Me in Place

Last week Mr MIP brought home a book entitled Too Small to Ignore: Why the Least of These Matters Most by Wess Stafford and Dean Merrill. I canNOT express enough how much I want you to read this book. I also feel I don’t have the words to properly explain his book, but I wish I did! Using the story of his life as a missionary kid in Africa – all the way to his life as President of Compassion, Int’l, I came away respecting Stafford immensely and had insight into his heart and passion to help the children suffering in poverty in this world. Here’s the link to order the book (or I’m totally willing to loan it to you if you live by me):

Or,if you just really can’t bring yourself to read a book, please consider sponsoring a child through Compassion International. The charge is $38 a month to sponsor a child. We have tried to explain to our kids a little about ways they can help and we have them contribute to the sponsorship and help write letters or draw pictures to our sponsored children. I searched until I found a girl born on the same day as our middle child, in the year our oldest was born. And our second sponsored child through World Vision has a birthday quite close to our oldest. (Finding children with similar birthdates makes it even more interesting to our kids.) I’m still searching for a little birthday buddy for SuperBoy!

So, consider sponsoring a child, please?

February includes one more birthday in the family – my mom’s! She deserved a day of doing whatever she wanted to do, too…so she chose going to Starved Rock to view the eagles.

In the winter – January and February – the eagles fly like the eagle down to the Illinois River from way far up north where even the eagles know it’s just too cold and it ain’t right. So they come down here to get some food and sit in trees and pose for people who take tons of pictures of them looking like little polka dots off in the distance.

We didn’t spend much time at Starved Rock because the trail was very icy – but we spent time roaming around and went to the Starved Rock Lock and Dam across the river. Here the kids spent an inordinate amount of time playing in a ship’s bow? cabin? steering the boat and pulling levers to their heart’s content.

I’m considering having one installed in our living room it kept them so happy.

This was my favorite part of the ship, can you see why?:

We even saw a barge go through the lock (here’s the gate closing behind it):

We spent more time roaming, ate at two different good restaurants and arrived home happy birthdayed out.

‘Til next year! See ya, February!

Lots of aspects of parenting are difficult – repetitive – annoying and just plain tiring. But it’s always good to remind yourself that much of it is actually very easy. All they really want is your time, security in the home and lovin’.

For instance: Kids’ birthdays can be very stressful for the mom. But we had an great, easy birthday. SuperBoy just wanted the attention and love. The other details didn’t matter as much to him as I – as the mother – would have thought. Easy!

I found Pirates of the Caribbean party decorations for a majorly good clearance, Mr MIP asked SuperBoy if Pirates were okay for his party…SuperBoy’s response? Sure, that’s fine. She can do whatever she wants for my party.

So, pirates it was. And the girls in attendance were just fine with it.

SuperBoy was INTENSE with excitement while playing memory game with his friend, Mr C. I wish we had video of him playing this game – because INTENSE is an understatement. But playing a game with his idol? A great memory for him!

When I asked him what he wanted for his cake, he didn’t really know. So I took him to Jewel and he loved being able to pick out his own cake…a multi-layered mint green cake! Who woulda guessed? So much easier than the do-it-yourself pirate cake I woulda done if he had asked (sorry about blurriness – seriously, INTENSE joy in that boy!)

Throughout the year, SuperBoy always gets so excited when the UPS driver drops off a package. Then gets all sad when the package isn’t for him. So for his birthday, I ordered four separate little gifts from Amazon.com (I get free shipping from them, so no cost) and had them delivered. We hid them and throughout the day, we put a package on the porch, rang the doorbell and hid. SuperBoy exploded with excitement each time the package arrived. Easy! And I didn’t have to wrap a thing!

And one of the highlights of the day was a possum in our yard. So much cheaper than renting a magician.

Sorry I haven’t posted a lot lately. I’ve been busy. Mergers (“Legos go in this drawer, with the army guys”)…Acquisitions (“Okay, how many groceries have we gotten so far without going over budget?”)…Important Meetings with Clientele (“Which story do you want tonight, guys?”)

