We've lived in Hog country for almost 3 years, and this is only the 2nd game we've attended. The kids were excited - they were taught to call the hogs in preschool when we first moved - they learned it probably their first week (and taught it to their cousins - hilarious!).

So we got them all dressed in their hogs gear (ignore the Arizona A on Amara's cheek - she says it's for Amara) - and we headed to the game. It's a good crowd tonight for their homecoming - a sea of red.

I am praying that the guy behind me loses his voice. He's yelling so loudly that my hair is moving with his shouts. It's so obnoxious and loud. At least he's not using foul language, but still - my ears are ringing!

It's a beautiful night for a game. Go hogs!

Oh... and I do have to add comments on attire. I will never understand why guys wear suits and girls get all dressed up for games. The guys in the stands with their chests painted to spell out RAZORHOGS make complete sense to me. But the fancy pants.... I'm sorry, but I just don't think I'll ever get used to it. I will also add that I fell into neither category -- I was in jeans and a long-sleeved Razorback shirt. No heels. No pearls. Just in case you were wondering. :)

Perhaps I'm a total geek, but I loved school. And even now, as I walk into Amara's school to visit, I'm filled with giddiness.

That's how I felt today as I joined their Halloween party. They were supposed to dress as their favorite storybook character. Each child got to stand up and share about their choice. Then they decorated masks and cupcakes, and then they played a mummy game.

It was a fun day, but can I just say...God bless teachers! I'm SO thankful for Amara's teacher and all those called to be teachers. I am NOT one of those, and by the time we were dismissed, I was more than ready for some peace and quiet!

We are going to a Halloween party tonight, which means a sitter is coming. Friday nights at our house are typically the messiest state of our house for the week - it has suffered a week of neglect and anticipates Saturday chores. When a babysitter is scheduled, that means a frantic cleaning Friday after we get home -- all hands on deck.

I'm not sure how I got so lucky, but my kids love it. I'm not sure there's anything I loathe more!!!

Tonight, we cleaned, we baked (needed a dish for the party), we dyed my hair and painted my face. Then I deemed the house good enough. I heard the kids in their bedroom area and assumed they were playing. I headed to my room to change clothes -- the picture is what I saw. Despite my good enough, they were still going -- washing the window. Dominic is singing, "cleaning is the best," and Amara is negotiating strategy, "you get the top, I'll get the bottom." They're calling out for more soap, asking each other for clean washcloths.

It's completely irrelevant that they're cleaning the mirror with soap and water, which means it will undoubtedly be streakier than before. What makes me so proud is they not only CHOSE to do it, they also did it as such a great collaboration with each other!

M.I.A.

Yep, that’s me.

I unintentionally spent a little time away, which led to a longer time away, which has made it REALLY hard to return. It’s not like anything crazy has happened – life has happened. That’s all. And life is great! But life is busy, and my blog (and all my other hobbies) get sorely neglected when life gets busy.

At the end of the day, I blog for myself – to preserve my memories and the things our family does. So I’m really only hurting myself. I use this cool “slurp” function on blurb.com at the end of each year to pull all my blog entries into a book. Then I add photos or scrapbook pages from the year to complete the book. And that’s all fine and good – except when I go M.I.A. And now I’ve got a 2 month “gap” in my memories. And we all know my memory alone isn’t enough to fill in that gap!

So… my last entry was July 30. What has happened since then? Let me catch you up quickly….

In July we had Jon’s whole family come to visit – which was a blast! We had 17 people and 2 dogs under our roof. It was such a blast that I spent a bunch of time pulling together the photos, but no time putting it on the blog. Probably should’ve done that! We also had our neighbors and wonderful friends from Baltimore come visit us for a long weekend. What a breath of “home” their visit was to us! Again… should’ve put pictures up and shared about the time…. But didn’t. And we went to Kansas City for the weekend – met my parents halfway and let the kids have a fun time with them. Again – no pictures on the blog. Not a good track record going here! And then we had Amara starting Kindergarten, Amara starting piano lessons, Amara turning 6, both kids starting soccer again, a family trip to Denver, and Dominic starting a new preschool. And there you have it – 2 months in one paragraph. Now you’re caught up on our life!

During the past 2 months, I have been adding goofy things the kids have said to Facebook. They really need to have a “slurp” feature on FB, too, so I can pull from there for my annual book…. Hmm….

