How to know if you’re a Christian

There’s all kinds of pamphlets and information out there that evangelicals have created to help you know if you’re really a Christian. Those well-meaning pieces of paper printed in love point to verses throughout the Bible and if you’re in doubt, you can pray the sinners prayer and do the ABC thing one more time (Accept, Believe, Confess, for those unfamiliar with the lingo).

However, I have found a more practical, real-life test. Go camping. With your kids. On a weekend that was supposed to be nice and isn’t. Here’s my three-fold test to see how much you really love Jesus and your neighbor:

1. Go camping on a weekend that was forecasted to be nice with the exception of scattered showers on the first day. Suffer through a thunderstorm the first night, high winds and tree branches falling all around you the second night, and frigid temperatures the third night.

2. Have neighbors move in on one side of you that have the toddler from Hades. He throws temper tantrums 24/7, including at 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. Wake up and discover that neighbors have set up camp on the other side of you who drive your dream car, the one you’ve been drooling over for a year and were joking with your husband about how much nicer it would be to take THAT car camping instead of your own. Stare at that car for three days while you freeze your tush off making eggs and pancakes and roasting marshmallows.

3. Just when you think you are in the clear – your husband decides to go home one day early because no one has slept in three days and it’s a recipe for disaster, you’ve maintained your cool and your cheer thus far, doing your best to hold in tears and temper tantrums (even though you really wanted to join that toddler in the dirt on the campsite next to you), when your husband informs you he’s seen two ticks on the tent and you should inspect the children very closely for hitch hiking ticks. Panic. Check. Re-check. Determine everyone is bug free, but because of your manic tendencies, you itch all over for the next two days.

After enduring tests #1, #2, and #3 see how much you still love Jesus and your neighbor. And if you’re still thankful for rain and wind and fall temperatures and can love your camping neighbors and feel compassion for the other mother with the dirt-loving devil child and are thankful for healthy children and the chance to spend quality time connecting with them, you’re most likely a Christian. If not, pick up a pamphlet and pray the ABC one more time.

We had a fun family weekend. Minus the camping part. At least it’s fodder for good stories and funny memories.

MDM #20

Fun with Fire(men)

learning about fire gear

Today was one of those days that I’m glad I always have my little Canon PowerShot in my purse.

We met up with The Narrator after Bible Study for lunch. As we were eating, it became apparent that our waitress was enamored by T-Rex. I mean, I can’t really blame her, he is an incredibly adorable, well-behaved, 3-year-old boy with eyes that just suck you right in. As a result, we had very good service at our table. My coffee cup never went dry, our plates were cleared immediately, and she really wanted to make sure T-Rex was enjoying his mac’n cheese, which was obvious since it was all over his face.

T-Rex’s footwear of choice is normally boots. Today, he was wearing his bright red firemen rain boots. The waitress asked him about his boots, and then pointed out that the table next to us was full of firemen. She asked him if he would like to help her give the mints to the firemen. He gave her a shy nod yes, and then Little Miss asked, “What about me?? Can I help too?” I think she was feeling a bit left out of all this attention.

The kids walked over to the table and the waitress introduced them to the firemen. The firefighters then asked the kids if they have ever sat in a fire truck, and invited us to come visit the station which was right behind the restaurant. The kids’ eyes lit up and I promised them we’d go over right after lunch.

We piled in the car and drove around to the firehouse where one of them men from lunch greeted us, along with a black lab who was five times the size of T-Rex. It turns out this fireman has a 3-year-old boy too who is, naturally, fascinated with all things fireman related also. We had our own personal tour of the fire station. He let the kids sit in 2 different trucks, showed them all the gear and what all the various parts of the trucks are for. He also gave them a couple fire hats, stickers, tattoos, magnets, and pencils. Talk about some loot!

My favorite part was when he showed them how they have their boots tucked inside their firepants so they can step into their gear and get dressed really fast. He said in school they have to be able to get all of their gear – boots, pants, jacket, gloves, helmet and backpack on in less than 70 seconds. I’m thinking this might be a useful technique when it comes time for school. We can half assemble their clothes and shoes the night before. In the morning we can set the timer. You have 70 seconds to get dressed for school. Ready, set GO!!

