If I had been on Twitter this morning...

Even though I hardly consider my stream of consciousness something that a sane person would subject himself or herself to (yes, dangling preposition), I oddly (and a little disturbingly) found myself thinking in tweets this morning:

8:03 AM (Well, actually 7:53 because our bedroom clock is ten minutes fast): Wow, what I wouldn't give to come out of my room and find both of my kids reading EVERY day. My little teacher's heart is going pitter-patter!

8:42 AM: Aaah, lefse, the perfect breakfast food. With fresh coffee. I wonder when I'll have time to put together that blog post with the video tutorial about how to make lefse.

8:47 AM: I wonder if there is a way to teach my kids that if their sibling happens to get a bigger piece of lefse, rather than go on attack against the sibling they could eat their piece and then politely ask for more if they want it. Yeah, there has to be.

9:13 AM: Lee and Ben just left for Ben's basketball game. Ben says the team they are playing lost a game last week 35-8, and Ben's team played neck and neck with the team that beat them.

Me: Should be a good game.
Ben: Not a GOOD game. I mean, we should win, but...

Me: You think you might cream them?

Ben (giggles): Yeah.

9:56 AM: How great is it that I can now drop Bethany off at the door for gymnastics, and she can find her way in and get herself signed in on time while I go park.

10:13 AM: They are playing Christian music on the radio during Bethany's gymnastics class! Who knew this would be the most relaxing hour of my day? Thank you Coach Jason!!!

10:21 AM: My daughter is flying through the air with the biggest grin on her face. She takes my breath away.

10:35 AM: The girl in Bethany's group in the purple leotard has the most amazing build and grace and spunk for gymnastics. Beautiful! I LOVE watching people do what they were created to do. When do the Olympics start? We need to rent "Chariots of Fire" before that. I will never forget the part when Eric Liddell tells his sister, "God made me fast, Jenny, and when I run I feel his pleasure." Awesome.

11:02 AM: Lee just called, and I asked if Ben had a good game. He said, "Yes. Well, not GOOD, but they won." 28-2 or something. Dude, those poor other coaches. And parents. Not to mention the players.

11:10 AM: Bethany and I are sitting in front of a sunny window at Starbucks in Target, courtesy of Bethany's teacher who gave me a gift card for Christmas for volunteering, which is totally a reward in itself. So unnecessary. But I'm sure glad today!

11:22 AM:

Me (thinking out loud): Wow, I'm glad we hardly ever come to Target on Saturdays! Do they always have huge pallets of cartons in the middle of the aisles on the busiest day of the week? Crazy!

Bethany (keying in on the last part): Of course it's busy Mom! It's the last day of January, and people have to get ready to welcome February! It will be the 14th soon, you know.

11:47 AM: Whew, we got into a good line. What was I thinking only bringing in one reusable bag? No one gets out of Target with only one bag!

11:52 AM: Yea for young male cashiers! He got it all into one bag. :-)

11:58 AM: On our way home. Awesome morning. My blog readers would hate me and never come back if I started posting all of the "tweets" that run through my head.

I hereby promise not to start posting frequent Twitter streams. You're welcome!

Introducing...

I know...it's a lot of build up for a little guy, but if you know how long I've been fighting pet ownership, or that our kids adopted a pet centipede a few months ago because they were tired of waiting, you can appreciate what a big deal this is. Or at least how cute he is.

Utter. Disbelief.

We are pet owners.

Problem or opportunity?

Ben had a problem. He loves root beer. But it is the foamiest stuff.

This year at school he had the opportunity to come up with the solution. He has been one busy boy!

This past weekend he got to introduce his "Root Beer Lever" to the world at the Inventor's Fair:

I have to say, it is more than a little surreal to be dropping MY KID off to show his stuff off to the judges ON HIS OWN before the public display. He's only ten, and now he and his peers are solving the world's problems. Franklin and Edison would be proud.

It's Time!

