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Gratituesday: Well Taken Care Of

January 3, 2011 by Laura 22 Comments

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Did I ever tell you about the time we drove to California for Christmas (about 12 years ago) and came home to a flooded house? Yes, we’d been driving for hours with an 18 month old, finally arriving at home at about one in the morning, and saw a bunch of ice in our driveway that seemed to be coming from inside our house. “That’s weird,” we thought.

Come to find out, a pipe had burst probably two days prior and had created so much pressure that it busted a hole in a wall and began shooting water with great force directly into our kitchen. For two entire days.

It was a terribly disheartening thing to come home to. Our house was very little, so pretty much every room had water damage. The kitchen was completely destroyed.

Insurance took care of us, we worked very hard and slowly but surely we put our house back together again.

We learned a few things during that pipe bursting fiasco. First…turn off your water when you go on a trip. (Don’t ask me why we didn’t know that already.) Second…make arrangements for someone to check in at your house from time to time to make sure all is well and that water isn’t shooting through walls.

Recently we’ve been on an extended trip to California visiting Matt’s family (more about our trip as soon as I gather my wits about me). (Has anyone seen where I put my wits?)

I can’t tell you how comforting it has been to know that our house has been well looked after while we’ve been gone. Our friends Adam and BryAnna (Remember them? They’re married now and one of the sweetest couples ever!) (I still like to try beating Adam in Nertz.) (I usually win.) (Not that it matters.)…

Anyway, our friends Adam and BryAnna have been so wonderful to pick up our mail, check things out in our house, call us with updates. It’s a huge blessing to be looked after since we’ve been so far from home.

I’m very thankful to be so well taken care of (and I’m a whole lot thankful for no busted pipes). :)

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Gratituesday: Picnic in November

November 8, 2010 by Laura 16 Comments

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I can NOT get over the weather we are having this fall. Usually in my area, we have fall weather for around three hours, then it becomes very cold. This fall however, we have had WEEKS of beautiful weather. The boys have been able to play outside, the garden produced longer, our home improvement projects have been possible…

Today, November 8, we were actually able to eat our lunch outside. This NEVER happens in November. We were all sitting outside visiting and enjoying the sunshine…all six of us. It was time to eat and Matt suggested that we bring our lunch outside. In a very short time the men had a table and chairs set up and we were eating our roasted chicken with the works out in our front yard. Only one lady bug joined us, so I’d say it was quite a successful picnic!

I didn’t get a picture because I was hungry. :)

I think that for as long as the weather holds out, we should eat our lunches outside again. What a great way to enjoy God’s fall blessings of beauty and warmth! After that, I suppose we could have picnics on the living room floor around the fireplace?

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Gratituesday: Our Living Room Without Walls

October 11, 2010 by Laura 25 Comments

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Never have I been so excited to see furniture in disarray, thick dust everywhere and junk all over the floor.

Matt’s dad is here for a couple of weeks, helping us tear off our living room walls so that we can insulate them!!! Do you KNOW what this means??? This means that we will not freeze in our own home this winter. This means that we will not fight for space around the fireplace, since that typically is the only warm spot in the house. This means that I won’t feel like telling company to “Come on in…I’d encourage you to keep your coat on and would you also like a blanket?”

As Matt and his dad have torn off the lathe and plaster we were not surprised to see that there was NOTHING on the other side but the siding of our 100 year old house. NO WONDER we’ve been so cold. Woohoo, it’s going to be so nice this winter!!!

Here they are this morning in the very beginning stages.

During the next two weeks or so, we’ll be living in a mess. Matt will be working on the living room in every spare moment he’s home from work and Matt’s dad will certainly be earning his keep. I’ll do my best to feed him well.

Shucks, I guess there is no pressure right now to keep my house clean, huh? I do believe I’ll take the next couple of weeks off from housecleaning. Sort of. There are still the bathrooms and dishes.

This picture is a little dark, but take a look at that progress.
Never before have ugly walls looked so beautiful to me!

I am so thankful that Matt’s dad was kind enough to make a trip here (from California I might add) to help us with this big project. The truth of the matter is…if he hadn’t come…we would not have been able to get this done. What a blessing!

I’ll try to post more pictures of our progress along the way if you’re interested.

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Gratituesday: The Flipcam

September 27, 2010 by Laura 23 Comments

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Justus (our 10 year old) just got himself his very own Flipcam.

He’s been dreaming about it and planning for it for months. The kid LOVES making movies. Lego movies, real life movies, super hero movies…he is a movie producer in the making.

It all started with Justus making small movies using my regular camera (the kind that has a few minutes of video recording on it). He played with it a time or two, then realized that he LOVED creating movies. I let him use it, and he used it often…but inevitably about the time I would have a plate or bowl of something delicious to take a picture of for the website, I wouldn’t be able to find my camera. Or the batteries would be dead. Because the kid loved making movies THAT much.

And then came the day that he dropped my camera. And it broke. Forever.

I’m a blogger; I need a camera, pretty much daily. He felt terrible. He apologized. And he was forgiven. But he still had to give me some money to replace the broken camera. And then Matt and I decided that Mama’s new camera would be Mama’s camera and nobody under the age of MAMA would be allowed to touch it. (Okay, Daddy gets to use it too even though he’s a little younger than Mama.)

