Conversation with my four year old nephew while grilling chicken and steaks.
"Aunt Hope, what's that?"
"It's chicken."
"Aunt Hope, is that real chicken?"
"Yes."
"It doesn't look like real chicken."
"What kind of chicken does your mommy get you?"
"The kind from McDonalds."
After I quit laughing, I said to him.
"McDonalds is not real chicken, THIS is real chicken!"
"Aunt Hope, pretty soon you're going to need a wheelchair."
My niece, 6 years, as I was putting her to bed
"Mom, can you unplug the car?"
B-boo, 14 years, apparently forgot that you turn off an engine, not unplug it.
"So mom, you're saying that 2/3 of us are dumb, 2/3 are untalented, and 2/3 are ugly."
The good-looking one, 21 years. (And no, that is NOT what I said!)
"I couldn't let him get it for me. He thought it was a beetle, like a ladybug. It was a cockroach. I couldn't do that to a 4 year old."
Friendly teen, 16 years old.
Conversation with a 4 year old
"Aunt Hope, you were five before?"
"Yes."
"When?"
"35 years ago."
"You're THAT old???"
There has to be something said for talent, right? I mean, in light of our conversation tonight of My3Sons…the oldest is the good-looking one, the middle one is the talented one and the youngest is the smart one. We have great laughs about this…as in, tonight the oldest informed me that according to this theory, I have two sons that are ugly and untalented, I have two sons that are dumb and ugly and two sons that are dumb and untalented! Let it be known that I, their mother, have never ever said that! But, they, My3Sons, do like to get the funny jabs in.
That said, tonight, the talented one rocks! We have to have a family picture for some licensing we're trying to get. A family picture is not anything any of us looks forward to. Have you ever tried to get seven people all looking at the camera at the same time with the perfect smile and eyes open? It's not easy. Our last family picture, taken professionally, is only good, well, because, honestly, the photographer swapped heads! Swapped heads as in from several different photos and put them together on one…on the right bodies, I might add, just in case you all are now wondering! This photo was taken years ago!
As soon as we all got home, I had the smart son pull out the tripod and set up my camera so that we could get a family picture. This, of course, brought on many groans. However, they were sorta willing to cooperate so that we could get it all over with quickly.
The rules were as follows:
Everyone had to be facing the camera.
No silly faces.
No hoodlum faces. (Ok, that one was a wee bit negotiable..they are My3Sons after all!)
And the result? It took one single picture! Can you believe it? Ok, it's not the BEST picture we've ever taken, but it fell within the guidelines!
I still wasn't thrilled with the background…and we'd already changed out of our nice clothes…but my talented son managed to do this in a matter of minutes.
In case you didn't know it already, my favorite color is purple. The Talented Son says that he'll fix the feathering on the Good-Looking Son's face tomorrow! He does have an image to maintain, afterall!
I woke up this morning wondering what I could talk about today. Hmm…and then, I received an email from NotebookingPages.com talking about the latest from Jeannie Fulbright and the Apologia science curriculum. As a homeschooling mom, we are HUGE fans of the Exploring Creation Series with Apologia! New to notebooking, we are quickly becoming fans of it, too!
Apologia
is now producing notebooking journals that accompany each of the elementary
science books. Both Botany and Astronomy are now available. You can see samples
on the Apologia website here:
These journals
are beautiful spiral bound notebooks that will save you time and money. You
won't have to print and keep up with your child's notebook pages, buy and
maintain page protectors, or purchase and compile binders…everything that
makes notebooking time-consuming and labor intensive for mom. Also, your child
will adore having their own notebooking journal.
Each of
the notebooking journals include:
See the
sample pages here:
Jeannie
is giving away four Astronomy Notebooking Journals and four Botany Notebooking
Journals to bloggers who post about this on their site. Visit her blog to learn
more about this contest: www.jeanniesjournal.com
It's been one of those weeks. The type that totally exhausts you, but in a good way. After a week many appointments and months of planning this weekend, my mental status took a dive on Thursday. As always, God is gracious and has given me those amazing friends through whom He likes to show just how much He cares. My house was a disaster. A group of teenage girls were about to join us for the weekend. And we were about to spend an amazing weekend with 51 teenagers, some amazing adults, fabulous speakers, and an awesome band, Seraph.
Friday, three wonderful friends showed up at my house to whip it into shape! We dusted, scrubbed, vacuumed and windexed. And when I had to leave for yet another appointment, they stayed behind, took care of my kids and finished my house! A few hours later, I came home to a sparkling clean house. What a relief!
This sooooooooooo allowed me to have a fabulous, nonrelaxing, stressfulfree time with the 46 teens that showed up for our D-Now weekend!
Highlights of the weekend include:
Losing to 3 of the 4 high school boys that bowled against me. But hey….compared to the other 40+ bowlers I think I did ok.
A diabetic teen drinking sneaking a RedBull before going to bed.
Being awoken at 3:30 am because above teen has a high blood sugar count.
Having my wonderful hubby deal with the diabetic teen at 3:30 am!
Having my wonderful hubby deal with the cockroach in the tub at 7:30 am so that another teen could take a shower. (My 4 year old nephew offered to deal with it, but because he called it a beetle, she felt bad and couldn't let him touch it since he really didn't know it was a cockroach and not a beetle…or a ladbybug.)
Scavenger hunt! That was a blast, especially when we wanted to help a lady put her groceries away at the grocery store. She thought we were crazy…so much so that she told us we were scaring her! We finally convinced her that we were just some great church-going teenagers trying to be helpful and win a scavenger hunt so she relented and even asked if there was anything else she could help us with!
Seraph was an AWESOME band, as always! They don't just lead a great worship, they also hang with us!
Oh..and the Gorilla beats the man beats the gun tie you die song was crazy fun!
Sean and Natalie…what an amazing heart for missions and ministry.
And now? Well, I'll admit that I'm pretty exhausted, but it's a good exhaustion! Now, if only I could get everybody in bed by 8:00 pm, that'd be great!