"No sun..."

So, one of the funniest moments for Jenny and me at the movie today was near the beginning of the film. James Earl Jones says something about how we are at a point on the earth where there has been no sun for a month, now...and from Caleb we hear, "No sun?....Oh. ma-an." He sounded like Swiper the Fox. We both laughed out loud.
~AG

Earth

Ahhhhhh ... a momentous occasion! Our children sat through their very first movie in a theatre! Well ... they sat ... and stood ... and changed seats ... and climbed in and out of laps ... and wiggled ... and flew space ships through the air ... and chased the popcorn bin down the aisle ... but we stayed through the entire movie!!! Hurrah! I saw the ad for the Disney movie Earth, was interested, and so we decided to use some AMC gift cards and try the "theatre experience." The kids actually did very well until the last 30 minutes or so. I brought Caleb's itty-bitty blankie, and Ellie's buppy and binkie in my purse ... just in case. But my wonderfully genius idea backfired. Ellie started getting restless, so I gave her buppy and binkie, which she grabbed ... and then she started whining for blankie. Ok, blankie is relegated to her room because it is big and we don't want a little Linus-child. And she knows this. But she whines and whines and whines and whines for blankie until I had to take her out and have a talk with her. That did it. Except for the squiggles. But nothing will cure 2-year old squiggles.

All in all, the movie was great! Breathtaking footage! I'm glad we went - even though Aaron and I are exhausted! {:-)

~JG

Chickies ... and ... guess what?!?!

Every year, CLAEL (Caleb and Ellie's preschool) acquires chicken eggs from a nearby farm. So last week, these eggs sat in an incubator in Ms. Joanna's office. Each egg was "adopted" and named by each class (Caleb's class got egg D and thus named it "Diamond." Ellie's class got egg B and named it ... well ... it was unnamed for quite awhile until it was finally christened "Butterball" - which was instigated by the teacher rather than the students, I do believe.) The classes came to see the eggs every day. This week, the eggs hatched! So on Monday morning, I got to watch a chickie break out of its shell while others continued pecking away at their little hole - really neat! Each day this week, each class gets to come and see "their" chickie (uh, yeah Caleb ... that's Diamond ... sure ...). The kids just love it! Caleb has been talking about Diamond the past few weeks and he was just precious as he held the chickie today. He just sat there, holding out his hands, so carefully and still, softly sing-song-ing "Hewwo Diamond. Hi chickie ... cute chickie ..." It's really cute to hear him so excited about it. And Ellie ... well ... she's just excited about what anybody else is excited about.

So tonight at church, everyone had gone home and Aaron had to finish up something. So Joanna, her son Craig, Caleb, Ellie and I got a few of the chickies out to hold. We let 2 of them run around on the bright rug with a lovely picture of Jesus teaching children, keeping careful watch so Caleb and Ellie didn't trample them in their excitement (Ellie does NOT understand the concept of "personal space" for any poor creature. That is why our cats do not materialize until night time.). So ... in the course of the few minutes of freedom, of course the inevitable happens! Yes, the chickie poops on the rug. And the kiddos are delighted. "Ewwwww!!!! Icky poop!" And I easily clean it up with a wet wipe (one benefit of small creatures - small poop!). And a few minutes later, the other chickie poops on the rug, right on Jesus' face! So it looked like Jesus had a nose. Is that sacriligious? Well, I think we'll absolve the chickie of any terrible sin as I think it was definitely before the "age of accountability". Anyways, I quickly cleaned up that poop too! And eventually Aaron finished, we put the chickies back in their home (neatly avoiding Ellie trying to pick one up by it's scrawny little neck), washed our hands and finally left (at 9:25pm - whew!).

In the car on the way home, Caleb pipes up, "How do they poop and pee? Where is their penis and bottom?" And we smothered our smiles and answered very matter-of-factly, "It's under their feathers." And that satisfied him.

So ... once again ... our blog centers around the wonderful topic of poop. Go figure! :-)

~JG

"Look what I can do!"

Well...Caleb is finally at the prime stage of development where the "Look what I can do!" comes to the fore. If you've ever seen the Mad TV character, Stuart, then you know exactly what I'm talking about.

I walked into Caleb's room one night to put him to bed and he started to show me this jump:




Then tonight Caleb decided to show me some more moves...and Ellie had to try them out, too. So here they are:




God bless!
~AG

Ellie...toys...and..........poop.

It has been a beautiful day here in Bensalem! The sun was shining all day, it was well into the high 80s, and even broke 90! Tomorrow is supposed to be hotter (er... more hot). Jenny is trying to find a little pool for our backyard (even though it's gonna dip back into the 60s after tomorrow...).

