestly, we didn't know anything about the museum and thought that the little section we were in might be it.  Oh, no!  The museum took a turn and suddenly we were engulfed in Kalamazoo history.

 The boys could not believe they got to pretend play these instruments at the Gibson Guitar section.

 The speakers played the music of the play wooden instruments and the boys acted as though they were the professionals playing.  S2 has always dreamed of playing the banjo.  I am not even joking.

 S1 looked mighty fine.

 This picture of S4 cracks me up.

 S3 was ready to write his own music.

 We wandered farther and came to the General Store.  S4 was more than slightly ecstatic that there was a checker board and didn't want to leave until he had successfully beaten his brother.

 But when we found this.......

 Everyone had to be a newscaster.  The weather was a lot of fun, the boys love watching the weather on Fox 17, as you know, and they just had so much fun playing with the weather map.

The desk?  I mean, how fun was this?!

 They were able to move the camera and pretend they were Mike Davis so to say they had a blast here would be an understatement.

The part of the museum they loved the most though, shocked Alicia and I a bit.

It was the diner.

 I don't know if it is because they don't have play kitchen sets or what, but the boys were enthralled with this diner set up.  I don't think we will be eating any food they make for awhile but, seriously, the boys had fun making up food and taking orders. 

 Even baby Callisto was in shock at their silliness.

 I mean, they were so animated it was hilarious to watch.

 You can see S2 laughing hysterically.  They all were but S2's face cracks me up.

 We had to move them away.  They were having waaaaaaaay too much fun.

There was another flight of stairs.  And at the top of the stairs was a mummy.

 To be honest, this sort of freaked S4 out a bit.  This was an ACTUAL dead person?

Yup.  Yup, it was.

But it is a dead person mummy with a TWITTER ACCOUNT!!!! Seriously. You can follow HERE.

And the boys did find this mummy to be amazingly cool.  

We headed off to the disease section and just as the boys were thinking this was going to be grossly enthralling, we heard the announcement that the museum was closing.  Where had all the time gone?

We hurried out of the building, soaked in some more glorious sunshine of the day, the boys wanted to know if New York looked as cool as downtown Kalamazoo (really, Alicia, we need to take the boys out more) and drove our suburban out of the building (aka parking garage) to head for home.

This was a small miracle.  I usually always get lost but I followed Alicia to the museum without a bit of problem and I drove home without even thinking I may be lost (Siri was there to help).  Easiest trip to and from.

We stopped at Plainwell Ice Cream for some of the world's greatest ice cream.

The boys (and their mama) arrived home exhausted but happy.

S1 emailed me.  "Sure had a lot of fun today.  Thanks."

I think that pretty much sums the whole day up.

As a mom, I was so thankful that all the exhibits were kid interactive.  The museum wanted to kids to be a part of the history, this makes it sink in even more for them.  Had we had more time, the "phones" you could pick up and listen to tell you the back story of the display would have been something the boys would have learned so much from.

When you are so used to saying, "Be careful! Don't touch that!" it was great to just let the boys explore.  THAT made the day fun.

Already the boys are wondering if we can go back again soon.  And yes, I think we shall descend upon the Kalamazoo Valley Museum again in the near future.

There is no cost to visit the museum

There is a three dollar charge for the 45 minute planetarium show

INFO

Monday - Thursday, Saturday 9am-5pmFriday 9am-9pmSunday and Holidays: 1-5pm (Closed Easter,

Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve and Day)

230 North Rose Street | Map + ParkingKalamazoo Michigan 49007800.772.3370 | 269.373.7990

museumstaff@kvcc.edu

The Boy Who Was Raised By Librarians

Today I was very excited to be the guest reader for S4's Kindergarten class.  I kept it a secret from him...which is tough to do, let me tell you.

I brought in Brian Lies' Bats In the Library.  The whole line of Bats books by Brian Lies are great, I love the illustrations!

And I love the fact that my husband can't stand that book because he has an insane fear of bats.  Did I ever tell you about our honeymoon....hmmm, I don't think so.  (Mental note to self, you MUST tell that bat story on your anniversary this year!)

But the first book I read was The Boy Who Was Raised by Librarians.  I looooooooove this book for very obvious reasons.  In case you don't know those reasons, I will tell you.....

S4 used to go to work with me one day a week at the library and it was the happiest, funniest, most hair pulling time.  I miss my little library helper now that he is in school every day.  My boys, thankfully, love to go to the library with me.  Part of that reason is because they like that they ALL get their own computer to play addicting games but that is beside the point....they LIKE the library and that makes my heart so very happy.

This book was a gift to me when I started my new job from An.  And I love An for reading it to her boys and knowing I needed it so instead of telling me about it, she just sent it to me.

Our library now has a copy there.  Alicia and I loved it too much to not purchase it.

When I went to post my facebook update today, I wanted to link the book.  I found it on YouTube so now I can share the whole wonderful story with you all!



I always pause at the point where the snake can live in the bathtub and say, "And mom's do NOT want snakes living in their tubs so that is not a good book to check out.  Snakes live outside, okay?"

Because my boys would try that.  You know they would.