The zoo

This past Saturday we made our annual trek to the St. Louis zoo. This really is one of our all-time favorite family places to hang out. The highlights of this trip were getting to see the hippo open its mouth and the lioness hanging out in the tree. The kids were also pretty excited that the snow leopard (one of their favorite animals) was where they could see it.

First Day wrap up

Yes, summer vacation is over at our house. We started school today. They go half day today and tomorrow in an effort to ease us into it (well, that and I'm sure the teachers appreciate the prep time). Here's our traditional 1st day of school pics and a little bit about every one's mornings.

Ashley's first words when she got to the car were "Well, I really like Mr. Angelo, but we have homework." (It's easy homework in case you're worried). As part of her homework, she decided that one of the things she would take to school tomorrow to describe herself is a stick from our Ash tree in the front yard. I was quick to inform her that she needed to make sure she told her teacher that we did not name her after a tree. Yes, I will admit it, I want the teacher to like me and not think I name my children after trees.
John loves being in first grade, but, WOW, did it make him hungry. I can't even begin to describe everything he ate when he got home from school. It has given me pause about what I pack for that boy in his lunch box. We definitely need to be giving him more to eat at school. (BTW, this may be his last picture with his top front teeth intact. They are both wiggly. We may get to sing the "All I Want for Christmas..." song this year. )

Sara is in the 4th grade this year. Can you believe that?! I can't. The first words that she said to me after school were "Mrs. (blank) was really, really nice even though all my friends on the playground said that she was a monster." Greeeaaattt. I'm glad she is an independent thinking and doesn't assume what everyone else says is true. I've just heard that her teacher is hard which is not necessarily the worst thing in the world. I think Sara is going to do just fine. She has a locker this year (Ashley does too) and is super pumped about decorating it. She also has to get a lock. I hope she can remember the combination. I still have nightmares about forgetting my locker combination in high school!

Nathan didn't want to get left out of pictures. Poor guy really missed his siblings today. He hung out with me at McDonalds and some of his friends who he'll be going to kindergarten with next year. I sat and drank coffee with my friends. None of us could really bear going home with only part of our children. We had all pretty much cried our tears already and were ready for some mom conversation distraction until the kids got out. One thing is for certain, this has jolted me out of my summer schedule. I'm still feeling a bit frazzled from the morning. We are experiencing some change this year. Sara goes to school 45 minutes earlier than the other kids and therefore, gets out 45 minutes earlier than they do. John & Ashley's school has a new addition which is creating new drop off and pick up locations that are going to, understandably, take the school a few days to figure out. I say give it two weeks and I'll be in the swing of things. Until then, if you see me, you may want to ask me if I'm sure I am where I am supposed to be.

a few tidbits

Here are some tidbits of my life lately:

I went a week and a half without conditioner for my hair. I was waiting to get a really good deal on some. I'm thinking now that I was just being lazy and my hair paid the price. I could almost hear it sucking in all the conditioner after I bought it.

I took a shower last week (well, in case you're worried, I took one today too) and got interrupted 5 times by my kids. And I don't take that long in the shower. It takes me a total of 20 minutes to do everything...shower, hair, make-up, clothes. One of the interruptions...Child: "Mom, mom, mom!!" Me: "What?" Child: "Mom, mom, mom!" Me:" What?!" Child: "Oh, um, oh, um, I don't remember." Yeah, I don't think that is classified as an emergency.

I got a notice yesterday in the mail from my electric/gas company informing me that I've spent 7% more on energy this year than last year. Thanks...I just wasn't sure if this hot summer was costing me more money.

I cleaned the house yesterday. Well, I cleaned part of it. Joe had cleaned the boys' rooms while I was in Iowa for a quick visit. This cleaning is worth noting because it just doesn't get done in the summer. Joe even commented...WOW! You even dusted! I mopped too and we all know how I feel about mopping. It was a noteworthy day.