Jen took Ellie to the doctor today. She had a high temp, an ear infection, and bronchitis. She's been having coughing fits on and off for the past couple weeks, but they've gotten worse in the last couple days so we thought we'd take her in. Jen picked up some antibiotics at Target and that should help both problems.

As I was putting Ellie to bed she had a couple funny things to say. First, I was talking with her about how she shouldn't put her toothbrush into the emergency drain in the sink (you know, the extra little hole near the top rim of your sinks)...it's dirty, and it's not good to get your toothbrush dirty. Jenny had a talk with her about this same thing last night - but for Ellie, being told once isn't enough...being told twice isn't enough...20 times?? So as I was explaining to her why we shouldn't do it, she piped in with, "It's not a toy." I think she gets it more than we give her credit for.

The second cute thing she said was at the end of the book we were looking at. It is a book with lots of little pictures in it, and the last page has a toy box with toys in it and a train on the front. In the box is a bear, and she had to kiss the bear. And then the bear had to kiss her. And then she was talking to the bear (which was my part). And the bear asked her what kinds of toys she liked. And she said she likes poop. Little poop. And little poop is soooo stinky.

Why do my posts always revolve around poop?
~AG

Saturday Night Snuggles

Ok, so due to the fact that Caleb got a nap this afternoon (although desperately needed), he was NOT ready to go to bed at bedtime! So he sang songs from Polar Express to himself (he actually sang "Christmas Comes to Town" while "Rockin' on top of the World" was playing on his CD player). Then I laid down with him in his bed for a little bit and we talked about our day and about our upcoming vacation (he asked me to repeat the itinerary a few times), and then, inevitably, came our "I love you" contest. I said "I love you" and he said "I love you watts and watts" and I said "I love you even more" and he said "I love you watts and watts and watts and watts and watts and watts and watts and watts and watts and watts and watts and watts and watts and WATTS!" and he patted my cheek. And I said "I love you up to the moon and back" (who's read that book a million times?) and he said "I love you all the way up to God." Well, how can I top that except "I love you up to God and back again" so he said "I love you around in a big circle!" I figured I'd stop there because that's like infinity, and infinity is the end of the game. So I just said "I think we love each other a lot" and he said "But God loves us even more!" And I smiled. And he wrapped his blanket around his hand and held it in place with his hooked finger.

Then I went to check on Ellie. She was actually awake ... a little unusual for her. So I crawled into her little toddler bed with her. Whereas Caleb likes to hold hands and pat cheeks and such, Ellie didn't want to be touched at all. So we laid there, listening to GT and the Halo Express. And she named all the parts of her face. And then named all the parts of my face. And then she wanted to kiss all the parts of my face. My cheek, other cheek, nose, forehead, eye, other eye, chin, hair ... repeat (I did draw the line at kissing my teeth, though). I think I got about 50 kisses. And after each kiss, she'd look at me with the cutest little delighted smile. It was so sweet.

Today was good. It was really fun and relaxing. There were so many neat things that made me smile and laugh. But the best part, I think, was those "late night" moments with Caleb and Ellie. Thank God they weren't too "late night" ... 'cuz I don't think I would've enjoyed them nearly as much! And thank God that I don't sleep on a toddler bed! That thing is small!
~JG

A Fun Day (for Tortoise Poop)

We had an AWESOME fun day today!

First we had to go over to the church for a Missions Flag rehearsal (tomorrow we are having a combined Missions emphasis service with all the elementary-aged kids sitting with their families in the main sanctuary...and some of the kids are going to be carrying in flags). I was going to leave early to get a few things set-up...and just as I was sitting down to eat my Frosted Flakes Caleb had a bloody nose. So I held some tissues on his nose for awhile, then left without eating my cereal. No big deal, though, cuz I picked up some Munchkins from DD on my way in to the church.

We had a great rehearsal, then we went to a big Children's Expo put on by one of the local State Senators, Tommy Tomlinson. It was held at Council Rock South High School ($$$). There were fire and rescue trucks, a police K-9 show, magician, Franklin Institute Science Show, huge inflatable slide and bouncy house, free food and drinks...and the petting zoo!

PETTING ZOO
Ahhh, yes. You knew I would get to that title comment sooner or later. The petting zoo was cool - a couple lambs, some baby goats, bunnies, little chickens, a pig, a burro, a llama, some grown goats, and a tortoise. I'll put some pictures down below. We fed the animals, petted the animals, 'talked to the animals', watched the llama step on the tortoise, then watched the tortoise poop.

Yep. I haven't seen too many tortoises do too many things...but I saw this one do-do a lot. He must've been stepped on by the llama too many times. Of course, I know that all animals have to poop - I've just never seen tortoise poop...and I thought it was really cool. I'm probably just really weird. Well, here's a picture:

Yeah, that's not his tail. In fact, I didn't see his tail at all. Right click the photo and open it in a new window or tab if you are as weird as me.

