It's what little brothers do!

My 5 year old daughter had a friend over after school today. They were playing in her room and I started hearing the girls screaming, "Go away!" so I went to investigate and found this outside my daughter's door:

The little brother, my 3 year old, had decked himself out in a Batman costume (I didn't even know he could put it on himself!) to pester and torment the girls!

He couldn't help himself, it's just what little brothers do!

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Make Your Own Easy Theme Cakes

Trust me this is easy.

You can make a theme cake for pretty much any occasion.

The hardest part is finding the right template, but just search the internet for pictures then print it (I had to resize mine a few times to get it right) and cut it out.

Once you bake your cake (I even used box cake mix, then iced with homemade icing) and it cools, dump the cake onto a cutting board, set the paper template right on top of the cake and cut around it with a large knife.

And you have a super easy fun shaped cake to ice!

Here are the cakes I did this past weekend for my oldest son's bowling birthday party. And the bowling ball cake I didn't have to cut at all; it was just a regular round cake! But the bowling pin was a 13 x 9 in cake that I cut out to the shape of a bowling pin. Both cakes were 2 layers.
Here's a link to other shaped cakes I've done:

Cowboy boot cakes

Lightsaber cake

I'm grateful to be able to save money without having to buy the expensive bakery cakes but still have cute, fun cakes to celebrate my kids' special days!

Find more Tackle It Tuesday, Gratituesday, and Works for Me Wednesday here.

There are mini-blinds in my bathtub!

Right now there are mini-blinds soaking in my bathtub.

That can only mean a couple things:

The stomach bug that plagued my oldest child last Thursday wasn't passed on to the rest of us (praise God)!

and

The spring cleaning is ON like Donkey Kong!

(And yes, I did learn that line at children's church!)

Not the abundance I had in mind!

So, apparently God wanted to me to write last night's post, in preparation for the day I'd have today.

Abundance.

Abundance of bodily fluids.

The day began with my 3 year old taking off his nighttime diaper which was not seemingly a problem, I saw him doing it and continued packing lunches for my older two kids. The 3 year old only wears a diaper at night, and has not gone #2 in it in months. Only last night he did. And then proceeded to make a bigger mess taking off his own diaper before he or I realized it was a dirty diaper. Mess cleaned up (while fending off the dog who really wanted to help clean up the mess -- gross, gross!) and the little guy got an impromptu morning bath, which he loved, swam around in my jacuzzi tub while I got ready for the day.

Shortly after lunch I got a call from the elementary school, my 8 year old son was in the nurse's office, he'd thrown up at school. I woke the 3 year old up from his nap, raced to pick up the sick child, got him home, settled him in a bed with a trash can nearby, scrubbed my hands about 5 times, put the 3 year old back down for his nap, dug out the Lysol and latex gloves, cleaned up a few rounds of throw-up.

Since the 3 year old's nap was interrupted, he took forever to go back to sleep and once he did he really fell into a deep sleep and I hadn't taken him to the potty since the beginning of his original nap, pre-unanticipated school run for sick child. So, you guessed it, he woke up from his nap completely soaked in urine. All his bedding, all his clothes, and his large stuffed bulldog security object Big Duke had to go in the washer and the 3 year old got his 2nd bath of the day!

While bathing the 3 year old and hollering at the 5 year old to please not go in the room with the sick 8 year old, the puppy wrapped the bathroom in toilet paper!

Dressed 3 year old, cleaned up t.p. mess in bathroom and then sick 8 year old was bored, wanted to come out of bed. I really wanted to keep him quarantined from the other two well children, but we don't watch much TV and when we do it's always in our family room, we only have one other really old TV upstairs in the playroom where the kids play video games. So, I hooked up the playroom TV to the DVD player after much trouble I got it to play a movie for the sick child and moved the couch over, covered it in a sheet and put trashcan next to it, so he could be entertained and kept away from the rest of us as much as possible.

While setting up the sick bay in the playroom, puppy goes pee on the playroom carpet -- awesome!

Shoo well children away from sick child again, get Petzyme to clean up doggie urine, and deem it the day of abundant bodily fluids!

Thankfully the vomiting was short-lived, praying nobody else gets it and for tomorrow's abundance to be more pleasant!

