Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Thankful

I had this thought a few weeks back as we tracked the Boston bombings over the Internet and happened to call home right when my parents were glued to the TV as they were shooting up a boat in someone's back yard....

I had the same thought last night as we watched about the tornadoes and I remembered all the tornado drills I went through as a kid and all my teachers saying "A tornado has never hit a school while kids were in it...."

I am thankful I can care. 

Somewhere tonight there is a mom in a neonatal ICU watching her newborn struggle to breathe. There are parents who just received the leukemia diagnosis for their 5 year old little boy. There is a husband who will sleep in an empty house tonight because his wife died in a tragic accident last week. In their world where the bottom has dropped out and time has stood still, they probably don't even know bombs went off a few weeks back and don't even know there are people in Oklahoma who don't have a home to sleep in tonight.

But nothing traumatic or awful has happened in my life and so I am glued to a screen crying over someone else's child and someone else's tragedy. Very, very sad everything that's going on in America these days and makes me sad to be so far removed. But very, very thankful that my small boys are safe in their beds asleep and my husband is sitting beside me as we watch and pray about all that is happening another world away.

Monday, May 20, 2013

Something just doesn't seem right....

...when I yell at Elijah in the morning, "If you read any more I am going to spank your bottom! Put the book down and do your schoolwork!"

Last night Brant found a flashlight and 3 books under Elijah's pillow.

I think we've created a monster...

Sunday, May 12, 2013

Yesterday

The little boys woke us up at six a.m.... which in our house is early for the boys to be up. (Sorry, not trying to rub it in.) You would have thought it was Christmas with the crazy excitement about THE Barang Sale.... which is the huge community-wide garage sale held up at the MK school every May. It's next to Christmas in importance on the boys' calendar. Cheap toys! Free junk! YEAH! Extra special this year as the boys now get an allowance and have their own spending cash. :) 

Elijah's been really sick lately, so Brant just brought him for a bit, but it was enough time to walk away with a broken set of plastic golf clubs, a mini airplane and wood carving kit that I'm afraid is going to be used on someone's eyes.... all for a grand total of $1.20. He was a very happy little boy. :)

My other happy little boy was sweet Caleb, who lost his first tooth yesterday afternoon. We couldn't convince him to yank it on Friday to insure a little extra Tooth Fairy shopping money. But I guess he's happy that since he spent all his money (two mini airplanes, a jigsaw toy, a transformer) he now has a replenished supply. 


Is it bad that for Elijah's first tooth the Tooth Fairy brought him $5, but for Caleb the Tooth Fairy got cheap and just gave him a $2? (Yes, we have $2 bills here.) Elijah lost his tooth while we were in the States last fall... but the economy's way different here... $2 will buy both Brant and I dinner out here!

MY big excitement for the day was an early Mother's Day present... Brant moved the last 5 boxes out of our living room! (and stashed them who-knows-where!) We have a HUGE living room - seriously we measured it out this evening and our entire tribal house will be the same size as our living room is now. So the 5 random boxes of junk I hadn't gotten around to unpacking since FEBRUARY weren't really in the way, but they were starting to bug me. :) It looks so clean and empty now in that corner of the room! I am beyond thrilled. I am a tad concerned as I have no idea where the boxes went, but most of the stuff was too small boy clothes or baby books and toys, so I guess I will live if I never see them again. :)

Last night we had our monthly fellowship dinner with all our co-workers. The ladies all sat at one table and talked about the best strategies to make homemade yogurt and what to do with powdered eggs. Sometimes life seems like a funny dream here.

Friday, May 10, 2013

Scenes from the last few weeks...

I feel like I have been in a blur lately and haven't blogged in forever. I went through my pictures tonight and realized I've taken about 50 pics in the last 3 months... and 15 of them were of "Flat Stanley" for Elijah's geography project with his friend back in the States. :) So I'm trying to play catch up on recording our life, mostly for memory's sake, but also to share a bit of what's been going on lately...

We took a trip with our teammates to a new-to-us beach. It was out around the cove, so we travelled by boat over open ocean for almost an hour. I was a nervous wreck, and so was Caleb... it did get pretty choppy at parts. But it was beautiful once we got there...


The boys exploring some rocks... finding a tsunami evacuation route for us. ;) Yes, I saw "The Impossible" and no, I shouldn't have. And yes, I have had lots of nightmares since and might have just been a tad nervous the whole time we were at the beach...


Brant's birthday was this last week... I wanted to make him an apple pie and a friend of mine promised to help with the crust. (No Pillsbury here!) But the price of apples has gone through the roof (over $5 a pound!) and you can't find anything that's not mushy or half-rotten.... so we went with the classic Key Lime Pie. I get my recipe off of The Pioneer Woman and it is so, so easy and fun to make. Elijah worked the blender and ground the cookies for the crust. Caleb grated the lime skins for the zest and Ezra worked the KitchenAid and juiced the limes. (I kid you not, he did great.) I added the sweetened condensed milk and eggs and that was it... way simple and yum.


Brant opening the cards and crafts the boys had made. Elijah spent his precious allowance money to buy Brant a box of Coco Puffs wrapped in Angry Bird wrapping paper. :)


Elijah has been really sick lately and hasn't been out of the house much... hence his hair is getting really, really long. (I guess that doesn't have to do just with his being sick - our laziness counts in some!) Anyways, he's been loving reading "Calvin and Hobbes" lately, so did his hair up a couple nights back like Calvin's.


One evening we had picnic dinner inside. Was so simple - we just threw all the food on the floor on a blanket instead of on the table and ate sitting on the floor. The boys LOVED it. They are so easily thrilled with the simple littlest things.... but I'll admit, it was kinda a fun change of pace to eat on the floor. :)