Sickness, Shriners and Stinkin' Hot Family Reunions

For about 3 days last week, Danny laid in bed, nearly comatose. I don't recall him ever being that sick - at least not since we've been married. So . . . it was a long week for all of us. I was extremely thankful for the basement, where he was able to have a little space to himself, if not peace and quiet. (He informed me afterward that the kids sounded like a herd of elephants with megaphones upstairs.) He started feeling better just in time to go to his family reunion on Saturday!

Before the reunion, we took the kids to our town's Annie Oakley parade in the morning. In my opinion, it would be more aptly named "The Shriners Parade," as we saw an "Annie Oakley" on a horse, and about 100 Shriners in little cars. It ocurred to us that this parade (maybe all parades?) was basically an excuse for grown men to act like kids again and make a lot of noise in their expensive toys - with an audience to boot! But since handfuls of candy were liberally strewn through the streets, and we left covered with potitical stickers, the kids all gave it 2 thumbs up.

From there we headed to Danny's family reuinion, hosted by his Uncle John, where we had a really good time in spite of the heat and mugginess. There was a huge yard for the kids to play in, and - most importantly - lots and lots of food! Below are some action shots of the kids playing in the sprinkler and the pool. Rachel tried her hand at both badminton and digital photography, and did fairly well on the latter. She took a lovely pic of Grandma and Great-Grandma (although Grandma's smile could use a little work).













































Some family shots from the reunion:





Five cousins: Karis, Rachel, Quinn, Ian and Zekers accompanied by a large black dog














Our family after five hours of sweating and about 58 trips to the bathroom!














Great-Grandpa & Great-Grandma Shipper with the kiddos

FruitaBu

The obsession has reached ridiculous levels in our house.

It all began with a few ads on TV in June. We thought, hey, fruit roll-ups that are actually 100% fruit sound pretty good. We began looking for these boxes of organic "smooshed fruit" to no avail. We searched online and found that this product is only available in certain selected stores, none of which were anywhere close to us. So . . . since we didn't want to waste $10 in gas just to buy it, we ordered it online and instead spent about $10 on shipping and handling - I'm not kidding! It was something like $11 for 3 boxes of the stuff, and we eded up paying $21 all told. The kids love nothing more than visiting UTube to watch FruitaBu ads, and Danny sings the little jingle all day long. A few of us have actually dreamed about the stuff.

It's sick.

But, I'm happy to announce that our order arrived yesterday, and it's eveything we anticipated and more.

I'm just not sure I want to pay another $21 for it. I mean, we could buy a Disney DVD for that. So we're thinking about rationing it: each child receives 3 inches per day. That way it should last for the rest of the summer.

Whew!

I enjoy a full weekend. I also enjoy the day after a full weekend.

Since Fridays are Danny's day off, I was able to have coffee with a friend in the morning while he stayed with the kids. Upon my return home, I found him scraping paint in our bedroom (the one room we didn't have time to work on a few weeks ago). His initial plan was to work slowly, scraping a little here and there whenever he has time in the upcoming weeks/months. Well, you know how these home projects go . . . he ended up working from about 9:00am - 9:00pm! I even joined in for a couple of hours while Karis was napping. He took small breaks for lunch and dinner and then worked all evening while I took Rach & Zekers to a birthday party. Kari Bou and I got to go on a long bike ride and visited a friend who just had a baby while the other 2 were at the party.

So . . . 3 walls scraped and 1 to go. The only thing we can figure is that the original owner of the house must have used an oil-based paint on all the bedroom walls, which was then painted over (about 5 times!) with latex paint. So for the last 5 years, we've had major problems with the paint bubbling and cracking and chipping off. Even though the whole shebang is taking about 10 times longer than we anticipated, it feels good to know we're doing it right this time.

Saturday was our church's VBS. The theme was "Camping Out in Cambodia;" it started around 9:30 and went until 4. The kids all seemed to have a blast - there were about 80 total, 40 of which were preschoolers - but man, I don't think I've been so tired in a long time! Danny and I were group leaders - he had the middle age group and I had pre-schoolers. By the time we got everything cleaned up and set up for church the next day, we were thanking God for McDonalds, where we let the kids eat and play for about 2 hours while we sat at the picnic table with glazed eyes. It was a fun day overall, though, and really great to see everyone who showed up to help out.

Sunday was a special treat: Jeremiah & Marcie Olson, 2 friends we've known since college, came to lead worship in the morning services and then stayed to do a concert in the evening. We had fun catching up with them over lunch, then came back home to put the kids down and have our last pre-marital counseling session with a really sweet couple who Danny is marrying August 4th. They were both in the youth group while Danny was youth pastor, so it's really cool to be able to get to know them in a different way now that they're adults and starting a new life together.

