All Hallow's Eve

Yesterday afternoon, Papa took the boys out to the garage to carve pumpkins. They drew up some designs, dug out pumpkin guts, and learned not to play with knives or matches. Overall, a success. Happy All Hallow's Eve! Now I have to go rustle up some costumes.

Stratergizing.

"Oooooo." S: I think I'll put my mouth on it. Just because.

Diggin'.

At this point, P started weeping. We asked him what was wrong. He said, and I quote, "The pumpkin is stinky."

Meanwhile, S was grabbing pumpkin guts. And grinning.

Luckily, the tears and guts ended quickly, and they posed happily with Mr. Giant Pumpkin.

And here's the final result! Wait...something's missing...

...that's it! Our fifth lil' pumpkin, who slept through gourd surgery. :)

Micellaneous Milestones

Since my last post, we've had some busy times! Here's a brief update.

Papa attended a Doxology seminar in Nebraska, where he learned about the devil and his wily ways from Dr. John Kleinig. He, and several pastors from our circuit, greatly enjoyed their time together (scrumptious food enhanced their experience, I've heard) learning about how to beat down the Evil One. The boys are into superheroes and "getting bad guys," so I'm still stewing about how to make a connection for them with this.

We celebrated my birthday with my lovely mother here (who also enormously helped out with the kids while Papa was away)! Turning 31 feels great, in a very achieving gravitas kind of way (especially when you leave sentences like this dangling for a week on your blog. I am FULL OF GRAVITAS. :)) And thanks for the "Happy '29th' Birthday" card from my brother, who's unofficially moved me into the "older person" stage. :) The boys spontaneously sang me "Happy Birthday," which brought me to tears. Little C shrieked and grinned, which brought me joy. Papa bought me a beautiful card and some pretty earrings--and the boys helped with both! I'm very thankful for all the wishes and cards and gifts; truly, my cup overfloweth.

Papa presented on "Family Matters" at an LWML Fall Rally at our church, which I was able to attend (thanks, Mom!). It was great visiting with many women, singing for the group, and even participating in a skit without knowing what I'd have to say or do ahead of time. Let me just say that Mrs. L.E. is hilarious and utterly trustworthy! Papa's presentation was fantastic, too--as he's prepared for this, he's helped me prioritize our children's spiritual care (more on this in another post). That's always a "win, win, win," as I teasingly tell the kids.

P's reading. I mean really reading. While he phonetically sounds out words sometimes, many times he just looks at them now and just says 'em. No help. Just the other day, he brought me a baseball thing and said, "Does this say, 'Get in the game'?" Yep. You read that right, buddy. So his "Letter Lessons" have been really fun! We just started Section Eight of The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading, so we're about halfway through that book. He's been practicing holding a pencil correctly with the help of a gripper, and we'll start a formal writing program soon, mostly because he keeps bugging me about learning how to write more than just his name. Hey--I'm not complaining!

P and I have also been doing "Math" (or what he sometimes calls "Number Math"), where he practices counting to 100 on the abacus or I write simple addition on our white board and he figures them out by counting dots. The first time we tried this a week or so ago, he literally quivered with excitement. "Mom, I just love this!" he said at least three times. I had to quell thoughts of him, at nine, performing complicated equations with a dry-erase pen on a window (I saw some news segment on a young math whiz years ago who'd do that). So far, I'm just glad he thinks it's all fun. We'll be starting weekly science and history lessons in the next month, too.

S has developed into a tackling machine. Not out of any desire to hurt stems his sudden pouncing; he's just a really physical kid. He's been giving hugs a lot, which is fantastic! I just find myself bruised more frequently. We're working on his gentleness around C, because while she laughs and grins every time he "hugs" (see: pushes, sits on, drags) her, we don't want any trips to the ER. He also is still our little singer. Last week, while he and P played in the leaves, we caught him yelling--YELLING--the Stephen Starke version of the Lord's Prayer. He also randomly bursts into song, sometimes mid-sentence. He also regales us with random comments, like the one just recently when I was helping him in the bathroom: "Mommy, I won't poop on you." I was so relieved to hear that! :) Yesterday we heard him walk into the living room and see something P had done, and he goes, "WOW! A-MAAAAAZ-ING!" His enthusiasm is contagious!

C is testing the waters with walking! She'll pull herself up by a chair or something and then let go--and stand for a second or two by herself. She's definitely thinking about letting go and taking steps (believe us, we can see that look on her face). She's also starting this cheesy-grin/grimace thing. It's so big, it looks like it hurts her face, and we can't help smiling every time she does it! She's a happy little girl. She's eating table food all the time now, and in a month or so we'll start introducing whole milk already. *Sigh.* My baby's not really a baby anymore! P will play with her by himself, and he just loves her, and she him. It's great to see their sibling relationship develop. S and C are still at the "NO, C! That's MINE!" or the sitting-on-her stage. S loves her; he just doesn't want her in his stuff. I admit I dream that someday S and C will have a Jackson/Johannah relationship (that's a Duggar reference, for those of you who don't know).