It’s the best job I’ve ever had.

The secret is, I’m going to be an awesome old lady. I have a mad, mad crush on Bob Newhart:

And a little hobby fondly known as Cross Stitch. Yes, it’s the one craft I can handle. Because you have a pattern and you follow that pattern and ta-da! A picture is born. That I can handle. Drawing, painting, trying to get two sides of a quilt to match up…not so much. But in my perfectionist little mind, cross stitch makes sense.

However, the perfectionist in me also finds herself at the end of a cross stitch project that has taken me almost eight years.To date, the longest cross stitch project in my life. And you thought I had a short attention span. I started it shortly after my middle child was born. She’s claimed it as her own and is excited for me to finish but for some reason…Perfectionist MIP always stalls toward the end of a project. All of a sudden, it’s just…done. And what if there’s something wrong with it? What if it’s not quite right?

So here’s my project. It’s actually not a picture I would have chosen at this point in my life. But, ah well, it’s homey and Middle Child likes animals, so she’s fine with it. It’s about 16″x20″.

I have all the stitching done, just have to do the finishing outline work. Here’s what I mean:

Outlined:

Not outlined (Lamp and spools of thread):

So close and yet so so so far away.

I’m trying to beat the perfectionist and finish. Will let you know the outcome.

Meanwhile, here’s another popular hobby in the house. This one’s Mr Mip’s:

Here’s an easy craft for a snowy Thursday afternoon. Or a non-snowy, sunny, but bitterly cold Thursday afternoon. Whichever one you have on hand.

Paint a winter scene with watercolors and, while the watercolors are still wet, sprinkle salt over the pictures. They dry looking like a pretty snowfall. And kids are happy because they made a giant mess with salt everywhere and Mom is happy because they did this for approximately 24.3 minutes. 24.3 minutes of cherished happiness and peace, I tell ya.

10 yo’s:

7 yo’s:

SuperBoy’s (5yo): I’m not sure this a winter scene. I think this is more influenced by the StarWars Lego Nintendo game he’s been playing for the last month. Can’t you see Luke? Or R2D2?

Look what showed up in our mail on Monday! The word “Chocolate” on a customs label?

Thanks to our friends in Ireland, we enjoyed some delicious chocolate:

Guess which one was for me? Yep – the Cadbury Creme Egg Twisted – a delicious chocolate bar filled with that ooey gooey orange/white stuff.

And guess which one was for SuperBoy?

Yes, of course… The Yorkie bar! It’s not for girls! (We couldn’t exactly figure out why it wasn’t for girls. It was just pure chocolate. And you can bet he enjoyed keeping it from his sisters.)

One of my favorite things about having little babies is holding them in their snuggy little footed pj sleepers. There is no other thing so wonderfully sweet in the whole entire world. Their little bums in the soft little diapers and cotton sleepers…

I always expected myself to break down in tears over my youngest one – who is now about to turn SIX – growing out of his last pair of footy pj’s.

Thank goodness for cute manly sleep pants.

There were no tears and the transition to Little Man has gone quite happily.

Clean up, Clean Up/Everybody do your part!

There is a genetic quirk in my system to use the week between Christmas and New Year’s to clean up, throw out and….rearrange furniture. The cleaning up and throwing away random receipts from a 2002 McDonald’s trip is probably a fairly common trait…but the moving of furniture? Totally something inherited from my father. It makes my soul take a sigh of relief.

So – today I’m starting to clean up the Christmas junk and thought I’d share a photo of my favorite decoration we have. It’s a set of Nativity nesting dolls painted by my very artistic mother-in-law….aren’t they adorable?

And our new decoration this year was my 10yo’s Lego Advent Calendar (she got it for her birthday in November and patiently waited for December!). Very cool and I highly recommend it:

The little scene included ice skaters, hot cocoa stand, city workers and Santa.

Trip to Chicago – Windows at Macy’s, Tree in the Walnut Room, Walking along Michigan Avenue, Eating lunch at Grand Lux Cafe (beignets for dessert!) and Freezing our cute little behinds off until we collapse into the car for the warm ride home