Quotables

Peter: "I think I'll spend a little time in the other room learning about science."

(studying an encyclopedia)

Anna: "I think I'll spend some time in here learning about TV."

Quotables

Peter to his now two year old sister as she hits him to get a toy....

"According to my calculations, fighting is not a good way."

Copying Ears

Wowee, swamped in my list of to do's. I'm not really coming up for much air these days, but I do enjoy these kind of manic frenzies. They help time pass quickly. I get more done in these stints of time, than I do in a year of unhurried periods.

My little guy has an ear infection, and the quote of the day goes to him...

"Agghhhh, mom this copying ear is driving me nuts!"

"Copying what?"

"Copying ear, it copies everything I say. I'm not kiddin. Aghhhh! See it's doing it right now!"

Flowers in Heaven

Today as we were playing in the backyard, Peter asked if there were going to be flowers in Heaven. I was quite heartened by his question thinking maybe my love for flowers and gardening has rubbed off on the little man. I assured him there were probably flowers in heaven. Afterall, they're beautiful and heaven is beautiful. I wasn't expecting his response. He was quite disconcerted.
Me: "Peter, why don't you want flowers in Heaven?"
Peter: "Bees go wherever flowers are."
Me: "Well, what's wrong with having a few bees around?"
Peter: "Bees have forms."
Me: "Forms?"
Peter: "Yeah, you know like cactus have forms, bees have 'em too."

Beware of Bees' forms.

Picture of my garden courtesy of Peter

September 4th

Peter,
As I mentioned yesterday, sometimes God loves us through our friends. However, a lot of times, God loves me through you! Every day you wake up in the same house as me it's like God is giving me one gigantic present after another. Your infectious laugh can bring me to tears. You brighten every day with your funny sayings and witty little comments.

Not only do you make us all laugh, but you love so freely. You are becoming quite the little man, with your heart for God. I hope that as you grow God will show you all the ways to express that love to those around you that are so hungry for it. You have so much love to give, and this world is hungry for the kind of love that you have. So in this coming year as you are starting kindergarten, and continuiing in Awanas, my prayer is that your love for God and others would grow in knowledge and depth. I also pray that your dad and I will have insight into how to nourish your little soul that someday you will stand as a man among men: a loving leader with a passion to please God by serving his people.

You're a friend for a lifetime, Peter, and I thank God that I get to call you my son!

Happy 5th birthday, little man!
Love,
Mom and (Dad)

Labor Day Weekend

Somewhere between the Pakistani relief effort, Dan's parents plane crash, and dad's chemo beginning next week. I was beginning to feel a bit overwhelmed. One of the things that is the hardest for an independent minded Marine wife to do sometimes is admit that you need something. This weekend I needed ... to laugh... to get away... and to celebrate my little boy who just turned 5. And that we did, with our precious friends in Virginia!. 4 late nights, 2 birthday cakes, 1 Rennaissance festival, and 14 happy kids later, and my heart is full. Sometimes God loves us through our friends. I feel very loved!

While we're on the subject of Peter and his theology . . .

Yesterday, after Peter apologized for a bad attitude, I noticed he was moving his arms in an erasing motion. He's always making strange shooting motions with his arms, but this was a new one to me, so I asked.

"Oh, Mom, I'm erasing my mistake. You said you'd forgive me so I'm erasing all the warnings. I can start over now."

Alrighty then, lesson learned . . . Check.

Quotables

Peter: Ummm, Dad, I got kinda a hard question. How did God get made? . . . Oh, I know maybe the Lord made Him.

And so we are saving now for his all expense paid trip to Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, where he may ponder the deeper things of life.

While we're on the subject of Peter . . .

He became a Christian this year on February 3rd. I have it recorded on my iphone! It was one of the most exciting days of this mommy's life. When he asked about asking Jesus in his heart, I sort of hesitated at first, worried that he might not get the in's and outs and the gravity of the commitment he was making. How could a four year old grasp what a 32 year old is still working on grasping herself? Never under-estimate the faith of a little one, now I think he gets it a little better than I do . The next day we were at Subway and he broke off a piece of his cookie to share with Tink. Now if there is a sign of a major life change, that is one in and of itself. When I complimented him on his thoughtfulness, he said, "I have Jesus in my heart now, Mom. He helps me."

