Such is Life

On Thursday night, I watched my son score a game-winning goal at his soccer game. It was his first goal ever, and boy was he ecstatic. And then on Saturday morning, we watched him score another goal.

For the other team.

Although he denies that it was him. He claims he was trying to get the ball away from the goal. And I choose to believe him.

Our Easter was a good one, filled with wonderful worship and lots of sweets. Then we came home and ate fajitas and deviled eggs for Easter dinner. Hi, I live in Texas.

And now some photos for the grandparents and assorted others who may be interested:

Here is Tommy defending the ball from this apparently 11 year old girl:

Going for the goal...
SCORE!!
Such joy. Such blurry, blurry joy.

Afterwards, I let took him out for ice cream and let him choose anything off the menu. Then we all made ourselves sick from eating so much. Fun times.

Life Lessons by Barbie

We've been watching Barbie Thumbelina all week at the house, a birthday gift specifically requested by my 5 year old. I'll sum up the message of the movie for you so you can save some time: Adults are greedy, materialistic, selfish people who are destroying our environment for monetary gain without any thought for the creatures that live in it. Also, they absolutely will not listen to the pleadings of their children to change their ways, so naturally the only recourse that children have is to stand up publicly in an act of outright defiance; only then will the adults realize how very wrong they are, meekly change their ways, and start saving our planet along with the children.

So, you know, just like real life.

I don't know what the deal is with all the Barbie propaganda. I don't necessarily have a problem with the message of environmentalism; I'm a moderately green person. I strongly believe that my children's generation needs to be taught differently than my generation on the issue of the environment, and I am trying my best to do so, with my children and with my Girl Scout troop. I just find it annoying that the same character who promotes "fashion" and "shopping" and "dressing like a street-walker" to young girls would take such an uppity moral tone. That's all.

Obviously I don't have enough of a problem with Barbie to ban her presence in my home. She is welcome as long as she behaves herself. I am grateful to her for knocking those nasty Bratz dolls out of business, so she can stay and play. I do insist that she own respectable clothing; capris and doctor coats and ball gowns and such, although every time I run into her she is laying in the floor completely naked, the little tramp.

But since Barbie has taken it upon herself to give moral instruction to my children, I've been giving a little thought to some lessons she could teach that would be a little more useful in real life.

1. Sometimes you try your best, and you still don't win, and it's completely fair.
(I was at a school assembly recently where awards were given out for the Science Fair: 57 First Place ribbons! Oh, everyone was so great, we just couldn't decide! How wonderful! My friend and I were just giving each other incredulous looks....this is a whole different post, however...)

2. Sometimes those in authority are wrong, and taking a stand about it doesn't change their mind, and you just have to suck it up and deal with the injustice.

3. Sometimes you just don't get what you want.

4. Being a 'diva' or a 'princess' is not going to work to your advantage in the real world. See also: 'Fashion' and 'shopping' cost money, and you have to work for that, Princess.

I would absolutely buy these movies. I need Barbie to help me teach these lessons to my kids. It really is hard to do.



(P.S. I have an Aaron Update from the last post: He was sent home from the hospital today! This is a HUGE answer to prayer, as it could have been much much worse. He continues to be in a lot of pain, and has a long recovery ahead of him.)

The answer: Drives Fast, Loves the Cowboys, Addicted to his iPhone.

The question: What can you tell about my husband from this photo?In his defense, the speed limit in west Texas is 80, although let's just say he's no stranger to that speed.

It's a mystery to me why he takes his hat off when riding in the car, although if I had to guess, I would say that maybe it is because he is so tall it hits the ceiling when he turns his head. I really don't know. Thirteen years of marriage and still so many unknowns.

On a different note:

If you are my Facebook friend or my real-life friend, you've probably heard about my friend Aaron. He is on staff at our church along with Greg, and he has been in Intensive Care since Monday after a fall. He went to the doctor with the flu and received an injection, and when he was checking out, he fainted and the back of his head hit the floor, fracturing his skull, as well as bruising the frontal lobe of his brain. We are all just grieved and frightened for him and for his wife Jenny. Greg has been staying overnight at the hospital the last few nights to give the family some rest, and has been really devastated to see his friend in that condition. There has been some improvement, and the doctors say he should be out of ICU in the next day or two. Prayers for his family as well as for his full recovery would be much appreciated.