So I’ll troll through my old FB status updates simply to be able to add these to the book. If you’re my “friend” on FB, these will be old. But still funny. So feel free to read or skip. They’re most recent first.

9/26: Amara’s talking to Grandma W on the phone. Grandma W lives in Wyoming. We live in Arkansas. She says, “Grandma, it’s FREEZING in Arkansas.” Somehow I suspect they’d consider it balmy here.

9/26: I do believe the kids got their fashion sense from me. And that’s NOT a good thing. We sent them to get dressed so we could head to Sam’s. They both had full dressers, as laundry was just completed. So they essentially had their entire wardrobe from which to choose an outfit. Dominic entered our room wearing a red Lightning McQueen t-shirt with turquoise, green, and yellow plaid shorts, navy blue socks with basketballs on them, and I think black shoes (not sure if his shoes were on yet). As I was laughing at him and telling him to go put on jean shorts, Jon said, “Just wait, another one is coming.” Amara walked around the corner in a bright purple butterfly t-shirt paired with a teal, yellow, and green skirt (inside out no-less – which doesn’t work when the skirt has built-in shorts), black and pink socks with ear-muffed monkeys on them, and black slip on dress shoes. She said she matched her colors in groups. I confess I was laughing so hard at their choices that she actually started crying – and I felt terrible about that. But I did let her keep on everything but the skirt – and just helped her select a skirt that matched. I think Jon needs to give lessons in fashion to them.

The kids were talking about ankles and bones. I wasn’t quite sure exactly what they were talking about within that context, but my ears perked up when Dominic said, “Mom, sometimes my bones bite my ankles and I scream like a girl.” I laughed at the “scream like a girl” part – which for whatever reason really amused him, but I think also embarrassed him, so he had to backtrack on himself and remove the “scream like a girl” from his statement.

9/23: You know it has been a long week when the kids wake up with the following comments. Amara: I wish it was Saturday. Dominic. I wish it was a day where everyone had to go to school except us.

9/20: Dominic: I saw a car without a bottle cap! Me: You mean a hub cap? Dominic: Yeah.

9/10: (Dominic’s last day at LSP) Dominic just informed me that Miss Clara and Miss Trista are his girlfriends. (They’re his teachers.)

9/5: Conversation in the backseat. Dominic: Amara, what do you want to do? Amara: Let’s dance! Dominic: I don’t want to dance. I want to fight coyotes!

9/5: Dominic: Sometimes I eat jellyfish for breakfast.

9/4: Dominic at 7:30am: Mommy, it’s morning. Me: I know, but we’re still sleeping. So is Amara. Dominic through a tear cracking voice: Why do you always do that? You always sleep too long. I don’t like people who sleep long.

9/3: For Amara’s birthday, we went to the Japanese Hibachi grill. They turned down all the lights and turned on strobe lights. Amara said, “I think they’re going to come sing Happy Birthday to me in Spanish.”

8/31: Dominic: Mommy, when I can ride my bike without training wheels…. I can have a motorcycle.

8/25: Dominic: I know why King Kong is mean. He’s really, really hungry. (Must be a Wxxxxxxx!)

8/22: Amara has a baby doll who is lacking in the clothing department (she’s got 2 outfits). So I took one of Dominic’s old sweaters and made it into a dress. Amara ended up with legwarmers out of the deal – the sleeves worked nicely for such a purpose. The funny thing: She wouldn’t take them off!

8/14: One of the sweetest things… Both kids are supposed to be napping. They’re both in their own beds. But they’re not napping. They’re singing. And they’re not just singing, they’re essentially singing a duet with each other – each with their own words and melodies, but definitely together. This is the good stuff.

8/7: Upon picking Dominic up from his Sunday School class tonight, Jon was told by his new teacher, “He’s a blast!” Why thank you. Yes… he is.

8/5: Amara mastered the art of tying her shoes!

8/3: I find it ironic (or poetic justice) that Dominic obeys the shoes in the closet rule at bedtime – by gathering up ALL his shoes from the house instead of getting jammies on and teeth brushed like he was told to do.

It all started several months ago. Amara would wake frequently with bad dreams. We have a Veggie Tales book that says, "God is bigger than the boogie man," so I tried to use that as a reference.

I told her that God is bigger than the monsters in her dreams.

I told her that the monsters are afraid of God, and they're afraid of her, too.

I told her to tell those monsters to scram and leave her alone.

