More splishing and splashing

April 27, 2012 | Stacy

Baths before bedtime are wonderful.

How we wake up in the Big Girl Bed

April 26, 2012 | Stacy

It took way too long to get her a Big Girl Bed. But now she has it. And likes it. And sleeps upside down on it. Or sideways. Or just right. Or on the floor next to it. Isn’t she sweet?

(Don’t worry… she’ll go cold turkey on the “Beah” (a/k/a pacifier) on June 1st.)

Splish. Splash.

April 26, 2012 | Stacy

And thankfully, no one got wet.

A few years ago, God saw fit to move two cool families a few miles from one another. We enjoy a lot of play-around-in-the-yard days with one another… and we REALLY enjoy our outings.

Today was an outing. WE headed out as early as these two particular groups can GET out… 8:30A.M. to go to the Aquarium of Niagara. It was a great time. The trainer even came out to meet us personally and answer a barrage of questions.

We enjoyed a few sea lion shows…

Watched them feed sharks.

Check out a tidal pool.

Poison Dart Frogs?

Watched them feed harbor seals, and had a ton of our questions answered.

Are YOU as tall as an Emperor penguin? Or a shark?

Lunch.

We walked over toward the Niagara Gorge, but construction kept us from seeing much.
So instead we drove over to the American Falls.
Wow.
I am so glad we did.
Did I mention, WOW?

I haven’t been to the American Falls since I was a BABY. I have, for most of my life, regarded the Falls from the Canadian side. I had no idea how close you could get on the U.S. side. Sure, it cost us $10 just to park our car… but that worked out to $1 a person, and we surely got our money’s worth.

I’m thanking God for SUCH a good day. And some fun friends to share it with!!

Here is a link to our trip in 2009!
Stewart has the same coat on… FOUR summers later! ‘09, ‘10, ‘11, ‘12! Get out!

Daddy’s birthday… & a Day at Co-Op.

April 21, 2012 | Stacy

For John, this was not really a WOW kind of birthday. To “celebrate” he didn’t go into work at 5:30 A.M. like he had been doing much of the month. Instead he stayed home so the kids could watch him open gifts at 6:55 A.M. Johanna helped him unwrap them all. Good practice for her upcoming birthday, I guess.

He got a cool new Crown of Thorns tie, two shirts, and two books. One was by Dr. David Jeremiah on the upcoming economic Armageddon, and the other was a Focus on the Family book on Raising Knights. The kids were a little dubious about his spoil. It seemed to be a little lacking. Winking smile

He sped off to work and we celebrated with waffles FOR him. Winking smile It was the least we could do.

We then headed off to our second-to-last-day at co-op. Nigel made, um, something or other, in his science class. It looked pretty cool.

Marie studied Indians in her Little House on the Prairie Class.

Tabitha made a tree in her Art Class. A/K/A “Mommy class.” Then we were home and fixed a not-so-amazing dinner of Zweigle’s, potato salad, and cole slaw for Daddy’s dinner before he took the big four to their first night of HIS Baseball. Hanny and I ran errands. Not so wow… huh?

Daddy’s birthday… & a Day at Co-Op.

April 21, 2012 | Stacy

He sped off to work and we celebrated with waffles FOR him. Winking smile It was the least we could do.

We then headed off to our second-to-last-day at co-op. Nigel made, um, something or other, in his science class. It looked pretty cool.

Marie studied Indians in her Little House on the Prairie Class.

Birthday Beauty

April 17, 2012 | Stacy

Around here birthdays are not one day events. We spread them out and enjoy them in different ways. The actual birthday… the friend party… the family party… not necessarily in any certain order…

For Tab her friend party came first this year.

Testing out the frosting…

A couch full of friends…

Lunch of pancakes, fruit, sausage, and birthday punch…

A fruit rainbow (thank you Mrs. M.)

Musical chairs and Tape-the-Ladybug-on-the-Flower…

An Easter-egg hunt… (um, thanks Mrs. M.)

Running for eggs!

A few lovely gifts! (This is the one she dug into first.)

A pinata in the yard on a GORGEOUS day…

Cupcakes in her favorite colors…

Then came the real birthday…

Blueberry Strata for breakfast… (See outfit #1?)

A moment with Mom (we were just heading out to American Heritage girls. She’s wearing outfit number two and then changed into her uniform making it outfit #3)…

Hugging her new bear after an outing to Build-A-Bear with Nan as her gift…

Home from American Heritage Girls and back into outfit #2…

Flowers from DADDY!

A few gifts from the family… with a little sister learning the ropes. She got a VeggieTales girls’ devotional…

A “Laura Ingalls dress” with bonnet and pinafore…

Which immediately became outfit #4. HOWEVER, I predict we will be in outfit number four until I wrestle it off of her…

Some Texas sheet cake with writing (a new presentation around here…)…

I could look at this photo all day.

I got some shots of Tab and Marie (sister buddies) then started to cry because Johanna wasn’t going to have a buddy like all the other kids. Everyone quickly offered up that Johanna is their sister buddy. There was no shot to be had… this was the best one. Oy.

