Weather Man vs. GOD

Well...although the weather man predicted thurs-mon to be cold, mostly cloudy & rainy....it wasn't. We only saw drops of rain and a whole lot of sun in between. God just must have known we needed the sun!! We had a good end to the week and a great relaxing weekend. Saturday, we decided to take the kids to the zoo. It was cooler so we thought it would be a great time to see the aniamels in a more active state...and it was. The Cheetahs were out of their valley( when they are in there they look like ants their so far away) and were right up against the fence about 50 feet from us...Gideon loved it. The sloth bear was actually up and moving and the mother and baby polar bear were playing around togethor in their habitat. When we went into the aquarium Lucy just started screaming....good screams...she absolutley loved it! We went through the amazon rain forest part and I didn't know that there was an actual sloth in there crawling around but he was right out front and I discovered that sloths....are really ugly :) Anyway the kids had a great time and we ended the trip with icecream at Coldstone~
As some of you know (specifically Kelli :) it's Morell (sp?) mushroom season.....and Jim has been hunting and coming up with a real crop. On Sunday we went for steak and fresh mushrooms for lunch at the lake and following was another mushroom hunt by Keith and his dad in which they found some huge mushrooms...one was about as long as the stretch between your index finger and thumb and was almost as thick as a peach....anyway the hunt is always fun so Keith thoroughly enjoyed himself! After the mushroom hunt Keith went fishing with a friend while the kids and I went on a walk with Nani (my mom) on which Lucy and Ella were having a whining match....sorry mom....
The real kicker of the day happened after church before we went for lunch....I was standing in the kitchen making a salad to take and what sounded like a gun shot went off....and the electricity went out....the transformer about 8 yards from the house blew....needless to say we had lots of Toledo Edison trucks parked in our yard for the majority of the day...luckily we could go to moms and stay out of the mess!!! Well that's all in our not so exciting life....It turns May in just a few days...YIPEE!!!!

Loads of Questions!

The last couple days have been really interesting with Gideon! Keith's friend Mike Rice was home from Paw Paw MI because his uncle passed away and so we went to the funeral home. I wanted to prepare Gideon before we left so we sat down outside on the driveway and had a little talk about heaven and dieing. We had talked before but I just wanted to make sure he understood what was going on. I told him about how when we die we close our eyes and when we open them, we are in heaven with a new body but we leave our old worn out body behind and sometimes people want to look at the old body so we put it in a pretty box and people come and see it and the family to tell them we're sorry that they won't be able to see their uncle for awhile, until they go to heaven. Well of course this brought up a ton of questions: How do we get to heaven? How's come we want new bodies?and my favorite that I didn't know how to answer because there was some truth to it...."Why do we want to look at an old body?" He seemed to eventually understand the concept and with the news that if he was good we could go to get a Pizza Sub at subway afterward, he was a bit distracted! Well, we got to the funeral home and walked in, talked with family and then walked to the front to "see the old body" as we were walking up there I was trying to tell Gideon we were going to see the body now and he was saying very loudly..."where is it?" " I want to see the body" As we approached the casket he looked in at the body and then around at the casket, the flowers and the room and then proclaimed in an excited really loud voice " IS THIS HEAVEN?" Keith and I could barely keep straight faces!
This morning, when Gideon got up I was starting my devotions for the day. He was asking me what things were, what book I was reading and what that big green book was...I told him, "it's my Bible...it's like your big Bible in your room except without the pictures...it has all of those stories in it...like the one about Gideon." He wanted to hear the story of Gideon again and so I looked it up and told him about it. I told him how we named him Gideon because Gideon was not the strongest or bravest man but God still used him and he knew where to go for help when he was afraid and didn't think he could defeat the Midianites. I asked Gideon if he knew who to ask for help when he was afraid of something or afraid to do something. He said "I ask Jesus". That's right I said...so the next time when you are afraid of a bee or a bug or afraid to try something new you just can ask God to help you and he will come and help right? Gideon looked at me and answered " Yah....so if I am afraid of a bug...God will help me SMASH the bug and kill it like the Midianites?" "Yes" I answered....I guess!! At least he got the concept!!