I commented to my children this morning that I would probably be crying next Monday morning. They were curious as to why and I told them because I miss them when they are at school. Sara's sympathy: "Well, we are only going to be gone a half day." She probably gets the tough love approach honestly.

I have watched my children grow up this summer. Not taller or bigger, but grown more mature. It's been good to see the fruit of discipline of the last 9 years with them. And, yes, I am going to dearly miss them starting next week.

For all you moms out there...

Summer, well, summer break is drawing to a close at our house. We've got about a week and a half before school begins and my house shrinks from 4 kids to 1 kid...actually 2 kids because I babysit, but only one of my own. The last few days have been a little trying on the nerves. The checkout clerk at Walmart asked me yesterday if I was ready for school to start. I don't know if it was the behavior of my kids or the look on my face that prompted that question. No one napped today despite the fact that we had a friend for a sleepover last night. I headed downstairs to blow off some steam on my elliptical while everyone "rested" in their own rooms. About 10 minutes into the workout at a commercial I glanced around the room, took a big sigh and immediately launched into mental gripes about the cleanliness of the playroom. My gaze rested on a naked barbie. And the thought struck me...someday you are going to miss having naked barbies on your floor. The barbies haven't even been played with that much this summer. My girls are 8 and 9 and their birthday requests this last winter were MP3 players. It goes fast....the summers, the school years, the kids years, etc. It seems I've struggled with contentedness all my adult life. I tend to wish things away so I don't have to deal with the difficulty of the moment. I took pause and realized I could either gripe the next week and a half away or I could enjoy these moments...the squeals of enjoyment of life, the hugs and kisses and the discipleship and training moments. The next time I blink, there will be no more naked barbies on the floor.

Vacation 2010 Day 10

Day 10 of vacation was spent at Zion National Park. This is one of my favorite National Parks. I love the contrast of the deep green colors with the orange rock formations in the canyon. It became a family favorite on this trip because we were able to do some hiking. Because it was one of our favorites I took a ton of pictures at Zion. I'll only give you a taste here. If you want to see more, call me and we'll have coffee and look at them together. The kids also enjoyed counting the lizards. I think they saw a total of 16. We loved the falls. The first ones we hiked to were the lower emerald pool.

The kids loved the weeping rock trail...mostly because it was hot and the rocks dripped water on us while we hiked. It was also beautiful. On the way there we saw several deer and wild turkeys.

Our last trail was the riverwalk trail. It led to the narrows which is a place in the trail where the canyon is so narrow that you can only hike through the water. Unfortunately, since we were there in what is technically spring the water was too high to walk through the actual narrows. However, we did enjoy a splash in the river.

What a great day...it wore us all out.

This year's garden

Yep, the toe is broke. Well, I've not had x-rays done or anything, but a big purple line developed along the side of it and the whole top of my foot has a sickish purplely color to it. It is actually feeling better this afternoon. I'm not sure if it because of the 3 ibuprofen I took or because Joe finally convinced me I needed to stay off of it today. (It's kind of amazing...I can't walk very well but I can do the eliptical machine. Hurts like the dickens when I get off the machine, but...) Well, it was Joe telling me that I needed to keep off of it and the fact that it was so swollen at the end of the day yesterday that my sandel put a really decent imprint on it. Alright, enough about the lame foot.

I thought you might enjoy some pictures of our garden for this year. Planted were big boy tomatoes, Roma tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans, Marconi peppers, ancho peppers, and jalapeno peppers. Not planted, but growing are cherry tomatoes. Not planted, growing and pulled were some zucchini plants. I still have zucchini in the freezer from last summer. The gal with the green thumb at church shared some tomato tips with our MOPS group last spring that really helped with my romas this year. I've been pruning the "sucker" branches off. I love to prune. Just ask Joe...some plants I prune so much that he's convinced they will never see life again. But I have yet to kill anything by pruning. There's just something satisfying about snipping junk off of a plant. Anyway, we have the largest romas we've ever had. They are almost ready to ripen. I just keep hoping they wait until after VBS next week, but with this heat they will probably all be ready for salsa making the middle of the week. Good thing I have next weekend free. I just need to encourage my jalapenos in the same direction.