And now off to bed. Tired… six… happy.

Thank you, God, for my Easter-baby. She’s the biggest challenge, but boy, she is smart, beautiful, and tenacious. I pray she uses it all for God’s glory.

Bugaboo Blessings

April 14, 2012 | Stacy

The tale I want to share this morning really started a month ago. Exactly a month ago!

On Wednesday, March 14th I returned home from a 3:00 P.M. to 7:30 P.M. shift at the hospital. I don’t remember if it was an easy shift or a difficult one. All I was thinking about that drive home was the ultra sound that was scheduled for Thursday morning at 10:00 A.M. The ultrasound was likely to confirm the bad news we’d had the week earlier that our much longed for child was not developing and that a miscarriage was eminent.

After I got through the door and hugged the kids I rifled through the

day’s mail. There was a plain envelope addressed to me with a business address in NYC for the return. Inside this envelope was a gift card for Bugaboo Creek Steak House and a note addressed “The Butler Family” and with the message, “Thinking of You.” The line indicating who it was from was empty.

I was intrigued. But honestly, my heart was not into digging to the bottom of the mystery at that moment. I just wanted to get to bed and pray myself to sleep. As we did our family bedtime prayers the kids tried to guess who it was from. The fact that they had SO many guesses available led Stewart to pronounce how cool it was that there were so many people it COULD have been. “We have a lot of people who love us, huh?”

Over the last month we’ve moved through the physical bits of the miscarriage, as well as a lot of grieving. I admit fully that I have been grieving a lot. And I’ve had a lot of questions for God. They don’t all dwell on me, mind you. These losses have led to other dear friends sharing the depths of their own grief when, for reasons we can’t pinpoint, God has said, “No,” to growing their families.

Yesterday morning I was blue. Very blue. John had the day off and we were preparing the house for a small birthday party for Tabitha. As I stood mixing the pancake batter I sobbed and wondered out loud the meaning of prayer. My friend Dotty stated chemotherapy last Monday. She was diagnosed roughly the same time as Pastor Jeff. All week I’ve been praying for her to be without fear, to be courageous and brave, to be physically able to tolerate the chemo, to be filled with COMFORT. I’ve continued to pray for Pastor Jeff’s family. I’ve prayed for a family torn apart by the evils of molestation. I’ve prayed for a homeschool family whose oldest son is failing from a degenerative, congenital disease. I’ve prayed for a woman my age riddled with metastases from breast cancer first diagnosed 13 years ago. And I cried wondering if any of the prayer matters. Or works. See, I know that people who love ME have been praying for MY comfort and healing. I know because they’ve told me. Yet, I do not feel comforted. What does comfort feel like? What does it look like? Do MY prayers mean anything? I’ve always LOVED praying for people. I am glad to pray. But I don’t’ know if it really helps.

The birthday party (which I will post about later) was a delight. Little girls eating pancakes, hunting eggs, playing Tape the Ladybug on the Flower can’t help but make you smile. My dear friend Jenn listening to some of my hard questions and not trying to find pat answers. Seeing Marie dig into her bag of egg-hunt booty to share with a 5-year old, without being asked. Nigel commenting, “Wasn’t if awesome to see Tabitha so happy, Mom? All those little girls were running and were so excited. Wasn’t that cute?”

But when it was over I was tired. Somehow I had failed to include a dinner for last night on our monthly meal calendar! I looked at last week when we had planned to have tacos but had served left overs instead and I knew I could rustle that meal up…. if I wanted to. Then I considered NEXT weeks’ listings. I’d written in Thursday night’s dinner to be a trip to Bugaboo Creek. Thursday falls between Tabitha and John’s birthday and we figured it could be a birthday night out. Dare I allow my type-A self to borrow next week’s fun for this week? Could we mobilize the sugar-high, birthday-high, outdoor-play-clothes-dressed kids into out-to-eat mode quickly enough? Will they have safe food for Stewart? Yes, yes, YES!

We had never been to Bugaboo Creek before. “Is it a long drive?” “What do they serve?” “Do they have pop, Mom? If they have pop, can I have some pop?” “Is it fun, or boring?”

“About 20 minutes, I’m sure they have lots of things you like. I’m sure they have pop and you can have it. I am sure it is fun.”

My kids LOVE to eat out. LOVE it. Feeding this crowd can be expensive and finding a place that is safe for Stewart can be a challenge. We rarely go out, but boy, when we do I love to watch them. They are so animated and excited.

There was so much to look at as we waited. “Look, a MOOSE!” “Look, that owl just moved!” “Do you see that? What kind of animal is that?” “Do we EAT moose here?” [Don’t mind Stewart, he is in that stage where he tries to take a grave photo.]

As we ate, the kids resumed their guesses as to who may have sent us the gift card. They were enthralled with the talking buffalo head, even if they didn’t get all his jokes. The place reminded us of Disney World. AND the staff was out-of-this-world on top of the food allergy thing. Wow. The waitress was a 10-out-of-10 in attentive and the kitchen manager on duty visited us to confirm we were doing alright and shared he, too, has a number of life-threatening allergies.

