The Next American "Idle"???

I'm not completely sure, but maybe - just maybe - there might be some type of talent here...

Genesis - Appropriate for Kids???

I'm going to venture off topic tonight from the things I usually blog about. I have been really thinking through some areas of my life recently and decided that there are a few areas, well okay a lot of areas - that I could improve in. One of these is the spiritual teaching of my kids. I'm not sure I am doing enough to equip them for the things they will face as they get older. So I decided that Hanna is old enough to read the bible (with me) you know... like a book.

I myself, did not realize that you could read the bible straight through, understand it and LOVE it until I was like thirty-ish, okay jeesh maybe I was a little older -but - that is not really an important detail here.


Anyway, we have done bible studies for kids etc... but not just sat down and read the book together. By the way we are using The Backpack Bible, New International Reader's Version (for those that are into those kinds of details) by Zonderkidz. For those of you that don't know Hanna is 9, Rylee is 5.

Rylee is not one to be left out of anything, so she was sitting at the table with us listening. Hanna and I were taking turns reading. We would read a little and then discuss what it meant etc...

So we went through the beginning, the heavens and the earth, the water and the land, day and night, the animals and then Man. Things are going great - she is really into it and Rylee is slurping her noodles and listening to us.




Then God formed Man from dust. "WHAT?? I don't like dust - eeewwwww this is yuck Mama", Rylee interjects. Hanna tells her it's not that bad - just listen. Okay - back to the forming Man I get just a few words further when Adam becomes a living Man and Hanna raises her hand. "I have just one question Mom!"


Okay, wondering what profound question she could be wanting to ask right now. "What is it Hanna?"

"Well, what I just don't understand is... WHY did God make the men with the stick thing?"

I think my eyes bugged out here and I managed to squeak out "stick thing??" Although, I know good and well what is coming next. "Yes, you know the stick thing - WHY did God give that to the Man???"

I'm thinking fast... "ummm... well... sweetie", crap I mean shoot... and Rylee is sitting right here and she copies EVERYTHING - this will go over great at school tomorrow, I can picture the note already... WHY THE HECK ISN'T MY HUSBAND HERE TO HANDLE THIS????


"Ummm, well you are going to have to ask your Dad about that, he is the one that is up on all things "stick". Ahem...


Okay lets move on girls!

Then Adam got to name the animals. This brought on interesting conversations of how bunnies could have been giraffes and so on... I am breathing a sigh of relief for getting us past the sticky part. :)


Then we get to Genesis 2:22, "Then the LORD God made a woman. He made her from the rib he had taken out of the man."

Rylee breaks in again: "Aaawwwww Mama this is gusting! Dis is bones, why you talkin bout dis Mama???" Hanna hushes her "Rylee PLEASE!"

Again moving on...


(gosh we've only gone through 3 more verses?) 2:25 "The man and his wife were both naked. They didn't feel any shame" Did I really just read that out loud? I am almost afraid to look up and out of the corner of my eye, I see clothing flying. "WHAT are you doing?"

"We want to be like Adam and Eve Mom!" Okay - this is not going anything like I had planned. I am trying to have a meaningful bible study with my kids and now they are running around the house naked. WHERE IS THAT HUSBAND??? These things just do not happen when he is here!

"GIRLS - Adam and Eve were naked because they did not know they were naked yet! PLEASE Girls put your clothes back on and lets move on!"

Okay - back to the story. Hanna's turn to read and Eve eats the fruit from the tree of good and evil. Life as it was changed forever. As Hanna is reading about the consequences that we all pay for this sin, here eyes are getting big. She reads it again quietly to herself and then looks up at me. "Mom, do you realize how wonderful our life could have been? No Evil? They got to walk in the garden with God, Mom - can you imagine???"

Want an easy dinner idea?

Here is a quick and easy soup recipe that my kids just love! They have asked for it several times since I discovered the recipe and were very disappointed when the leftovers were gone (and they never ask for leftovers!).

I found this somewhere on the Internet, but don't remember where.

