I'm Stuck, I'm Stuck

This morning we let Colin linger quite a while in his crib while we caught just a little more shut-eye. 7 am on a Sunday morning is just WAY too early....when we did go in to get him, a naked little boy was bounding up and down in repeated jumping rhythm chanting, "I'm stuck, I'm stuck."

He was, indeed, stuck in his crib. And he was so bored waiting that he had completely dis-robed, including the diaper, which had been flung across the room. Lately, we've tried every kind of PJ to put him in to prevent an early a.m. removal (footed zipper sleepers, over the head tops and bottoms, etc.) and none seems to be working.

I'm just waiting for the morning where he shouts, "I'm naked, I'm naked."

Art Imitating Life

Back before Matt and I had kids we took a trip down to Portland to explore around and to savor some of the Oregon wine country. It was around Memorial Day weekend when many wineries that are rarely open were hosting special tasting events.

At one of the wineries there was a display from local artists, and one in particular caught our attention and we took a signed print home with us. We decided it would be perfect someday for a kid's room.

We didn't design our nursery around this print and have struggled to find a good home for it until Colin gets older and has a "big boy" bedroom (he's still in his crib in the beach-themed room with the palm tree.)

About a week ago we had a heavy rain which came through the open window in our guest bedroom, and we had to rescue the print, which was leaning against the wall near the rain. As I was about to return the print to the guest room yesterday, I noticed that the main animals in the scene are the same animals which Colin loves to play with (plastic animals about a foot tall.) The hippo, tiger, giraffe, lion, and elephant are as much fun for our 2 year old as they apparently were for the artist to paint. Art imitating life, or life imitating art?

The plastic safari animals are Colin's new favorite and are each almost a foot long.

Close-up of the print, purchased pre-kids.

Colin and his animals along with the print. Who knew that animals really would be our child's favorite play item?

A Day of Firsts

All of the baby books have a listing for traditional firsts. First roll, first steps, first word, etc. Honestly I struggled at filling some of those in, particularly in the words department.

Today we had some firsts that I thought would be fun to note --

1) Colin attended his first big screen movie. A local cinema shows movies in the summer for free to kids on certain mornings, so we took advantage of this free offer. Yes, it was a Veggie Tales, and yes, we have seen it at home a dozen or more times. But it was Jonah on the big screen, and Colin sat in my lap for 1 1/2 hours and loved every second. He even narrated for me when the big fish swallows Jonah.

2) After the movie, we joined our friends at McDonald's and I got him his first happy meal and he got to play in the playland with his friends. The hamburger was not a hit (he didn't even want it to touch his apple dippers, so he dumped it on the tray. Not sure I blame him...) The play area was a hit, once he had some help from his older pals (Thanks, Mr. C!)

3) And our last first of the day: Colin was drawn as the grand prize winner for a drawing we entered when he got his haircut over the weekend. He won 8 free haircuts and a whole gift basket of fabulous goodies (including various Redken hair products). So this was his first prize winning entry. He may not be overly excited about it, but the haircut prize is AWESOME! This place has an airplane that he sits in while he plays with a box of trucks while watching a movie. This is the ONLY way to cut a squirmy 2 year old's hair, I am convinced, and is worth every penny.

Dancing in the Sunshine

This past weekend we took advantage of the toasty weather and filled Colin's kiddie pool in the back yard. Colin enjoyed prancing around the yard with his shark in hand (see above.) As the afternoon wore on, he stripped down to his b-day suit and enjoyed some dashes through the sprinkler. Oh what fun to enjoy a carefree day in the sun!

Book of Possibilities

This past weekend we did our typical at-home date night when Colin went to bed -- we watched a movie from our Net Flix's subscription. In general, we watch movies from years past as though they were the latest and greatest. released in 2006? Sounds new to me!

