Family Photos

Well, I've been really exhausted and nauseous lately, so I haven't done as well as keeping up as I thought I would after the semester was over.

A couple of weeks ago we had a friend meet us to snap some photos of our family. It was a FREEZING cold day, so despite our three or four layers of clothing, Gabe had tears streaming down his face the entire time... not because he was crying, but just because it was so windy and cold. That means that he didn't smile more than once the entire time! The good thing is that, because it was so cold, he didn't try to run around! He wanted to stay as close to us as possible! And Ladan made some really funny faces, so without further ado, here's your entertainment...

Can Anybody Figure This Out?

Do these provide any clarity?



If that's not enough, how about this?

August 18, 2009.

Hairy Arms, Burping Bottoms and Other Fun Stories

Here are a few funny stories from recent days...

One day Ladan was trying to open something that was pretty hard to turn. He said, "Wow, Mom. This is really tough to open." He looked down again at it and said with determination, "Well, I do have hair on my arms, so I must be strong enough to open it." He gave it another try and got it opened... then yelled, "Aaaaahhhhhhh!!!!! I did it!!!" FYI--Ladan has a few clear pieces of hair on his arm that can't be more than 1/8 inch in length. Nevertheless, it is there, and apparently it makes him strong like Daddy.

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Last weekend I was watching the MU football game with Ladan. They lost. I told Ladan what happened, and he said, "Well, I guess they'll praise Him." Have you seen Facing the Giants? There is a line in the movie where the coach tells the team that if they win, they'll praise Him [God], and if they lose, they'll praise Him. When Chet came home, Ladan told him that the Missouri Tigers lost and were praising God. Let's hope they were!

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Just yesterday he woke up from his nap and was playing with Gabe. He accidentally tooted. He announced, "Whoops. I just tooted." I asked him if he needed to go to the bathroom. He responded, "No. It's kind of strange. It's almost like my bottom just burped." Nice observation. I replied, "Yes, that's pretty much exactly what it's like. And yes, it is kind of strange."

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Our neighbors are moving back to California and are leaving town tomorrow morning. We're so sad to see them go. I don't think I'll ever take for granted the days we've had with them right next door. Over the course of the last few days, their two little girls have been playing at our house a lot so Glen and Jessica can pack. Ladan and Hannah (who will be 3 in February) have been playing a lot of house. Ladan has a small tent set up in his room right now. It's a 3x3 foot tent with mesh walls so you can look in easily. They have the kid-sized lawn chairs set up inside the tent. Many times over the course of these days, Ladan and Hannah have gone into their house to sit together. It's really funny because they just sit there for up to 15 minutes at a time just talking and doing nothing else. It's like they're an old couple just chilling out on the screened-in porch chatting the day away.

They have taken their "kid" (a small snowman made out of a tube sock) to school. Hannah sits on the little riding toy holding the "kid", and Ladan pushes them to school. They drop the kid off, and then come back down the hallway to do something else for a while. Inevitably, they remember their kid and go back to get her from school.

At one point, Gabe tried to walk into the tent while Hannah and Ladan were sitting in their chairs. Hannah said, "No, Gabe. You can't come in the house right now, son." Awesome!

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We put our Christmas tree up after we ate our Thanksgiving dinner. Ladan has been so excited about it and keeps shouting out, "It's Christmas in our house!" He tells me regularly that he just loves Christmas and is so glad that it's Christmas in our house.

Amber, my sister-in-law, made us a set of ornaments last year that have different names of Jesus on them. Each one has a name that Scripture uses to refer to Jesus as well as the Scripture reference where we can read about it. There are 25 of them, so we do one each day, reading the scripture and talking about what it means when we refer to Jesus as ___________. Ladan has been having fun trying to read the names of Jesus on the ornaments. He gets some of them right off, and some (like "The One Mediator") are a bit more challenging.

