Visit from Mr. Caleb

My cousin Caleb came through Dallas this week looking at grad. schools. It was great to see him and visit. The boys love having a visitor. Caleb was such a good sport to play trains with Luke. Luke has all these rules about which trains can touch etc. Sitting down with him is not for the faint of heart!

Titus and Luke decide that Mr. Caleb needs to hold them at the same time.

Caleb-Thanks for dropping in when you were coming through town. The boys were sad when we got back from Bible study and you were gone.

Get Away!

We did a short vacation for our 8th anniversary. The agency gave Micah a few nights at a resort in San Antonio. My mom watched the boys for us for four days! Dad came up for part of it too. Thanks to both of them for watching Luke and Titus.

Here are some of the highlights.

On the way to San Antonio we stopped in Austin to find a small business on South Congress called Hey Cupcake! They have great cupcakes and sell them out of a trailer. I got the red velvet and Micah got the snow cap (chocolate with a vanilla top). There is some great people watching on South Congress too!

The rest of Saturday we went to the outlet in San Marcus, did our traveling and we went out to dinner after unloading at the resort.

Sunday we went to church a Oak Hills Church. It was truly a mega church. I've never been to a church that large. It was neat to hear Max Lucado preach. After lunch we went to get pedicures together. Micah is such a good sport! The Spurs game was on while they worked on us. It was neat to get pampered together. As you might imagine, Micah had not had a pedicure before. He liked it, but now he says his feet hurt. I guess it is because all of those callouses are gone!

Monday, we headed downtown! We saw the Alamo and enjoyed a perfect day on the river walk.

Fajitas for two! We ate so much Mexican food :)

Tuesday we just headed back. We stopped at the outlet mall again in San Marcus. My favorite outlet anywhere is there. They have a pottery barn outlet that is really an outlet. It also has William's Sonoma things there too. It is a really fun warehouse type store.

The boys were happy to see Micah when we got home. They always run to him! They eventually gave me a hug too! Thanks mom for watching the boys.

"Favorite Puppy" faith builder

Luke's favorite stuffed animal is "Favorite Puppy". Today, Luke came inside telling me about this horrible thing that happened:

Favorite Puppy stuck in the gutter on the roof

My first thought was about how to get the puppy down because there was no way a three year old can get something off the roof and that eventually I would have to get it down, but I decided to have a little L&L (Love and Logic) fun with it because I've enjoyed seeing Luke think through his own problems and figure out the world lately.

Me-Oh No! How sad!

Luke-Mommy can you get him down?

Me-Do you think he's cold up there?

Luke-I think he's scared too.

Me- What are you going to do?

Luke-I'm going to call the fire department and they will help me and bring a ladder too.

Me-Luke, you're welcome to call the pretend fire department, but I'm not going to let you call the real fire department because (he knows that) favorite puppy is not real and they have real fires to go to and real people to help.

Luke goes on to call the pretend fire department with the phone in his playhouse. He pretends for a while that they are on their way. After a while, he busts out with "Jesus will get him down for me." I encourage him to ask Jesus by praying. Luke looks up to the sky and says something like "Jesus, will you please get favorite puppy down from the roof for me? In Jesus name, Amen"

Now a million thoughts are running through my mind. The biggest two are probably

• How can I/should I sneak the puppy down? When will we do it?


• Maybe I can explain that God works through people???

I did decide that I needed to explain that Jesus could work lots of ways to get the puppy down. I told Luke that Jesus could send a big wind or use Mommy or Daddy to get it down. He was pretty sure Jesus was coming personally to do it. I just said my piece and left it at that.

Micah comes home. Luke immediately shows Micah. I tell Micah not to get it down. We pray about puppy at dinner. Luke has to go to bed without puppy. We pray about puppy again at bedtime.

Micah and I were upstairs discussing lots of boring "grown-up" stuff. The wind had been blowing pretty strong for a while. I ask Micah if he thinks Favorite Puppy has blown down. He walks across the room to check on Favorite Puppy. He's still there. As Micah is looking out the window, Favorite Puppy blows down.