I was so pleasantly surprised by this movie -- a real "feel-good"movie. This was surprising because the lead character was Queen Latifah. She's definitely come a long way in her roles as an actress. The movie, Last Holiday, is about a shy, quiet woman named Georgia with a secret passion for cooking and for her co-worker, Sean. After hitting her head and suffering a concussion, Georgia has a cat-scan that reveals several brain tumors. With less than a month to live, Georgia takes all the money she has and treats herself to the European vacation of a lifetime. She flies first class, stays in the Presidential suite, eats the finest food, and lives life to the fullest (which includes ski boarding lessons, base jumping, etc.)

The actress spent her whole life putting ideas into a book called, "Possibilities," and now that she thinks she is about to die, she decides to actually do things from her book. This really made me think about lifetime priorities and goals -- what things do I want to do some day that are in my mental book of possibilities, and what am I doing to make those things happen someday?

Do you have a book of possibilities?

Buttermilk Lotion Uhhhh Ohhh!

The Culprit

The Offender and the Crime

Mommy wasn't watching closely enough and I got buttermilk lotion all over my body! I wanted to super velvety and soft tonight, so I just helped myself.

Love, Colin

Big Bob and Larry are Oh So Scary!!

Conversation last night before we went to bed:

Me: So should we drive all the way out there to see Bob and Larry?

Matt: It's a 50/50 chance he'll love it or scream and hate it. Not sure. He was scared of Santa Claus, but you never know.

So, this morning, with a 50/50 chance of my son just loving to meet Bob and Larry live and in person, we headed out 25 miles away to Remlinger Farms (a small amusement park with a train, pony rides, restaurant, petting zoo, U-pick veggies, a market, etc.) in the middle of no where where Bob and Larry were greeting pint sized visitors.

The minute Bob and Larry came walking down the path was the moment of truth for us. Would Colin smile from ear to ear and want to see them up close?

Unfortunately, not so much! I held him and stood by Larry for a quick photo while he screamed with sheer terror, as if something horrible had happened to Larry to take Larry from his regular TV-sized self and now he was suddenly a whopping 7 feet tall!

My idea was a bust, so we're definitely not going to the live showing of Veggie Tales in September. If it's any consolation, I enjoyed seeing our veggie friends!

Recap of Last Week

Spray Park

Checking out the Butterflies

kicking a goal

High five from coach Dan!

Last week we enjoyed several days of fantastic weather, so we headed out to do lots of fun activities.

One day we hit the local spray park. It's new this summer, so it quickly got really busy! Colin especially enjoys the fountains that sputter up for the sidewalk at sporatic times -- he likes the thrill of trying to figure out which hole the water will come out of next.

The following day we met up with friends at a lake beach park. The weather was ideal for taking a soak in the lake, and Colin enjoyed playing with Jensen's shovel and putting sand in another little girl's sand pit (she would empty, and he would try to fill -- such a little boy!) He also liked taking a huge sand castle bucket and filling it with water and dumping it down his front side -- that's one way to cool off really quickly!

Then on Thursday we went to BubbleFest at Pacific Science Center. We drove over to Seattle with friends and met up with other mommies from our church. In total we had 6 moms, 10 little boys, and 2 baby girls. We were all day dreaming about someday sending the boys all out on a father-son camping trip in future years while all of the moms and the few daughters hit the spa for the day. Someday, right?

But for now, we had lots of fun at BubbleFest, as we watched a performance from Bubble Man. He made all kinds of cool bubble creations, including placing a huge bubble around a little boy. After watching bubbles and grabbing a bite to eat, we all hit the butterfly exhibit. Colin enjoyed watching them flutter around and was curious to watch them all eating the fruit (see picture.)

On Friday, Dad joined us for soccer practice, and we were happy to see the return of Coach Dan. He is a super energetic coach, and all the kids just love him!

The Gospel and the Olympics

I was interested in a recent article I read about President Bush attending the Olympic Games, and I was pleased to hear it mention that as part of his visit he will be going to church on Sunday morning. Doesn't that just make you smile? A US president worshiping the Lord our God on Chinese soil.

You might not have given this much thought, but these Olympic games have restricted foreign missionaries and are causing them to be more "creative" about sharing the message of God's love in and around the Olympic village, etc. You might find this article from Christianity Today interesting: The Gospel at the Games.

