It doesn’t get much better - Gateway Fall Festival

While Keaton (13) had to stay home and finish her homework, the rest of us headed to our church’s Fall Festival.  Hayden (9) was the Green Goblin from Spiderman, Landon (6) was a Ninja, and Miss Peyton was a sweet little bat/witch. 

She was sassy.

 

Hayden and Pastor Jelani.  The kids at church all call him Jelani-pop.  He’s one cool guy and they all love him.

“Okay, where’s my candy?”

Reagan (15) volunteered all night.     

Jason Witten of the Dallas Cowboys was there:)))

Sassy little bat witch got a little grumpy.

More exciting for us though, was seeing our senior pastor, Pastor Robert and his family.  Hayden was unusually tongue-tied.

 

Rea’s fellow volunteers and good friends.

Mom and Peyton had fun on the train.  We love our church.

Pumpkin-carving pals

We have a lot of really great neighbors we enjoy spending time with.  There are days I’ll look up and there will be 11-12 kids in my living room.  These kids love to play together and steal snacks from each family’s kitchens.

The other parents and I got our kids together this week to carve their pumpkins all at once; the kids had built-in help and the parents had an excuse to share a glass of wine.  Needless to say, there were pumpkin guts everywhere. But these bright kids realize there is patience in larger parental numbers.

Seems we do just about everything at Walmart

Including Landon (6) losing his first tooth.  Sister Keaton (13), the family dentist, pulled this tooth with the same patience and finesse she’s used many times before on other siblings.  People in the pharmacy line got into the dental drama as well, congratulating our newest snaggle-tooth family member and giggling at his uncontainable excitement.

Because small reminders can make a big difference

You know those Halloween stores that pop up this time of year and carry the most horrifying products ever?  A trip to one of those has left Hayden (9) struggling greatly with fear; it did a real number on him.  He’s okay at home as long as I talk him through his concerns, but he’s very fearful of being anywhere else after dark.

After several days and multiple discussions reminding him how safe he really is, I finally asked him to help me find several Bible verses about fear that he could write on a note card and put under his pillow.

Meanwhile, Landon (6) was jumping on the bed, running from room to room, asking me 138 times who’s picking him up from school tomorrow, why school has to last seven hours “cuz that’s too long,” and wanting to know exactly how many minutes until Christmas.

So we found a scripture on patience and he wrote it down to put under his pillow.  Only he decided to tape it above his bed instead.

Of course Peyton (3), who was not going to be left out, wanted a verse too.  And she found one.  See?

She wrote it herself and taped it above her little bed.

That night Hayden slept like a baby and since then his evenings have been much calmer.  Meanwhile, Landon is still working mightily on his patience.  I remind myself every few minutes that he’s still a little boy and he’s doing the best he can.

And Peyton, well, she told me later what her note card reads.  It says “God loves me” and “Mommy loves me.” 

Yep, we do.

Retraction

Reagan (15): “Okay, I have to admit, what I just said sounded much better in my head.”

Silly Bandz show down

Landon (6) has some new Silly Bandz and he was determined to stump big sister Keaton (13).

Landon, from the back seat:  “Keaton, look at this one, I’ll bet you can’t tell me what it is.”

Keaton, not particularly interested:  “It’s a bird.”

Slightly thwarted, yet undeterred:  “Okay, but what kind of bird?”

Keaton, even less interested:  “It’s a robin.”

Landon laughs maniacally, convinced with this next clever trick, victory is his:  “Okay, but can you tell me what this is!”

She barely glances, disgust clear in her tone, “An upside down robin.”

“Oh, man!” he sighs, dejected and totally defeated.

That’s a bad word here

I despise the word “bored.”  My kids know not to say it within earshot of me.  I get irked and tend to hop atop my soapbox and spew back at them my father’s words to me when I was a child: “You’re ‘bored?’  Did you say ‘bored?!’  I’m sure I heard you say ‘bored.’   I love it!  Come on, I’ve got PLENTY for you to do.”  And he’d give me a chore list as long as my mama’s arm filled with yucky, dirty, totally mundane tasks.  And he’d check in often as I worked, his disgustingly chipper tone, “Are you bored now?”  I learned early on to keep my head down, look busy and keep my mouth closed.

My kids, not so much.

Keaton (13) had the opportunity to go to Great Wolf Lodge last weekend with our church’s middle school youth group.  Great. Wolf. Lodge., people.  My other children and I have yearned for, longed for, pined for an opportunity to go to Great Wolf Lodge because it’s in our back yard and it’s freakin’ awesome.  And if I saved my salary for the next six months and we didn’t eat, maybe I could pay for half a night for all seven of us.  It is crazy expensive.  But the water park, you should see the water park.  *sigh*

And Keaton, well, I thought it would be amazing for her to get to go.  But I missed the deadline because I couldn’t afford the cost so I put her on the waiting list hoping to find the money if we got called up.  Amazingly, she got picked, God took care of the finances like only He can, and I even got her best girlfriend Lauren to go so Keaton would have the time of her life.

See?  Here are Lauren and Keaton when I dropped her off.  She’s smiling.  That’s huge.

 

But at the end of the weekend after I picked them up, took them to lunch, waited with baited breath to hear all about the amazing weekend they’d had…

Keaton shrugged.  “Eh, it was alright.”

What??  What about the the group services, the water park, the hotel, the food??

“We had six hours to do what we wanted on Saturday so we went to the water park but it wasn’t that great.  We left.  We were bored.”

 

She was bored with all of that.  Poor thing.  I think I have a few yucky, dirty, totally mundane tasks to keep her busy this weekend.  We’ll see if she’s bored then.

The little turd.

Lack of personality? Not really an issue

   

Because, clearly, there can never be too many soccer pictures

 

Yeah, sorry.