He's always asking one of the most important questions that I rarely ask, "Who else is going to Heaven, Mommy?" Yesterday, I gave him a Bible that my parents sent him. He was so excited he couldn't wait to sit in his daddy's chair and read through his Bible, page by page, just like Dad. Today we shared in his first communion. It was such a precious moment in time, whispering the simple gospel in his ear... "God died up on that cross and gave his life for you, Peter, so that you could be forgiven of every thing you ever have done or ever will do." It's a simple gospel, for a simple boy with a simple faith.

Uh oh, gotta go Pete wants to read some more of his Bible together.

Pete's new look

I cut Peter's hair. No son of a Marine can have hair that hangs over his ears... or shall I say my Marine. I digress. However, my Marine might have been a pinch disenchanted if he'd witnessed the gnashing of teeth that took place. You would have thought with each pass of the clippers that I was cutting his scalp instead of his hair. Until, the lollipops were distributed. Then he asked for another haircut. Thank God for lollipops, or there would be no way he'd come even close to those clippers again.

Blowing Bubbles

Okay, here we have a study in contrast. Here we have intensity and levity all wrapped into one family: same genetic package, completely contrasting personalities.

Check out your face, Tink! Blowing your guts out to get one bubble.
Look at you, Pete, enjoying the many bubbles blown from gentle breaths.

Love the socks, Pete! Love 'em! Keep up with expressing yourself in little ways... or maybe it was just the last pair of socks left in your drawer thanks to your mom's excellent ability at keeping up with the wash.

See how well you can play together. Keep up with that! Your siblings can be some of the best friends you can have. They hold a mirror to your soul. They see the patterns of who you have been since you were little. They're the ones who rub off the rough edges to prepare you for The One, Lord willing, that you will spend the rest of your life with. I thank God for the treasure I have in my brothers and all the moments we've shared. I pray that you someday will feel the same way about each other.

Here's to your Health

True confessions: I feed my children McDonald's occasionally.

Please allow me to emphasize occasionally because, well, it is only on occasion! I never can be too sure who may be reading this mortified by this truth . . . Dan, and I don't want my halo to fall too far from my head

I digress. So I was pulling into the drive-thru at McDonald's today when I heard expressions of horror from the backseat. "Mom, McDonald's is very bad for you. Can we have something else for lunch?"

I found myself in the horns of a dilemma. I was hungry and a Happy Meal was sounding pretty darn good.

What an excellent opportunity to teach them the beauty of all things in moderation.

Peter didn't find too much comfort in that.

He wanted to call his Grandma to see if it would be okay to have just a little bit.

I refused him the cell phone and he devoured his 6 nuggets in five minutes.

Ohh, and apparently according to Pete, Chick-Fil-A has too much salt in their batter and fries.

Note to self.

Here's to his future wife.

The Man of the House

Yesterday, Anna offered her help making the bed, and helpful she was. I offered surprised praise with how truly helpful she was.
Me: "Anna, thanks so much! That is really helpful of you. When Grandma and Wolfie come tonight we can tell them that you helped Mommy make their bed."
Peter: "Mom, what about me? What can we tell them that I did?"
Me: "Well, when we're done making the bed. I'm gonna go pick a bouquet of flowers to put in their room. You can tell them you helped me pick the flowers.
Peter: "Well, actually, I think I'll just tell them I was the man of the house."
Alrighty then... thanks for the help, Pete!

Fudruckers

Tink and Little Man in the Fudruckers' arcade last night:


In one corner, we have Tink scaling the wall of the candy machine. Given enough time I am quite certain that she could find a way inside it.


In the other corner, we have our Little Man, playing none other than the shootout game. The game itself is not important. What he likes is the gun. He's aiming it around the room getting all the unseen bad guys, and saving the damsels in distress.