Oh... and I told her there's no such thing as monsters anyway. Why is it that line of logic never works?

Over the next few nights, weeks, and months, those comments turned to prayers. The prayers were for God to clear her head of all the bad and help her think of only good things, only pure things, only happy things.

And she slept.

On the night before his birthday, Dominic came sobbing into our room at about 3am. I asked him what was the matter. He cried, "Mommy, I need you to pray for me." I asked what for? He said, "For Jesus to take all the scary thoughts from my head."

My heart melted right there. I hugged my little guy close, stroked is soft fuzzy head, and prayed for the Lord of his heart to clear his mind to sleep soundly and peacefully.

With each prayer I offer with the kids, I follow it with one of my own, "Lord, please answer this prayer so that they can see You, so that they can feel You, so they can know You."

On the morning of his birthday, the two kids met in the hallway. Amara told Dominic she dreamed of his birthday and all the fun they'd have. Dominic responded, "Oh yeah, well Jesus gave me lots of great things to dream about."

Again my heart swelled. I whispered a prayer of thanks to Jesus for answering their prayer, for showing Himself to my children.

That relationship they have now. That tangibility that they feel. The conversations that they have with Jesus at the drop of a hat as if He's right next to them -- because He is.

Isaiah 11:6 "A little child shall lead them..."
Matthew 18:3 "Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven." (Mark 10:15) (Luke 18:17)
Matthew 18:4 "Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven."
Matthew 19:14 "But Jesus said, "Let the children alone, and do not hinder them from coming to Me; for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these." (Mark 10:14) (Luke 18:16)

Is there any doubt how much Christ cares for His children? Before our children were born, we committed them back to the Lord. They are His children; we've been entrusted them. But they are His.

My prayer is that the relationship that they have with Jesus right now continues to grow. It is so strong right now, so real, so tangible, so innocent and pure. The part of me that knows the world knows that their faith will likely be shaken several times over throughout the course of their life. But the bigger part of my cries out to my Savior asking for their little hearts and minds to continue to be molded and shaped by Him and for Him. I pray that He gives me wisdom to lead them and to point to Him.

Acts 13:33 "that God has fulfilled this promise to our children in that He raised up Jesus, as it is also written in the second Psalm, 'YOU ARE MY SON; TODAY I HAVE BEGOTTEN YOU.'"

1 John 4:4 "You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world."

I feel as if I've talked in circles and not properly expressed how important these prayers, these overheard conversations, and God's responses have been to me. It's quite amazing and humbling to watch your child's faith literally bloom and develop before your eyes. I could feel myself choking up as I tried to explain it to my Mom, and even as I type, I feel the tightening of my throat.

At this point in my life, this is my most important purpose: to show them Christ. My prayer is that they know Him, love Him, and serve Him with all their heart, soul, and mind.

I'll close with the camp song I've recently been reintroduced to. When I was a camp counselor we closed every campfire with this song. I believe it was written by our director at the time, Layne Nelson. The words and melody were poignant then, but have since taken on a new and deeper meaning as I insert my children's names and pray it over them each night.

"May the Spirit of God descend upon this place. Keep us safe inside Your arms; fill us with Your grace. Put love deep within our hearts and peace within our souls. Guide us wherever we may go, for You are in control. Sing alleluia! Alleluia! And guide us wherever we may go so we may humbly serve You."

We had family company at the house for 2 solid weeks, and the kids were definitely not looking forward to the return to school (aka day care). Who am I kidding -- we weren't looking forward to going back to work either!

However, the kids' school had a book fair during the week of their return. In celebration of the book fair, they also had spirit week. Each day held a different theme, a different reason to dress up. In short: the kids were EXCITED every morning!

On normal mornings, they shuffle into our room, murmer something that sounds like hello, then crawl into bed and snuggle with me for a little bit. It's really a wonderful way for me to wake up. However, it also usually results in rushing out the door, because I laze around in bed snuggling my kiddos for longer than I should!

During spirit week, on the other hand, the kids bound into our room already dressed. They were SO jazzed to be all dressed up, and couldn't wait to put on their gear. I told their teachers they need to do spirit week every week. OK...maybe not...that would get too expensive. In other words, I had as much fun with it as they did!

So here's a run down of the week.

Monday was Sunglasses Day. I didn't take a picture of the kids, but they both rocked out in their shades.

