Sarah stories

I was explaining the phrase "worth your weight in gold" to Sarah.  As an example, I told her that if someone tells her she's worth her weight in gold, that means she's worth about the same as 60 pounds of gold.  She doesn't know how much that is, but she was immediately offended.  I told her that was probably over a million dollars, but she was still mad and declared, "I'm a child of the King!  I'm priceless!"  Once again, she schooled me.  Next time I'm explaining that phrase, I'll use an inanimate object as an example. 

This morning as I was getting on the scale, the priceless little princess told me, "You're not fat, Mom.  You're just...um...big for your age."

Wall project

I bought some wall art from a garage sale.  In preparing to apply it, I washed the wall this morning.  I normally consider washing walls and baseboards a waste of time and energy (along with most cleaning tasks), but as I was washing that wall, my germophobia crashed into my OCD, and I couldn't stop.  I ended up washing baseboards and way more walls than I had planned to.

Grouchy garage

Marty was being especially mean to the younger cats today, so I shooed her into the garage and said, "If you're going to be grouchy, you can spend some time alone in the garage!"  When I turned around, Sarah was looking at me wide-eyed, so I jokingly said to her, "Same goes for you, Missy."  She said, "The garage must be the place for grouchiness, because when YOU are grouchy, you go out there and slam the door and yell."  These kids don't miss a thing.

eating locusts

We were doing science while having breakfast.  I asked the kids to read the ingredients on the smoothie they were drinking.  (Normally I make my own smoothies, but I had a free coupon for this one).  It was normal stuff I'd heard of before, until Noah said, "...locust bean gum, ...."  I said, "What?! Locusts?"  I read it for myself, and sure enough, that's what it said.  We stopped drinking and went to research it.  We found out that it is made from the seeds of the carob tree and used as a thickener.  Locust is just another name for the carob tree. Why wouldn't they just call it carob bean gum?!  I would feel a lot better about that.

Then we moved on to a geography lesson, because we learned that the carob tree grows in the Mediterranean region.  Noah located that on the map and noticed it was near Israel, so now we're wondering if John the Baptist really ate bugs or just carob?

Tornado

It was a long, wild day yesterday.  Noah took advantage of unusually warm, muggy air in the morning and rode his ripstick to church with his friend.

Less than two hours later, we had a tornado warning.  We were in the middle of the most awesome church service, where you could tangibly feel the Holy Spirit moving.  The preacher had just decided that he wasn't going to preach the sermon he had prepared but just let the Holy Spirit work, when the lights went out.  I looked out the window and saw a wall of dark clouds.  We kept praying.  There were tornadoes all around us, but all we had were high winds and some rain. 

When we got home from church, we had no electricity, which messed up my plan to heat up leftovers for lunch.  As usual, I got confused about what works and what doesn't when the power goes out.  I turned on a light switch and was momentarily surprised when no light came on.  I knew the stove and microwave wouldn't work, so I thought I would heat up the food on the toaster. Duh.  I even had to stop and think about whether the automatic doors on our van would work.  Double duh. Mike took a nap, and I read a book, and the kids floundered around trying to figure out what to do.  So it was a great afternoon to go to our friends' house for their daughter's birthday party.  They had power, food, and fun, including marshmallow guns!

 

 

From there, we went to the airport to pick up my parents, whose flight had been delayed several times, and was delayed again while we were waiting.  The power went out at the airport, so it was dark for a few seconds before the generators kicked on. The kids were very bored at the airport.  We hadn't brought anything to do, thinking we would just pick up the passengers and leave. 

 After about an hour, they arrived, but their luggage didn't.  After a little more waiting, someone found their luggage, and we took them home. 

The next day, I was praying for the tornado victims when suddenly I heard harp music.  I thought for a second that the angels were joining my prayer, but when I opened my eyes, there was Sarah, plucking my harp.  She always has trouble keeping her body still, but during prayer time, it's even worse. 

This has nothing to do with anything.  I just liked the picture of Noah doing his school work with Shadow in the sun. 

Slider sweater

Mike and I were having a discussion about furniture.  We've had lots of those lately.  We've lived here three years and still haven't figured out how to furnish the living room.  It's a tricky room because there's very little wall space.  A sliding glass door takes up a lot of space. Private parental conversations are almost non-existent, because even when we think we're having a private conversation, a child or two is always listening.  So this is how it went:
Me: We could put a couch in that corner...
Mike: But it would cover up the slider.
Noah enters the room and says: Do we really need the slider?
Sarah (from the next room): What sweater?  It better not be one of MY sweaters!
Me: We live in a loony bin.

Snowball fight

 Sarah said, "Noah, you wanna have a snowball fight?"

 Noah hesitated and looked dubious.  Sarah said, "Don't worry; I'm not a crybaby anymore. Just don't throw very hard. And don't hit me in the face.  And wait till I'm ready..."

 She smashed some snow down his neck.

 snowballs in each hand

True to her word, she didn't cry!