Danny went back to the church at 5 and the kids & I followed at 6. Jeremiah & Marcie (40 Miles North) did a wonderful concert; I think everyone who attended had a great time and left refreshed, with a new appreciation of God's faithfulness. We headed home around 9, ate dinner (since we hadn't had time to eat much earlier) and put the kids to bed by 10, and then crashed. I think Danny & I were asleep before the kiddos were!

So . . . a memorable weekend. And today I am loving just being able to do mundane things like laundry and grocery shopping and cleaning the house and watching helplessly as the kids trash the basement and their rooms and the back yard. Ya gotta love it!

More Zekers Craziness

A couple of days ago, my random little man decided to fill us all in on dolphin expressions. In the first picture, the dolphin is happy, and in the second picture, the dolphin is sad. He insists this is how all dolphins smile and frown, even though I don't believe he's ever seen an actual dolphin.

In other news, Zekers has decided to name the baby "Bernie" after a goat in one of his favorite books. He's been calling him that for about a week now . . .

Rennovations

Well, the kids' rooms still aren't quite finished, but I'm thinking I might as well post pix of what we have so far:

Rach & Zekers shared bunk beds in this room. Since we finished it just before we were shocked to find out about Karis' existence, it started out as Rach's Dora room. 2 walls were blue, 2 were purple, the trim was yellow and the closet door hot pink. Needless to say, it now looks much different! I still need to put up curtains and get the rug cleaned, but I figure I've got 3 months, so why not put all that off until the last minute?


Sweet Kari Bou's Dora bed. This is actually the toddler bed Danny used when he was Kari Bou's age.


Zekers absolutely loves sleeping under Mater and Lightning. We finally broke down the other day and actually bought him the movie . . .


If you click on this picture, you can see some of our embellishments to Tink.

Rachel's favorite


Before
This has been the "baby room" since we moved into our house in 2002. It was kind of sad scraping off the stripes and the sun, moon & stars mural I so meticulously painted on with the help of family and friends before Rachel was born. *sigh* But the kids love their "new" room.

After: doorway perspective


Danny's parents also gave us their old TV and stand, so we spent several hours completely rearranging the living room and finally got rid of our old, falling-apart entertainment set that we've had since we were newlyweds - YEA!!! If anyone gets a hankerin' to watch HD TV, just give them a call. . . .

We've Only Just Begun . . .

Thursday Danny & I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary by spending the night in Indianapolis. We found amazing bargains on clothes for the kids, spent time in the Apple store drooling over iphones, ate dinner at Maggiano's and stayed up late watching Ocean's 13. It was the first time ever we've left the kids overnight with a sitter - and they did great. We both agreed that the years before July 12, 1997 seem like another lifetime. How quickly 10 years have flown by, and yet I can hardly remember what it was like not to be married to Danny.

I do remember . . .

. . . the night I sat bolt upright in bed, because for the first time it occured to me that I couldn't imagine my life without my best friend.
. . . the evening, one month later, when I actually told him!
. . . the night we drove into the sunset (at about 90 mph) to begin our journey of wedded bliss.
. . . our 2 years in beautiful Richmond, VA, where we brought home our sweet little rabbit, Larry (Bubba).
. . . the first 3 cars we bought.
. . . the first 3 cars that died.
. . . good friends and a wonderful church in Columbus, to whom we will always be deeply indebted.
. . . our trip to Sedona, Arizona, when we found out we were expecting our first baby.
. . . moving to our current location and purchasing our first (and only!) house.
. . . bringing home a baby daughter, a baby son, and another baby daughter.

And looking back on all of this, I remember one woman , not particularly blessed with the gift of tact, who discovered my newlywed status and sneered, "Ha! Just give it 10 years, honey."

I want to go back and say so many things to her:

You don't know the man I married. When I'm chubby and losing hair after having a baby, he makes me feel beautiful. He puts up with my mood swings and my mulishness and my crazy issues day after day. He works hard and provides for our family, freeing me up to stay home with the kids. We talk about everything - theology, history, child-raising, church stuff, current events, religious trends, how we can improve our marriage, our dreams for the future, priorities, books we're reading and have read. He tackles issues with an unparalleled passion for biblical truth and encourages me to be thoughtful and discerning as well.







He loves our children and appreciates each of them for who they are. He gets down on the floor and plays with them. He snuggles them. He reads to them. He makes them howl with laughter. He demonstrates his love with hugs and kisses, and also with discipline, which he doesn't shy away from. He sometimes takes them for the morning on his day off so I can get work done around the house and have some time to myself.

He's taught me the importance of hugs and shown me how to laugh at myself. He's made me realize that there is no substitute for spending quality time together, and that we can accomplish so much more together than we ever could by ourselves. He's gotten me addicted to Christian talk radio and downloaded sermons while we're on road trips. Even though we can both be hot-headed and argumentative and subborn, we usually end up agreeing that our disagreements were silly to begin with. Between the arguing and the making up, life is never boring!