Tuesday was Sock Hop Day. This is the day I was most excited about. I went to Hobby Lobby over the weekend and found some cute black and pink fabric, a poodle iron-on, and went to town. I essentially made a tree skirt with elastic at the waist. The whole thing, including the top applique, took a whopping 2 hours. I was SO excited about how it turned out. Dominic I struggled with, because I couldn't find any Roy Orbison-esqe glasses that were in youth size. At the last minute, I found this cool fedora that he totally rocked! Apparently the other classes' teachers all kept coming into his room to ask him to model his hat. After school we went to a fundraiser at a local pizza joint -- and they were a hit there, too. Sock Hop Day definitely got two thumbs up!



Wednesday was Rock and Roll Day. I struggled a bit with this one, because Rock and Roll isn't really all that much different than Sock Hop, unless I want to get all Poison, Kiss, etc. on the kids. And I wasn't sure I wanted to go that direction. Had we not been pressed for time the night before, I'd have cut D's hair into another mohawk. Instead, he got to wear his Small Paul rock band shirt and I drew an "I Heart Mom" tattoo on his arm. He thought that was pretty cool. He plays a mean air guitar, doesn't he? For Amara, I found some cool hair extensions that were hooked to a ponytail, so I kept her side pony from the day before and just added the black / pink / silver hair to it. I found a cheap "rocker" shirt that came with a leather bracelet and a cheap pair of sparkly leggings the day before, and then she also wore here hot pink metal bracelets. For a last minute pull together, this actually turned out pretty good!



Thursday was Dress as Your Favorite Book Character Day. We looked through all their books for ideas, of course I was steering them towards "easy to costume" books. Dominic originally wanted to be Curious George. I quickly got him off that idea! Then he wanted to be Lightning McQueen and wear his Car's t-shirt. Then Amara found "Michael's Golden Rules," a book by the Jordan family about the importance of playing hard, practicing, being a good teammate, and being a good sport. Dominic's eyes lit up as he said, "I want to be a baseball player!" Sold!



Amara was a little bit more difficult. I originally had her convinced to be Pinkalicious. This would be super easy, because Pinkalicious simply wears all pink. On Wednesday night, Amara changed her mind. When I picked her up at school, she said she wanted to be Mary. I asked who Mary is. She said, "Jesus' Mommy." I wracked my brain thinking of what we had at home to accommodate that, but really we had nothing that would quickly and easily transform her into Mary. Then she said Mary Had a Little Lamb. Again...nada. OK, so how about the teapot from "I'm a Little Teapot." Good grief!

I asked her where she thought we would get things for these ideas. It was already their bedtime. She said, "From the store." Oh my...no! So there became a lesson in planning ahead, sticking with decisions, etc. It was clear, however, that she didn't want to be Pinkalicious. So I thought about the costumes and outfits we DO have at home. Lightbulb! How about "Angelina Ballerina." All smiles and she's happy again! So Amara went as the little mouse named Angelina from the series of books featuring Angelina Ballerina. And she wore her tutu to Jon's baseball game as well. tee hee



Friday was Pajama Day. The kids excitedly wore their pjs to bed the night before, got up, and were ready for school. I didn't take pictures of them again that day, because it was really pretty run of the mill. All in all though, a really fun week was had by all -- including Mom!

Have you met my son? If you haven't, I'd like to introduce you to Dominic.



If you have met Dominic, I'm pretty sure you love him. As the saying goes, "To know him is to love him -- and that is very true of Dominic.
Dominic entered the world at 8am on the button on June 24, 2006. I believe we were given June 23 as his due date, which is the day I went into labor. We drove the 45 minutes into the hospital, and I really believed I was going to deliver on the way there. In fact, when we arrived, they were worried that they wouldn't even get me checked in before he arrived. Thankfully (or maybe not), he was turned sideways, which didn't put the right pressure on the right places, so he stalled out. This allowed me to sort of sleep through the night. Lucky Jon got to sleep in those ever-so-comfortable hospital chair-beds, while Amara was tucked safely into bed at our wonderful babysitter's house.

By morning, the doctor said, "Let's get this little guy outta there!" So essentially, she reached in and pulled.