Lots of Berry Goodness

Every other week our home fellowship group meets together for Bible study. These groups consist of around 4-6 couples from our church who live in the same area who meet together to do Bible study and fellowship.

Last night, we met together for a BYOM (bring your own meat) BBQ and then we began a new study -- Song of Songs. We all agreed we had never studied this or even much heard a sermon around this book of the OT, so we are diving into all of the steamy details of the Beloved and her Lover. Eleven percent of this book uses words that are found in no other place in the Bible -- it should be an interesting study!

And on the "food" front, I decided to do some grocery shopping for dessert down the hill at my local neighborhood blackberry thorn patch. I gathered enough berries over a 2 day period to make a yummy lemon-blackberry crisp. I though I'd share the recipe, as it was super easy and yummy! I doubled this recipe to fill a complete 9 x 11 pan.

Lemon Blackberry Crisp
compliments of Southern Living from 1998

4 cups fresh blackberries
1/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
3 tablespoons cornstarch
25 vanilla wafers, crushed
1/2 uncooked regular oats
1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 cup butter, melted
Ice cream or sweetened whipped cream (optional)

- PLACE blackberries in a lightly greased 11 x 7 baking dish. Sprinkle in 1/4 cup sugar. Stir together cornstarch and lemon juice; stir into berries.
- COMBINE vanilla wafer crumbs and next 4 ingredients. Stir in butter until crumbly. Sprinkle over berries.
- BAKE at 400 degrees for 30 minutes or until lightly browned. service with ice cream or sweetened whip cream, if desired.
- YIELD: 6-8 servings

Christmas of 1974

Notice the size of the microwave in relation to the box of Special K. Uhmh; they didn't have Special K back in 1974, hint, hint.

Oh, and check out these dials! There are two power buttons on the left (high and low), a timer with a knob control on the middle-right, and an on/off button on the far right

I thought I'd take us all for a stroll down memory lane. I had to do a little research to get the "back story" for this delightful little stroll, so I hope you will enjoy!

From my dad:

"I bought this microwave at Sears in the Irving Mall on December 24, 1974 for about $500. I had waited until Christmas eve to shop, and knew I wanted a microwave for your mother and I knew that Sears and Roebuck carried them, so I went there first, bought the microwave, told them to gift wrap it and get it ready and that I would be back for it.

I returned shortly to Sears, and following their instructions, backed up to the loading dock and let them load the microwave in the trunk of the car.

When I got it home I heated up a weenie and some other things just to watch that baby cook. What an amazing new invention! Microwaves were something you saw at fairs and trade shows, and not many had them in their homes. $500 was about the equivalent of $2750 or more now. To put it into perspective, a brand new loaded Lincoln Mark IV with a moon roof sold for $9800 and it was the most expensive American car on the market. Lincoln's top models now sell for well over $50,000."

Thanks for the back story, Dad!

And now here is one of my own from back in 1985, as I recall from a 6th grade English paper I wrote for Mrs. Gray's class -- a true story!

I can't recall the occasion for baking sugar cookies, but I clearly remember slicing Pillsbury cookie dough and baking up dozens of cookies. They had all cooled and I had just decorated them with icing. It was a not-so-nice mixture of blue and red food coloring in an attempt to make my favorite lavender color. (Thank goodness for Wilton cake decorating color these days!)

As the cookies sat on the counter to harden a bit before being placed into a container, I came back into the kitchen and noticed someone hard at work taking one of my cookies. No, not my older brother, as he was off at college. And not my parents or the cat, who must have been fast asleep in the other room or else would have been going nuts.

It was a little brownish grey furry mouse, working oh so hard to tug a larger-than-himself cookie away from the others. Fascinated, and indeed not worried at the time about my other cookies, I called Mom in to watch as if we were spectators in a huge weight lifting competition. The mouse struggled and strained and finally got the cookie half-way where he wanted it: up under the microwave! Once one half was up on the ledge under the microwave, he then shimmied down to the counter and pushed with all of his mighty mouse power and pushed the other half of the cookie up into his staging area.