We go get Luke and take him to get Favorite Puppy.

Favorite Puppy after being blown down

Luke after being reunited-He looks wired, but he is barely awake.
I know that was a long story, but I just have to add a little more. I was resigned to the fact that in the next day or so Micah or I would get the puppy off the roof, but it really bothered me how unsure I was that Jesus would really get the puppy down. I wanted to give Jesus a chance to get him down and WHY am I so utterly shocked that he did.

The other point I would like to make is that Favorite Puppy being stuck on the roof was a really big deal to my kiddo. I'm sure lots of the things we pray about seem just as silly to Jesus, but if they are things that matter to us then they matter to him.

God bless you all tonight.

Lizzards and Snakes

Just another love and logic Luke story:

We're at the dollar store trying to pick out a valentines present for Aunt Cara. Luke picks out a couple of things for Cara and then does the typical kid thing and starts whining for a bag of lizzards and a bag of snakes. He puts them in the cart, he whines, but finally I try some of love and logic.

Me-Luke you're welcome to buy those with your money.
Luke-I think I will do that mommy.
Me- Luke do you have some money?
Luke-I do have some money.
Me- Well you'll just have to check out after me.

I know that he has no money, but I decide to let him figure that out. I check out, push the cart quite a distance away from the check out line, but stay in earshot. I hear the beeps of the scanner and then the lady asks him for $3.25. He reaches into his pocket and holds up a palm full of nothing. The lady looks confused and looks off at me. I shrug and shake my head. She asks him if that is pretend money. He looks embararasssed and shakes his head, yes. She explains that the store doesn't take pretend money and that he has to give her real money if he wants to take the toys.

The whole way home he was just talking to himself and processing everything. "Stores need real money." "Pretend money will not buy the toys."

I have no idea if this will translate to fewer fits, but that day it did and I got a kick out of seeing him figure out the world for himself.

Girls' weekend

Last weekend I headed to Searcy for a girls' weekend. We had dinner out on Friday, a spa day Sat. am, a dinner out in Little Rock Sat. pm and church on Sunday morning. It was such a shot in the arm to have time away from the kids and girl time too :) Also, If you've never had a facial, I'd highly recommend it!

Becky was my roomate for all 4 years at Harding. Amy was across the hall Freshman year and a suitemate after that. Both of them were bridesmaids in my wedding. These girls are such dear friends. We decided that it was time to get together!

Becky (with baby Braden), Me and Amy

The Harding swing picture!

Becky's parent's cabin-what a nice get away from Dallas!

It was just us out there, so we had to take our own picture! It was really nice to get out of Dallas. I forget how many stars there are.

Thanks to Micah for keeping the boys! I kept calling to check on them and they were always out doing something fun. Luke liked that it was "just the boys!". I was glad to see all three of them when I got back.

Those are your choices!

This morning as I was getting ready, Luke was running around. In an attempt to give him something to do, I asked him to get me some socks. He goes and looks in my sock drawer for a minute and comes back. Standing in the doorway with his hands on his hips, my little boy says "Halloween or Santa Clause, those are your choices mommy" I had to try so hard not to laugh at him :)

We've been doing Love and Logic and I'm bombarding him with choices so that he feels more control over his world creating fewer battles of will. Do you want to walk on my left side or my right side? Do you want to walk or ride in the cart? What would work best for you Luke, to go to Sam's first or the post office? I decided to humor him. For the record, I picked Santa :)

Sandbox

Papa (Alan Wonders) made this sandbox for the boys. It's awesome. It has a ledge to sit on, a big heavy lid to keep rain out, lots and lots of sand and awesome construction trucks to work in the sand . We were in Longview earlier this week and it was the first time they got to play in it. As you can imagine, they LOVED it. Thanks Papa for the awesome sandbox.

Luke loves it, but what is Titus doing?

"Mom, I was just eating some sand."

Hmmm... Titus is still too little for the sandbox.

Luke and Grammy play with the dump truck.

I could do this all day!