Baby it's cold outside!

Samuel: "It's cold outside"

Me (checking weather): "it's 75*"

Samuel: "But we're used to 100*"

Conan: "Is it going to snow?"

A Rose By Any Other Name...

Conan: "Why do you have to take a shower EVERY day?"

Me: "Because I get stinky every day."

Conan: "You don't smell stinky when I smell you!"

Thanking God that he didn't inherit his daddy's super smelling power...

Oh, and I LOVE him!!!

Ah! Crudhopper!

As far as I know, I made up the word, "crudhopper".  It is my go to exclamation when something gets messed up in some way.

Conan now uses this word frequently.

I am so proud.

What 3 Year Old Says That???

Conan was building towers out of blocks, when they all fell down.

Conan: "Ah, man! I was going to stabilize it, but I didn't do it yet. I'll build another one and make it more stable."


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Conan was grabbing at specks of dust floating through the air. When I asked him what he was doing, he responded, "I am catching dust particles so they don't get stuck in my skull."


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Cuddling with me at night: "Mom, don't squeeze me too tight. I'm fragile."


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He is certainly on his way to having a large vocabulary.

Pretty Close

Conan was supposed to be taking a nap with Mommy. Suddenly, he sat up and yelled, "It's time to get up, Mom! Look at the clock on your safe. It's fifty o'clock! It's time to get up! It's fifty o' clock, Mom!"

I took this a minute late, but I am pretty sure my three year old is a genius.

Better Ask Your Mom!

As our adult Developmentally Delayed clients were leaving, Conan waved and shouted:

"Bye! See you next Tuesday! If it's okay with your mom, see you next Tuesday!"

Love him!

Those zeroes are important!

I doubt my 9 year old son meant to be so profound in his comic doodle at the bottom of his language arts test...

The Things They Teach Kids These Days...

The kids learned about this book today: 

Honor's immediate response:

"What is wrong with people?"

She is totally my daughter.

Devotions

Mommy: "Who wants to tell what happened in today's story?"

Conan: "ME!!!"

Mommy: "Okay, go."

Conan: "The man cut his head off and fed pigs, then went home and ate a lot of food."

That's one way to tell the story of the Prodigal Son.

Luke 15:23-24

And bring the fatted calf here and kill it, and let us eat and be merry; for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ And they began to be merry.

10 Minutes

One of my favorite things that happens often now at naptime is this conversation:

Mommy: "Naptime in ten minutes, Conan."

Conan holds up ten fingers.

Conan: "How about FIVE minutes."

Mommy: "Five minutes? Okay."

Conan: "Yeshhhh!"

He is convinced he has a big victory every day. I don't feel like correcting him. 

Morning Prayer

This doesn't have to do with children at all, but it is something I wanted to remember. It is also very personal, so I didn't want to share it on Facebook, because, frankly, I don't really understand it myself. 

I have been feeling apathetic in my prayers lately and it has been bothering me. I have been doing well with getting up early to get my devotions in, but for the last few days, they have been cheap devotions--reading a couple short devotionals and the verses that go along with them--simply because I wanted to have some private, concentrated communion with God, but I wasn't feeling it. (I pray small prayers throughout the day and lead my kids in devotions everyday, but the mornings are "me" time).

Normally, when I sit down to pray, God puts someone in my heart to pray for, then I study Scripture to hear what He has to say about it. If there isn't someone immediately on my heart, then I will read Psalms until something comes up that I need to talk about. 

But for the last few days, I've been feeling overwhelmed with problems in the world and my own helplessness to do anything. It's been a weight on me that is keeping me from my morning close communion with God. 

I typically don't do devotions on Sunday mornings because it is difficult for me to get all my chores in on time to make it to Sunday School. Today, as I was walking to the kitchen to get ready for chores, I told God that I didn't want to be apathetic any longer. Immediately the following "conversation" happened inside my head (God often "speaks" to me in the form of Bible verses/passages that I have learned in the past being brought to mind right when I need to hear them):

Me: God, I am sorry my prayer life this week has not been very good. I want to do better, but I am just not feeling it. I want to feel closer to You.

God: “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.”

Me: But I've been feeling so weighted down...

God (interrupted, because He can and because I really didn't know how to explain what I was feeling.  He can also speak two verses simultaneously): “Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.”

And on top of that, I distinctly heard a fragment of a verse that I have known very well since I was 16, but today it wouldn't come to me fully. I feel this was as intended because it made me excited to look it up. He said to me: "Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives..."

I got on my phone Bible and immediately searched for this verse that I had taped on my mirror for 8 years...that is still taped on my bedroom mirror in my parents' home. I know the verse clearly, but I felt like God wanted me to read it in full context. 

He is beyond amazing:

“These things I have spoken to you while being present with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”

John 14:25-27

I honestly didn't remember that the verse about God sending the Helper was connected to the verse about Peace. To me this was God clearly saying that He WAS talking to me. What a blessed conversation. And while I get them often (usually a verse brought to mind when I've done something I shouldn't), this message this morning was so precious to me because He spoke so clearly with the purpose to give me peace. And the reminder that the Holy Soirit IS peace. Such a blessing. 

Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder

Conan came running upstairs yelling, "It's beautiful!"

Mommy: "What's beautiful?"

Conan: "You are!"

And that's why I keep him around.