Top 10 Things NOT to say when asked "What?! No school today?"

 

10. Well normally yes, but this time of year I need help with the planting and plowing.  ~oops, this is the reason for when our school year stops and starts!  used this one!!

9. Goodness, no!!! I graduated 18 years ago, but thanks for the compliment!

8. No, we homeschool. We're just out to pick up a bag of pork rinds and some Mountain Dew, then we gotta hurry home to catch our soaps.

7. What?! Where did you guys come from?! Oh my gosh! I thought I told you kids to stay at school! I'm sorry. This happens all the time. (sigh) ~ gotta remember this one!

6. There isn't? Why, you'd think we would have seen more kids out then, don't you? ~have actually said this before but in my defense I was just clueless and actually being sincere…

5. We're on a field trip studying human nature's intrusive and assumptive tactics of displaying ignorance and implied superiority. Thanks for the peek! ~wonder if I could pull this one off??

4. On our planet we have different methods of education. (Shhh! No, I didn't give it away... keep your antennae down!)

3. Oh my goodness! I thought that today was Saturday...come on kids, hurry!

2. Noooooope.Me 'n Bubba jes' learns 'em at home. Werks reel good!

And the number one answer we should NEVER give to the question: "What? No school today?"

1. "What? No Bingo today?"

Bless His Heart

Jacob yesterday….

Jacob today…

We took a little trip to the doctor’s office today just in case that other eye decided to totally swell shut, too… hasn’t slowed him down a bit though!

Best Laid Plans…

 

How’s that saying go??

We had a great start to the morning.  Woke up at a decent hour, everyone in a good mood, wonderful attitudes for school…. then I had a great idea. 

So I spread shaving cream on the table for Jake to practice writing his letters… only problem was I forgot what that would do to the other two!  They couldn’t stand it.  Ok, I can handle that, I tell them they can play too but they have to finish what they’re doing first.  They do, and I take advantage of the break to read some in Proverbs…. and God takes advantage of my reading to convict my heart. Ok God, I hear you!

The boys finish playing in the shaving cream when it’s all off the table and on them.  We clean up and head back to do more school.  Jake decides he’d rather read library books, so I send him to the other room while I focus on the big boys.  They start math and mysteriously every thing they’ve ever learned about math flies right out the window!  You’d have thought they’d never looked at a math problem.  Oh well, being clueless is no excuse in this house!!  Once they make peace with the fact that ‘no, mama will not cross off all the problems on the page’, they are eventually able to finish. 

Then the phone rings… someone needing one of those favors that sounds like a snap until you get started and then suddenly it’s not so simple.  Ok, no problem, the boys eat lunch while I start on that project.  Then they decide they want to play outside which sounds great to me.  One thing I’ve learned about myself is I really need quiet time to decompress during the day.

Just as I’m about to call them back in Cade comes running to say that Jacob’s been stung by a bee.  Sure enough, poor little guy got it right on his eyelid.  Ok, no problem, we pray, I doctor him up and we head for the rocking chair for some cuddle time.  Cuddle time also turns into teach-while-rocking-time which really worked better than expected.

So the point of this whole post was to say how thankful I am for the peace God’s been speaking to my heart.  Life is going to happen… we can throw a fit or roll with it, but it’s going to happen.  More days than I would like it’s just one thing after the other… that’s life, but it’s much better for my children’s spirit (and my blood pressure) when I trust God to work it out and just roll with it.

Oh, and to top it all off, the dog just brought in a mole, or gopher, or mouse, or something, and dropped it on  my rug!!  There are not enough paper towels in the world to make that not icky to pick up…

Giving from the Heart

 

The boys got a birthday party invite in the mail yesterday, they love getting mail so there was lots of jumping around and yelling involved. 

Once they realized what it was they all had only one thought… not, what kind of party?… not, will there be party favors?… not even, will there be food?

Their first though was ‘What gift will we bring?’! And if you know my boys it’s not what will we buy, it’s what can we make or which of our toys can we give!  I love their generous spirit!

It’s hard for me to bite my tongue when they want to give a friend one of their beat up toy cars. I look at it and think what will people think if we bring something so obviously used, we can’t give that as a gift, how embarrassing. 

But in my children’s hearts it’s a totally different story… they’re giving something that is special to them. That used, beat up toy got that way because they love it and love to play with it, and now they want to share that joy with their friend!

What selfless giving!  I’ll admit I’m not much of a gift giver, but to take a favorite possession and give it to a friend so they can take the joy in it that I take would never cross my mind.  I might buy them one like it, but to give mine? Me do without to make them happy???  No way… it’s MINE!

But then I remember “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also”, and I pray that I will be more like my children and give just for the joy of giving with no thought to the cost.

So FYI, if you ever invite us to a party and my boys bring hand-me-down gifts wrapped in construction paper… know that much more love and thought went into that gift than the prettily wrapped one from the store that I’m carrying.  And please be patient with my embarrassed, stammering explanation of their gifts… I’m still a work in progress!