So, thank you to our firemen and women who keep our towns safe, help us when we are ill or in an accident, and for having an open door to the young kids in our communities! You made our dreary day memorable.

Virtual Entertainment

Little Miss & T-Rex hunched over the computer while video chatting

I don’t know why we didn’t think of this sooner, but now that we’re about ready to move closer to our families, we’ve started video chatting. Seriously, you don’t need t.v. when you can watch the kids video chat with their grandparents.

Both of our Dads are magicians and jugglers. In fact, our kids think that every adult knows how to juggle. They will randomly hand 3 toy balls to friends at parties and demand, “Juggle!!” We’ve had to explain that just because their grandpas, daddy, mommy, and uncles can juggle, not ALL adults know how to. It’s a bit confusing for them.

Within a few minutes of their video chatting, Little Miss will ask my Dad to “do a magic trick, Grandpa! Do you have a trick ready for tonight?” I’ll never forget the first time he did a trick for them over the video. Little Miss’s eyes got as large as saucers as Grandpa took a scarf, stuffed it into his hand and then showed his empty hands, then pulled it out of his fist again. She was re-telling the story the next day to a friend, “And then he put the scarf in his hand AND IT WAS GONE!!!” and she flashed her empty hands just like my Dad had done. A couple days later, she asked The Narrator to do a trick for her, and he took her doll’s blanket and threw it over her head and told her it had disappeared. She turned around and saw the blanket behind her and was unimpressed. “That’s not MAGIC! You have to make it disappear like Grandpa did!”

One night a couple weeks ago, the kids entertained my parents with a puppet show. I have never seen a pig beat up a dog before, but it was rather entertaining! Like I said, who needs t.v.? It’s almost like virtual babysitting. I can turn the chat on and go read a book while they grab every piece of paper they have recently scribbled on to show off to the grandparents. The funniest though was when T-Rex tried to give Grandpa one of his drawings by “handing” it to him over the video. He kept smashing the paper up against the screen expecting Grandpa to take it from him! Ahh. Maybe someday!

Now we need to get some of the cousins hooked up with webcams. Now THAT I can’t wait to see. Four-year-olds chatting together. I need to remind my brother to get out in the garage and find his webcam!!

A Sunshine Tour

One of my favorite Mom bloggers, Scribbit, has posted an article I wrote for her site about all of my favorite places to visit in the Tampa Bay area. A warm, sunshine-y welcome to all of you who have stopped by from her site. And if you haven’t stopped by her site today, please do so! It will make you want to move here! Oh wait, that’s kind of ironic since there’s a for sale sign in my front yard and we’re moving back to Michigan. Reading over my list of favorite things to do around here makes me want to pack up a bag and hit the road today and go visit every place just one more time, especially Ft. DeSoto. Sigh. It is heavenly.

We had a wonderful Valentine’s/President’s Day weekend, and as a result, my home today is in no condition for showing. Since I never know when that phone may ring, I need to go find my mop.

To market & meltdowns

Our house is officially on the market. And now the waiting game begins. I feel like a schoolgirl waiting for that cute guy to take notice in me. Every time the phone rings, I jump. Every time I leave and come home, I race to check the messages. I pace the house, look out the window to see if anyone might be driving by slowly, and keep touching things and tidying up. I’ve got it bad.

We’ve all had our share of meltdowns already. We’re learning to excercise extra grace with each other during this time. Little Miss Sunshine swings from wanting to go to Michigan RIGHT NOW, to not wanting to move at all, to wondering what all we can take with us and if that includes her bed and all the ceiling fans. T-Rex thinks that since we are distracted he can get away with whatever he wants. Both The Narrator and I have run out of patience with everyone at some point and done a little bit of snapping. Like I said – extra grace. We’re all tired and battling sniffles on top of it!

