This morning's drive

We dropped Daddy off at the office this morning. It is technically closed, but he was swamped and needed to get some work done. So then I decided that we would go look for eagles. Now our family car drives are become legendary and this one did not disappoint. Our conversation included the following:

John: If I go outside will God talk to me?
The replies to this question include the discussion of dreams, visions, the Bible and Islam.

The next topic was introduced by Ashley: If Uncle Buddy & Aunt Kristen get put in jail would baby Lydia have to go to an orphanage? (FYI, our relatives are NOT criminals; there is a logical reason that they could someday possibly go to jail. You'll just have to trust me.)
We got to talk about families--in particular Lydia's--in response to this question.

John: Why do cats eat birds?
Mom: God made them that way.
John: So do pussycats eat birds and just regular cats eat mice?
Mom: They are the same animal.
Ashley: If we had a cat that lived with us (her dream pet) and we had a mouse in the house I bet the cat would eat it.
Sara: EWWWWW, that is really gross.
John: A seagull is just like an eagle only it is white. (John has been really thrown for a loop during our eagle watching because eagle and seagull sound so much alike. He's convinced they have to be very closely related. We've covered this topic on many, many other drives.)

As you can see we covered varied topics and so I definitely think it was worth the gas money.

In 20 some years...

I LOVE naps. I really can't overstate how much I enjoy them--especially since I've had kids. After I had Nathan, no matter how my day went, I always felt like the most awesome mom ever because I could get all four of my kids, ages 5 and under (yes, Sara was 5 when Nathan was born) down for a nap at the same time. You have to admit that is impressive. Anyway, the girls got out of school early today to get an early start on next week's spring break. So I kept the boys up with the intention of all of us laying down when we got home. Now, in fairness, I don't always make my girls sleep, but they do have to be in their room reading or doing something quiet. I was expressing my delight of the upcoming nap time on the way home from school. It was basically me going on and on like this: "Do you know what mommy's favorite time of the day is? Nap time! Yeah!!! Yeah!!! Isn't it great!" (BTW, at what point as mom's do we always start referring to ourselves in the third person?!) Sara proclaimed emphatically (imagine the eyes rolling) "Nap time will never my favorite time of the day." We discussed back and forth--finally I told her I was going to write down what she said and when she had kids one day I would remind her of her words. She, of course, said even when she had kids this would not happen. So, hopefully in 20 some years I will read this and be reminded to remind her of her words.

Nathan's prayer

We were running late this morning and as I was running out to the van behind all the children I took note that Nathan was playing in a huge puddle of water instead of taking his seat in the van. And so I quickly chastised and encouraged him strongly to take his seat. He got buckled in, I got buckled in, the garage door went up, we all took a deep breath, and Nathan began our prayer time. This was Nathan's prayer:

"Dear heavenly Father, I got in the puddle. Please no mommy spank me. Amen."

this ones for you Horn herd...

Nathan, for some reason, has decided that he doesn't like to have the van parked in the garage. I think it is because he has limited access to it when it is in the garage. You see, Nathan has developed quite a liking to cars and driving them. Anyway, I was parking the van in the garage and Nathan started shouting that he didn't want the van in the garage. And so, I gave him the same response I gave him the other night--"We have to park it in the garage. This is where the van goes night-night." I know--real clever huh! My kids weren't that impressed either. In fact, both times I said it they about rolled out of their seats laughing at me. And they kept telling me that I needed to post it on the blog. So kids, this post is for you...

Ashley--the hunter's daughter

We have a group of bald eagles that winter along the river here and we've had bunches of fun taking drives and looking at them. So we were on our way to church tonight and John commented that he wished he could be an eagle and fly. After some spirited discussion among Sara, John, and Nathan about what it would be like to fly and be an eagle, Ashley piped up as a true hunter's daughter: "I don't want to be any kind of bird because they get shot, die and fall from the sky."