Where is the pause button????

You know those moments in life that you just want to capture---to permanently freeze so that you don't just "remember" it, but that you actually FEEL it all over again? I think I have those moments a lot...and might not even notice.

In this hurried hurried world, I definitely need a pause button. Just a few minutes to sit back and think about what these moments mean---to look at it from a few different angles and put it in perspective, learn a lesson, better myself, and more importantly to remember to be so thankful. I had a lot of those today. Just sweet little reminders that my kids are my greatest blessings, that my husband makes me proud, that whether we are all wrestling on the floor of our new house or on the floor of an old trailer it still would have been just as great, that I have a God who loves me and that wants me to love Him more. Can I share a few of those moments with you?
Walker, Sawyer, and even Sunny were "playing" instruments for me on the floor. Sawyer was jamming out on the guitar, and Sunny and Walker were banging on the drums...Sawyer says "hit it walker, sing the song you wrote" and Walker yells out "when you are bad NANANANANANANANANANANANA you don't get to go to the doughnut shop........when you are sad you go to the doughnut shop and it makes you glad NANANANANANANANA"

PAUSE.....three sweet babies laughing, singing, playing together, bringing so much joy to their mommy (by the way, how is it that Walker, at age 3, has already picked up on the glory that is Krispy Kreme?)

I'll limit it to one more PAUSEable moment. Tonight as the boys were going to sleep I read a Bible story that talked about God answering prayers. I told the boys "God will always hear your prayers", and Sawyer said "mom, on the movie that we just watched it said that God will always answer your prayers, but that it isn't always right away and sometimes he says no, sometimes yes and sometimes he says wait" PAUSE. . .whether or not my sweet 5 year old little boy can fully understand this statement or not doesn't matter....the fact that his little brain heard that statement and held on to it does matter! Then Sawyer said "sometimes I don't know if I can hear God" and Walker said "That's because you have to be quiet because He whispers."

Where is that pause button??

simple prayers

It turns out that I am not a very good blogger. I don't have the time or energy or at this point in my life the brain cells required to construct a complex sentence. I did want to share something that I've been nibbling on for a while. When Sawyer or Walker pray they always start it out the same way "Dear God, Thank You for this great day"....they usually continue on with things like "thank you for mommy and daddy and my brother and sister, and thank you that we got to play outside today and thank you that we got to watch ninja warriors on tv and thank you that when we were at WalMart we got to each get one cookie, but then the lady said we could each have 2 so we got 2 cookies...etc, etc..." (they don't actually say the "etc, etc" but sometimes we might get to eat dinner a little quicker if they did!)
Anyway, the part that I love is "thank you for this great day". I don't know if we taught them that, if they came up with it, if they say it out of habit or if they really mean it. All I know is that they say it every time, and I want to too. I want to say (and mean) "Thank You God for this great day". They never say "thank you for this great day, except for that part when I fell down and got a booboo" or "thanks for this great day, except for when mommy yelled at everybody in the car for taking the lids off our drinks and spilling chocolate milk all over".

Just "thanks for this great day".

A dear friend of my sister-in-law had a baby 7 days ago that wasn't supposed to live for 7 minutes. She has lived for a week now. I can't even pretend to know what it's been like, not even for a moment. The only thing I do know is how it feels to love your child. How hard yet how GREAT have the 7 days been? Thank you, God, for this GREAT day, and for the last 6.
Help me to mean it when I say it, even if circumstances aren't great, help me to see your Greatness in each day.

You are my sunshine!!!!

Just wanted to send a quick ray of sunshine your way! This is Sunny Brooke just being. . .well. . . Sunny! What a blessing!

Sick and Sicker

SIGH....what a week or weeks or has it been a month? I'm not quite sure. It seems like my days are blurring together into an undefinable amount of time. For the last few weeks we've made multiple trips to the doctor's office. I guess I should technically say "doctors' offices" since we tend to just go to whichever one is 1. open, 2. doesn't have a wait. The first visit was for Sawyer, he was running a fever, but feeling okay overall----one of those "obligatory guilt relieving" visits (definition: when you know that it's nothing serious, that they are going to tell you that it's "just a cold" and to "keep him hydrated", and then you pay your $25 copay----BUT you feel like a good mom, because what if it HAD turned out to be something serious and it was all your fault because you thought you knew it all and didn't want to spend $25!) So that was done, 1 down more to go! While I was there I thought I'd go ahead and find out if Sawyer's vaccinations were current. They weren't. He needed his 5 "kindergarten" shots, so we scheduled an appt. for the next week. In the meantime, Sunny began to run a fever (on a Friday night of course). This always happens to us. I think we must have an immune system disorder that is triggered on weekends and holidays. Makes for some nice emergency room visits---again, not so much true emergencies...but the "obligatory guilt relieving" visits to the ER. Thankfully, there are a few clinics open on the weekends, so I took Sunny in on a Sunday afternoon. The dr. said she did have some fluid in her ear...but that it wasn't infected "yet" and it was probably just a cold. HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM, the word "yet" kind of threw me off. Yet, as in, the infection is inevitable or yet, as in, there is something you can do to prevent it? So again, I paid my $25 copay and headed home.