The next several hours and days were a whirlwind. I'm glad that I documented them then, because now it's a blur. I remember them being some of the worst hours and days of my life. There were some scares about his health, he spent a couple hours in the NICU, a coupld days under bili-lights, and I had literally some of the worst nurses I've ever experienced. But thankfully, I don't really remember all of that. His name means, "Belonging to God" -- and I'm so thankful that we gave him back to God before he was even born, because God certainly took care of him that day.

In hindsight, none of the issues were as extreme as they felt that day -- something about hormone surges, lack of sleep, and far away family make everythign more extreme. As I sat in the NICU with my 8lb 2oz baby, looking at the tiny ones surrounding me, I was so grateful to know that it would be a short stint.

And look at the little guy now:


The labor was fast. The delivery and following hours / days were chaotic. And his life has, in many ways, continued on that "whirlwind' path. Dominic is, by definition, a whirlwind! He's a little bundle of energy that can just as quickly as he flashes by, flash back, jump in your lap, and give you a hug that melts you to the core. He's my "snuggle buggle" and he's very proud of that fact. He's quick to tell you he's not a baby, but conceeds that he will always be MY baby, and he's OK with that, too.

Last night he promised to take care of me when he grows up to be 41, which he declared to be very old. He then added that 27 is very old, too. Guess I'm old. But that's OK.

Dominic is the child who my mom promises will make my hair turn gray before hers does. I don't doubt her. He has a gift that I attribute to his father, and I do believe it's a bit of his Great Grandfather (on Jon's side of course) reincarnate -- he can walk that line and maybe even toe over it -- but charm his way out of it. He has a mischevious twinkle in his eye that tells you he's up to no good, but also assures you that he'll win you over anyway.

We joke with his teachers that we really have to keep him in line, because if we don't he will be a delinquent. He's got them all fooled, and they assure me that he's always so well behaved, polite, etc -- a charmer, I tell you! But that's just it -- he IS all those things -- well behaved, polite, kind, loved by everyone. That's why it's so hard to believe he could ever be a deviant. We'll have to keep him in line so he doesn't expose that side of himself (a side I'm quite sure we all have).

Seriously though, this little boy is a light. He is loved by everyone. He loves to make people smile and laugh. He's got a humor, a vocabulary, and a sense of other people that are well beyond his years. He's almost never in a bad mood. He's tender hearted but still tough as nails.

As wonderful as all that other stuff is though, my favorite part of him is his love for God. Several months ago we picked him up from Sunday School and his teacher was gushing over the prayer that he said. She said it was the sweetest most sincere prayer -- but more than that, she was impressed as he was the only one who would offer one. He evangelizes to his classmates. At Christmas he told them it's OK to love Santa as long as you love Jesus more. When they asked who Jesus is, he said, "He died on the cross to save me from my sins." This week he came crying into our room at 3am and said, "Mommy, I need you to pray for me." I asked him what was wrong. He said, "I need you to ask Jesus to keep all the scary thoughts out of my head." So last night we started with that prayer. And this morning I over heard him telling Amara, "Well God gave me lots of good dreams last night." Late last year, Amara gave her heart to Jesus. Dominic said that he did too. He repeated to me all the truths that are essential -- that Jesus is God's son, he lived as a man, died on the cross, rose again to save us all for our sins, and now lives in heaven. But I was kind of hesitant, thinking perhaps he memorized it but didn't really internalize it. But I'm not so sure... I know that God hold's this child in the palm of His hand. And I'm pretty confident now that Dominic has given his life and his heart to Jesus, too. Man, I really pray that the relationship my kids have with Jesus right now continues to be as close, as real, as tangible as adults as it is right now.

I do believe I could go on and on. So I'll cut myself off. In closing though, I offer immense thanks to God for the amazing gift He has given me in both of my children. I'm not deserving of such incredible blessings.

Happy Birthday, little man! Here's a special Dominic kiss, just for you!

On June 24, 2010, at 8:00 AM on the button, we were blessed with this most precious gift and our little family was complete.



Dominic means "child of God" -- and that, he most certainly is.

We love you, little D-man

Today when I dropped the kids off at Day Care, Miss Jessica stopped me to tell a Dominic story.

Apparently this is the conversation held by Dominic and his friend(s) last week.

D: It's OK to have Santa in your heart, as long as Jesus is in your heart bigger.

Friend: Who's Jesus?

D: He's who SAVED me, because I asked him into my heart.

Oh to be so bold.

A few posts ago, I wrote about Amara telling Santa that she loves Jesus more. I also wrote that Dominic, upon seeing Santa's reaction, had to chime in that he loved Jesus more, too.

