Song Writing

We were playing in the basement.  The kids were dragging out toys by the dozen.  It was a mess.  It was fun.  It was loud.  As things started to calm and we started to clean up a bit, Ry was attracted to the toy keyboard we have.  She started banging some 'tunes' on the keys.  Then, she started adding some lyrics.  I quickly grabbed the computer to start typing them out as she was making them up.  This is what she came up with:

you are my holy
you are my worship
you are mine
you are the love
you gave us the son of your love
your love is stronger than the wind
your love is stronger than anything
your love is stronger than a house
your love is longer than everything

oh yeah
you are mine,
you are mine,
you are mine.

I love you, you are mine, I love you, you are the best.

i know you wanted to die for us, because of our sins,
i know that you wanted to die for us so that we didn't have to.

The Bar of Soap Incident

Tonight, Ry played a "trick" on Sys.

I can't be totally sure of what happened.  Ry was too busy taunting and cheering "I tricked you!  I tricked you!"  Sys was being a bit coy and what I suspect was a bit embarrassed at having been "tricked."

It is my ultimate belief that Ry peer pressured Sys into it.........and that Sys is just a little bit gullible.

The end result:  Ry talked Sys into licking a bar of soap.

EWWWWWWW!!!!!

Who are the Wanderers?

This week, for school, we have been talking about the nomads.  Their shelters, their foods, where they wandered.

This morning, I was asking the girls a few memory refresher questions before we got to today's lesson. 


Me:  What do we call the people who wandered around, always changing where they lived?

Sys:  I don't remember.

Ry:  The ROAM-ads!


I think that is almost better than NOMADS!!!!

That girl is a good thinker!!!

Growing Up

Sys made a grand announcement at breakfast this morning.

"Hey, Mom.  You only have 6 more years of me being a kid."

WHAT???  What is my crazy girl talking about????

She continues....oblivious to my panic about my baby growing up too fast.

"In 6 years, I will be almost 13.  I'll be in high school.  I'll be a grown up."

WHAT???  Surely it will be much longer till my sweet baby is in high school!  Right???

She continues......still oblivious to the state of anxiety that is growing with in me.

"But don't worry.  I'll still come home and sleep here every night.  Cause I love you."

Whew.  Perhaps she won't grow up so fast after all.  She'll be my baby forever.  She'll always want to sleep at home....my home.


Right?

It's Hot

Sys, as we are walking home from some errands:

Mom, it's hot out here.  It must be like a hundred degrees out. 
It's so hot, I think it might boil my brains.

Jokes that keep them laughing!

The girls ebb and flow in and out of jokes....sometimes they are joke obsessed, sometimes they are not.

This is a season of jokes! 

The best part is that they are BOTH finally getting the humor of jokes.


Here are a few of their favorite jokes.......they came from a joke book we borrowed from the library:



What is red and smells like blue paint?


Red paint.


and


What is green and hangs from trees?


Giraffe snot.


are constantly being repeated.....several times a day.




Then there's this one....it's a two part joke:


Why do duck have webbed feet?


To stamp out forest fires


Why do elephants have flat feet?


To stamp out flaming ducks.



This one never fails to send them into fits of giggles!

I love to hear them giggle!!!

Rain

This afternoon, Ry was squirming around....much like preschoolers do when they need to go pee.  And judging from the intensity of the squirming, I guessed that she needed to go VERY urgently!  Add to this, that it had just started to rain steadily outside.

So I asked her if she needed to go potty.....in an attempt to avoid a puddle on my bathroom run, yet again.

She looked at me like I was crazy. 

"No, Mommy," she said.  "I'm just dancing to the rain!"

Excitement to Disappointment

The girls were excited today.  We were going to make a trip to the library and then to the playground. 

One of the favorite playgrounds is the one at our church.  I'm not sure exactly why.  It has great slides and a cool climbing tunnel thing.......but everything else is just okay.  Perhaps the draw is getting to see Tattooed Preacherman while we are there.

So this afternoon, we headed out.

