Joseph, Gabriella, Julianna, James, and Elora

Joseph, Gabriella, Julianna, James, and Elora

Monday, October 24, 2011

My four favorite things


Yep. There they are. All smiling for once!

And if you'd seen what they did to my house with paint, and then with sopapilla mix and jam, you would know just how generous and forgiving I'm being with this post.

Cuteness: God's way of ensuring children survive until adulthood.

CORRECTION:
I take it all back. After publishing this post, I discovered that the kids had gotten into the paint and painted the walls of their bathroom. Cuteness will not save them this time. They are soooo dead!

Friday, October 21, 2011

Bad Poetry

Last night I stayed up way too late reading some old journals, Bible study notes, and letters that I found in a box of stuff from before I was married. And one of the things I discovered was a "travel notebook" that I wrote in during car trips to pass the time. If you ever want a really good laugh, read something you wrote as a child! It was highly amusing to see my 12-year-old perspective on life.

On several of the pages were "poems" that I had written...or attempted. Let me just say that while I have been told by other people that I am a good writer, I am NOT good at poetry. Prose has always been my strong suit, but for some reason I keep attempting poetry because writers are supposed to be able to write poems! I am too embarassed to show you any of the poems that I still secretly think have some merit, but these are so terrible, so ridiculous, and so silly that I am willing to sell out my 12-year-old self by posting them. So here you go - feel free to laugh. I did!

Complete with original spelling and punctuation:

"Give me an ear,
so I can tell,
the story of Bob,
who loves to fish,
but he hates to clean um
cause the head's smell
like a rotten egg."

"Flowers here, flowers there,
flowers, flowers....no! I won't say it!
the petels all fell off
so now the flowers cry
for they are most ashamed
because they must admit
only their feathers are fine."

There's a chance Daniella may have written this one, but I will go ahead and post it anyway just so she can share in the fun:
"A woman lives in a lake
her story she will not tell
but I know her cookies taste well
when she does remember to bake."

and finally (please don't forget to breathe through your laughter)

"though I could sail the world around,
visit grand and wondros places,
yet one thing in all would lack,
for I'd miss familiar faces.

the greatness of London,
is dwarfed by my father's heart,
now beautiful are Paris and Venice,
yet compared to my mother they aren't.

However exotic or amusing,
you may find the Taj Mahal,
yet what can compete with my siblings,
of course nothing at all!

And the animals that perform,
in India or Japan,
surely don't love me as well,
as my own cats and dogs can.

So when you consider all..."

And here the poem trails off out of sheer disgust.

Glad to have provided amusement for you today. My 12-year-old self is hiding somewhere with her head in the sand.

Friday, October 14, 2011

Halloween?

It's October, which means you can't go anywhere without being accosted by all manner of creepy-looking paraphernalia: skeletons, ghosts, vampires, tombstones, leering pumpkins, and *shudder* spiders, among other things. Some people (ahem...our neighbors) have even gone so far as to start decorating their houses with "Halloween lights," a garish orange parody of the Christmas lights I love so much. I hate taking my children to the store during this month because I don't want them too see all the horrible decorations and costumes. However, I am kind of conflicted about Halloween as a whole.

Growing up, my family never celebrated Halloween. No costumes, no trick or treating, no parties. Usually my mom would buy a bag of candy, just in case any neighbor kids stopped by (which, living in the East Mountains, they usually didn't!) and let us eat a couple of pieces. Once or twice we went to "Fall Carnivals" thrown at churches, and I seem to remember one where we all dressed up as Bible characters. (I must have been about 6 because I remember I wore an old pillowcase and was Miriam and my brother Isaac was Moses and Mom put him in a basket.) Usually we celebrated "Reformation Day" instead, because as any good homeschooling kid knows, Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses of protest against the Catholic church to the door of the church in Wittenburg on October 31, 1517.

I understand the reasons why my parents chose not to celebrate Halloween, and I respected them, even though I felt (and still feel) that it was highly unfair that Satan had stolen the holiday of dress up and candy, two of my favorite things! Once I hit my twenties, my sister and I dressed up in our homemade Renaissance costumes and went out with friends to dinner on Halloween a few times. But now that I have kids who are old enough to actually notice, Halloween has become an issue I have to deal with.

My husband came from a Christian, Bible-believing family who had a different approach to Halloween. Their kids always dressed up and went trick-or-treating. For the first few years we had kids, we'd talk about what we believed about Halloween, but we never really had to decide because they were too little to really do anything. We dressed them in their Batman and Superman and Pooh bear pajamas, just because it was cute, and we passed out candy to the neighbor kids. But this year they are getting older and we still haven't decided on a strong conviction one way or the other.

I believe that there are many aspects of Halloween that definitely ARE wrong and demonic. I don't approve of all the ugly and scary things, simply because I don't think they are edifying or glorifying to God, and I wouldn't let my kids dress up like them or decorate our house with them. But I admit I don't see anything inherently wrong with dressing up in costumes. Or eating candy! I don't want my kids to go trick-or-treating because I don't feel like it's safe, and somehow it seems rude to me to ask other people for candy! Especially because they would certainly never be allowed to "trick" someone who doesn't give it to them!

This year Robert decided we should go to the "trunk or treat" event that's being held at a nearby church. And I am making all the costumes. Gabriella's favorite movie is Cinderella, and the boys like it a lot too, so we are all going to be characters from Cinderella. Gabriella will be Cinderella, of course, and I have already started working on her dress. Elora will be one of the mice, and Joseph will be Prince Charming, and James will be Bruno, the dog (because honestly, that is who James likes best! ;-) And if I get around to it, I will be the fairy godmother and Robert will be the Grand Duke.

 I love sewing costumes, and I am really excited about making them for my kids. As for the whole "Halloween Issue," we may just have to take it on a year-by-year basis. Ultimately we will do whatever Robert thinks is best, because he's the boss of this house! ;-) There is no specific Bible verse that says whether or not to celebrate Halloween...but there is one that says "wives, submit to your husbands." And I trust him to make a good decision because I know he listens to The Boss.

What about you? Do you celebrate Halloween? Why or why not?        

Monday, October 3, 2011

I feel sorry for my grandchildren...

Disclaimer: To the best of my knowledge, we are not having a new baby, at least at this moment. Elora is only 5 months old!

Not quite sure why or how, but somehow Joseph and I were talking about baby names today. (I think I mentioned putting away a certain toy that Elora had outgrown in case another baby came, and his imagination took it from there) Here are Joseph's suggestions for names for the new baby (that we are currently not having):

- Joseph (I tried to explain things might get kind of confusing with 2 Josephs around, but its nice to know he wants to share everything, even his name)

Jack-and-the-beanstalk (yes, the whole thing)

- Banana

- A-heart (if its a girl)

and finally

- God.


In other news, I broke my crockpot today. Tears and sadness. ;-( Stupid Monday.

P.S. Did I mention I'm NOT pregnant?? Just want to kill that one before the rumor mills get ahold of it. Although I currently know 7 women who are. I'm starting to feel a bit left out. I think my chocolate intake is up just out of sympathy. ;-)