I thought that would really be the end of it.

But then Dominic's teacher told me this:

They were sitting as a class in circle time talking about Christmas and about Santa Claus. Dominic raised his hand (what 3 year old does that!?). When called upon he said, "Excuse me, it's important to remember we should love Jesus more than we love Santa Claus."

I love that kid!

May he always be that uninhibited in sharing his faith!

Last Friday, the kids had their Christmas program at their day care. I was SO PROUD of how well they did. You could tell they were a little bit nervous at first, never having been "on stage" before, but the nerves quickly melted away, and they did a fabulous job!

Dominic's class sang 4 Christmas songs. He was very proud to be "the line leader." Truly, he didn't sing as loudly as I expected, because he has a loud personality! He struggled a bit with his antlers falling in his eyes (he was a reindeer) -- but that was too cute! He had to take a pause to come give me a hug, which prompted his little friend to do the same. Irresistable! What I didn't catch on camera is him calling out, "I love you, Mommy," between songs. Since it was quiet, everyone heard, which made everyone go, "Aw...." Immediately after that, he looked back at Jon and said, "I love you, Daddy," which you kind of can hear on video, because it was just as the song was beginning.



Amara's class put on a little play based on "The Polar Express." The teachers had them practicing for weeks, and asked us to help them out at home. She told us she didn't have any lines other than "This one is for you," but the little actress surprised us all! She had a TON of lines. I have no idea how she memorized them (other than she memorizes everything quickly), because she didn't practice at all at home. Apparently one little boy had stage fright, so she was asked to say his lines with him. Then somehow she inherited another child's lines as well. Of course, I get all this information from my friend, Chandra, who babysat them the night before. I asked Amara why she didn't tell me she had lines. She told me the teachers told her not to tell so she could surprise us -- she sure did!

So "I Heart Faces" only allows for 1 photo to be submitted, but I just had to share the others, because Amara seriously was the sweetest sleeper.



1 Month Old here:


15 Months Old here - look at the little curls finally starting to come in:


Evidence that Dominic did occasionally sleep - 5 weeks old here:


He just preferred to sleep ON people. The date's wrong on this picture -- should be 7/26 -- so he was 1 month old.

A few months ago I discovered "I Heart Faces" and the beautiful photos just captivated me. I haven't participated much, but this week, the theme is "Sweet Dreams" and I just couldn't resist.

My first born has always been such a peaceful sleeper. I just looked back through my photos and found several of her sleeping so beautifully -- it was hard to narrow down an entry (I'll have to post the other ones, t00).

My second born, on the other hand -- I could only find one sleeping picture. He just didn't sleep long enough to get the camera out! Thankfully he sleeps MUCH better now, but he was definitely not a sleeping infant!

So here is my submission for "I Heart Faces" Week 48 Challenge. My daughter, age 5 weeks, with my husband. It's actually been made into a scrapbook page, hence the text.

We went to our local Christmas parade today.

Not knowing the exact route (should have checked), we positioned ourselves nearly at the end of the parade. By the time the line snaked its way to us, the walkers were weary, the waves weren't quite as spirited, the singing was quieter.... and the candy was nearly gone.

*Gasp* the horror -- no candy!

And for whatever reason... the kids immediately in front of our kids were getting all the candy that was being dispersed. Not just the candy tossed, but also the candy handed out. The paraders would come over to the side of the road, give the other kids their candy, then completely skip our kids. Even the other two children with us would get candy, and they'd skip A&D. Not sure why...

Anyway, Amara did get frustrated with it, completely not understanding why she was getting skipped. Frankly, neither did I.

I know it was more the hurt of being skipped than the candy though -- it was all nasty candy in the first place!

After being passed by for the um-teenth time, I said, "Amara, do we still have Halloween candy at home?" She answered, "Yes." I asked, "Do we still have a lot more Halloween candy at home that what they're throwing here?" She answered, "Yes."

And suddenly, all was right with the world.

Now each time she got passed by, she turned to me and said, "That's OK, we've got a TON of candy at home."

Don't get me wrong -- she still dove after every starlight mint that came her way (gag), but she was OK with not getting their first.

Why is it that my heart hurts so bad to see my kids getting passed over for something as frivolous as candy I don't even like (nor do they)? And how much can I learn myself from my daughter's lesson in perspective? Why do I need "more" of any material thing when I've already got plenty at home?