OK. Actually the coolest thing was sitting in the State Trooper Helicopter with Caleb and Ellie. It's just like sitting in a car...but it's a helicopter. We got to walk all around it, touch it, step up on it, look in the cockpit, spin the rotors............not that last one. It was cool.

Caleb liked the big slide, Ellie liked the animals. Here are some more pics! Catch ya later! AG

Broadway at CLC

OK. When I first saw the poster that this was coming to CLC, I was interested, but a little skeptical. Then I had to change the date of one of our kids' events because someone had scheduled this concert at our church on the same night. I was a little frustrated (but it did give me a couple more weeks to plan the event...that's good).

I just went to their website. And I'm amazed. And I'm looking forward to it. Check out this song called The Testimony:



You can hear more of their music here.

Amazing Grace is a new musical that is trying to get to Broadway, so they are doing some concerts to help it get feet. They have some pretty amazing talent involved.

You are all invited to come out to the concert! Feel free to book a night at our place if you need to.

Going Shopping

Today I had an interesting shopping experience! Oh, that every shopping experience were like this one! I approached the check out, showed my few items to the cashier and was surprised that my total was only a dollar and some change (unexpected sales, how I love thee!). So I handed over my dollar and change, and then the cashier gave me a twenty in change back! I hesitated, pondering what I should do. Should I take it and run? Should I let him know it was too much change? Would he even care? I must confess, I stuffed the twenty with my other bills and said "thank you" very sweetly. I figured Caleb was a little too young to figure out the "math" part of playing cashier. So then Caleb turned around the little plastic cashier station because it was MY turn to be the cashier, and HE got the "money". Our money looked pretty cool - we made it out card stock and colored pencils. We had blue nickels, purple dimes, red quarters, and the bills didn't match each other at all in color which was fine. I think the $5 bill had polka dots ... I figured I wouldn't explain to Caleb, quite yet, that counterfeiting money is a federal offense. Just the thought of having to explain the words "counterfeiting", "federal" and "offense" just makes me sigh. Anyways, I rang up Caleb's purchase of a Lightning McQueen race car, 2 plastic forks and 2 plastic knives with cheer and charged him $20. He paid me cheerfully and I gave him a blue nickel in change. And then it was his turn to be the cashier. And we repeated this about 20 times. Come to think of it, I'll probably never need any plastic utensils ever again.

Jen

Making Room to K'Nex with God

I was just playing with Caleb. We were playing with some of his K'Nex. Yesterday I created two 'things' with wheels, and he immediately turned them into lawn mowers and star ted 'mowing' the grass fringe of the throw blanket Aunt Laura made for him when he was born.

Well, one of the wheels fell off of one of the mowers - I was sitting there 'resting my eyes' when it happened – and Caleb immediately said in a somewhat whiney voice, “One of the wheels fell off!” I know it was a statement, but I know it was a request for help at the same time. I opened my eyes to see what happened...so I could help him...he's my son. And before I could lean over and lend a hand, Caleb had grabbed the wheel and put it back on. I don't think it is on all the way...so he'll probably be asking for help again soon.

I couldn't help but let my mind wander to how God views us sometimes. We ask God for help, but then we immediately take things into our own hands and try to do it ourselves.

The problem, a lot of times, isn't that we don't ask God for help...but that we don't give God room to do what He wants to do. This may mean we have to wait a bit longer. It may mean that we get uncomfortable. It will require more FAITH.

In a lot of leadership and self-help type books we see this idea labeled 'margin.' They talk about giving yourself margin. I think we need to give God margin in our lives. We need to make room, plan room, or build room in our lives for God's margin.

It needs to be the practice of every Christ-follower to give God margin. Isn't that what being a Christ-follower is all about? How will we ever see God do amazing things in our lives unless we give Him the room to do them? Check out what David wrote:

Psalm 40:1-2 (NIV)

1 I waited patiently for the LORD;
he turned to me and heard my cry.

2 He lifted me out of the slimy pit,
out of the mud and mire;
he set my feet on a rock
and gave me a firm place to stand.

So, ask God to work in your life. Ask with Faith (see Matthew 8:5-13). Ask with Hope (see Psalm 146, esp. vs. 5). Then give God margin...wait for Him to act...before you do.

Happy Easter!!

I'm going to try to post some videos of our day!

"The Great Egg Hunt"




"Easter Basket Excitement"




Ellie explains why Dora is in a Time-Out:



WOW. It took a long time to upload these. I'm going to bed.

The First Post...

OK. Our first blog post. This is supposed to be groundbreaking and precedent setting. So...

We are going to be sharing stories with y'all (Jen mostly...maybe...she's such a better writer than I am), videos, pictures...a bit of our life.

That's all for now, cuz I want to click through everything and figure out how to set things up. Good night!