our jalapenos

maroconi peppers

the beautiful romas--one of about 5 plants

July at our house

So I'm pretty sure I broke my toe. It is the next to last one on the left foot and I know it would make me feel better if it turned black. Then I would feel a little justified in the amount of pain it is causing me. This really isn't a convenient time for me to have a broken toe. I've just gotten back into my exercise routine (you may have heard that Joe & I are participating in a weight loss challenge with the office staff at church) and I have VBS next week. Not sure at this point how I'm going to jump around on stage like I need to. I've really started praying that by next week the toe is back to normal. Joe (the medical expert in the house) says it is very unlikely. Sigh...

The middle part of July has been pretty active for us. Here's what's been going on....

• We've been borrowing some videos from the library for our evening entertainment. (There just hasn't been anything child worthy on TV lately.) The other day Nathan talked me into letting him get a nature video Deep Blue. It's not that I'm against nature; I'm just not a fan of some of the videos about nature. Anyway, we settled in to watch it with me warning them that if it got crazy on evolution we would be turning it off. It actually turned out to be pretty good, right up to the point that they started showing the killer whales. After seeing them in a action, I'm kind of wondering who at Sea World thought it would be a good idea to try to tame these mighty beasts. They had a scene where a pack of killer whales attacked a baby gray whale. After 6 hours they wore the mama gray whale out and killed (yikes!) the baby gray whale. It was really horrible. We had major tears going on with Nathan and I'm afraid he will probably never watch a nature video again.
• On the same theme of nature, a monarch catepillar somehow ended up on my foot outside last week. So we brought it in a put it in Sara's "butterfly pavillion". It ate and ate this last week and we woke up this morning to it hanging upside down in the pavillion. Here's hoping for a butterfly in two weeks.
• The girls had an Anne of Green Gables marathon while visiting their aunt a few weeks ago. Now I know who Ashley reminds me of...Anne of Green Gables! She is now devouring the books and her dramatic side has come into light even more in the last week. She was in tears when we took the video back to the library yesterday (yes, they had to watch them again when they got home). I think there may have even been utterances of "how shall I now live?"
• Speaking of Ashley, she lost a tooth this last week. It put me in a panic when she came upstairs one afternoon with blood coming out of her mouth and she announced a tooth fell out. I didn't know she had a loose tooth and you just never know what is going to happen with that child. Fortunately, it was one that was suppose to come out this time.
• We have VBS here next week and once again I'm in charge of it. I guess that sounded a little like I didn't want to be in charge. I enjoy it. It could be an interesting week. Last year we had 38 kids on our first day and ended the week around 60 or 70. We have 41 preregistered for this year. Here's hoping we have enough of everything!
• I've been studying Hebrews this summer. I usually end up my Bible study with more questions than answers. But it has been really good to be in the Word.

We are off to the orthodontist and to do a little shopping...that will be fun with a broken toe. Oooo, maybe I can drive one of those little carts at the store....

The herd is back!

Okay, just to start out, I will finish blogging about vacation, but it may have to wait until after VBS is over. Oh, wait, then I'll be in preparation for the beginning of school. Well, I guess I'll just have to finish it before VBS. It will get done. I promise.

So, yep, the herd is back home again. Not to be confused with "Back Home, Again in Indiana". They just came from spending two weeks in Indiana. No, they are back home in good 'ole Illinois. We had gotten several complaints from the neighbors about our children missing. I'm serious. The ones across the street even came over to greet them this evening. Yeah, our street is pretty quiet without our children around. There is only one other house with kids on our block and they only have two girls. Elementary girls tend to be quieter than 4 & 6 year old boys who are outside playing cowboys. Within thirty minutes of being home Nathan had been a cowboy, a superhero, and an army guy.