By Tuesday we were back at the pediatrician's office for Sawyer's shots and for my attempt at getting a 2 for 1 appt. to see if the YET had happened in Sunny's ear. Going to the dr. with all 3 kids is a terrible experience! My kids turn into wild animals in the dr.'s office waiting room (seriously, if I wasn't so certain of the Creator, I could at times support the theory that we do have some crazy ape in us!). There is a sign on the door that instructs us to leave the door closed at all times. This feels like a prison sentence to me. I feel like they are trapping me in the monkey cage (a germ infested monkey cage---where my little monkeys feel the need to touch, lick, wipe, chew, rub on every germ infected corner of the room). We were in the cage for 45 minutes while we waited to see the dr. We finally went back to the exam room and waited for another 25 minutes (during that 25 minutes I yelled, I cried, I threatened, I forgot every bit of wisdom and peace that I had received from Bible Study only hours before). Let me tell you a few quotes from that 25 minutes: "Walker if you lick that trash can one more time you are going to get the biggest spanking of your life" "Sawyer, please stop slamming the doctor's chair against the door" "please stop it right now" "STOP IT RIGHT NOW!" "You are not too sick to get a spanking." Vain vain threats! They know full well that I can't stop nursing Sunny, put her down on the dirty floor, and give them a spanking at the doctor's office. When the doctor finally came in for Sawyer's 5 year check up she asked a series of questions:
What she asked 1.How much TV does Sawyer watch on a daily basis?
(What I heard: I'm about to judge you on your level of competency for being a good mother.) I don't lie, I try really hard not to, I teach my kids not to, I hate lying....but certain circumstances call for truth exclusion, one is when they ask me if I floss at the dentist office, I say, "most of the time"....I don't include the rest of the sentence "most of the time when there is something stuck in my teeth"...so when she asked how much TV does he watch I said "probably about 30 minutes" what I didn't include was "probably about 30 minutes in the morning, and then again in the mid morning, and then again in the afternoon, and again in the evening". I didn't have time to explain that we are living with my in-laws and trying to finish building a house and that requires a lot of my brain (and there isn't a lot left) so my kids are actually watching a lot of TV at this point, but ATLEAST it is educational, well, sort of)
Then she asked "What type of punishment do you use with Sawyer" (OH no, did she hear my threaten everyone with the biggest spanking of their lives just minutes ago? Did they go ahead and call the child hotline? is it permanently noted in my motherhood record????) "um, mostly time out" I said.
Then she told Sawyer that she needed to check his boy parts and we all talked about that it was okay since she was a doctor and mommy was in the room, and all that kind of safe talk. When she was finished we heard Walker yell "HEY LOOK AT MINE!!!!!" Not to be outdone, we turn around to find Walker with his shirt pulled up, and everything else pulled down. Sawyer started laughing which encouraged our little Walkstar like nothing else, so then he starts shaking it and dancing around the room. I'm trying to get his pants pulled back up while holding Sunny, while the dr. is trying to remain professional. Then Sawyer got his 5 shots while I tried to grab the dr. to look at Sunny's ears. Guess What.....INFECTED. But I didn't get the 2 for 1....I had 2 copays at the front when we left. You would think that wraps it up....but no, by Saturday (oh yes,the weekend) we were back at the clinic for Sawyer. He had the FLU (and we all got the flu mist earlier this year! go figure...must be the wierd immune system i told you about). So if you're doing the math that makes for $125 in copays, 2 prescriptions, and 4 over the counter meds in a period of 21 days! I think we need to look into a health savings account. Except, I'm not sure it would make much sense,since we won't have time to accumulate anything into the savings part? On a positive note, everyone is doing much better (Sawyer's recovery is going a little slower, completely my fault since I messed up on the dosage instructions and was only giving him the med once a day instead of twice--------will that go in my motherhood record too?)

Love and Marriage defined by Sawyer

So the other day we were all in the van on the way to a birthday party with some of Sawyer's friends. They were watching Curious George and since Sawyer has seen it over 15 times he was narrarating it for his friends. He was giving them by play by play commentary for each scene they were watching. I heard the voice of "The Man in the Yellow Hat" and the voice of a woman talking sweetly to each other, and then I heard Sawyer explain "she loooooooooves him". I asked Sawyer how he could tell, and he said "I just know because of how their eyes look when they look at each other. You know, like how you and daddy look at each other." Then he added, "but I can tell they're not married, because they don't kiss."

And the winner is. . . .My Dad!

A big congratulations to my dad, Ron Harp, for his exciting victory as the Mountain Man Big Buck winner. His buck was a 21 (almost 22) point. If you haven't aleady heard the story, let me give you a little background. My dad rarely gets to hunt on his own land, not because of lack of time or interest, but because his generosity often gets in the way. He usually lets my brother or husband or one of his other hunting buddies use the stands and locations that he preps and cares for every season. On this particular day Ben didn't make it over to Siloam, so dad sat in the stand that Ben usually uses. The funny thing is, he didn't shoot the deer the first time he saw it. Since it was headed in the direction of my brother's stand, he let it go by so that Jeremy could get it. When the deer turned to go in the opposite direction, away from my brother's stand, my dad decided it was now or never! As soon as dad called with the news the boys and Ben headed to Siloam. What a day!

May the Force Be With You

This posting is a little out of order. It should have been posted right after Halloween (however,we tend to operate on Shankle Standard Time...which is about 3 months behind!) We especially wanted to show it to our fellow Star Wars fans. . .Charlie and John David!