Home Again Home Again Jiggety Jig

The last couple of days we have been running quite a bit (hence the title:)!! Mom and Dad left Thursday to visit Drew and Colin out east and so we have been in charge of Shadow, Sheba, the cats, the house , the mail and the asparagus(which is just starting to really come in yum!!). It is quite a challenge to try and balence three kids and two hyper dogs to do the chores! Luckily most of the time Keith has been around to help me! So we have been running back and forth from their house to ours! Saturday, after the auction was over we drove over and burned for mom and didn't want to leave the fire so we decided to have a hotdog roast and smores for supper! Unfortunetly it started to pour down rain right after we cooked the dogs so we had to have microwave smores (which I like better anyway). On Friday night we went over the Keith's Mom and Dad's and had supper and afterwards went to the park for the first time this Spring! The kids loved it and were really excited to be running around at the lake! So was I...I have missed warm weather a lot!! Sunday was a little cooler but it did not stop us from being outside. We worked the nursery at church in the morning which is always a challenge. It's really hard to be patient with children who are not your own. We are on duty in the nursury once a month and we have about the same kids everytime. One of the kids that we have has a mom who is probably about 18 (he's 2). I am really glad that they come to church, that's the best place for them to be, I can just tell that he is not disciplined at home very much. It is a challenge for me to think outside of myself and what I would do if my child talked like that and react with sensitivity and gentleness! It's something I definetly have to work at! Not that I am really rough on my kids or anything it's just that sometimes they need time-outs or when they are hurting one another or doing something dangerous, a spanken and you can't do that with someone else's childso you have to be a lot more patient and let things go a lot! Anyway enough of that talk! Last night we ate our typical popcorn suppper and then went outside on a walk and played a quick family game of t-ball and soccer! The kids were not ready to come inside but when 8:00 rolled around I thought we'd better head in! Today is a beautiful day! It's around 75 degrees and sunny! I have clothes on the line outside and fried chicken ready for supper! Ella is resting and Gid and Luc are in quiet time and I am about ready to sit out on the front porch in the sun! I think I'll see if Keith will help me get the porch swing from mom and dad's tonight and maybe later this week get out the patio furniture so we can start eating supper outside! I am lovin the weather can ya tell!! Hope everyone is doing well! We send our love! -Taryn

Scary Times

Well-today at noon I about had a heart attack!!! Not really but my heart was racing. After lunch I put Ella down on the floor under her little gym to play and set Lucy and Gideon on the couch with a special treat of a candy bracelet to share that Lucy got at Easter. I got on the computer to check out a website on the Upper Pennisula for vacation this summer. All of a sudden I hear Ella just starting to wail....I walked over and Lucy is shoving little tiny candy flowers in Ella's mouth! She had gotten at least 4 in by the time I came over and I think Ella may have swallowed a little bit of one. I quickly ran my finger through her mouth and got everything out. At this point Ella was screaming and had a really blue tongue! Needless to say once mommy stopped hyperventalating (sp?) the candy bracelet went into the trash and Lucy got a long talking too. I guess you can't be too careful. Lucy will definetly need better supervision the next time she's eating a small candy!

