....SOLD!

Ashley asks out of the blue at the dinner table, "Do animals go to heaven?"

 

I set my fork down slowly, deliberately. I am frantically thinking the prayer with which all experienced parents are uncomfortably familiar. Please, for the love of all things caffeinated, in the next two seconds give me a brilliant answer that satisfies their curiosity without lying or saying too much!! (Why yes, this prayer does apply to everything from the tooth fairy to the birds and the bees, thank you for asking.)

 

And then, as I smiled and opened my mouth to improvise an answer that was sure to leave all of my daughters unsatisfied and possibly in tears, I was cut off by this adorable conversation....

 

 

Ashley: "Do animals go to heaven?"

 

Hannah: "Nope."

 

Bethany: "How do you know?"

 

Hannah: "Because animals don't have souls, and only souls go to heaven."

 

Bethany: "I don't want to be sold to heaven!"

 

Ashley: "But Beth, it's ok to be sold to heaven, because when you get sold to heaven you are really, really expensive. And that's how you know that you are important!"

 

Hannah: "Am I expensive too?"

 

Ashley: "Yes, everybody is. Because it costs all of Jesus for us to be sold to heaven, and that is even more expensive than money, so it's like more than even a king or queen could pay."

 

Bethany: "Because Jesus died. That's how much it costs."

 

Ashley: "Right."

 

Bethany: "Why can't animals be sold to heaven too?"

 

Hannah: "Because they are not expensive enough!"

 

Bethany: "Oh. I see."

 

 

 

And everyone happily continues eating, completely content with their resolution of the question. Parent-prayer answered! And moments like this, when I get to sit back and watch my children embrace this God-given life with curiosity and intelligence and joy? They never, ever, ever get old.

Easter weekend pictures

It's been a full month since my last post and I only have a few minutes for the blog today, but I want to at least get some pictures posted from Easter weekend. It's so rare for us to all be in the same picture, and I love this one....

Crazy happy baby!

And here are a few that my mother-in-law took, and I stole from her facebook page. ;) I don't do as well now as I used to with taking pictures of the girls -- I guess my hands are usually full and I just don't seem to have the camera on hand very often. So I'm glad to be able to borrow these ones. Thanks, Mom!

She's seven months old this week. This is my fourth time through and I still don't know how that happens so quickly.

Speaking of growing up, this picture freaked me out a little! Six years old, going on sixteen....

Um...do they look a little bit crazed and terrifying here??

A friend recently told me that Hannah seems like she'll be a queen bee, and I can see it. Watch out for this angelic looking blond head -- she's going to rule something when she grows up!

My favorite picture of the weekend. LOVE this baby girl.

I keep thinking I'm going to write a post about how Ashley has two loose teeth, and how Katelyn just cut her first tooth and is sitting up now, and how my musical rehearsals are going, and how Lamont took an awesome trip all by himself to Salt Lake City to cheer on the Zags in the NCAA tournament (No. Don't talk about that. *sob*), and how school just started back up for me and I think I may have lost my mind to be taking two classes right now, and how it is finally SPRING and I do a happy dance every time I have to put on my sunglasses in the car, and how absolutely incredible life is....

But instead I just crammed all of those things into the longest run-on sentence ever. And I am off!

We're not gonna take it!

We've been laid flat by sickness for weeks on end -- just one cold after another cycling through our family and making us all miserable in endlessly alternating waves. Even poor little Katelyn. :( I have scrubbed everything I can find, disinfected more times than I can count, washed bedding daily for weeks at a time, aired out the house daily no matter how cold it is outside, and kept up our vitamins and lots of veggies and fresh fruit...all apparently to no avail. It has been SO frustrating! My dad gave me some ideas for building up our immune systems better, and in the week since then it does seem like we have improved, so I'm encouraged by that. I would say that as a family, we are probably 85% healthy now (and if you'd been in our house often over the last two months, you would know what a good statistic that really is!). Unfortunately, Katelyn still has this endless runny nose and cough. She is super sweet about it during the day, but has quite a bit of trouble at night, between the congestion and the cough. Last night was...difficult.

So this morning I was curled up in the corner of the couch, reading with Ashley, and I was so tired I kept losing track of what we were reading and staring at the book for several seconds before I could recover it. It wasn't pretty. And I thought, you know what? We are all just so run down, and so tired of fighting sickness and being exhausted. We're snapping at each other for no reason, and we just aren't having fun together. I think we need a break!

I called on the authority of homeschooling moms everywhere and canceled the rest of the day, and took my girls out to have fun. :) We went to the mall, and the girls played in the play area for an hour while Katelyn watched them and shrieked excitedly and waved her arms in the air, and became a bundle of giddiness whenever one of her big sisters ran over to give her a kiss. Then we had lunch in the food court (at the recently added Subway -- yay!), at a super tall table because the girls like sitting on the barstools. And we finished our impromptu day off with an hour or so of shopping (for sneakers and Easter dresses -- not to be worn together!) and picture taking, as the girls decided to pose with all the mannequins they saw. :)

Tall table with tall chairs! Now with 100% more fun than the regular height ones!

Lunchtime at the mall, now with 100% more fun than lunchtime at home!

Ha! Goofballs.

Giant yellow doors -- apparently they were begging for a picture. ;)

Ooh la la!

I caught them in a natural moment, when they were discussing what they wanted to do for their next pose. I love these girlies!

Stop...in the name of love! Or something. ;)

Such a wonderfully fun day, all the more welcome because it started out rough. I'm so glad I get to spend my days with these hilarious little people, who help me make life fun even when we're sick and tired!

