Our most favorite place....

We love the zoo!

I grew up going there, though my mom swears that I did not like it then. I don't believe her. Maybe it was the macaws. She says every time we got near them, I would start screaming.

My fear today is the harpy eagle. That thing is just sick, and of course Burrito and Noodle just love that I don't love it. So we always have to go see him. Today they told me that they would hold my hand so I wouldn't be scared. Thoughtful, but how about, let's just skip that part Mom...we don't really want to see that freakish bird.

But I love everything else about the zoo. Really. Just going to that place makes me happy. We are blessed enough to have zoo passes. Zoo passes are such a great deal. They pay for themselves in like 2 visits. For a poor momma like me, it does my soul good to flash that pass and not have to pay for parking on the way in, like we are VIPs or something!

And I am super happy that my boys seem to love it as much as I do. Since it is 85 degrees here today on February 26, it was perfect weather!

We packed a lunch and headed out. I love meeting other moms there too but there's just something special about those times when it's just me and my boys going at our own pace and seeing the things that we want to see. Noodle is such an animal lover that the zoo is like a little piece of heaven for him. And Burrito loves the freedom of running and climbing and being outside.

Some notable things about today:

The meerkats were so agreeable and would come right up to the window and stare at you.

While eating lunch at our customary lunch spot, the bench in front of the lions, the male lion starting growling and making lots of noise. Of course, the boys just loved that!

The snakes were especially active today and the boys had fun pointing them out in their cages.

There were lots of newly planted flowers throughout the zoo and the boys were so sweet to accomodate my need to take lots of pictures.

The train was closed today I think because they were doing a lot of work on the new snake area and the train tracks go right by there. So instead of riding the train, we rode the carousel. I explained to the boys how this was an act of true love on my part, seeing as how I can get sick just watching that thing from afar.

Friendliness

The Lord is teaching me about friendliness.

A few posts back, I mentioned our struggle to meet people at a new church. It has been good for me to think, discuss and pray about this. The Lord is so faithful to teach me new things. I am such a poor student....

These are some of the things I am learning:

1. I have to be a friend to make a friend. This one is tough for me. I am just not a pursuer. It's not so much an issue of shyness. It's more thinking along the lines of "I am not that great. Why would they want to be my friend?" I hesitate to call it an "esteem issue" because I am not sure if I believe in what is traditionally called self esteem. Maybe an insecurity issue is a better description. I make friends easily but there are few relationships that go beyond casual friendliness. Only a handful are the types of friendships where I can be transparent, confessing my weaknesses and admitting I need help and prayer. But I want more of these....so I am praying that the Lord would make me a pursuer of people.

2. Friendliness and/or friendships take time and do not happen overnight...or in 8 weeks....or on any timetable I might happen to have in my head.

3. Maybe the Lord wants to be my friend. Maybe this is a time that He is redeeming for Himself. I need to nurture my relationship with Him and this is the time and opportunity to do so. As a busy mom who wants to do everything perfectly, something has to give and that something is usually my time with the Lord. Uuughhh.

4. I am thankful for my friends that can encourage and rebuke me gently with the Word.

So those are my thoughts today.

Less of me....more of You.

silliness...

there is always a good dose of silliness in our home...two crazy boys makes for a lot of silliness.

shopping at the party store the other night....

i was actually in the other room when i heard burrito call for me to come and take a picture, at his request. i am not sure about their expressions!

Be My Valentine

This is what has kept me from blogging lately.

It is Burrito's class auction project for his school. I somehow (I still don't know how this invariably happens to me!) ended up organizing this among 4 different classes. Burrito's school has an annual auction to raise money for a portion of its operating expenses. Each class this year was given a theme. Ours was dress up so amongst the 4 classes, we collected dress up and pretend play items for a police officer, military member, veterinarian, and chef. I found these trunks and dressed them up a bit and loaded them up with donated goodies. I think they turned out cute and will be turned in this afternoon, hooray!

While it has been a little work to get this organized and make decisions, it has been an opportunity for me to meet some moms at the school that I may not have otherwise had an opportunity to meet and for that, I am very thankful.

Though we have been in our current area for 1 1/2 years now, I still feel like we are "new" and meeting people is not always easy. Back in January we started attending a church closer to home. We long for some community and we want this for our kids too so we decided now was a good time to start looking for a church here on this side of town. We have never lived close to our church, and as a result of that and having 2 small children, commitments to Sunday school and other things outside of the Sunday morning church service were sacrificed. Now that the boys are older we feel we are more able to do more things but living so far away made it hard.