We've enjoyed jumping in the leaves! And tracking them inside. :)

And a decluttering update: I've cleaned out the laundry room (!!!) and gone through about five bins of micellany besides. I've still got about ten to go, but it's all consolidated, and I've just been plugging away at it whenever we're watching something at night, like the St. Louis Cardinals play during this postseason. Between a clean and not-cluttered laundry room and the Cards, life is good right there.

To Life, Decluttered

Those of you who know me (like, you've seen me in my PJs at noon and my bomb-of-a-kitchen floor as it looks, um, well, right now) know that, despite frequent appearances to the contrary, I'm a decently organized person. I really like folded towels stacked cleanly in the spare bathroom closet, the boys' beds made neatly with their pillows arranged squarely, my spice and baking cupboard to be accessible and neat. I used to think I was a neat freak, and maybe she's lurking deep down underneath the mommy survival gland, where she'll emerge with a whimper or a shriek someday when diapers no longer habitate our space. But in the meantime, I'm trying to become more practical than getting every.single.hair out of every.single.corner of the bathroom. Like the hairs you can't even see...unless you're on your knees with a two-inch view. Not that I used to do that. Because I didn't. But it makes me feel better to set up a uber-hygenic straw man (or woman--hey, I'm not discriminatory!) so I can congratulate myself on not burdening my children with Ebola. Yet. Anyway, I guess I figure that if I was a "real" neat freak, I'd be one that stayed up until all hours cleaning my house so it looked like a magazine spread. And I'm obviously not the type to stay up to all hours unless I'm watching Downton Abbey or reading some hilariously awesome mommy blog.

So on to the practicalities of cleanliness. I've found that with every kid, once we hit about nine or ten months post-birth, I get this crazy, crazy urge to purge our house. Much of this comes from the dozen or so boxes we've alternately moved, consolidated, repackaged, shifted, and just blatantly ignored in our eight years of marriage. I've gone through a lot of stuff, but these basement dwellers start to eat at me once babies are more mobile, off Mommy, and generally able to amuse themselves for longish stretches of time. I want those boxes to go. I want them to die. I want to be able to actually look at the stuff we're keeping if it's so darn valuable to us. I want closets that are 40% full. I think what comes over me in these times of intense desire for order and neatness is a renewed belief, as screwed up theologically as it can be, in the old phrase, "Cleanliness is next to godliness." As a good Lutheran, I scoff at the idea that God actually cares if all my husband's socks are put together or my kitchen floor is clean or even if I've got twelve boxes of papers and remembrance clutter in my laundry room. But I do think He cares--and actually judges me--for sinfully neglecting my vocation as a wife and mother if I don't take care of those who have been gifted to me. And I so spectacularly fail at this every single day, even on those few days I do manage to do laundry, fold it, and actually put it away, that I thank God in His Son Jesus that He forgives me for all my selfishness for throwing the socks in the drawer, for not cleaning the floor, for leaving stuff to pile up, year after year.

And not to sound glib, but the fact is the mess remains. I don't live with cheap grace, thinking I don't have to do stuff because Jesus saved me for it anyway. "Thanks, Jesus, for saving me from eternal damnation! Now I don't have to clean out the dryer lint." I do live, though, sanctified in His grace. So maybe that's part of what's gotten me moving on the morass underneath me. I'm not saying you're not saved if you've got a mess in your house. I'm just thinking that cleanliness can so help us focus on what's most important--the saving work of Christ. Instead of being distracted by muck and clutter, I can think about Jesus. "Cleanliness is next to godliness."  So in terms of our basement right now, that means--you guessed it--a monster mess.

While upstairs is pretty decluttered,* our basement right now has multiple boxes just sitting there, waiting for me to go through. Yesterday I spent about five hours going through about one box of stuff. Hey--I had to know what I was throwing! And I know it'll get easier. I also know just beginning this dream-of-a-purge project I've had for years has actually made me able, today, to think about what my house and my lifelong work of keeping up with stuff will look like after this is through. It won't be a weight around my neck. It won't be a guilt-inducer anytime I sit down to rest. It won't be a huge pain in the rear to move if we ever move. It will be a less complicated living space. It will be a nicer place to be. It will be a home where, God willing, it will be easier for us to think every day on Christ and His unfailing mercies. So on to life uncluttered! If you've ever attempted/hoped for/accomplished/waited for Jeeves to show up to make this happen in your home, I'd love to hear from you.

*Depending on what your definition of "decluttered" is. Here's the kitchen table right now. Go ahead; judge away.