Cheddar Wurst Soup

1 lb cheddar wurst sliced

12 slices individually sliced american cheese

1 can green beans (my girls like it with extra beans)

2 cans cream of potato soup

1 can milk (use the bean can)

1 can water (use the bean can)

Slice cheddar wurst, add the other ingredients and cook on medium low heat, stirring often until heated through.

Cheap and easy - we love it! In Rylees words "Mmmmm... just like coffee Mama, but dis is GOOD!"

Gung Hay Fat Choy!

Happy Chinese New Year from our family to yours! Here are a few pictures from our local Families with Chinese Children celebration this past weekend.

Rylee was so excited to get to see her friends again and I think it is great for her to be able to see so many kids that are just like her (multi-racial families). There are lots of girls her age, a few older, a few younger and one boy - Ohhhh was he a cutie!!!

We enjoyed "China for dinner" as Rylee would say - her favorite (go figure)! They all had a blast - except for maybe Hanna - who was being attacked by about 15 adorable Chinese girls dressed in silk and armed with balloons. Apparently, pummeling Hanna somehow got written in to the evenings agenda. Don't feel too bad for her though, as she effectively cowered took cover behind me!

On the way home the conversation naturally somehow turned to me. I can't remember exactly how it started but Hanna said that "Mommy is special."

Rylee jumped right on that one "Mama is NOT special Hanna!"

"YES she is Rylee, that's not nice to say that Mama is not special!!!" Rylee responds "No it's not Hanna, and Mama IS NOT SPECIAL!"

Hmmmm....

Dad steps in at this point and chastises Rylee a bit "Rylee, Mama is too special - you have a great Mama!"

Rylee is getting real worked up at this point "Mama is not special you guys, MAMA IS COOOOOLLLL!!!"

Ahhhh... even better!

Laughter Lives Tuesday (on Wednesday)

This post is part of "Laughter Lives! Tuesday" on the Riggs Family Blog. Check our their blog to read everyone else's "Laughter Lives!" posts.

I wanted to do this post yesterday as part of the Riggs family blog but didn't get the chance, so I am adding it today. If you haven't seen it yet, you can skip on over to their blog and read some very funny stories.

Here is mine:

A couple of days ago Hanna went to a friends house for a few hours. Rylee just doesn't understand why she can't go and was complaining - well whining really - about not getting to go.

I told her how lucky she is - after all she GETS to stay home with Mommy and help me clean the house and finish putting away the Christmas decorations (I know really late - but that is a whole 'nother story!)

I told her, "It will be fun Ry - remember you like to help Mommy - we will have fun together! We get to clean the house - you can mop the floors and we can finish putting away the ornaments!!!" "Oh, okay Mama" she replied.





About 15 minuted into our cleaning session we were taking some ornaments off the tree and Rylee was wrapping them for me.


The conversation went like this:

She softly says "Are you SURE Mama?"
I said "Sure about what sweetie?"
"Are you sure I like cleaning Mama?"
I smiled at her and said "Of course I am sure, you love to help Mama remember? - it's fun!"

She sighs and says "Are you really sure Mama? - You promise I like to clean? - You really promise I like dis Mama? Cuz... I don't really FEEL like I like to clean Mama, I FEEL like I wanna watch Episode Jon plus 8!"

Happy 100th day of school!

Today is the 100th day of school. Rylee has been excited all week because the Kindergarten kids are supposed to go to school dressed up as - can you guess???

Yes - she is a 100 year old woman! A spry, bouncy 100 year old I might add and cute as can be. She kept looking at herself in the mirror and saying how funny and cute she looks today. She wanted to know if she was as old as her grandmothers. I told her she is just a couple years older than her Great Grandma, which she thought was totally cool!

How did we do Grandma? By the way - we can't wait to see you again in March! That's right my Michigander family and friends - please get rid of that snow and freezing minus degree weather - we are planning a trip home!

We seriously can not wait to get our arms around this little guy...

and these kiddos...