Justus understood the new rule, but I think he went through Movie Making Withdrawals. And so, after looking into what he would need, he began to save his money for his very own movie camera. All summer long he mowed lawns (and he mowed and he mowed…). Once soccer season started he began to referee the younger kids’ games. Every bit of money he earned, he saved. Until finally the day came that he could buy his own video camera.

We’re so proud of him. He’s so proud of his camera. And understandably, he’s a little bit protective of it. As hard as he worked to earn it, he’s pretty sure he doesn’t want ANYONE to drop it!! :)

There are movies in the making pretty much constantly around here these days. I’ve even been able to star in a few. (Okay, co-star, who am I kidding?)

So why is this my Gratituesday post today? Because I’m thankful that Justus learned to work hard and save toward a goal. Talk about perseverance! Who knows but that this will be something that Justus can develop into a career someday (although he still really wants to be a chef, so we’ll see!).

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Gratituesday: Two Things…

September 13, 2010 by Laura 25 Comments

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I just have to mention how grateful I am that the The Great Curriculum Swap was such a huge success! I’m so thankful to everyone who so generously gave away the books they no longer needed, and for the time it surely took them to sift through all the emails they received! Way to go everyone – because of you many people are being blessed in their home school endeavors!

And here’s something else I’m so grateful for…

Over the weekend Matt took the boys to a church retreat called Dads-n-Lads. I had the whole house to myself for about 36 hours. (I’m thankful to report that THIS year, I did not have a desperate need for a cottage cheese container or a child’s dress shoe to defend myself – yes, you do have to go read this story about what happened to me last year during Dads-n-Lads).

More importantly, I’m thankful for the time I had in my quiet house to reflect and meditate on the blessings I have as a wife and mom. There’s nothing like sending your family away for the weekend to make you really appreciate them. I did get a lot of work done, and my house stayed clean for the entire 36 hours…but I missed them all so much that I became weepy. By Sunday morning I could not bear to look into the “Lego room” because while it was full of legos…the room was way too empty. (Seriously, they were gone for a day and a half. You’d think I could have handled it better than that.)

Sunday afternoon they returned home filthy, worn out, hungry and happy. They dumped five loads worth of laundry in the bathroom and left a trail of backpacks and sleeping bags on the stairs and hallway. They were waving a wooden arrow they had created together and were all competing for my attention as they told tales of their weekend that had been filled with canoeing, bows and arrows, campfires, friends, paint ball wars, devotionals, and a bunch of other stuff I didn’t hear because they were all talking at the same time.

I smiled and breathed in all the hubbub and chaos. All was right in my world again…

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Gratituesday: My Messy House

September 6, 2010 by Laura 15 Comments

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I know this is going to sound weird…but I’m really thankful tonight for my messy house.

Do I love having junk all over the floor? No. Do I enjoy stepping over cords and shoes and swords and sticks (who brought those sticks into the house, by the way?)? Not really.

But we’ve had a busy weekend, full of soccer games and family time and tomato sauce canning and chicken cooking and all kinds of work that needed to be done.

I’m thankful because we are all healthy enough to work hard and play hard and make messes. I don’t want to ever take our good health or the good health of our kids for granted.

The messes will still be there tomorrow…and we can tackle them all eventually (probably starting with those sticks!). But looking at our busy-ness, which there is evidence of in every room of our house, makes me smile tonight. I’m thankful for my crazy household. I’ll take this over a spotless house any day! I truly am living my dream…

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Gratituesday: The Painless Dentist Visit (and Why I Can Eat Lettuce Again)

August 30, 2010 by Laura 26 Comments

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I had put it off long enough.

Admittedly, I don’t go to the dentist as often as I’m supposed to. I actually had no idea when I had last been in for a cleaning/check-up and I was afraid to make an appointment and have my dentist shake his head at me as he told me how long it had been. Yes, I am 37 and I was afraid of being scolded. Go figure.

But, I had been experiencing an area of pain in one of my back teeth for several months. I realize I was only delaying the inevitable, but I just wasn’t very eager to go into the dentist office.

And so I put it off. In the meantime, I began to avoid a very important food: Lettuce.

There was something about the crunch of lettuce that shot a searing pain from my jaw all the way to…I don’t know…South Dakota? And so, not only did I avoid going to the dentist, I avoided eating lettuce because it is not fun for pain to shoot from your jaw all the way to your northern state border.

I finally decided that I was being unwise, and also a whiny baby…so I made the appointment.

The dentist only gently suggested that I come in more often, then looked and found my painful spot and said, yes…it looks like I have a tiny bit of decay on a back tooth. They had a cancellation the next day. Did I want to come then? Well sure I did. Gulp.

The next day I was ushered back and as I sat down in the special chair, I had this tremendous urge to buckle my seat belt. Am I a weirdo, or what? Apparently sitting in the dental chair made me feel like I had just taken a seat in my mini-van. What, was I afraid I might fall out or something?

