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.

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...

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.

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. :)

Skate night

The Friday night after the standardized testing at the MK school, the school held their annual "Skate Night." Elijah and I went with a friend of mine and her son.... the husbands and sick kiddos (chicken pox!) ordered pizza and stayed at home together watching movies.

Anyways... on to skate night. Years and years back an old rink in the States had donated piles of old skates and had them shipped over here. The school breaks them out once a year and lets the kids skate in the gym. Elijah had never skated before. He had never even SEEN real roller skates. :) He was SO excited.

 It was such a fun night... so many of the kids had never skated before... the parents were out on the floor holding their kids' hands.... I loved seeing 9 and 10 year old boys holding their mom's hands and timidly trying to skate. Elijah was right along with them. He even competed in the "first time skater" contest... came up dead last but never fell and was SO proud of himself. :) By the end of the night he told me he was "an expert skater" then said... "well, almost." :)

He and his friend after a few hours' of skating... yes, it was that hot in the gym!

Fun memories!

A bit of this, a bit of that

We had a really fun Easter weekend. 6 kids for an Easter egg hunt and 38 plastic eggs. If you’re quick on the math, each kid got 6. :) Today I had my house helper clean and bleach all the plastic eggs and dry them to store for next year. I am so thankful that I have a house helper to do tasks like that. I guess in America you’re not as concerned that a tiny speck of jelly bean residue inside a plastic egg might invite every ant in the entire Eastern Hemisphere to come reside in your house. But since we do worry about stuff like that here, I’m glad I have a helper.

The family who lived in this house before us had an automatic washing machine. They left it for us to use. Love.

The bugs have been attacking me lately. Last night I had a giant gecko fall from the ceiling as I was getting ready for bed. Needless to say bedtime was delayed as I screamed and ran from the room and Brant got his gecko gun (in America they call them air soft guns) and shot the poor thing to death. It was pretty big though; he had to get 5-6 dead-on hits to get the sucker to die. Tonight a huge roach ran across the counter as I was reaching for a spoon. And not technically aiming for me, but Brant and the boys caught the mother of all spiders yesterday... seriously the body is bigger than a ping pong ball and the legs go on forever. It’s living in a jar outside.

And speaking of scary things finding me, I found this on my pillow the other night, courtesy of my 8 year old son who thinks he's pretty funny. :)

We found our missing boxes! I thought only one was missing, though with all the stuff that we were short, was figuring it must have been a REALLY big box. One night last week it hit me that “All that missing stuff is the Lord’s. If He wants it gone... or given away... or stolen and winding up in the hands of people who don’t know the worth of a $100 anodized iron cooking pot, then that’s His decision. Was never my stuff to begin with.” Was really freeing to think that all through. The next morning Brant found the boxes. 3 of them. SO excited. I love my pot. (And I got it for $25 at the Crate and Barrel outlet store!) But I don’t think the Lord “returned” it just because I finally was at peace with letting it go... I know sometimes God works that way. But sometimes He doesn’t.

The boys have been super cranky lately. I think really tired from all the excitement and craziness that our life is right now. Tonight was the last game night for the school year up at the international school. We were all excited to go and hang out with friends and eat dinner. Leaving the house though, the boys were so picky with each other and fussing non-stop. We stopped the car and told them not to fight or pick at each other or we would turn the car around and go home. We drove all of 5 more feet and they started fighting about something else. So... we turned the car around and drove home. Extreme wailing and gnashing of teeth commenced. They were NOT happy to say the least. But quick showers, bread with peanut butter and they were in bed by 6:30. I felt like a horrible parent. 

I am seeing in my life lately how ungracious I am. How quick to see faults in others, but justify or rationalize my own shortcomings and sins. God has been so patient with me. I am so not patient with others.

Caleb is my little artist. He has such an eye for detail. Brant and Ezra were wrestling on the couch the other day and Caleb had them pause and he drew their picture! I was pretty impressed. Will be saving it as I'm sure it will be worth millions some day. :)

A few pics

I know I have way more interesting pictures to post (Brant's trip in the jungle, the new house, our new cat) but I figured I'd start somewhere and these are good lazy pictures on a Friday night while the boys are watching Veggie Tales. (And give me a good feel for how long it takes to upload photos on dial-up speed internet!)

On the plane... we flew Singapore Airlines for the first time and I hope we never fly another airline. ever. Was amazing. Actually good food (Haagen Dazs for dessert!) Toys for the boys. Free! snack bar in the back with fresh fruit and Hershey's and granola bars and chips and you could get snacks whenever you wanted. 

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Japan is always the low point in the trip. Two in the morning and totally exhausted...

But we made it back to the land of no car seats! Look at those smiles after being strapped down for 9 months. :) (Those are our teammates' kiddos.)

Ezra celebrated his 4th birthday just a couple days after we got back...

We celebrated by taking a team trip to the video arcade. I love arcades here - they are way loud and annoying, but all the games cost about 15 cents, which means hours of cheap entertainment. :) Here are all the team kiddos in front of the machine where one of the boys won the grand prize - 1000 tickets! It was pretty cool to see them all come out.... I tell you, from a 7 year old boy perspective, it doesn't get any better. :)