Get Your Nose Out of that Book!

This post is basically just for me to remember, but I'm loving Grey's new passion for reading. During the day he's all basketball and video games and board games and rough housing, but in the evenings he's all about reading. We put him to bed two hours ago, and he just came down a few minutes ago saying, "Mommy, I have to read this to you . . . it's so amazing, and it's all true!" He was reading The Magic Treehouse series that his Aunt Tiffany gave him for Christmas, and the characters in the book end up on the moon. He was reading me the part about how you weigh less when you're on the moon than you do when you're on earth. He thought it was crazy fun!

He's totally got me wrapped around his little finger with the reading. He asked if he could stay up and read "so he wouldn't bother Annie," because he "just might accidentally start reading out loud if it gets really exciting." And I totally let him. Even though it's 9:00 and he has chess club at 7:00 tomorrow morning.

He read me the end of that chapter, taking a break to sigh and say, "This book is really hard." But he loves it--laughs at the story, is amazed by the facts, and can't put it down. I had to take it out of his hands. I hope this love for books lasts the rest of his life!

Are You Exhausted?

After the holidays I always feel so exhausted--all that planning, cooking, shopping, wrapping, visiting, hugging, and celebrating ends so quickly. My back physically aches with the end of it all. I miss the friends who have gone back home and wish the fellowship could continue. But I'm so thankful for preschool and sweet, kind teachers who love my kids. It's my first day back, and I'm running around town, 50 miles on my car, doing errands, going to the grocery, all those things I didn't want to do with the kids with me.

I am working today, too, and now that I think about it, my work is one of the greatest blessings of my life, really. I had no plans to become an editor, nor a writer. It just kind of happened. But I'm certain that God knew and he planned. It's such a delight to get paid to read a good book, to be inspired by your work. That happened to me today. I'm reading Max Lucado's upcoming book, titled Grace. It's wonderful. My only regret is that I have to read it quickly. I highly recommend it and suggest you pre-order it today. Amazon gives you great deals when you pre-order, or support your local bookstore by pre-ordering it there. Either way, order the book!

[[OK, just looked online and the book isn't available for pre-order yet. I'll update this and move it to the top when it is.]]

Here is one of the many passages in it that have wrapped me up in a big hug of grace today. I LOVE this, and I hope it gives you that big breath of fresh air you might need too.

"God’s promise has no hidden language. Let grace happen, for heaven’s sake. No more performance for God, no more clamoring after God. Of all the things you must earn in life, God’s unending affection is not one of them. You have it. Stretch yourself out in the hammock of grace.

You can rest now."

Family Tradition

Every year when school gets out for Christmas break we've been "stair sledding" with the kids. Perhaps this is because we have no snow here to do real sledding, or perhaps it's because of the looks on their faces.

Lord of All Creation

Such a beautiful sunset tonight. Thank you, God!

Good or Greed?

An acquaintance posted this article on Facebook today, and the comments section surprised me a bit. Take a minute to read through it, 'cause I want your opinions.

My first reaction, and that of most of the commenters, as I started to read it was that this was a series of kind gestures by generous people. And that's true. But after reading further on, I'm not sure they were good gestures.

The part that first gave me pause was when it said someone had paid off a certain woman's layaway account "which held nearly $200 in toys for her 4-year-old son." What hit me about this was that the woman was considered "impoverished," yet she had put $200 in toys on layaway, presumably because she couldn't afford to pay for them up front, and it was all for one child. I know that $200 isn't $2000, and it's so hard to resist when you're desire is to make your kids happy. But what are we really teaching them by giving them things we can't afford? Isn't that what got us into this problem in the first place?

This has been a tightening-of-the-belt-straps year for us with Todd finishing up his last of four years of full-time school and starting a new job. God has blessed us more than we deserve. Next year should be more comfortable than this year, due to that blessing and Todd's hard work, but we've experienced just a little bit of what so many Americans have since 2008. Because of all of this, we're scaling back this year. We've gotten four gifts for each child, and we've spent less than a $100 on each child. How? I've resisted the urge to buy many things I know the kids would love. We've made gifts by hand. We've bought teacher's gifts in bulk and divided them up. And one of Annie's sweet friends handed down an awesome almost-new toy for Hayes--and he'll never know we didn't pay the $60 it costs at retail.

Back to K-mart. Certainly, these anonymous shoppers were very generous to help others, some who couldn't afford to pay for their kids' toys and some who could. Many of those needy parents probably were trying to just get a few things that would make Christmas a special day, not anything extravagant. I especially love the story about the lady who had saved up the money to pay off her bill, and when her bill was paid, she decided to use that money to pay someone else's bill. Generosity is definitely great this time of year, but greediness and uber-consumerism isn't.

NOTE: My kids will be thoroughly spoiled by their grandparents this year, so we'll be cleaning out tons of old toys and clothes next week. If you want anything, just let us know! :)

ALSO NOTE: This picture is from an NPR website. It has nothing to do with the article other than showing people shopping. These ladies may could be buying for anyone--their kids, a preschool, charity, etc.