Katie's Birthday Party

This weekend was a blast and a blur; we had a great time visiting with our friends and then we hosted about 12 neighborhood kids for a birthday party. One good thing about our neighbors is that our kids are all very close friends. One bad thing is that they are close enough friends to fight like brothers and sisters. Especially at birthday parties when not everyone gets the same number of Easter eggs and I promise them a prize egg that was never found and they question my egg hiding integrity as if I had made the prize egg up. Oh, it's still out there, people. I don't know where, but it's still out there. And it has money in it.

And another thing: when I hide Easter eggs, I don't mess around. You have to work to find those eggs. They don't come for free.

Anyway, we all bounced back. The cake pops were a huge hit. The birthday girl had a great time. All the tears were forgotten as soon as the candy started flowing.
We have several 12 year old girls in our neighborhood who work the birthday party circuit. For five bucks an hour, you can hire them to work your party, doing hair, painting nails, running games, or doing crafts. These are my future babysitters in training. For this party, we just offered hairdo services. I think the french braid pigtails are lovely. Of course, Katie only allowed plain pigtails, no ribbons. It didn't occur to me until after the party that I should have hired the girl to come clean up afterward. I will definitely have to do that next time.
Here are what my cupcake pops turned out like. They were really delicious, and the kids loved them. If I make them again, I will just stick with one color ball with sprinkles on a lollipop stick instead of trying to be so fancy. These took way too long to make.
Here are Katie and Molly, BFF's, opening presents together. The only two pictures that I have of Katie without Molly at this party are the ones where I cropped Molly out (the first two at the top). Those girls are joined at the hip.

Look at this sleeping baby...

Oh dear, someone's noisy camera woke him up. Sorry.

Sugar-coated

My baby girl is turning five on Monday. Five. I've been telling her all week that I love Four so much that I want her to stay Four. Four is so sweet and affectionate and adorable. Each time I say it, Katie giggles and says, "No, I want to have a birfday and be five. I want to grow up! I'll still love you when I'm five!" And I tell her no, we'll have a birthday party, but it will be her Fourth birthday.

She doesn't care much for that suggestion.

Meanwhile, my usual temporary birthday insanity has taken over, and I've attempted to make these for the party. I don't know what possessed me to think this was a good idea, but it's done. I have company coming in the morning, the house is a mess, and the entire kitchen is candy-coated, but the cupcake pops are done. I don't know why I lose my mind every time one of my kids has a birthday. I am not a crafter or a baker. I have no tolerance for things that require attention to detail. But three times a year, I see something cute on the internet and say to myself, "YES. That is exactly what I need to spend my entire day doing, even though it is far beyond my skill level and will frustrate me beyond belief. How fun!"

So for now, I am going to bed and leaving the kitchen candy-coated until morning. Some close friends from Nashville are coming to stay here for the weekend with their precious baby, so we'll be doing lots of visiting and spades playing and birthday partying and enjoying the last few days of Age Four in our home. It looks like it's going to be a good weekend.

Mo Photos

These are the last Big Bend photos that I will post. I hope you are able to live with that. The first one was taken at a place called Burro Mesa, at the bottom of a dry waterfall that has been carved into the mountain, and if you look at Greg's face, you can tell that this is the exact moment that I was asking him if he knew how long it would take for an ambulance to reach us.
The answer: a very long time. Of course the girls got in on the action next. They love to climb the rock wall at REI (even Katie can ring the bell), and they were excited to climb a real-life rock wall. Tommy, like me, kept his feet planted firmly on the ground.
Next we went to a town called Terlingua, to visit their "Ghost Town". The kids were really excited about this until they found out that it was really just a bunch of crumbling adobe buildings, a cemetary, and some touristy shops. We didn't see any actual ghosts.

This is a book that Santa brought for Tommy this year: He LOVES it. Yes, it is a book about poop. He brought it on each hiking trail, and got disproportionately excited each time he came across some 'scat'. Especially coyote scat. He loves coyotes. All week, he kept saying he just wanted to see one. There was a group of them that roamed our campground at night, and we could hear them howling to each other. On the last night, one of them howled right outside our tent, and I really wanted to open the window and look at it, but it was really cold, and my sleeping bag was really warm.

And now a final sunset from Big Bend. I don't know when we'll go back. I don't know if I'll get my husband to agree to camping again any time soon. It was a lovely vacation, though.