I’ve been fighting off the mommy guilt as my kids have watched much more pre-school tv and played way more Sesame street games online than usual in the past week. I ease my guilt by reminding myself that at the end of this tunnel is a bright, bright light in form of more attention from grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins than they could ever imagine. I’ve also tried to think a bit outside the box for them with special things. Yesterday while I was tackling a mountain of laundry that had piled up, the kids had prepared a pretend picnic lunch on the lanai and invited me to join them. I smiled and said, “How about we have a REAL picnic lunch as soon as I finish folding this laundry?” They were ecstatic and began racing to prepare. They grabbed a pile of pillows and blankets from their rooms and spread them on the lanai and had everything set up by the time I arrived with the most delicious pb&j and sliced apples. We had a lovely lunch enjoying the nice warm breeze. Then yesterday afternoon I printed out these valentines and bought some lollipops and we put them together this morning for their friends. We also have a pajama party planned with some friends this Saturday night. So while we may be working more than usual, I’m also trying to make sure we have some unusual play times.

They continue to work on their lists every day, and I bought a pack of cute buttons for $3.99. They each get to pick one button at the end of each week to wear on their shirts or put on a lanyard they got at Disney. It’s the simple things, really. They can’t wait to pick out their next button this weekend!

And so now we wait. And wait.

Sublime Stitching – Review

I think one of the hardest things for me about this move is going to be having my sewing machines packed up for who knows how long. Sewing is messy and takes up lots of space and isn’t going to be very conducive while trying to keep a house spotless for realtors to show. Creating keeps me sane, so during this time of transition, I’ll be resorting to more portable creativity, like knitting and hand embroidery.

Last year, my new skill for the year was hand embroidery and I love, love, love it. The projects can be as simple or complicated as I want and the options are endless. Housemate actually got me hooked (or should it be needled me into…) embroidery, and she recommended Jenny Hart’s book Sublime Stitching. The book has 48 pages of basic instructions from the supplies you need to a good variety of basic stitches and websites for resources. My favorite part of the book however is the hundreds of iron on patterns. They are hip and cool and fun and not the stereotypical embroidery of old. As Jenny points out, embroidery is an inexpensive and easy hobby to pick up. You just need a small pair of scissors, a few needles and some embroidery floss, which very regularly goes on sale at JoAnns for something like 5-10 for $1. You can embroider on just about anything. If you can get your needle through it, you can stitch on it – t-shirts, blankets, jackets, dish towels baby sleepers – endless options!

So, if you’re looking for something simple and easy to pick up and do while watching tv, or riding in a car, try embroidery.

Kumon workbooks re-worked

We’ve had a string of cold, rainy days – I know boo-hoo. The kids were going a bit crazy, so we pulled out our scissors and Kumon workbooks and started having fun. Suddenly, I had a stroke of motherhood genius and realized the pages that Little Miss was cutting apart from the Let’s Cut Paper workbook would make very nice paper bag puppets. She loved the idea, so I grabbed the glue sticks and a stack of paper bags (part of every crafter’s stash, right?) and the kids had a blast making and playing with these puppets. Then we pulled out the puppet stage I made them for Christmas and hung it in the doorway and they presented their hilarious shows. “Hi, I’m a puppet! I’m a goat puppet. How are you today? It’s raining outside!!” Good rainy times had by all.

Nana’s Flying Bugs

We said goodbye to Nana and Papa yesterday. Ugh. Never, ever fun saying bye to family – especially with 2 kids in the backseat crying as we pull out of the airport “I want them to stay foreeeeeveeeer!!!!” Sigh. It usually takes me a week or two to recover from airport drop offs. I try to find lots of happy things to do. So we will be stickering and coloring and gluing and going to a puppet show and everything else I can think of for the next week! In the mean time, we will also reminisce…

One day last week while Nana & Papa were here, the kids were going a bit stir-crazy. We’d had a string of cold (for us) days, and with the onset of the sniffles and an impending theme park day, I had been keeping the kids inside. Nana came up with this creative idea to occupy them for awhile. Inspired by our library storytime about ladybugs, she drew a ladybug on scrap paper for T-Rex and then he colored it in. She proceeded to cut it out, punch a hole in it, and tie a piece of yarn in the hole creating an indoor kite. Little Miss Sunshine drew her own bug (isn’t it so cute?!). The kids had a blast running through the house with their flying ladybugs.

Depending on your kids age and ability, they could do this project on their own – drawing and coloring the bug, cutting it out, making the hole and tying the string. I would suggest reinforcing the area around the hole with tape before punching it.

Hours of burning-off-energy fun!!