You Get What You Get and You Don't Throw a Fit

I've been enforcing the "kids eat what grownups eat" for dinner rule lately, bolstered by the realization that the only one who actually eats the grownup food is the baby, so the being-too-young argument holds no weight. Last week I made pot roast, and Grey turned up his nose. After a few bites, though, he declared, "This is the best thing I've ever eaten! Except McDonalds. That's a little bit better."

Then, tonight I made black beans and rice with kielbasa in the slow cooker. After a day all over town with a rough nursery duty at church (let me just say, if you're kid's allergic to goldfish, please tell the nursery worker), a birthday party, and basketball practice, I wasn't about to make something special for them, even though I know they don't love black beans. I threw in some rolls as a consolation prize. Annie was the only one who ate, and I asked if she liked it. "Yes," she said automatically but cheerfully. Then, "Wait, no. I don't like it. But I'll get used to it."

Real Creative

When we were picking names for our kids, we felt drawn to family names because they held some significance for us. But we also wanted unique-but-not-weird, uncommon-but-not-unusual names. And we didn't want any juniors. We looked up the meanings at the time, just to make sure they weren't crazy weird, and then promptly forgot them. I knew vaguely that Annie's had something to do with the home. I looked them up today.

Turns out, she and Grey have almost identical name meanings:

Harriett (home ruler) Anne (gracious)

Henry (home ruler) Greydon (pleasant)

I never looked Hayes's up. Honestly, I figured since he basically has all last names, his wouldn't have a meaning like the others do. But I really like the meaning of Hayes.

Anderson (son of Anders) Hayes (from the hedged place)

I love the idea of protection and safety that comes with his name.

But my favorite has to be my nephew, Alfie's, meaning. Alfred means "elf counsel." How awesome is that?

By the way, the family connections are that Harriett Ann was my grandmother, and all the ladies in Todd's family have Anne as their middle name. Thus Annie. My grandfather was Carl Henry, but he went by Carl on the very few times he wasn't called by his nickname, Butter. But that was kind of a coincidence. I'd always loved the name. And Anderson, of course, is a reference to my family name. Hayes and Greydon are just names we liked!

Halloween, belated

So, I'm a little late in getting this up. Halloween was tons of fun this year once again. We had the Marlows and the Fords come out and party with us, and they brought along their grandparents and cousins as well. A huge houseful of kids who took over our new neighborhood for the first time. We ended up with more candy than we started with, and I promptly donated TONS of it to our church picnic the following weekend. Here are some photos of the lovelies:

three-layer chocolate cake for dessert

(Why in the world did I think we'd need a dessert after all that candy? It was John's birthday weekend, though. So we were able to celebrate him.)

our little owl. without the hat, he looked more like a flamenco dancer.

either way is cool with me.

the crew

spiderman and tangled

buzz and woody (coincidental pairing of theme for these real-life buddies)

Tangled hair

Many thanks to Natalina for the great pictures!

Three Ninjas

Annie's favorite movie for the last year or so has been Three Ninjas, an early-90s trilogy about three brothers who moonlight as ninjas, with a small part played by the illustrious Hulk Hogan. The youngest brother is about Annie's age, and she loves to play Three Ninjas at home. Hayes is TumTum, Grey is Colt, and I can't remember the other one's name. Tonight I walked in on an epic battle, and I was so glad to know that I'm safe at home with these crime-fighters tucked snugly in their beds.

Is a Snickers Really Worth This?

Imagine your friend tells you that she's found this great new coffee shop that sells their drinks at a fraction of the cost of Starbucks. The way they can cut costs is that they use child labor to gather their coffee beans. Child labor in a third-world country doesn't cost much. She doesn't have a problem with it as long as her coffee stays cheap. It's a win-win, right?

Horrific, no?

That's the point that Kristen Howerton made on her blog, Rage Against the Minivan, a few weeks ago. Why? Because most of the major commercial chocolate companies are doing this very thing.

Kids like this little boy in West Africa do back-breaking labor to gather cocoa pods so we can have our Three Musketeers bars. As Kristen says:

But honestly, what concerns me even more is that we, as consumers, are not demanding that this be stopped. People continue to buy chocolate even after learning about these human rights abuses. I’ve heard excuses from people in my own life that sound pretty similar to the ones I made in the coffee post. We rationalize that we can’t afford fair-trade. We joke about how addicted we are. We justify that we can’t change everything. And I think secretly, we don’t relate because these are kids in a far-off country, and not our own. It’s okay as long as we don’t have to see it happening right in front of us.

This isn't one random fringe company you've never heard of; it's "pretty much every snack-size candy bar that will be available in stores this Halloween."

Please, read Kristen's blog post here.

And before you shop, check this list of slave-free chocolate here. And here are some non-chocolate options.