Freezing a moment in time

Monday morning...

 

Peaches and rice cereal, yum! Her current favorite meal.

A moment before this she was singing "Angels We Have Heard On High" as she practiced her L's here in her handwriting book.

Curled up with a book, her most common pose lately.

She's been saving for a new lego set, and yesterday Daddy took her shopping and she chose a fire boat (that really floats!). She started working on it in her pajamas before her eyes were completely open this morning.

Watch your daddy

My precious daughters,

You are so little right now, so entirely captivated by the joys of childhood. It is hard for me to imagine you as young women, grown and lovely and looking eagerly toward romance and marriage! Yet I know that time is coming for each of you, more quickly than I can grasp at this moment. When it comes — when you are beginning relationships and evaluating young men and being swept away in the dizzy excitement of new love — I hope you will remember the things you are learning about men right now, during these years of watching your daddy....


I would love it if you'd click over to read the rest of this post over here at Kindred Grace!

Or a lion!

Ashley sat under the dining room table, all the chairs pulled out to allow her easier access, and halfheartedly pulled her whisk broom along the floor. Her faraway gaze was slightly sullen, as she let her thoughts settle on anything but the much disliked task before her, and I sighed at the realization that this seemed set to be a long, unpleasant experience for both of us.

Suddenly she paused and sat up straight, her whole body arrested by a new thought.

"Mummy!" She said breathlessly, "I just realized something!"

"The verse we just learned in church says that we should keep running the race that has been marked out for us," she explained. (Hebrews 12:1) "And I think that maybe that could be talking about things like sweeping, too! Like, this is the job I've been told to do, so I should keep doing it until it's all finished, and have a good attitude about it, like I'm running an exciting race. Right?!"

And I beamed at her, this sweet and clever little girl, and told her that she was absolutely right, and that I was very proud of her for thinking of that and for taking such a positive approach to her work. How mature she is! I thought to myself. How in tune with what she's learning about the Bible, and about living the way Jesus calls us to! And my mother's ego preened a little as I imagined sharing the moment with my mum later.

"Or...."

Ashley's face beamed up at me again as another thought occurred to her.

"Or I could pretend that a lion is going to eat me if I don't finish sweeping quickly!"

Oh. Well. Or you could do that, definitely. ;-) Goofy girl!

Things I am relearning about having a baby

Once upon a time, we had three babies in two and a half years. I like to say we basically didn't sleep for three years...it really was the most physically draining and exhausting experience of my life. But oh, the skills we learned! We learned how to wake up in the morning and live a normal day after sleeping no longer than an hour and a half at a time the night before. And how to function on a grand total of four hours of sleep a night, for weeks on end. We learned how to do everything with only one hand, while a baby slept or wiggled or cuddled in the other. We learned how to spend all day interpreting cries and coos and shrieks and whimpers, while still talking like (mostly) intelligent adults when speaking with someone over two feet tall.

But then they got older. We started getting more than four or five hours of sleep a night. They started walking on their own, talking with real words (English words!), and generally becoming self-sufficient little people. And when that happened, all those hard earned, bizarre new skills of ours went the way of geography facts and algebraic equations after the tests I used to cram for in high school -- they vanished. Disappeared into our rapidly retreating pasts, into the haze of sleeplessness and desperate coping mechanisms that was the previous three years of our lives. And we were really, really ok with letting them go.

And then four and a half months ago, we had another baby. On the one hand, I cannot believe how much easier it is to have just one baby than it was to have three at various stages of babyhood all at once! (Really. Now I get why people gave us funny looks all the time back then as if they were questioning our sanity. Having three babies at once instead of one at a time is insane.) But on the other hand, it's been a surprisingly tough adjustment for me to have a baby again. I think I was happily used to the independence with our older girls; last summer especially, the girls and I pretty much picked up and went wherever we wanted, and had all kinds of adventures together, and it was easy and fun all the time! I'm really glad that we had that time together, and though we're much more tied down now, I know it's coming again in the future.

In the meantime, I'm relearning how to do life with a baby. And with not enough sleep. ;) Actually, Katelyn is the best sleeper we've had, which is awesome. But even when she's only waking me up once in the night, I've been feeling the decrease in sleep. I...really don't respond well to lack of sleep. My body's ideal amount of sleep per night would be about nine hours, I think, especially since my days are so full of non-stop energy requirements with my four busy girls. Between going to bed late at night (so busy!), getting up early in the mornings (again - so busy!), and being up with Katelyn in the night, I usually get around six hours. And I know that for some people, that would be plenty! I wish it was plenty for me, but sometimes I really struggle with not having more sleep. I am trying to remember that this is another temporary season, and to not lose track of the priceless, precious things about this season with my girls just because I'm a bit sleep deprived! I don't want to just function right now, and to look back on this time later and remember myself stumbling around just frantic to keep up, grumpy, or focused more on surviving than loving.

I'm also figuring out all over again how to do life one-handed! This part is fun, because it means Katelyn is hanging out with me a lot. :) And I know...I know...I have friends reading this going, "Why isn't she using a wrap?!?! Ahhhhhh!!!!!" I love you all, and I think it's awesome that you all love using wraps -- but I don't love them. So there. ;) The other day I made raspberry bars, start to finish, with only one hand. Yes, I have mad skills!

So if you'll excuse me now, I need to go help Ashley paint her ceramic tea set, while making dinner with one hand, as I nurse Katelyn...all in my sleep. ;)