So I thought a new church would be the answer. And it has been in some ways. We've been going to Sunday school and it's good. The boys seem to like things okay. The sermons are great, something that has not been the case at our previous church. This church is smaller so things such as music/worship are still developing but satisfactory. Sounds promising, right? Except for one small thing....you know, the reason we made the switch.....community! We have not had a favorable experience. NO ONE, and I mean no one, talks to us. It's really weird. Both John and I feel like we seek people out more than they do, and we are the visitors! We've been attending for 7 weeks so I feel like we've been fair in giving plenty of opportunity. And we've noticed that the members don't really hang around and talk with each other either. A lot of them shoot out of there as soon as the service is over. This experience has been so different than our experience when we first started attending our other church. And it has been convicting for us as well, thinking of how many times we should have been more proactive in seeking out visitors and introducing ourselves. It has been such a poor experience it may change our minds about switching churches. But John and I both agree that a church closer to home is better....so where do we go???? Praying for the Lord's wisdom....

On a lighter note....

Burrito had his class Valentine party last Friday and Noodle and I attended as well. It was fun and Noodle always amuses me with his assertion that he is a part of the class too! He just makes himself at home.

My future's so bright....

I've gotta wear shades! Mommy's shades!

Funny Words

We had so much fun the other night at the donkey basketball game I totally forgot to include the post-game funnies that happened on the way home.

Being the donkey basketball superstar that John was came at a price....a stinky, sweaty price. He was completely exhausted after all that donkey-wrangling and just slightly hot and sweaty. We were driving home with the windows down and I was giving John a hard time about being stinky. He really wasn't, but I was giving him a hard time, nonetheless.

Well, if you have boys or ever been around boys, there's just something inherently funny about stinkyness. The boys started laughing hysterically and Noodle, who was deliriously tired by this point, started yelling,

"Daddy smells like a stinky donkey!"

Despite the already riotous laughter, it didn't take long to digress to,

"Daddy smells like donkey toots! Daddy smells like donkey toots!"

Well, now everyone is laughing hysterically but perhaps the funniest thing Noodle said, after seeing our reaction to his previous declarations, was,

"I said some funny words!"

Yes you did, Noodle!

Stubborn as a Donkey

And no, I am not speaking of my children.

But rather, my husband.

But it's not what you think.....

It's Donkey Basketball and my hubby was the superstar!

I have never seen anything quite like it. The school, over the course of the week, went donkey crazy! It worked like this....there were 4 teams: the administrators, the upper school teachers, the lower school teachers and the coaches. The biggest rivalry was between the upper school teachers and the coaches. Both groups were bribing students to cheer them on, the coaches even selling t-shirts to the students in their team color.

Doors opened at 6:30p but people were lining up at 6:00 to get in. We were one of those people since John had to be there early for instructions on how not to get hurt riding one of these fine creatures.

His team, the "DonQuixotes," wore orange shirts and we were proud to see a nice representation of orange-wearing fans there.....other than us, of course.

The first 2 teams were the lower school teachers and the administrators. It was an exciting 10 minutes but the administrators won that match.

Next up were the coaches and the upper school teachers. It was a close game too, but the upper school teachers edged out the coaches, 8 - 6. And I am proud to say 6 of 8 of those points were scored by my superstar hubby!

Now I've always known my husband is competitive. And he played basketball in high school so he's got skills. But I was still surprised to see how scrappy he is! He was pulling that donkey up and down the court, stealing the ball, jumping on the donkey while holding onto the ball and shooting one-handed to make the game-winning basket.

I felt like I was seeing a side of my husband that I've never seen before....you know....discovering new things about your spouse even though you've been married 6 years. And I was so proud! And so were the boys! They were yelling and screaming for their dad almost as loud as I was.

So then came half time and the kids were able to ride the donkey down the court. Burrito was a little nervous about it at first until he saw that his dad was walking alongside the donkeys for the safety of the riders. Noodle was thrilled to get that close to a donkey....he's the animal lover!

Then 2 more games to determine places....the results were:

4th place Lower school teachers

3rd place Coaches

2nd place Upper school teachers

1st place Administrators

It was so cute to see how disappointed the boys were to know that dad did not get 1st place but it was a good lesson to see that you can't always win but it's okay and you can still have fun.

And we had fun! Lots of fun!

The Chokes

We are so thankful to the Lord for a healthier winter season so far this year. I don't know if it was because both boys were in preschool last year or if it was just the age/stage we were in, but they were sick every weekend last winter. I am not kidding. And notice I said the weekend. During the week they were fine but come the weekend, when we could actually go out as a family and do something fun, sickness! It was so frustrating.

All that to say, when Noodle had a runny nose this week I was wondering if it was going to progress into something else. I got a little more nervous when he seemed to develop a little cough. It did not end up turning into something but it did produce a quite comical conversation with Noodle.

Driving in the car, I hear Noodle sniff, sniff and then cough.

So I say, "Noodle, are you getting sick? I hear your sniffles and now you're coughing."

And Noodle replies, "Yes, mommy, I fink I need some medicine for my chokes."

Trying to supress my laughter I say, "Noodle it's not your chokes, it's your coughs!"

John and I have been giggling about this the past few days. Our sweet little Noodle, he says the funniest things!