One of the ornaments reads "Man from Heaven". It was the first one we did. When Ladan woke up the next day and came to the tree to try to read it, he said, "Man... (insert long pause) who goes to college." I helped him figure it out and he now gets it every time, but I thought his original version was pretty great!

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Gabe has been pretty funny lately too. He's starting to use all kind of fun phrases. Today I was wiping the oatmeal off his chin, and he said, "Oh my goodness. I'm messy."

When he does something wrong to Ladan, he says, "Foddy, Nanan" (Sorry, Ladan).

His favorite game is to wait for someone to get up from his/her seat, RUN over, climb into the vacated seat, and yell, "You get out of my seat!" This game NEVER gets old for Gabe and is a constant source of entertainment for him.

We got the following message from one of Gabe's Sunday School teachers a few weeks ago:

"... one of the parents asked us if we were teaching the kids to kneel or bow down when we pray...if you have noticed your kids wanting to do this when you pray at home it is not because we have taught them to do this. Although, at some point one of the kids just decided to lay face down when we started to pray and the power of influence on kids is I guess pretty big, because when we pray in Sunday school, most of the kids will now lay face down. So if you are wondering what your child is doing, that's the explanation!"

Can you even imagine a room full of two-year-olds laying face-down on the ground during prayer time? I so wish I could see it!

Well, that's all for now! Chet finished his classes for the semester, so I'll try to get better at posting more regularly again. Please be praying for us as we make all kinds of decisions in the next little while!

The Pot Pie Recipe

Here it is!

Ingredients:
14 oz chicken broth
1/2 cup water, and another 1/3 cup water
4 medium carrots, thinly sliced (about 1 1/2 cups)
3 medium red potatoes, scrubbed and diced (about 1 1/2 cups)
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cups quartered medium mushrooms (I don't use these)
1 medium onion, coarsely chopped
1 cup frozen peas
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
2 refrigerated unbaked piecrusts (for 9-inch pie)
2 1/2 cups chopped cooked chicken

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. (If you use a glass or dark metal pie pan, may need to decrease heat to 400 degrees)

2. Combine broth, 4 oz. water, carrots and potatoes in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil; reduce heat and simmer over low heat for 10 minutes.

3. Heat oil in large skillet over medium heat. Add mushrooms (optional) and onion; saute until softened, about 5 minutes. Stir in broth mixture and peas.

4. Whisk remaining 1/3 cup water into the flour until smooth. Then whisk it into vegetable mixture. Increase heat to medium-high; bring to a boil.

5. Grease pie pan and line it with one of the pie crusts.

6. Stir chicken into the vegetable mix. Then transfer it all into the baking dish. Just heap it all in there. It doesn't need to lay flat.

7. Lay the second pie crust over the top. The edges of the top crust should overlap the lower crust. Tuck it around the top of the bottom crust (inside the pan) and pinch it around the edges... so that it creates a seal around the filling.

8. Cut some fun or pretty shape out of the top using a knife or cookie cutter.

9. Bake until filling is bubbly and crust is browned, about 20 minutes.

*You may want to add salt and pepper, but I tend to just allow each person to doctor his/her own food.

I don't have the photo on this computer, but if you want to see what it's supposed to look like, click here.

(FYI--I got the basic idea from a sample recipe my grandma gave me from Easy to Bake, Easy to Make and made several changes.)

Fight the Freedom of Choice Act

Way to go Beth Bloom!!!! Beth is a senior in high school at our church, and she sent me the link to the petition to fight the Freedom of Choice Act. This is exactly the type of thing I was talking about in my last post! Please consider taking 30 seconds and signing the petition yourself.

Hopeless for the Helpless?

In the wake of Election Day 2008, I have heard many people commenting on how sad they are for unborn children who will be aborted in our country. I have to say that I am totally right there. If Obama and Congress move to pass the Freedom of Choice Act and lift the ban on partial-birth abortion, there will likely be more helpless babies killed than ever before. (For a description of partial-birth abortion, click here. Warning! It's horrifying!).