Really they make you start thinking that maybe frigid temperatures so many months out of the year and a totally rotten economy might not be as bad as you remember it to be... but then again when I took the kids to the bus this morning and my nose froze in the 13 degree air... well lets just say - the memories are much clearer at the moment!

MOM can you fix my earphones?

This kid cracks me up! I said "you mean your ear muffs?" MAMA you don't know what I talkin bout! I talkin bout my earphones - EARPHONES Mama - you don't know what they is called!"

Scrappy is recovering from surgery nicely. We had a long talk with him about how he must not understand that he is supported by the the auto industry - the pretty much nonexistent auto industry - Chrysler to be exact - and that right now is NOT the time to be causing unnecessary expenses. Anyone need their car fixed????? Just kidding (kind of), but seriously dude - no more acorns!!!!!

The strangest thing just happened...

The girls have been in bed for almost two hours - long asleep and we hear the baby gate (keeps the dogs from going upstairs and eating the girls toys). Rylee appears - pj's nowhere in sight - and pull up down around her knees. She is doing this squatty sort of waddle walk and making some strange noises. I ask her what she is doing and she just kind of blankly looks at me and I thought maybe she was crying. Suddenly it hits me that she is squatting and maybe she has to go potty (I know kinda slow - but it is the end of the day, and there is a bathroom right off their bedroom upstairs) so I quick grab her and sit her on the potty. She goes and I ask her if she is okay. She just stares off but mumbles, so I asked her to look at me. She does look at me, so I asked her if she could tell Mommy that she is okay? She nodded but didn't say anything. I gave her some toilet paper and told her to wipe. She took it and wiped her nose. I gave her more and told her to try again and wipe the potty. She took the toilet paper and wiped her arm pit. I started laughing and she just looked at me. I couldn't help it and laughed again because she is still rubbing her arm pit with the toilet paper. I took her off and stood her up and she sort of swayed in place. I picked her up and carried her upstairs and put her back to bed. I covered her with her blankets and tucked her back in. She was sound asleep with a big peaceful smile on her face. I can easily sum this up with Rylee's own words "Dis is weir!" (weird)

When does an acorn cost $1300?

When it is swallowed by one of these...

Poor Scrappy was moping around yesterday and wouldn't eat or drink anything today. We knew something just wasn't right when he wouldn't get off the couch to play with the girls today. We made an emergency trip to the vet which led to blood tests, x-rays, IV's, catheterization and then the inevitable trip to the pet hospital for emergency surgery after they found the blockage in his intestines about the size of an acorn. We just got the call from the doctor. The surgery has been completed and the foreign object removed. It was not only the size of an acorn - it WAS an acorn. One very expensive little, nasty, indigestible acorn! The good news is that he came through surgery fine and may even be able to come home tomorrow. We had two (okay three) girls dancing around the living room while Daddy was on the phone and the doctor was letting us know that Scrappy is going to be just fine!

Even overcast days can be great...

at the park. The girls had fun climbing trees...

playing with their new walkie talkie/text messaging gizmo's...

and trying out the neighbor boys new toy! Rylee had just explained to me that she was never going to drive and that she would just always have Mama and Daddy drive her wherever she wanted to go when she gets bigger. I told her we would wait and see if she changed her mind. It didn't take her long to hitch a ride with the neighborhood boys and before we knew it she was off and weaving her own trail through the park!

And then when we made her get off and give the truck back so that the boys did not have to push it home with a dead battery - we got this face...

and then she told me that she wished she could go live at their house. I said "What - just because they have a truck you want to live with them?" "Well, yes Mama - we don't have one at our house so PLEASE I just wanna live with them!" At least it only took a couple of minutes before the sad face was gone and she had moved on to the next fun thing!

Here is one of my favorite pictures from this Christmas break. This is not something I see that often anymore. Hanna snuggles less with her Dad these days and just look at how big she looks stretched out in that chair with him!

Happy New Year & Day at the Zoo

We are wishing all of you a very happy new year filled with blessings, peace and joy! We spent the first day of the new year at the zoo. Here is just a glimps - We always seem to attract lots of attention when we are out. Any ideas why?