Library.  Check.  (We are currently maxed out on our library card.  We even had to wait for the librarian to finish checking in all our returns before we could check out all of our new books!)

Next up....the Playground.

We no sooner pull into the parking lot of the church and it starts to rain.  I mean really rain.  It was POURING!

From the backseat, I hear Ry say:

"Awww.  Now the playground is closed."

You could hear the frown and disappointment in her voice.

Fly Relationships

Ry (spoken with way to dramatic concern):  Oh, no.  There are two bugs on the ceiling.

Sys (almost freaked out):  Ew.  Mom can you get them?

Shoebotmom (getting up to inspect said bugs):  They are just flies.

***shoos flies with swat of the hand***

Sys (pondering):  Do you think they are husband and wife?

Preferences

This morning Sys was bored.  Her solution?

Clean out her drawer.

(Each of the girls has their own drawer in a small table in our living room.  They can keep anything they want in their drawer....as long as the drawer closes and nothing sticks out.  If I catch something sticking out, then I can intervene and clean out their drawer myself.....trashing anything that I desire.)

In the midst of the clean out, she came across an old foam necklace craft.  The string didn't stay tied and she kindly asked, without frustration, if I could help put the beads back on and retie the string.  Always glad to encourage the kind words, I proceeded to help out. 

There were some beads that had fallen off, so I asked Sys if she cared what order the beads were placed back on the necklace.  Her response:

"No. Anything is fine......as long as they are darkest to lightest."

Egg-pressions

My "go-to" dinner when I'm tired or don't know what to fix for dinner is to make eggs.  They are easy.  They can be served many ways and with a wide variety of side dishes.  And most importantly, everyone likes them.

We have had an extremely busy week this past week, with anniversary celebrations and an out of town wedding.  There were lots of late bedtimes and lots of early mornings and days filled with activities.  We are one tired family!!!

This afternoon, I baked up a loaf of spinach-feta bread.  I figured that it would go great with some dippin' eggs.  Plus, the girls LOVE to poke the yolks of their eggs and watch the yolk ooze out.

Ry still has some trouble cutting up her food, so we usually let her poke her egg and then, when it is poked to her satisfaction, we cut it up for her.  Tonight, after nearly 5 minutes of poking, I was cutting up her egg and with a huge smile and much excitement she exclaims:

"Ewww.....it's egg blood!!"

This was followed with much repetition and laughter!

Fun with Numbers

We have this really great book: My First 100 Words in Spanish.  A good friend of mine gave it to Sys when she was just a wee babe.  My girls have started looking through it a lot lately.

Last night, they wondered if it really had 100 words in it.  They started counting the words on the word list at the back of the book.  All was going along nicely.

1, 2, 3, 4.......24, 25, 26.........57, 58, 59.........99, 100, 101, 102......

They missed a number or two, but were moving along nicely.  But then their counting started to get a bit sketchy.  But I'm okay with that.....they made the transition from 99 to 100 and on to 101.  That's GREAT!  That's progress.

So they continue their counting, missing large dozens of numbers at a time, and finally get to 199.

Do you want to know what comes after 199?


2,000,000,000.

Yes, that's right.  Not 200, 2 BILLION.


I guess they missed the fact that it is ONE HUNDRED words in Spanish.

Arachnophobia

Ry is funny about bugs.

She doesn't mind gnats fluttering around her head. 
She isn't bothered by mosquitoes eating away at her ankles. 
She enjoys ants and caterpillars and ladybugs crawling on her hands and arms.
She has even killed a few bugs all on her own.

Until the other night.

My husband was called to the girls room (well after they should have been asleep for the night) with an urgent request:  "Daddy, please come up here.  There's a spider crawling on the ceiling."

No sweat.  Tattooed Preacherman Marched right upstairs and took care of that spider.  He's my hero!

About 20 minutes later we heard Ry let out a yell blood curdling scream.  We both raced up the stairs at record speed.  Tattooed Preacherman had his suspicions as to the reason for her screaming--the spider.  Me?  Nope....I didn't make that connection.  Call me a bit slow.