I read a few ads during this political season saying, "It's illegal to give a Tylenol to a child without parental consent, but it's okay to perform an abortion on that same child without consulting the parents. Something is wrong with this picture." Pretty wild if you think about it, but sadly it's the case in many states. In the end, the whole thing seems a bit hopeless, right?

Well, maybe not. Here's my take on it. It is totally true that the Lord is sovereign and that He is in control of all of this. We can fully trust Him. However, that doesn't mean that we have to sit back and wait around for some edict to come from the government making abortion illegal in order to protect the helpless unborn. Our sovereign Lord doesn't use only elected officials and their power to outlaw abortion as His means to save babies. If we really are pro-life, then here are a few possible ways we can help to save unborn children right now...

One obvious one is to volunteer at an established crisis pregnancy center. Or team up with other believers in your community to get the necessary training and start a crisis pregnancy center.

Another is to continually remain involved in public affairs and political issues. We can regularly contact our elected officials and let them hear from us on this matter. We should for sure be praying that the Lord softens their hearts, that they hear His voice, and that "pro-choice" officials change their minds.

We can also be proactive in many ways. For example, what about investing our lives in young men and women, whether they are our own or someone else's? What if we loved the Lord so much ourselves that it was contagious and these kids wanted more than anything to have what we have with Him? What if we spent time helping them to realize that, even if abortion is legal, it's wrong? And better yet, what if we spent time helping them to tell the difference between a good relationship and an ungodly one, helping them to realize that, besides pregnancy, there are MANY consequences of sex outside of marriage. The possibility of pregnancy is just one of a host of issues that comes along with doing things in the wrong order, and even perfect protection from pregnancy couldn't protect them from these terrible effects. We also need to teach them that there are MANY rewards and good reasons to save themselves for the one they will marry... and that it really is totally worth the wait. What if we didn't wait for these young people to "figure it out" on their own, and we actually cared enough about them to tell them "no" sometimes, even if they didn't like us very much for a while?

All of those same things apply to college students and grown adults. Even if we don't have the authority to tell them "no", we can take an opportunity to speak the truth to them and lovingly, but firmly, say something they may not want to hear. After all, while the majority of abortions are chosen by young people, there are plenty of adults who make the same choice for themselves.

This is no small battle, and it seems like we're fighting on an uphill slope that keeps getting steeper. Yet, we're not left without hope!

Let's say that each of us took seriously our responsibility to love people well and to proactively work to prevent bad relationships, inappropriate and unhelpful sexual behavior, and untimely pregnancy. What if we were able to help encourage men, women, boys, and girls in their walks with the Lord so that they were positively motivated by the right things? I wonder how many abortions would be prevented then?

And what if some of us were able to dedicate ourselves to serving and loving men, women, boys, and girls in the event that they do end up conceiving a child that they aren't sure they're ready for, in a crisis pregnancy center setting or not? I wonder how many abortions would be prevented then?

It is my encouragement to every person to study what it means to live life in a way that honors the Lord. Find out what it means to fulfill your God-given role as a man or woman. Find out what God says you should look for in a relationship or how He says you should carry out your relationship if you're already in one. Then be committed to that. Commit yourself to sharing that with others and pouring yourself into the next generation of young people who are making tough decisions every day. You will not only be preventing the death of unborn children, but you will be giving life to those who are already walking around outside the womb!

Happy Faces and Homemade Goodness

What a day! This morning I was able to go to Panera for ALMOST TWO HOURS BY MYSELF! I ate a whole grain bagel and read my Bible the entire time. Well, I didn't eat the bagel the entire time, but I did read my Bible the entire time. I popped my earplugs in and was able to focus really well. I finished 1 Kings. I just joined up with a couple other moms for a Thursday morning kid swap, so I was able to take Ladan to a friend's house. Since Gabe was sick, Chet stayed home with him. Normally Chet comes home from his morning class and goes straight to bed, so this was a really big treat for me that I thought wasn't going to be possible because Gabe is sick. Yippee!!!!