So I've been transitioning from an eerily quiet house to a somewhat organized chaotic one. How is the patient, you may be wondering? John is doing fine. Our biggest issue right now is trying to balance the activity. It is kind of hard to "play quietly" when you have three other siblings that really have no desire to do that. And it becomes apparent very quickly that he really doesn't yet have the stamina to sustain a day full of imaginary play with the others. They had a superhero/cowgirl club meeting this morning downstairs and that was about all he could handle.

This post wouldn't be complete without a quick comment on what I learned while my kids were gone. I'm convinced that God designed us to have personal interaction in part so that we would recognize our desperate need for him. I was feeling pretty good about myself...rather self-righteous, to be honest...after spending close to two weeks with either no children or one child. My sin nature was downright under control. It literally took about 30 minutes of my children being home for me to recognize that, oh, I guess I'm not has righteous as I thought. I'm thankful for that though. I'm thankful that I have four kids and a husband that help reveal to me (not by their actions, but by relationship to them) the edges that need to be refined by the Lord. I pray that once my kids are gone I will be wise enough to build close enough relationships with others that I can continue to recognize my sin and my need for a Savior.

On the agenda for tomorrow: a free movie at the local movie theater and maybe a stop a the new HyVee. Yes, we have HyVee now. I'm so excited! This one comes equipped with a sushi bar. Now we just need to add a Fareway and a Meijer to make our shopping repertoire complete.

John's surgery

So for the third time in my experience as a mother I took one of my kids in for surgery yesterday. It never gets to be an easier experience. There are different challenges with each experience and with experience comes ease in knowing what to expect. BUT it is never easy to send your child off with stranger (I don't know that nurse!) and go sit in another room while he/she is put to sleep and surgically messed with. Even a "simple and routine" surgery such as removing the tonsils, adenoids and getting some nose work, isn't "simple and routine" when it is your child that is involved..it is down right traumatic. All that to say, I'm glad it is over. I feel so blessed that it was just "simple and routine" and that all my kids that have had surgery have had no problems. Yesterday it all went as planned and he was such a great patient for everyone.

The "before" picture. John was so fascinated by everything going on in the hospital that he forgot to be nervous. He was also stunned that Ashley forgot to tell him that he got to wear special PJs for the event. He loved the slippers so much that he requested to bring them home.

His first picture sans tonsils and adenoids. He immediately chomped down a popsicle that he declared "delicious". The first thing he requested from mom and dad when he saw us was "I want to go home.". We concurred so he quickly met all the requirements to be discharged and was out the door about 2 hours after his surgery. Then we all went home to "sleep it off". We are now in the middle of a Star Wars marathon. What a great way to recover.

a quick update

So I have obviously taken a break from sharing our vacation story. Not to worry, I will finish it...at some point. We've been taking a another mini-vacation the last couple of weeks. This one was (and is) filled with medical issues, having friends visit and visiting family. We've been swimming, fishing, and hanging out in hospital waiting rooms. The kids spent last week with their Grandpa and Grandma Snow. On the fourth we transitioned and went to the other Grandparents and enjoyed a house filled with aunts, uncles and cousins. As far as the hospital visits go...Joe had his "routine" colonoscopy last week. He hadn't had one in four years so it was time and everything came out normal. Well, normal for him. He still has crohn's disease so obviously his small intestine doesn't look like yours or mine. Anyway, today we head down to the hospital with my John-John. He is getting his tonsils, adenoids, and some nose work done. It may be a rough few days, but I have high hopes for how he will feel once school starts. If you've ever heard John talk you know that this has been coming for awhile. After his surgery it will be interesting to see if he still enjoys onions, olives and tuna salad as much as he does now.

Anyway, just a little update from the heartland that seems to think it is Florida this summer...steamy days with afternoon storms have become the normal here. Hopefully we still have some limbs left in our trees by the end of summer!