The kids all enjoyed their orange pop. They got safe ice cream WITH their meals. The baby only ate one crayon. The bill was completely covered by the gift card and we left our sweet server a generous tip.

Is this what it means to be comforted? Gift-card hugs from people willing and able to bless a family a seven? Friends who help you with a birthday party and listen as you ask hard questions with your voice trembling? Servers who don’t disdain a child-heavy, non-drinking, allergy-concerned party of seven? Forgetting grief (yours and others’) for a while as your children giggle, color, slurp, and gawk, all while getting a chance to practice their restaurant manners?

I don’t know. I don’t know at all.

I guess I will keep praying. I believe it matters. I know God HEARS the prayers. I know He does things His way for a reason. I know He allows us free will and I know the sin on our earth causes most of our problems and concerns. I know that He still cares. I’ll keep praying for my loved ones, and the for people others ask me to pray for, too.

And I’m going to hang onto the card on my refrigerator a long while.

I hope our anonymous benefactor reads blogs.
I will never know if they’d heard about the pending miscarriage through one of the very few people I’d told. It doesn’t really matter, though. I know we are loved. And the kids saw Jesus through their gift. Thank you.

Cause and Effect…

April 10, 2012 | Stacy

A number of projects took off with the finishing of the basement. It’s been a LOT of fun around here these last few weeks as we have had lots of new things to smile about.

The furniture from the family room went to the basement last weekend…

leaving the family room very bare.

It also let us start moving things from the “extra” room at the end of the hall and do some real rearranging. Thursday I emptied that 5th room out and John and the boys ripped the carpet out.

We were REALLY busy Friday.
I spent H.O.U.R.S. looking at furniture. Five stores. Could have visited six. Ended up buying stuff back at the first store. Raymour and Flanigan Clearance Center. I saw some of the SAME EXACT things there as at the others. It was crazy. I can not believe what furniture goes for and how much more it was at the main stores than at the Clearance Center. SAME EXACT STUFF!

Although I took the time to visit all those store I went back to the first store around 12:30 P.M and paid for it. Then it was here by 4:45 P.M. Yes! That is CRAZY. They want it OUT of the store. I was only able to find a couch and one chair off the bat. The un-pushy salesman agreed that there wasn’t anything good to match it in their store. Later that same night, John and I went out for dinner (very rare occurrence for us). We ran into the regular Raymour and Flanigan by our house and lo and behold they had what can only be called the PERFECT chair for us. AND – she sold it to us for about 2/3 the cost of what I had been seeing as prices all day long. That second chair was delivered today.

While all that shopping was going on, carpet installers came to put carpet in Hanny’s new room. I had found that as a remnant the week before. (Yay!) I set up her big girl bed and had a great surprise when I put on her newly purchased bedspread. The day after my miscarriage I was soothing myself by shopping online. I ordered a new bedspread for her with my only guideline being, “Cute and in my price range.” I wasn’t even paying attention to colors. When I got it on I was shocked and happy. The bedspread totally tied together curtains I had made in the other house with paint I fell in love with in 2009 and slapped on the walls for no real reason. How cool is that?

We stuck her crib in there as well for naps. The doors are not yet back on the closet and it’s good for containing her midday.

That is it for NEW stuff. But the effects of the other rooms being changed has allowed us to update Hanny’s previously inhabited bedroom. Now known bitterly as the NON-NURSERY I was able to leave her dresser in there. I’ve always had the ability to keep the toddler’s dresser in a non-occupied room and I am glad we can do that again. No dresser invading during naptime. 🙂

It also meant I could get the folding table in there….

AND OUT OF MY BEDROOM!

Easter 2012

April 9, 2012 | Stacy

I wish I could give a glowing account of Easter 2012. After all, it is my favorite holiday and it symbolizes the most important event in the history of the world.

John 3:16-17 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son,
that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world,
but in order that the world might be saved through him.

But it wasn’t all that spectacular. It just was. The lowest points aren’t really blog-able. They were just what they were. And the LORD knows. He knows.

Romans 5:3-4 More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings,
knowing that suffering produces endurance, and
endurance produces character, and character produces hope,

The highest point really isn’t something I want to share the details about either. But it was about my kids getting excited to share their love with people we love dearly who have had a season loss. And that brought a flood of tears as well.

1 Timothy 1:5 The aim of our charge is love that issues from a
pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.

We abided by some traditions and had to eschew others. We watched Tabitha bask in her unofficial day (she was born on Easter). We took some pictures. There are always pictures.

Romans 15:4-5 For whatever was written in former days was written for our
instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement
of the Scriptures we might have hope. May the God of endurance and
encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with
one another, in accord with Christ Jesus

It wasn’t the best Easter ever. Thankfully, that one was about 2000 years ago. And it was perfect.

Slim baskets this year with gum, shorts, and jam. Yes, jam. We’d run out of homemade strawberry. So everyone got store-bought jam. Stewart was amused.