I have been thinking for quite some time that the photos on my header were getting old, and finally took the time to do something about it.  I headed over to scrapblog.com to make myself a new banner.  I had some elements from a scrapbook package that I used, but put it all together with the scrapblog builder.  I could seriously spend waaaaayy too much time over there. Here's hoping that showing just the back of my kiddoes will make it take longer before this one is totally outdated!  That's the way of it these days--they leave us in the dust half the time.  Following them is so much fun!  Except when they want us to do it at a distance...

Not me. (I'm not in there.)

Dear Bethany,

The other day, I was putting away the last of the Christmas decorations when I found this in the cabinet. You had left a message for me when we put it away last year.

Well, yes. I mean, no. It's a photo of our first Christmas as parents.

It's true, Girlie, we were so happy to have a baby for Christmas. Even before there was you.

Over the past year or so, you have been struggling with your position as the youngest--the youngest in our family, and the youngest cousin on both sides. Lucky for you (and for us), Dad and I know what you're talking about. We were the youngest, too. It has been a lot of fun having you ask us questions about when we were young. You seem very comforted by the fact that we had lots of the same feelings as you. We thought it wasn't fair when our siblings stayed up later than we did. We felt like we were being ignored because the things they were doing were more important than we were. But as much as we felt that way, it was never true. No one ever thought our brothers and sisters were more important than we were. In fact, they probably felt the same way during times when we got all the attention. We just didn't notice.

I have a question for you:

Did you ever notice

that after Ben was born

we had another baby?

We did. It was YOU!

And did you notice

that the reason you are the youngest

is because after you were born

we had everything we wanted?

YOU

were just exactly

the little girl

we were waiting for.

If you want more proof, click here, and here, and here.

We hope you will remember something else, though. You are not just important because we adore you, or because you made our family complete, or because we don't know what we would do without you. You are important because you were created in the mind of God, long before we ever imagined you. He carefully, miraculously put you together, just exactly the way He wanted you to be. He smiled just thinking about you. And joy of joys, He trusted us to take care of you. You are important, most of all, because you are His.

We love you!

Mom

The real reason I blog

We are home from our holiday journey. Over 3200 miles in 16 days. If you are driving that far, you really need some friendly faces along the way. We did have some old friends to see on the road in Atlanta and Missouri, but the more your kids can interact with other kids besides each other, the better off you are! (And let's face it, a little extra adult interaction doesn't hurt AT ALL!) Bloggy friends to the rescue!

After our first long day's drive, we landed in St. Louis, home to the sweet and hilarious Michelle from Girl Outnumbered. Her family met us at the City Museum, where our kids climbed around the "crystal cave" to their hearts' delight. We had so much fun!

We pretty nearly closed the place down.

Then in Florida, we met up with Joy, from Joy in the Burbs, and her family. We were all there visiting our parents.

Look at us. We are exact opposites! But we are the heads and tails of the same coin.

We got together and let our kids and husbands play at the park while we chatted until the wind got the best of us. Well, it got the best of them. Joy and I would have gone on until dark without noticing. But we just moved it inside to a restaurant.

Lee told our parents that he felt like he was going to meet a stalker. (Thanks, Honey. I think you were in good company with the other husbands.) But he had to admit that these people probably know us better than most of the families we see all the time in our neighborhood, church, and ball games, because of my blog. He also had to admit that he had fun with them.

My first post, almost three years ago, spoke of my attraction to blogging because I have found that in many cases, it takes things below the surface. Small talk is not my strong suit, so I love that. But it's also given me friends all over the country...and the world! Friends who provide a lively diversion for our travel weary kids. Now THAT is reason enough to blog.

Thanks, Michelle and Joy, for taking time out to give us a great time on our trip! And thanks a million, Debbie, for introducing us!

Florida Fun

If you're in sunny Florida

in late December

and it's 62º

the natives might think it's a little cool for this:

but they would think you're a little

off your rocker

if you did this:

But we're from the tundra, for heaven's sake,

and we know we're soon headed home to sub-zero temps.

We couldn't care less what the natives think it feels balmy.

Besides, the natives might be surprised

to see that if we settled for this

it would look more like an ice hockey game

than mini-golf.

We are, after all, from the tundra.

Which explains why, when a friendly Floridian

gave us a bag of oranges from his tree,

Ben insisted on getting his own instead.

"I just want the joy of picking them for myself!"