Love at the Library

The library has been a big, bright spot in our summer. Two weeks into the unbearably humid, heatwave, rainy season, I was ready for it to be over. Then to top it off, when we did try to go out, every place was swarming with school-aged kids. It was more than I could handle to just make sure my wee ones didn’t get trampled by ten year old boys, and not very fun for my kids either.

But the library, oh how we love the air-conditioned, educational library where kids are sitting and participating in a free, structured environment!! There is a library branch about 1 mile from our house. If it weren’t so HOT we could walk, but I figure gas for 1 mile is ok, since that is pretty much the only place we have been going during the week. The first of June I scoured the library calendar and put all the events for our local branch on my calendar. I am IN LOVE with this little branch. We have been going to the library 2-4 times a week all summer long for story times, movies, magic shows, and story telling sessions.

I’m a pretty tough critic when it comes to magicians since my Dad and my father-in-law are magicians. Last week, the library brought in a magician who actually impressed me. He did all the standard tricks, but his delivery was impeccable and I could tell that he genuinely enjoyed working with the kids. And then he made a balloon animal for each kid (there were about 30 kids or so!). T-Rex promptly popped his tiger when we got home. Little Miss then begged me to put her balloon hat on her dresser where T-Rex couldn’t reach it!

And the summer programs? Perfect. There’s one story telling session that whenever we attend, we get 2 free kids meals at Bob Evans. The coupons are good through the end of September, and since there’s a Bob Evans just about 2 miles from our house – score!!! Cheap family night out.

But the coolest program might be the partnership with our local Major League Baseball team (which is actually at the top of the league this year!) If a child reads (or is read to) for a total of 24 hours, the child gets two tickets to a baseball game. There are little prizes along the way too as they “round the bases.” I think we’re only on hour 5, but this has prompted us to start something new with Little Miss – chapter books. I picked up C.S. Lewis’s “The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe” and The Narrator has been reading her one chapter each night. She is LOVING it and begs me to read it to her during the day (but I tell her it’s Daddy’s special book to read to her). She’s even started pretending that she is Lucy, and T-Rex is Thomas, and I’m Susan, and The Narrator is Peter.

Even T-Rex is enjoying the library, but more specifically – the story lady. Ahem. Miss T loves the kids and T-Rex has a crush on her. I noticed it last week when some one else was telling the stories and she was sitting with the kids listening. T-Rex kept going over and saying “hi!” Then he started playing with her name tag. Next thing I knew, he’d take a few steps away from her, fall down on purpose, look back at her to make sure she was watching, and then giggle. Soon, he was sitting on her lap. She was loving it. Now, every time we go to the library he grabs my hand and starts dragging me to the story room. Then, he stands right in front of her while she tells stories, as if she’s only there for him. It gets quite interesting when I try to restrain him so the other kids can see the story too.

And so, for sooo many reasons we love our library!

spring of fun

The dishwasher is humming, the tile is drying, the bathrooms….still need to be cleaned. In the morning right after breakfast, we are headed to the airport in Orlando to pick up Nana and Papa. I’m not sure who’s more excited – the kids or us. The kids can’t wait for TWO WEEKS of non-stop play with Nana and Papa!! And The Narrator and I can’t wait for TWO WEEKS of the kids playing with Nana and Papa non-stop!!

Since they arrive mid-morning, we’re attempting to take advantage of the Tourist City and work in some fun. I spent the afternoon whipping up a chicken salad and a potato salad and slicing veggies for a picnic. The trunk is filled with towels and swimsuits and goggles, and we’re excited to share our new favorite place with the grandparents.

Last month, we took a spontaneous adventure and ended up at a fountain of beauty. Wekiwa Springs was possibly one of the most restful places we have ever been. We couldn’t stop grinning as we ate our picnic lunch on the grassy hill overlooking a crystal clear spring surrounded by tropical beauty. It was a bit chilly, but even the 72 degree water couldn’t dampen the smiles from our faces. As we relaxed in the lush surroundings, we tried to imagine what it would have been like to be a native American and discover this place in the middle of nowhere. We certainly understand why the explorers of old were obsessed with finding the fountain of youth. Places like this spring make you want to believe.

If you’re ever in the Tourist Trap, it’s worth making a quick getaway to Wekiwa Springs. And at $5 for a carload of people, it will be a nice break for your Tourist’s Wallet too.