Find more Finer Things Friday and Friday Fragments.

Reigning in the abundance!

I was at my Bible study last night and the worship leader praised God at one point in between songs, for the fact that we would be with Him in heaven some day.

And I was right with her thinking, "Yes, God, that will be so amazing!"

Then she continued on with, "The Bible says, we will reign with you!"

And although I knew the Bible said that, I immediately thought, "The reigning part sounds like too much work right now. I'd so love to be with you God but I really don't need to reign with you!"

If that doesn't illustrate how tired I am then I don't know what does.

Recently a friend who also has three young kids saw me at elementary school pick-up with our new puppy and shook her head smiling, like, "You are so crazy, I can't believe you got a new puppy!" This friend also lost a beloved elderly dog last summer, one she'd had since way before having kids, but they sanely decided not to get another dog.

I thought her reaction was funny, but I started thinking, "Why do we always seem to have crazy things going on? Why do my husband and I make decisions that add work and the potential for chaos to our lives over and over again?"

And then I remembered the verse John 10:10, "The thief comes only to steal, and kill, and destroy; I came that they might have life, and have it abundantly."

Because along with the work, the added crazy, is life! A whole bunch of it! Abundant life!

And the blessings make all the hard so worth it!

Would our lives be easier if we hadn't had a 3rd child? decided to adopt a 4th child? started an adoption ministry at our church? volunteered to help children in CPS custody? gotten a new puppy?

Yes!!! Without a doubt! But would our lives be better? No! In fact, life would be so far from better that it's depressing to think about!

Am I saying that any of those things make us better Christians than anyone else? No way! But, for us this is it. Life abundantly!


Find more Thankful Thursday here.

Uping the Chaos

As if things were not chaotic enough around here with 3 kids, a new puppy, and an international adoption in the works, my husband went out to the Home Depot this past Monday when he was off work for President's Day and bought. . .

wait for it. . .

a chain saw on a stick!

A device that has the ability to cut off limbs (both tree and human I'm guessing) that he holds precariously way above his head!

And this picture does not even capture the half of it, because I couldn't bear to watch the part when he was on the top rung of a 6 ft. ladder using the chain saw on a stick!


I figure our odds of going to the ER on any given day were already pretty high (and yes there are doggie emergency rooms and yes, we already debated taking the puppy to one when she ate a seashell -- chomped it into sharp edged pieces and managed to swallow a few before we noticed and stopped her) and now they have increased by about 50%!

P.S. We have lost nearly all our good sense, but we do have a few shreds left, those power lines are not nearly as close as they appear in the picture!

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An Eight Year Old Boy!

Today my oldest child turned eight.

Eight!

I can just hardly believe it.

And, I have to admit that at one time I had no idea how it would be having an 8 year old boy.

I kind of feared these mid-elementary boy ages.

Worried they be all potty humor, arm farts, and enjoyment of games and activities I could not relate to.

But, boy was I wrong!

Sure we have our periods of difficult, he is still our most stong-willed child.

But, oh the joy and fun!

He's interested in so many subjects from the Bible to weather to chemistry to history to art and music. It is really entertaining to discover alongside him, taking in the periodic table with fresh, eager-to-learn eyes rather than the drudgery of my high school and college days! It is so cool to watch him see prints of the Mona Lisa, listen to Michael Jackson's "Beat It" (and perfect his own "robot" dance), to study American Presidents, try new foods, and read great books. We recently read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Essential Modern Classics) and then watched the Narnia movie together and it was a delightful experience -- opened up so many great discussions!

I had no idea how much I'd enjoy legos, 'course it helps that those mini-figures are so cute! Just something about a 1 inch tall person that is so fun (and dollhouse-like, but shhh, don't tell my boys that)!

One of my biggest praises about my oldest son is his attitude. I've been around other boys his age and know what it could be like with the bad attitudes. And I'm so grateful his attitude is mostly sweet, I pray God continues to guard his heart!

Here's the new 8 year old studying one of his presents -- his biggest lego set so far!


While I do miss the days when I used to carry him on my hip, these big boy days are pretty great, too!

Thank you, sweet firstborn son, for the joy, the wonder, the new you bring to my every day! We are so proud of you and very certain God has great things planned for your life!


Find more Gratituesday here.