June 30, 2009

My niece:  Aunt Christina!  You look pregnant! Me:  I  know!  (it's my cover-up; empire-waist and all...has nothing to do with my Coke-and-brownie-poochie-belly) My niece:  (pause, and with very big eyes)  Are you? Me:  NO!  I am not. (Maybe that cover-up isn't so cute after all.)

June 27, 2009

"Ask-yully, I'll take an Oreo..." -cousin J. (age 3) negotiating a snack mid-morning, with his mom.  She had already no-ed a Twizzler, Fig Newmans, a Z-bar, and a croissant.  Sure she'd go for the Oreo!

June 26, 2009

Bobby (calling on the way to the beach):  Do you guys need anything else from the store? Me:  I don't think so...Wendy, do we need anything else from the store? Wendy (checking around):  Well, someone has been drinking the Cokes. Me (to Bobby):  Uh-oh, someone has been drinking the Cokes; someone named m-e. Bobby (chuckling):  M-you?  (Read-M-u; i.e. "moo") Me:  That's about what it's going to be if I keep it up!

June 25, 2009

Wendy asked Eliana if she wanted to go out to the pool...I wasn't quite ready yet.  She paused, said,"Yes!" and started trotting over to the sliding glass door. She stopped at the door, turned and looked at me for a second, and I thought she was going to change her mind.  She said,"Mom.  Bye!"

June 18, 2009

"Dear God..." "Dea-ah Go-..." "Thank you..." "Dank doo" "...for..." "fow-ah" "...our..." "ow" "...family." "fam-y" "Thank you..." "Dank doo" "...for..." "fow-a" "...all our..." "aw ow..." "...friends." "fends." "Amen." "Ah-men!" Christian prayed at dinner tonight, and Eliana repeated everything he said.  These are the kinds of lessons that I am so happy for him to teach her!

June 17, 2009

I spoke with my mom today and although she didn't leave a comment on the post about my long and dramatic day she did say to me,"When I read that you didn't want to eat in the mall because of all the germs so you went to the car I had to laugh; I thought,'You won't eat in the mall, but you'll eat in your car?!  What is wrong with you?'"  That should tell you a little about the state of my car, as well as the strange form of obsessive compulsive disorder that I have.

June 15, 2009

"I can't eat any more of my Goldfish, but dessert is another matter." -Michaela (Right on, honey.)

June 15, 2009

I was cleaning the school table off; there were a bunch of scraps of paper and someone had picked on the eraser so that there were a million tiny eraser particles evenly spread across part of the table.  Very industrious.  They are very hard to swipe off of the table.  I was getting a little huffy, and said, halfway to myself,"No one knows how to clean up after themselves..." Christian was sitting next to me and calmly replied,"Take a deep breath and count to three."  He followed up with,"Just do it; it will make you feel better, I promise."

June 13, 2009

"Our loving heavenly Father, please help Oliver and Georgina and all the Kenyans to be not poor; and (this one is going to be in my head) please help...[silence for a few seconds]; and God, please help the swine flu to go away; aaand...please let us go to that restaurant that Dad said we could go to.  [Pause]  It is the one where medieval knights fight one another.  But they don't really fight one another, they just use swords and fight.  [Pause]  Or guns or something, but they are not fighting because they are on the same side, so they don't really fight.  Amen!" -Christian's prayer tonight; he then asked me what Cora's last name was.  I told him McClenahan.  He said he prayed a special prayer for her too.  He said he prayed for her every night.  This is the heart of our son.

June 9, 2009

I had forgotten my key today, so we were momentarily locked out of the house.  Christian came up from the car and wondered what we were doing outside the door.  I said,"I haven't got a key." He repeated,"You haven't got a clue?" Well, that too.

June 8, 2009

"Why is it so cluttered in here?  There's so much stuff...out." -friend of Christian's, thinking out loud about our kitchen. I couldn't have put it better myself, dear friend.  I couldn't.

June 7, 2009

Two quotes from our Senior Pastor this morning: "There is a posture to life that ought to trump all of those things [the things that make us sad, tired, mad, discouraged]; it is a posture of worship."  Very thought provoking for me. "He (God) has numbered the hairs on your head, each one; of course, this is considerably easier for someone like Michael than for others..."  (In case you don't know, Michael is my bald-headed husband who was assisting in worship today.)

June 3, 2009

I was driving to the pool today, and the big kids were bickering and quarreling about something ridiculous (their cousin is turning three tomorrow and Christian was saying he's two and Michaela insisted that he was closer to three...neither would give it up).  I rashly said,"Do you all want to go home?  I'll just stick you in your rooms and you can stay there all day!"  They were quiet, and I continued,"Do you want to go home or do you want to have fun?" Not to be left out of the decision making process, Eliana shouted,"FUN!"  With her hands thrown up in the air.

June 1, 2009

Today, we were driving in the car and "Frere Jaques" was playing on a CD.  Michaela was singing it in the French as Christian sang the English version.  Michaela said in a loud whisper to him,"No!  Don't sing that, Eliana will hear you say,'Sleeping,' and we don't want her to do that!  Sing 'Frere Jaques'...she doesn't understand French!"

May 30, 2009

The other day I wrote about humble pie; Michaela must have sensed my need because she served me a hearty slice this afternoon. Christian accidentally broke a pane of glass in one of the front windows (with an umbrella).  Mike took care of cleaning it up; I was actually on the way out of the door with the kids, so no one got in the mess.  I did make one comment.  I said, with an "oh, no!" expression on my face,"Eee!  I don't like having a hole in the house!"  (I am super paranoid about a variety of animals coming into our home and terrorizing me.) Michaela was walking with me through the house and said,"Well, it's better than the houses they live in in Kenya, where it's, you know, open and stuff.  They have mosquitoes there and nets." This is from a girl who, seriously, has 27 mosquito bites on her legs. Will someone hand me a fork, please?