In fact... because of Jesus Christ, I have everything I could ever want.

John 3:30 "He must become greater. I must become less."

Santa came to my office yesterday (in the form of one of my co-workers). So all of us gathered up our kids to come tell him what they wanted, eat some candy and cookies, some Chick-fil-a, and watch Merry Madagascar.

Neither Jon nor I grew up believing in Santa, so we haven't made it a priority for the kids either. He's more of a "fun game" than anything, and certainly I don't want my kids to spoil it for other kids, so I'm trying to walk through all of that. But anyway, I didn't realize just how little they knew about Santa until they got up there and sat on his lap.

They just sat.

They didn't ask for anything. When he asked what they wanted, they said, "I don't know." When he asked what they liked, they said, "I don't know." Dominic finally said, "Yes, I like that!" when Santa asked about cars, and decided that he wanted cars with a race track. Amara told him that she wanted a reindeer -- but when I reminded her that she HAS a reindeer, she said, "Yes, but I want to give that one to Dominic, so I want a new one." I told her she didn't need another -- especially if she was going to give her old one away. So she ended up not really telling Santa she wanted anything. Easy to please, I guess!


What she DID tell Santa was this, "Santa, I think you're cool, but I love Jesus more."

Yes, I did tell her to say that, but I thought it was funny that she did. Santa laughed, and said, "I love him, too." ("Santa" has been a worship leader at a local church for several years.) When Dominic heard Santa's reaction, he ran up to Santa and said, "I love Jesus the most, too." Santa laughed and said, "Oh good, I love him most, too!"

It was so funny. The night before when I told the kids to say that, the kids were very concerned about hurting Santa's feelings. They said, "Mom, we need to love everyone!" I assured them (knowing who Santa was) that Santa wouldn't care. I also told them that I know they love ME, but that I hope they love Jesus more than me -- and that it doesn't hurt my feelings. That apparently made it alright in their mind.

After visiting Santa, Amara asked me, "Mom, do you think that was the real Santa?" Already the skeptic. :) I told her, "I don't know baby, there are a lot of Santa's around -- keeps you guessing, doesn't it."

Wow what a gorgeous weekend! It was sunny and 70's each day. It seems like we haven't had a day this nice (let alone a string of them) since August! It was simply gorgeous.

Of course, that meant we had to take advantage of it and go play at the park.

Amara's growing up too fast -- she's losing her "little girl" look.

Dominic was all about the swings. I was scared he wouldn't hold on well, but he took a wild ride and kept asking for more!

I tried to take advantage of the leaves and get them to take a picture. However, the lighting and the attitudes were working against me. The light was waning fast, and the kids just wanted to horse around. So you get a goofy shot!


This picture is really nothing special, but I had to share it because it makes me laugh. Look in the upper right corner -- doesn't it look as if Jon can jump to the moon? He's swinging, but you'd never know it. I need to figure out something creative to do with that photo!

Hope your weekend weather was as fabulous as ours was!

By sharing just a portion of our weekend with you each day, I've effectively been able to stretch our fun weekend for an entire week. Yay for me!

I took a bunch of photos -- far too many to share on here. But I've saved them to a slide show that you're welcome to watch at the end of this post. Instead, I'll just share with you my favorites.

We were spoiled when we lived in Cincinnati, because we were able to go to an amazing zoo pretty much whenever we wanted. However, the kids were too young to remember ever having gone. We were excited to share with them the zoo again and see the animals through their eyes. The kids were excited because... well... they love animals!

The kids loved the bronze animals as much as the real ones. They bee-lined for the elephants, which are both of their favorites. They walked on the foot prints of several animals whose pawprints were in the once-wet cement. They penguined walked to the emporer penguins and were able to see just how they compared in size to various penguin species (which are surprisingly small). They asked the tortoise keepers what kind of sounds tortoises make. They touched the pelts of three-toed sloth, tiger, bobcat. They taunted the cheetah, who was racing a zoo keeper.

Add to it that it was 70+ degrees, and we couldn't have asked for a more perfect day. A good time was had by all!


By the time we rounded the last corner, Dominic finally complaied that he was tired and hunger. He was given the best seat in the house as we headed to the car. Good bye, Tulsa, thanks for a wonderful weekend!



Below are the rest of the photos from the zoo. Enjoy!