When I got home, Ladan asked if he could have a piece of candy from our church Reformation Party. He picked a blue Starburst, and this is what it did to his mouth...

It was great! He thought it was hilarious! His blue mouth made his face happy for quite a few minutes. I'd say that there was enough dye in that one piece of candy to color enough icing for an entire cake.

Once the boys were in bed for their naps, I did a few things around the house. For dinner, I made a chicken pot pie... with a happy face cut out of the top (forget the boring scalloped circle recommended in the recipe)! It only takes about an hour to make this, and it's really good. It's also huge, so it lends itself well to leftovers. And apparently you can assemble it, wrap it well, and freeze it for future baking. I'll post the recipe in another entry just in case you're interested in trying it out.

Once I got dinner cleaned up, I started making some pumpkin bread out of that friendly pumpkin we brought home from the pumpkin patch a couple weeks ago. Although it took a while from start to finish, it was very easy and included long chunks of time to do other things. If you'd like to see the recipe, click here. I turned our pumpkin into one loaf of pumpkin bread and three cups of pumpkin puree that are in the freezer waiting to be turned into three loaves of bread sometime in the future!

As if all that wasn't enough homemade goodness for the day, I decided to attempt to make the ear infection drops suggested in a FABULOUS book I reference all the time--Smart Medicine for a Healthier Child: A Practical A-to-Z Reference to Natural and Conventional Treatments for Infants & Children. (I just realized that there is actually an adult version of this book when I went to copy the link. I'm going to add it to my Amazon wish list immediately! I've been using the kid version even for myself, and it's been great, but this will most certainly be even better for we old folks.)

Anyway, back to the ear infection and drops. I can't be sure if Gabe has an ear infection. I haven't taken him to the doctor, because even if I take him, all they'll do is give him an antibiotic. All I know is that he sure has been crabby for almost a week, has hardly eaten, and today he started pulling on his ears. He's got a pretty wet cough, so I wouldn't be surprised at all by an ear infection.

I know there are varying opinions on antibiotics for this type of thing, but in short, I don't like them much and will avoid them if at all possible. I talked to a nurse who works at Children's Hospital in St. Louis once, and she told me that they don't even administer antibiotics there unless there is danger of death. She was shocked when I told her that so many of our friends' kids are continually put on antibiotics for ear infections. Sure, ear infections are painful and irritating, but there has to be a better way in most of these cases to help kids get through it that doesn't diminish their resistance to future infection. Well, I think I found at least one helpful solution today!

In Smart Medicine, they suggest making some simple ear drops. You put about 2 Tbsp. of olive oil in a small pot on the stove. Then peel a fresh garlic clove and cut it into about three or four pieces (the book doesn't say you have to cut it, but I did so the garlic would get out into the oil faster). I heated the oil and garlic on medium for about 5 minutes, removed it from the heat, and let it cool until it was still a bit warmer than body temperature but not too hot. You then suck up a bit of the oil in a medicine dropper, lay your kid on his/her side, and drop one or two drops into their ear canal.

We did this in both of Gabe's ears, and while he absolutely hated the process of being held down, after about 10 or 15 minutes, he was up and running around like himself and had a great time until he went to bed an hour and a half later! Apparently, garlic has antibacterial properties and works to heal ear (and other) infections. And the warm oil mixed with the garlic helps to relieve pressure and pain. It was awesome! We'll definitely be doing this once or twice a day until this thing is gone completely.

So I sent him to bed with a bit of Olbas Oil on his shirt, the humidifier on normal setting, and a HAPPY FACE on the front of his head for the first time in almost a week! Praise the Lord!

Chet even had a happy face before he left for work. He was able to write half a paper in the chunk of time after dinner until he left. Great work! He's still got a TON to do between now and next Monday, but he's on a roll!

Oh, and I made some hummus from scratch earlier this week, which turned out to be 1/4 of the cost of buying it in the store. I'm on fire! Too bad I don't have a photo of my happy face tonight!