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Thursday, 16 July 2009

Some summer beach time

This past Saturday, our friends Brian and Emily invited us to celebrate their son, Ethan's, 4th birthday at the beach. Who wouldn't want to go spend time relaxing in the beautiful waters of the Bay and play in the soft fine powdery white sand to celebrate a sweet little boy's birthday?! Not only do we love thier family, we were looking forward to relaxing out on the beach as a family after having a church work day planned for that morning. So alongside these pictures just imagine our taking some time to enjoy some wonderful cold, cream cheese, vanilla pudding type of sand cake scooped out into buckets from a big bucket (it was so cute) and giving some extra attention and gifts to a little boy named Ethan on his special day while getting to visit a little with some friends. As it was, I think every one of these pictures was taken after almost every one of our friends had already gone. It was of course like pulling teeth trying to get our kids out of the water. Natalie and Joseph just never want to leave the beach - ever. It always seems to be that way whenever we go.

Natalie and Joseph (in the middle) with their cousins (my brother Jon's kids), Indi and Sensi.

Claire spent some time in the water, but was much more content as she enjoyed playing in the soft white sand.

Our little pirate lover was excited to see the pirate ship that comes through the jetty area and even fires it's canons (for show). He was able to see it come through at least twice while we were there.

I got these swimsuits for Natalie and Claire this year. Yes! I am a sucker for having my girls match.
Below are my lovely parents beginning to make efforts to pack up. Have I mentioned how blessed I feel to live close to them and my husband's wonderful family?!

Like I said, it was like pulling teeth to get Natalie and Joseph (and their cousins) away from the water to begin the process of leaving. They love the beach! Natalie would also prefer to be with her cousin, Indi, 24/7.

It was nearing 5 o'clock as we began to head out. Take a look at Claire's face as we waited for a couple minutes to let the van cool off. Natalie wanted to snap a couple pictures and I think it's funny - comparing Claire below in contrast to the happy and content expressions in the other pictures of her (above). Yes, this is the same Claire (crazy hair and all) Unfortunately she can be like her mom and get into a grumpy "don't mess with me, don't look at me the wrong way, don't say the wrong thing" mood when overly tired. So there's Claire being grumpy while her mommy trys to be energetic and upbeat for us all.

One tired little girl. All that water, sun, and fun in the sand wore plum wore her out!

one thing I love about Claire is no matter what, she is almost always up for giving her mommy
a kiss. Just before putting here in the van there was (what we later came to find out was) a
goodnight kiss.
That's right! She fell asleep within minutes of us driving away. When we got home she did not budge. We transferred her to her bed. While I thought about waking her to eat, I decided not to because she looked so out of it. I thought that if I had to get up with her in the middle of the night because she woke up hungry - so be it. As it was, she did not ever wake up until well after 7am the next morning!

Wednesday, 13 May 2009

Absolutely Nothing...

.....but the blood of Jesus can wash away my sins. The more I see my sins, the more I'm thankful for Jesus and his blood that was shed for me. With motherhood on the forefront of my mind before and after this past weekend, I've spent time in prayer and thought trying to evaluate myself as a mother. God heard me and put in front of me something quite alarming. I've been deeply convicted about my failure to be the bride of Christ and my husband's bride above all else. To put those two things first and make sure the kids know they are both first - before them! It's kind of one of those areas that I feel like saying, "DUH!!" But that would be arrogant. I've never thought of myself as being a child centered parent because I've always believed that's not in the child's best interest. However, having my eyes opened to my failure, I am feeling the weight of my sin, but I praise God for exposing it to me. I praise God more that my sin (not in part, but the whole) has been washed away by the blood of Jesus. It is so easy to make sure I meet all my children's needs and take my husbands needs much more lightly (because he's a big boy - he can take care of himself unlike they can). But that is not good enough. It's not God's plan. Being a good mother involves teaching my children and showing them by example what honoring their father looks like... what loving a husband looks like... what serving a husband looks like. It's like I've known that God and my husband need to stay top priority, but it was more head knowledge. I knew it in my head, but it was not burned into my heart and being lived in conviction with consistency! And now God has brought it before me and in His power touched my heart with it, exposing my sin and laying out His will concerning it all so clearly. For example, I will stop everything to tuck my children in bed, sing to them, listen intently, and tell them how I can't wait to spend the next day with them... but often when dear husband announces he is heading off to bed (and I know even though he doesn't say it that he would like me to come too) I will sometimes just keep reading whatever I am deep into, saying goodnight to my sweetheart, putting myself and what I want to do before him. Jonathan's not fussed about this and he is confident of my love, but that's beside the point. That was just one example of something I felt God had stand out to me recently and some things are going to change because God is changing me, slowly one step at a time. I'm left in awe of His ways, His plan, and ever thankful that God has allowed me to see my failure in this area. For now, I'll end with this:
Joseph sings all the time. He sings while he is cleaning, playing, in the bathroom.... He sings while he is concentrating on drawing at his desk. This was one of those times. He kept singing this song and being repetitive. I ran to get the camera - put it on audio recording and sat it on the chair beside his desk and just let it record. I'm sad that I started laughing at the end. I'm not laughing at the content of the song!! I just couldn't help myself as I began to wonder if he was ever going to stop singing the "absolutely nothing" part. He was just looking down at his paper as He was singing. He knew I was right there and began to smirk, but he did not know I was recording him. Had I not started laughing, who knows how long the repetition or this song would have ended up being! But oh how I love the "ABSOLUTELY NOTHING" part.... because it's a very essential (part of the) Truth!

