and it rained, and rained, and rained

Will it ever stop raining? That was my thought yesterday afternoon. Just before Scott was due home, the sun barely peeped through and I decided to take everyone on a walk. This was the result:



Yep, it poured on us about a half mile from home. We had a good time racing through the rain and Andrew "cut" the raindrops with his sword to keep from getting too wet. Good thing he had his sword with him!

And it rained, and rained, and rained...

About 7:00 I looked out the window and our trickling creek had turned into a roaring river. The waters rose and crept closer and closer to the house. At one point, we thought our pirate ship may truly become a ship!




While the waters rose, our Christmas decorations and basement bedroom mattresses came upstairs. Did I mention that Monday is laundry day and there were 7 loads of clean, folded laundry on the couch ready to be put away before bedtime? That just added to the chaos.




Scott was worried and we told him God would take care of us and protect us. We prayed for the rain to stop. And soon after we prayed, the water began to recede. We were thankful for that and also for the witness of God's great provision for our children to see.

This morning when Andrew awoke, his first comment was "The waters went back to where they belong!" His voice was full of wonderment and awe at this seemingly magical happening. Now I only wish that the basement belongings would also "magically" go back to where they belong. Maybe I'll just go ahead and decorate for Christmas!

Bed Head?

To the untrained eye (including everyone who saw him at church), it may appear that Andrew had a severe case of bed head on Sunday morning. What kind of parent lets her child attend church with unbrushed hair!

I'll have you know that I watched Andrew carefully style each hair on Sunday. He also selected his clothes with the same attention to detail and precision. Somehow, it makes sense to a three year old that a VBS shirt constitutes "church clothes." I may ask for him to wear a collar, but he thinks that a shirt given to him at church is suitable attire to wear there. And I have no idea where he got the idea that the plaid shorts are church shorts, but he has worn them every Sunday for the past few weeks and won't wear them mid-week because they are his "church shorts."

*sigh*

It's a good thing that God looks at the heart and not at the outward appearance. Thank goodness for grace!

51 weeks

51 weeks... 11 3/4 months...358 days...

However you look at it, this baby is almost one!



We look forward to celebrating her birthday next week with her first sampling of cake!

Nicknames

I've been waiting for months to write a blog about the nicknames in our family. Derrick is the king of nicknames and he creates such delightful names for our children that we rarely call our kids by their real names.

I remember attending a ladies event soon after I moved to Athens. The icebreaker was to tell our nicknames and I could not think of any. My children should never have that problem.

Scott's teacher has created a "special words" ring (to hold flashcards) for each child, so they get excited about learning words that are special to them. In her Friday letter this week, she asked us to send in our child's nicknames and interests.

Scott's names are "Scooter", "Scoot", "Bo-Bo", "Bo-Bo Jo", "Squirrel", and, of course he will always be our "Baby Burrito", although we rarely use that one any more. Yesterday, we were reading a book about bugs and there was a section on "Social Bugs." We decided that may be a good one to add for Scott.

Andrew also has names. Before birth, he was C2S4 - Child #2 Seuser family of four. Now he is "Roo", "Andy-roo", "Rho-Rho", "Rho", "Monkey", "Smonkey", and "Daddy's Baby" (we will only use that one as long as he likes it - he currently thinks that is a great name.)

Amanda may be young, but she already has a long list of names. Before birth she was "ceiling tile." Thankfully that one hasn't stuck, although I still occasionally hear one of the boys call her that. Her current names are "Amanda the Panda", "Squirrel Girl", "Screech", and "Demanda" (only at dinner time - she LOVES to eat). Andrew calls her "Amandy the Pandy."

We love the names that we selected for our children at birth, but it is fun to add nicknames as their personalities emerge.

9/16/09 - I thought of a few more overnight:

*It amazes me how many people call Amanda, "Miss Amanda". It must just flow really well off the tongue. But Scott and Andrew prefer "Mrs. Amanda". They know the difference between a Miss and Mrs. and think it is really funny to call her a Mrs. I think they also think they are somehow tricking us when they say that.

*How could I have forgotten "Hurricane Andrew!" He isn't as much of a hurricane as he was a year ago, but the name still fits at times. Also, my Mom called to let me know that her favorite name for Andrew is "Stealth". He is our most quiet and independent child. We are never quite sure where we will find him when we walk into a room.

Homework

Have I mentioned how pleased we are with Scott's teacher and his school? (Yes, I know I have.) It seems to be a really good balance of work and play, as they make learning fun for the kids. I stopped by the office this morning to drop off snack and ran into Elliot's dad. Elliot is a kid in Scott's class and his dad is in a local band. He comes every Friday to play music with the kids. How fun!

Scott has had two homework assignments. Both were designed to be worked on over the course of a week or two, so he still has plenty of time to play when he gets home every day. The main purpose of the assignment is to involve the parents in the learning process.

This week's project was decorating a "ME" paper. We worked on it last night and here is the result.



The only problem was that all this had to be cleaned up before we could eat dinner. But you know what...Scott is becoming an excellent cleaner. He is learning so much at school.

Is it a mid-life crisis?

The other night Derrick called me into the bathroom where he was giving himself a haircut. He had decided that he wanted to try to create a comb-over, so people would not realize he was bald on top. What do you think?

Sailing

Perhaps the biggest challenge I've had since Scott started school is letting go of being his teacher. I still scour websites that talk about teaching a child to read and find great books at the library that I know he will love. It's just that we have much less time to do any of these activities. I'm slowly learning to balance our limited afternoon time with lots of free play and some really fun activities to fill in the "holes" in his education. What I'm learning is that the greatest part of our situation is that his teachers can struggle with him on the boring stuff that he really needs to know (like handwriting) and I get to play by teaching the really fun stuff that they don't have time for in the classroom.

For instance, on Thursday, we all made boats and then tested to see if they would really float. It was in conjunction with the Noah's Ark unit I did with Andrew and learning the letter "B" for boat. Both boys had a blast designing their vessels.

When I first proposed the project, Andrew ran out the door to the car, pointed to the tailpipe and said, "I want one of these on my boat." It took a little convincing to let him know that we could not just pull it off of the car.


Scott cut an egg carton and attached a mast.


We all tested to see if they would float. Look who was eager to get in on the action! Amanda is always in the middle of the action.


Of course our little activity led to very wet clothes and eventually baths. Why not - they were already wet and in the bathroom!


They had their pajamas on at 4:30! I think it was a record. Too bad I couldn't put them to bed then. Derrick had PTO, so it would have given me a free evening. Instead, we ate dinner and went to Pajama-Rama at the library, a bedtime story time.

Taken by my dear friend Cindy...at the last minute...as I caught sight of her camera sitting on a desk. You can only see Amanda's cute striped pants in one picture. She looked darling today and was in a mood to match.

beautiful baby

I simply love when babies sleep with their bottoms in the air.