Entrepreneurs

In the spirit of entrepreneurship, Peter decided he'd like to sell lemonade during our garage sale this weekend. It wasn't much of a money maker. He was too busy giving his lemonade away. Attaboy!!! We'll let the Handsome Genius bring home the bacon for now, and in the meantime we'll look for a skill that involves not selling something for Pete. Besides, his interest in sales lasted for only as long as it took he and his friends to get a glass of lemonade. Tink and her best friend took their places at the stand after that.

Another satisfied customer.

4 year old trivia

Peter loves asking the classic questions of an inquisitive 4 year old, and this morning's question of the day over breakfast was:
"Why is honey so sticky?
My answer... "Why are you so cute."
Peter: "I'm made from God."
Me: "Well, God must have made honey sticky so that it would stick to the hive without spilling out."
Reasonable answer in my opinion.
His response: "Well, actually, I think it might be because God made bees like nectar and nectar is sticky."
Well, alright then. Maybe I should be asking the questions from now on.

Theology of Star Wars

The other night Peter was talking with a friend from Bible study.
He asked: Do you think the guys from Star Wars have Jesus in their heart?
Our friend answered: Uh, I don't know.
Peter: I think they do, and do you know what that means? They go to Heaven when they die. Do you have Jesus in your heart, Captain Thomas?
Captain Thomas: Yes.
Peter: I can't wait to die can you?
Captain Thomas: Well, first we get to live for a while and then we die.
Peter: Do you know what the streets are paved with in heaven... GOLD!!!
All this days before Palm Sunday when he waved his palm in the air and yelled "Hawaii."
Ahh yes, the theology of a four year old, might need some fine tuning, but thank God he's got the gist of it.

Oh, and his new treasure of the week is.... a straw from Subway!

Treasures

Peter is the ultimate collector. It's his favorite pastime. He loves to keep his treasures with him at all times. That's why pants and shirts must have pockets. No clothes rank favorite status in his world unless they do. (except of course if it has anything to do with Star Wars but that's another subject for another time). No, he doesn't remember to bring his coat anywhere but he certainly remembers to bring his treasures everywhere. Today his collection consists of a couple orange nerf bullets, a few wooden spoons, a Chuck E Cheese water gun, a wooden cross necklace and, several chocolate coins (He could care less that the coins are chocolate. What's really important is that they're gold).

I am beginning to think this collecting trait is hereditary. My grandfather collected plastic gallon milk jugs in his basement. I used to think it was because he was raised on a farm during the Great Depression, but just the other day my dear husband was getting after me for all the plastic milk jugs that were blowing around in the backyard (they make great miniature greenhouses). Anyone who knows my mom, knows she's a collector too. Quite truthfully, in anyone else's eyes those things that Peter, my mom, my grandfather, and I so treasure might be considered junk, but in our eyes they're important. Come to think of it, God has a hodgepodge collection as well. We may be used and broken ragamuffins, but to him we're his priceless treasures. Maybe this collecting trait is not so bad after all

Quotables

One of the joys of being a parent is getting the chance to hear your little people's thoughts. Some of these thoughts are so sweet they make you want to cry and some of them are so funny you can't keep from laughing. Last night was the latter. Dan came in sweaty from a run after work, and Peter noticed.

"Dad, are you sweaty? Did you run too fast today trying to fight the bad guys?"

Mothers of the world unite....

There should be some ground rules all mothers agree upon. One of them should be never give your child under the age of seven a quarter to use for one of those rides at malls or for games at arcades. My trip to the mall was almost complete today. I had finished my quick errands and I decided to reward Peter and Anna with a visit to the spaceship. The kids thought I was the coolest mom ever for letting them "ride" the space ship and all the other cool vehicles parked in front of the mall. I'd almost pulled the trip off successfully when a mother of another preschool child walked up and put a quarter in one of the rides for her daughter! As soon as I saw her coming with her wallet I knew it was all over. I quickly grabbed both of my kids by the elbows (careful not to pull them out of joint) and hurried for the exit. Peter kept looking back, I tried to entice him with the handicap button to open the door (the one he's always so charmed by). However, it didn't quite have the same lustre as he watched the space ship suddenly light up move around and rock back and forth. Ahh the law of diminishing returns, and innocence lost... my trips to the mall won't quite be the same. My son has tasted of the tree of knowledge.