Monday, 11 May 2009

Tammy Supper

With Dad (my father-in-law) in Uganda for several weeks on mission work, hearing from him is always especially nice because it makes him not feel soooo far away. I got tickled and truly jealous over him sending me this particular email (below) that he titled, "Tammy Supper" and just enjoyed his thinking of me. My father in law knows me well enough to know that a big avocado cut up for supper would do me JUST FINE! I LOVE avocados! In fact, everyone in my family likes them. I wish we could afford to have them on hand EVERY single day so I could eat one EVERY day, I love them so much! I've doctored them up with lemon or lime and a dash of salt, or even just sprinkled a little Chipotle sauce on them when I'm in the mood for something with a little kick. I love mincing fresh garlic on them as well and of course guacamole is a favorite. Either way, I love them just the way they are as well. Natalie often asks for lemon and cummin sprinkled all over hers. Yum! I've always loved feeding them to my babies because of them being a fresh food that has wholesome fat that is so good for them. So, yes the diaper bag has often had an avocado or two in it!! With them being a dollar or more a piece most of the time, we only eat them a couple times a week.... But fresh off the tree is a whole other thing!!! How wonderful would that be?!?! Oh my goodness. It's so frustrating to me when I buy avocados and cut into them and find that they are stringy or bad inside. It's so funny to think about the joy I have every time I cut into one and find it's perfect! Every time I think, "Yay!" When Jonathan and I went to vacation for a week in the Dominican Republic I was sooo INTO all the fresh fruit. I literally felt like I was in Heaven there (Oh man, and just to think what Heaven is really going to be like!!) It was AMAZING. It all seemed to taste so much better. I think a lot of it had to do with it being local produce and very fresh. They told us that the bananas, pineapples, melons and all kinds of other fruits were just recently picked. I think many of the bananas in our super markets are gassed to keep them from ripening until they can get into consumer's hands in all the many places they're shipped to. Who knows when the avocados I buy in Publix or Sam's are picked off the tree. If I had my wish, I would live on some land that had a good many fruit trees and blueberry bushes and enjoy "living off the land". If avocados grew well in northern Florida we would have one already, but they do not. It gets too cold here for them. I do still dream of having several blueberry bushes, a lemon tree and maybe an orange tree of our own and hope to make that happen sometime in our future even if it means saying goodbye to my azalea hedge in the back. Anyway, here's the short emails between me and Dad yesterday. His thinking of me makes me smile. But thinking of him and the work he is doing for our Lord makes me smile more.
_______________________________________________________________________________
From: Bob (my father-in-law)
Sent: Saturday, May 09, 2009 11:54 PM
To: Tammy; Jonathan
Subject: Tammy Supper

I sat under the tree from which this was picked for supper

___________________________________________________________________________________________
From: Tammy
Sent: Sunday, May 10, 2009 9:05 AM
To: Bob
Subject: RE: Tammy Supper

I'm SOOO jealous!!!!! I looked at Jonathan and said, "you sure we aren't called to be missionaries in Uganda?"
I mean we know I can live without a kitchen. I love to camp and I KNOW I could survive HAPPILY eating off trees there! :)
Love you Dad!
Tammy

___________________________________________________________________________________________
From: Bob
Sent: Sunday, May 10,2009 4:15 PM
To: Tammy
Subject: Re: Tammy Supper

Your reply made my day.
Hug the kids for me.
Love, Dad
___________________________________________________________________________________________

Wednesday, 06 May 2009

For the love of chores...