Alone Again

Well, Keith has left on business yet again and we are anxiously awaiting his return. This time he is in Chicago for 2 days. Although it's difficult when he is gone I am glad that he will be back late tomorrow night and he's only 5 hours away rather than farther. I absolutely hate it when he travels but it is a part of the job and I am at least glad he has a job! I talked to one of his co-workers wives at a party they had and she said that her husband had traveled most of his career and that it was the hardest when the kids were young but got easier the older they got then got hard again when the kids left the house and it was just her!
This past week was an eventful one. We spent a lot of it at mom's and the kids had a blast but mom and babe didn't sleep that well. After a delayed flight Keith didn't get home on Wed until long after all of us were in bed and had to be back at work the next morning. I had an auction Thurs night and Fri he worked again. Therefore I didn't see much of him until Fri night. I missed him a ton and that's probably why it's so hard to see him go so soon again. The auction was fun. They had a nice but old upright piano and dad asked me to bid on it for him (he's thinking of being a piano tuner and wanted something to practice on plus he wants to start teaching Gideon) anyway...he told me not to bid more than $50. Well....needless to say I was the only bidder on the thing and I got it for $5.00 total. So....dad has a new piano, that he is trying to convince us to store for him!
On Friday night we ended up at Walmart ( a usual Fri night stop for us) where we purchased Gideon a new bike. He had riden on his cousin Andrew's in MI and did really well on it....well we ended up getting, I think , the exact same bike and he rode it all over Walmart. He wanted to ride it out to the car from the check-out but daddy said no. So far he's is doing great and not afraid which is awesome! We are excited to take it with us up to the U.P. for vacation. We'll have to label it as Gideon's so there's no mix up on bikes :)
Saturday I took Lucy shopping for an early Mother's Day thing. It was really fun. We went into the changing rooms and tried on dresses. She just smiled and danced in front of the mirrors. It was really fun. Yesterday we celebrated Jim and Nancy's (Myers) 40th anniversary with them. We surprised them by having Jay and Les come over from Cleveland for dinner! It was a great time and Gideon and Lucy were sad to see everyone go.
Today things are calmer...although not really very calm...the kids have been fighting all afternoon and driving me crazy....hopefully they'll calm down soon and behave themselves. We did have fun this morning baking some Irish Brown Bread (Drew I'll have to make it for you when you come home) It was really fun. You mix it all by hand so the kids had a blast getting gooey and sticky. I wasn't sure it would taste very good when we were done but it was delicious!!! Some times the most sloppy things taste the best!!! Well we have a busy week ahead of us so I best get going! Hope all are doing well!!

My kids!! What can I say?

Well we had a really fun weekend with the kids. The weather was beautiful and we spent much of the time outside enjoying the fresh air and freedom! On Sat morning mom came over and got Gideon to do some Nani/Gid time for a few hours so Lucy and I had fun being girly! We painted her fingernails and toenails and then put on makeup, did hair and put on a pretty dress. She then pretended she was Aurora (sleeping beauty) and Snow White. In the clip she is singing "A dream is a wish your heart makes"...mixed with I know you I walked with you once upon a dream ending with I'm Wishing from Snow White. She is such a girly girl and I absolutely love it! She has to pretend that she is Aurora every time she wears pink and I have to be Cindarella everytime I wear blue. She'll say "Hi Rella I Rora" It's so cute! The whole time she was dressed up she needed someone besides me to see her and say she was pretty and Ella was the only other one there so she would go up to Ella and say "Look Ella, I Pity" What a blessing she is to this girly sister deprived mom !!
Gideon was pretty hilarious himself this week. On his trek out with mom he said when he grew up he wanted to be a Fox (like Todd in The Fox and The Hound) he said he wanted everything but those things on his head (ears). Mom asked him how he was going to get the Bushy Tail? He said....and I quote "probly I'll need a fairy godmother"!! He has seen one too many of Lucy's princess movies!! Later that night as I was getting him ready for bed he said "Mom, I love you even when I'm naughty" I said...."Gideon I love you even when your naughty too" He said "Mom, why do you have to say I'm naughty sometimes" I said " Well because I want you to be a good boy when you get older and so mommy has to help you to know what a good boy is, I want you to be like your daddy....don't you want to be like your daddy when you get big?" His response..." Yeh....but how do I get red hair"!!
Oh well....my kids drive me crazy some moments but at others i just want to squeeze them!
This week I am staying at mom and dad's while Keith is in North Carolina for a couple of days. We will miss him a lot while he's gone but it's nice to have family around to turn too for help! Hope all of you are having a great spring and enjoying the nice weather!! Love to All!

I Feel Pretty