Sure enough, the spider that he had "killed" had actually escaped and was crawling on her bed. 

We rapidly killed the spider and rescued our baby.  We showed her the dead spider and Daddy searched her bed for more while I tried to calm her down.  She was trying to process the situation in her brain and said to us:  "At least I learn that spiders move quickly."  Too cute.

A night of poor sleep was had by all, as she woke up many times.....I can only imagine the dreams she may have been having.

The next morning, she found several spiders in our upstairs.  I expected her to freak out. 

Nope.

She simply said, "It sure is a spidery morning."

Artistic Impressions

Sys LOVES to draw.  She draws everything--places, animals, entire scenes of people.  I love to see her draw.

Yesterday, she was drawing a picture.  She told me that it was a picture of me--clearly because of the crazy curly brown hair the girl had!  Tattooed Preacherman and I were admiring her picture when Ry approached. 

"Is that Mommy?" she asked.

"Yes"  Sys replied.

Followed by Ry's response:  "Mommy, you look like a cat."

Thoughts on Heaven

Today I got into a discussion with my sweet and serious girl about heaven.  It started with her just pretend playing and transitioned to her processing her thoughts aloud and then transitioned again into a discussion with me.  It was delightful to hear her thoughts.

Theology is a tough topic, one that we don't shy away from in our house.  While we don't have all the answers, we try to offer up thoughts and biblically based wisdom for our girls.  They ask some hard questions sometimes--ones that theological scholars wrestle with; ones that churches split over.

Today, Sys was trying to imagine what it might be like when Jesus returns and when heaven comes down to earth.  Here are some of her thoughts:

• I think that maybe the angels will cook for us.

• When we get to heaven, I think there will be gates.  When we get to them, we will have to tell them all our sins.  After we get inside the gate, God is going to give us a big hug.

• Mommy, will you get there before I do?

• I'm sure I won't ever be hungry or tired or scared.  (This is based off of some things in Max Lucado's book Just In Case You Ever Wonder.)

She is thinking hard.  She makes me think hard.  I love to listen to her process these things.  I can't wait to see what heaven is like myself.

I do hope that the angels will cook for me.....at least once!  I bet it would be delicious.

Sleeping feet

It's always a strange experience when your feet fall asleep.  You know what I mean?  You're just sitting there with your feet tucked up under you and you don't even realize that you are cutting off all that good blood flow to the two body parts that help you hold up all of the rest of you.  Then you move and you feel it.  That strange sensation of blood returning to give life to your feet.

I never really gave that sensation much thought.  But then my girls discovered it.  It was a sensation that was completely new to them.  How did they describe it?

Sys:  "My foot feels all sandy."

Ry:  "My foot is buzzing like a phone."

Sandy?  Buzzing like a phone?  My descriptions are never that cute!!

Happy Endings

Life can be serious.  Not everything is funny.  Sometimes things need to be remembered that don't make you laugh.  Those things often give great insight into how someone processes things.

It is Easter weekend.  We have spent a lot of time talking about the reason we celebrate Easter.  Lots of talk of death and pain and love and life.  My girls get this.  They understand well that Jesus died on a cross.  They get that it was painful.  They feel the sadness.  They also get that after Jesus ALLOWED himself to die, he was resurrected.  They know that resurrection means that he came back to life.

I have put off reading the story to them out of their bible.  The main reason is that I have trouble reading it without getting all choked up.  Their bible tells the story so gently, but doesn't leave out the sadness.  It's a beautiful story.  Last night, they asked for the story.  Insisted upon it.  So we read.

We read about the last supper.  We read about Jesus washing their dirty feet.  We read about Judas.  We read about Peter trying to protect Jesus.  We read about Jesus wearing a crown of thorns.  We read about him getting whipped.  We read about his sadness while he was up on the cross.  We read about him DYING up on the cross.  We read about him being placed in a tomb and about the sealing of the tomb with a heavy stone.