...well, speaking for our children - the chores they love would include anything that involves wiping, scrubbing, and especially spraying. Translation: they don't get so excited about cleaning up their toys or papers. However, I couldn't help but want to quickly snap just several pictures (in fact here are all three of them I took) today of our children so anxiously cleaning our rug in the living room after it had some loose leakage from Claire's diaper get on it. Unfortunately that is part of the virus that we (and almost every other child we're close to) has dealt with to some extent over the last two weeks. Just when I thought we were passed it Joseph woke with an upset tummy last night and lets just say it wasn't good. I ended up setting him up a bed on the living room floor (that's what you see in the background of the third pic) and slept on the couch near him for the rest of the night. Joseph has seemed fine today and very playful despite him and Claire having some loose bowels. I didn't write this post to announce that to the world though! I'm writing this post because of how tickled I got over Joseph so sweetly saying, "Mom, I'd be happy to help you clean that up." Those were his exact words, when really what he was saying was "Mom, pleeeeeeease let me help you." After I got Claire all cleaned up with a quick shower, Joseph went to spraying my favorite all purpose non-toxic cleaner for me while I scrubbed it in with a rag to help get the stains out of the carpet. Claire caught on and was helping her little heart out as she scrubbed here and scrubbed there (and anywhere really). It wasn't long before the "fun" drew Natalie in as well. I didn't want to use a flash and obviously they were moving so the pictures are blurry, but I didn't mean for these pictures to be pretty! I took them to preserve a memory for my mother's heart. Quite frankly I'm tired of cleaning up after this virus and them jumping to the occasion with such "JOY" just made my day. Not one of these pictures is staged.

Okay, I'm going to go ahead and do some advertising for the cleaner that I love. It's AFM SafeChoice (concentrated) Super Clean all purpose cleaner & degreaser. It contains no phosphates, alkalines, acids, ammonia, butyl ethers, chlorine bleach, nor any chemical scents used to mask the odors caused by such harsh compounds. It is people safe (though you CANNOT drink it!) It claims it does not irritate sensitive skin, nor does it give off noxious fumes (I can verify that - I can't even stand Simple Green fumes) yet it is strong enough for industrial strength cleaning chores. For routine home cleaning you dilute 20:1 (20 parts water to 1 part cleaner). This is so easy to have ready in a spray bottle for whenever needed. I'm a firm believer in using natural things such as baking soda, vinegar, and peroxide for cleaning as well, but I just LOVE having this spray ready and handy at all times without the smell that vinegar has. It does a GREAT job at taking out smells even though it doesn't really have any scent (I have experienced it taking care of a urine smell on a cushion, mattress, or carpet instantly)! Last week it got ball point pen off my sofa! I've used it on counters, sinks, refrigerator, stove, tub, shower, tile, to clean my painted walls, doors, and as you know to clean my sofa and carpet. I just LOVE it. I mainly love that when I use it that it doesn't leave a fumy scent lingering in the room or house. You can use it for heavy duty cleaning jobs diluted at half cleaner/half water for jobs such as ovens, lime deposits, soap scum, mold and mildew stains, grills, engines, grout, concrete (I should test it on the oil stain on our driveway!), laundry (I've never tried it out on laundry, but I've always meant to experiement with it on baby clothes and kids stains), decks, smoke stains, and pet odors.

Tuesday, 05 May 2009

Natalie Rides Again!

In October of last year, at 6 years old Natalie finally learned how to ride without training wheels on her "small" bike. With her growing like a weed and my brother and his children moving here late last year, we passed her small bike to her cousin Indi to enjoy. Natalie became quite fearful and pretty much lost all confidence upon moving up to a larger bike (even though it was the right size for her). We didn't see this coming. It became especially apparent to us on Christmas day when all her cousins got bikes for Christmas. We had taken the kid's bikes over to Jonathan's parents house that day so we could all go on a walk/bike ride with our family when we were met with an overwhelmed, frightened little girl who was REALLY upset and just wished she could have training wheels again. The fact that her brother and all her cousins were riding around with training wheels didn't help our drama queen on that day either..... but fast forward through four months of wishing she had her smaller bike back, occasionally riding Joseph's bike, being a speed demon on our rugged little tykes tricycle, requesting her small bike back, riding IT again without training wheels, though finding it was too small for her long legs.... to her suddenly (last night) getting on her big bike and riding it like a pro. She was especially excited and exclaimed, "now I can take Lovey (her pet deer) on bike rides," as her big bike has for these past 4 months sported the bike basket we gifted her with at Christmas. We are very excited for her and her regained confidence! No longer is she letting the "bigger" bike intimidate her like she has for so long. In these last couple years I've spent a lot of time relaxing on the front steps of our house while watching the kids ride bikes and it is most definitely a favorite past time of mine. I think it's time to reminisce and go find some pictures of a younger Natalie on her little bike to add to this post!