They put the cute little bib on me, then the dentist gave me the option: the cavity was so tiny that I may not want to mess with having a shot to deaden the area. Did I want to try receiving the filling without having the area numbed?

As it was a Wednesday and I hadn’t really been looking forward to drooling down the left side of my face during Bible class that evening, I decided to give it a go. But I think I said something like, “If at any point during the drilling I feel like punching you, can I then have a shot?”

Yes, I actually said that…to my dentist. I have got to learn when and where it is appropriate to use my sarcasm.

Thankfully, he understood that I was joking (I think) and said that yes, I could have a shot if the pain was too much to handle.

Then they started to drill. I braced myself for the pain. But it never came. Then they put the composite filling in my mouth and drilled that down and then took off my bib. I was done.

Not only did I never have the urge to punch my dentist, I instead had a very big urge to hug him. Painless dental work, really? And I could still feel both of my lips too? What a deal!

Of course, that night I went home and celebrated with (you guessed it) some lettuce. We’re obviously big partiers at our house.

So yes, today I am SO grateful that I got my dentist appointment over with and that it truly was painless. And I’m thankful that I can eat lettuce without pain. I know that’s silly but I truly am thankful for it. (I suppose I should also be grateful that I didn’t punch the man drilling my tooth. Or maybe he should be grateful for that?)

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Gratituesday: Oh, the Abundance

August 23, 2010 by Laura 26 Comments

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I am writing this Gratituesday post as a reminder to myself to be grateful for Pete’s sake. You know why? Because lately I have been a whiny baby who has been feeling very sorry for herself.

What in the world is wrong with me?

I’ve been whining because I have tomatoes and peppers needing to be picked at a crazy fast pace. I can hardly keep up with making them all into tomato sauce and salsa. They are constantly covering my counter-tops.

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Also, my friend gave me a huge bunch grapes that I need to hurry and do something with. And I have two sacks of apples that I keep tripping over that really should be made into applesauce. And there are more apples to be picked if I could ever get around to going to pick them.

My kitchen is exploding with abundance…and I am whining.

I’m whining because I have too much food. Really Laura? I’m whining because I have so much work to do, really?

It’s time for me to stop whining and be grateful.

Thank you for letting me confess my rotten attitude and for holding me accountable to changing it.

God is good and if I can’t remember that…perhaps I should just take a good look around my kitchen at all the abundance. Because of Him, my family will not go hungry.

Nope, in fact…we’ll be eating like kings.

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Gratituesday: Teamwork

August 16, 2010 by Laura 14 Comments

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Matt and I love the idea of working together as a team. We don’t get to spend nearly as much time together as we would like to, but as much as possible we like to do “teamwork”. Work gets done so much faster when we work as a team.

Now that our boys are getting older, they join in the teamwork. They’ve always been “helpers” but wow is it cool that they are all old enough to really be a part of our “team” as we serve together.

I’ve really been struck by the blessing of our family working together as a team while we’ve all been feeding the soccer team together this week. Our boys don’t always do what they’re asked to do without complaining (trust me), but for some reason this week they are hopping right in…asking what needs to be done…going from one job to the next without complaint.

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I am so proud of them. The work has been so much more fun with all the boys pitching in and being a part of our team!

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Gratituesday: Back to School Shopping

August 9, 2010 by Laura 22 Comments

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If you’ve been hanging around here long, you might already know that the boys and I have a tradition each year a few days before we start school. Each boy gets his very own “school supply list” and off to Walmart we go so that they can pick out new notebooks and folders for the year.

I will admit that I tend to forget each year that while this is an incredibly wonderful experience and I love doing it…there is also a fair amount of chaos involved with four boys, four baskets, four lists and an aisle full of bright and attractive objects. My older guys can be calm and patient while basically picking their supplies without much help. My youngers require more help and also um…they don’t always like to follow their list so much. My youngest doesn’t know how to read the prices on the shelves, which means that I have to quickly redirect him to the 15¢ notebooks instead of the really cool $2.50 notebooks. The paper inside is the same, ya know. ;)

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Oh yeah, and this year I had a fifth boy with me…because if you’re already taking four, you might as well take five. Five boys, five lists, five baskets. Five hundred questions. All at once. (“Is this the kind of folder I need Mom?” “I don’t know…why don’t you get it out of my face so that I can actually see it?”)

And yet, I do it because the boys love it. And mostly, so do I. It is SO much fun to watch them enjoy getting excited for school to start. It is so much fun to watch them walk out of the store with their very own bags of supplies.

And…it is so much fun to only pay 20¢ for glue sticks.

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The best part is watching them come home and pour the contents of their bags out to look at all over again. Then they put it all away to have it ready for the first day of school. (Or, they leave it sprawled out all over the floor so that it can get ruined already before it even has a chance to be written in yet.)

There really is something magical about new school supplies and new books that brings an excitement to the beginning of a new school year. So far we’ve had three days of school and every one of them has been just wonderful. Perfect? No. But wonderful nonetheless.

Today, I’m grateful for the chance to be my boys’ teacher and thankful that we share traditions that will be lifetime memories. I’m even grateful for that crazy joy in the Walmart school supply section. Having a bunch of boys eager to start a new school year…now that’s something to be grateful for!

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