When I got the flu the day before my 30th birthday, he never made me feel guilty for missing my surprise party, which he went to with Rachel and videotaped so I could watch it later and see everyone who came. He'd spent weeks planning everything, yet he never acted upset or disappointed when it didn't go the way he expected - because he was thinking more of me than of himself.

In short, we're soulmates - soulmates who often approach life differently and yet value each other's perspective. It's been 10 years of hard work, but also 10 years of greater joy than we ever could have imagined. So yes - we've given it 10 years, and I'm looking forward to giving it 50 more!

Scrap Paper and Gemstones

To update on the Tinkerbell thing:

Rachel and I spent a very fun hour yesterday afternoon creating (longer) skirts for a few of the Tinkerbells we put up, and thick shoulder straps to cover the cleaveage of the others. Three of them are lining the trash can instead of the walls, but we were able to use 5 on her walls, with some minor embellishments. We even bought a little jewel-making kit for $1.00 at Wal-Mart and after they dry, we will use the little gemstones we made to make the Tinks look "even prettier" in Rachel's words!

Even if I am being a little insane with all this, at the very least it was a fun way to spend part of an afternoon with my daughter . . . .

Titillating Tinkerbell?

We spent 4 days last week scraping, sanding, spackling and painting both the kids' bedrooms. I'm not including pictures yet because they're not quite finished, but hopefully they will be soon.

Anyway, we ended up putting all three kiddos in the larger room - Rach & Zekers share bunk beds and Kari Bou sleeps in a little toddler bed. That way the baby can have the smaller room all to himself until he starts sleeping through the night.

With 3 kids come 3 different decorating ideas. So we abandoned all attempts to tie them all together into one cohesive theme, and just let R & Z each pick a comforter of their choice. Karis gets to use Rachel's Dora sheet/comforter set, which is fine with her.

Ever since Zekers first saw Disney's Cars, he fell in love with Lightning McQueen and Mater, so he was delighted to find a comforter with these 2 emblazoned across it. Rachel had a tough time choosing between Disney princesses and Tinkerbell, but finally selected the latter. This worked out perfectly, as all three comforters contained similar yellow accents (Yes! A common theme!). So we painted the walls a cheery yellow, set up the bunk beds, and purchased the finishing touch - three sets of wall appliques, one each of the characters to match their bedding.

As I prepared to put up the appliques of Tinker Bell, I stopped short. What my eyes beheld was not the innocent little fairy I remembered from the Peter Pan I watched as a child, but an almost Marilyn-Monroe-esque little pixie - complete with cleaveage, curvy hips, and "come-hither" eyes. I also didn't remember her being so scantily dressed.

Maybe I'm just paranoid, but I can't bring myself to plaster this sexy little image around my 4-yr-old daughter's bed. I don't want her to grow up thinking this is an acceptable way to dress or to carry herself. The actual appliques are below - am I just being an overprotective mom? I really don't think so. I firmly believe that immodest dress among teens doesn't happen overnight, but is a result of their being conditioned from childhood that this kind of clothing makes a woman attractive. I don't want my daughter thinking this is ok - even for Tinkerbell!



The one possible solution we've come up with is to use 2 or 3 of the less seductive stickers and stick on a little sweater (and maybe leggings?). I'm thinking this would maybe work with the fairies from the far right and left panels. But check out the ones in the middle - I'd almost expect to see a couple of these on the rear wheel flaps of a semi truck . . .

Summer Days

Just a few random pix from the past week:





Rach & Zekers love donning their helmets and hopping onto their "new" bikes. Several evenings ago, Zekers took a tumble and scraped up his knees pretty badly. The second he fell, I rushed over to him, scooped him up and held him for a while as I examined and kissed all his injuries. I heard Danny laugh, and looked over to see that Kari Bou had witnessed the whole thing and realized just what she had to do to compete for Mommy's attention. She got off her little scooter, laid down on the ground and started moaning. Too funny! Danny has a much better pic of it on his phone, but we can't seem to transfer it to the computer.







We took another trip to Carriage Hill, with some friends: Four Mommies, 4 girls and 3 boys. The 3 older girls all came prepared with sunglasses . . .














I like this picture of Kari Bou because you can tell that her eyes are turning green! Actually, the only way I could tear her gaze from the chickens and roosters on the other side of the fence was to say the word "candy" and then snap the picture as soon as her head turned. (I know - a shameless way to get a smile. Hey, whatever it takes . . .)













Rachel loved playing in the old-time schoolhouse and writing her name on her little slate.
















Is there anything better than jumping on a life-size stuffed cow??
















That evening, they all had a blast playing in the rain . . . although I think it's time to get Karis a new umbrella.









Free pony rides at a local restaurant. Rachel was in hog heaven, as she discovered her horse's name was "Princess". Zekers' horse, he informed us later, was named "Velvet", which he pronounced "Vaylvet" (3 syllables!).














And they saved the best for last - FREE ICE CREAM!!! (I think Zekers may have managed to get a little of the ice cream in his mouth)