I can't recall what we then did with the remainder of the cookies, but I do recall we quickly got out a mouse trap (these things you have handy when you have an old house built in the 30's). No more mouse making a cookie nest under the microwave!

Now to July of 2008: When I was back home in Texas with Colin last month, that same microwave reheated several of our meals. Once a cutting-edge marvel of the kitchen, and later the housing for a mouse and his cookie, this old and faithful microwave still does her job. And she does it quite well.

Some appliances come and go, but the Sears & Roebuck microwave from the Christmas of 1974 still keeps going. And Dad, I think that $500 dollars spent back in 1974 was money well spent!

Musings on Service

The first weekend of every month our church celebrates communion, which we do in remembrance of Jesus and the sacrifice he gave for us. This is a special time of worship for Christians to come before the Lord and to give thanks for all he has done for us.

This past weekend I had a special opportunity to be a part of preparing communion for our church. I serve at our church with a group of women who provide various services for our church (meals during time of need, etc.). This was my first time to help prepare the juice ("wine") as part of that service (placing and filling hundreds of cups.) What a humbling experience to know that each person who would then take this cup during the worship service was a fellow believer -- some new to the faith, and others who have walked a great many miles with the Lord.

During the service as I watched the trays of juice being passed down the aisles, I felt such a powerful warmth as I watched others take their little cup. I had never thought before about those who prepared such things as these trays.

And then my thoughts turned to others who serve in so many capacities in the church -- those who turn on the lights first thing in the morning or who place umbrellas around the parking lot on rainy days. And then I consider the yummy scones after service and the nice family that greeted me at the door. And don't forget the wonderful teachers who care for Colin each week in the nursery while he does things like hang on the coat rack at snack time. I could go on and on about the choir, the preacher, the sound booth coordinator, the parking lot director, etc., but needless to say, we all have a role in serving.

I continue to seek where I should be serving and what I should be doing with the gifts I have been given. I once coached a little girls basketball team through a special program at our church back in Houston -- after each game they earned a star which was symbolic of some trait we would aspire to (each was tied to a memory verse we would recite together) -- not things like, "top scorer" or "most aggressive." I had a team of 4th and 5th graders who had never EVER played basketball or had never even seen a game played. But my role, as much as it was to teach them about throwing the ball in bounds, was to show them the love of Christ. I also had to show the love of Christ to some parents who were none to easy on the referees, as well. (This is grade school ball, not the Final Four, people!)

I have yet to find a similar program in the area where we live now, and even if I did my responsibilities as a parent of a toddler would make it difficult to serve in the same way. So looking for ways to serve is not just a one shot thing -- it's a continual process and continues to evolve as we enter different stages of life.

Thoughts from others?

Sunny Skies and the Blue Angels

Colin waits for the Blue Angels (Lake Washington and Seattle skyline in the background.)

Cool Elmo sunglasses

The Blue Angels come screaming overhead!

This Sunday we had fantastic weather for going out to watch the Blue Angels. We went over to a beach park and joined many others as we watched the Blue Angels perform across and around Lake Washington.

We didn't have a close view, as the planes come super low a few miles south where the hundreds of boats fill the water between Mercer Island and Seattle, but we could see all of their awesome stunts and hear the roar of the planes as they screamed across the sky. It's indeed very exciting to watch them perform!

There is a funny story behind the sunglasses Colin is wearing in the photo. You see we can never get him to wear his shades. Except for today! He put them on as we drove to church (it was still grey and gloomy outside) and he wore his shades for over an hour in Sunday school. His teacher joked that he might have worn them up until the sunshine actually started coming out! And then he wore them again for the Blue Angels. So now the Elmo shades are cool to wear. Who knew?!

Mischief @ 2

This past weekend we had friends over for dinner -- and they have a 2 year old who is Colin's little buddy. They were together for 12 weeks while his mom and I co-led a PEPS group, so they have had many hours of getting into mischief together.

We were laughing the other night because they were "at it again" -- Colin caught some grasshoppers in his bug container. And the picture says it all -- they are in cahoots together filling the container with sand. Because, you know, every grasshopper loves sand, right?!