I was prepared to stop there.  The girls know the rest of the story, but I was prepared to save the reading of that for today.

Sys couldn't handle it.  Her sweet, tender heart needed to HEAR that Jesus came alive again.  She needed to hear right then that the tomb was empty.  She needed to hear that Mary Magdalene rejoiced when she heard Jesus say her name.  She needed to hear that he was ALIVE again!

She needed to hear the happy ending.

Without Him, without the cross......there's nothing but a sad story.

Here's to a happy ending.  Here's to life eternal because of Jesus. 

Perceptions

I placed an online order for a few things today.  One thing is something for Tattooed Preacherman.  He's excited about it coming.  He noticed that only 4 hours after placing the order that it had been packaged and shipped.  He sent Sys up to share the news with me.

She says to me, "Dad says that his powder shipped."

"Great." I say, in a bit distracted tone.  I was cooking dinner.

She proceeds back downstairs and says to her Dad:

"Mom said 'Great.' but she said it in a way that made me think like she meant the opposite."

Counting

When I was visiting my parents house last week, I shared with them that I had recently started this blog.  They loved the idea of preserving the delightful things that Sys and Ry say. 

They were very quick to remind me of some of the funny things the girls have said in the past.  Here's one that HAS to be remembered:

Last year we were on vacation with Tattooed Preacherman's family.  They are a great bunch and his parents are always eager to have the girls share how smart they are getting.

They were sitting at the table and Sys started showing off her counting skills, with Rylee quickly trying to keep up.

Sys: "I can count to 10.  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10."

Ry: "Me too.  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10. Ta Da!"

Sys: "I can count to 20.  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 ......" (all the way to 20)

Ry:  "Me too.  1 2 3 4 5 6....." (all the way to 20, missing some of the teens)

Sys: "I can count to 100 by 10s.  10 20 30....."(all the way to 100, no errors)

Ry: "I can count to 100 by vegetables.  Carrots, tomatoes, peas, broccoli....."

She was dead serious!!!

Beard Shapes

Tattooed Preacherman has a beard--a rather nice beard.  He can grow it in about 5 days.  Typically, he wears a beard all winter and shaves to a goatee and mustache in the summer. 

Recently, Sys and Ry and I were out of town.  While we were away, Preacherman decided to shave off the beard, leaving the goatee and mustache.  The girls noticed shortly after we got home yesterday, with no significant reaction.

Then, this morning, we were having some morning snuggles in the bed before starting the day.  Sys commented to us: 

"Daddy, your beard looks like a shopping bag.  Or maybe a purse."

Cute.  Too cute.

Cuteness

The girls and I are heading out of town today for a short trip to visit their grandparents.  My husband, the Tattooed Preacherman, was snagging some early morning snuggles from Ry, our youngest.  They were chatting softly to each other.  It was really sweet. 

Then he said to her "You're as cute as a button."

Her reply:

"You're as cute as a zipper!"

Sunday School Lessons

So the girls are sitting at the table. 

Sitting at the table always involves lots of squirming, spilling of things, lots of talking, lots of pretend play and laughter.

The girls were talking with each other about what they had just learned at church.  My youngest calls out, "Mommy!!  Guess what!"

"What?" I ask, curious--you never know what she's going to say next.

"Jesus was walking around and when he found one of his recypilers he said 'Come follow me.'" she says.


I grinned and asked her to repeat herself.....and again....and again.  And every time, it was "recypilers". I guess that Jesus and his disciples were early recyclers!!!

Introduction

Hi.  I am the mom to two FABULOUS girls.   My girls say the funniest/cutest/quirkiest things.

Okay, okay.  I know.  ALL kids say such things.  But I am only mom to two of them. 

I am feeling the need to write down more of the funny things they say, so those things don't get lost over time.  I want to remember them well.  I want my girls to look back on the things I've written and be able to laugh at themselves.  I want my girls to read the transitions of their lives through the things they said.  I want them to see how they processed the world when they were younger.

So here goes.  I hope you will laugh along with me along the way.