Where does a pregnant lady bury herself for a full month (besides, in bed with a bag of dark chocolate…or so she wishes) ?.  Well, here’s a bullet list of summer high-points so far (and a few low-points)

High Points:

-A MUCH slower pace (well…as slow as you can get with five kids to keep occupied), where this pregnant mamma didn’t have to rush kids out the door for school at 7:30 am. This has greatly helped her attitude and patience level.

-Because of not having to get up so early, we have lingered over and invited neighborhood kids into our evening family devotions. We have gone through Genesis and Exodus now and it has been SO COOL to see the kids “connect the dots” of sporatic Bible stories into one continuous narrative of peoples and events.  One neighborhood girl was playing at our house all day and evening and then when we were about to have devotions she decided that she needed to go home all of a sudden. We convinced her to stay and by the end of the chapter she was begging me to not stop reading…truly how sweet the Word of God is…food for our souls and excitement to our sense of adventure.

– reading books together, doing some school work with the kids, haircuts, and little excursions to parks, pools, and other fun places.

 

-A trek West , stopping through Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi.  (a place where Danny spent three years of his life as a child, while his father went through seminary there) and a sweet visit some Japanese friends from Danny’s dad church, who are studying to be prepared to go back to Japan.

 

– COUSIN TIME!!! Danny had to attend General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of America in Houston (because he is ordained now!)  My older brother, Ken, and his lovely wife Susan, and three kids live in Houston.  So while Danny was sitting in church meetings, Susan and I traipsed eight children on fun excursions around town: Children’s Museum, the Zoo, splash pads and parks, and eventually the beach….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

-And educational trip through New Orleans on the way back from Texas.  I have been reading to the kids these American Girl doll books that take place in New Orleans…So we went and saw where “Cecile and Marie Grace” lived, shopped and became friends.

Because of these books that we have devoured (and even Daniel Josiah was really into the stories), we learned about location, racial relationships, yellow fever, medical practices of the day, orphanages, Mardi Gra and masquerade balls, and the foods of the day. It was wonderful to bring to life all the ideas and imaginations, with real places…

We did an educational kids tour that was excellent and reinforced and added to all that we had been reading about and learning:

 

 

 

 

 

-On our westward excursion we spent a over 30 hours in the car together…and surprisingly, we didn’t watch ANY videos the whole time, but were mesmerized by books on CD (Miss Pigglewiggle, Quake (about the San Francisco earthquake) Indian and the Cupboard, Odyssey and the book of Luke (from the Bible) AND WE DIDNT KILL EACH OTHER….It was actually a blessed time….based on how many snacks I had on hand 🙂

 

Some Low Points:

-despite the slowed pace, there are still many evenings that mommy feels overwhelmed, and therefore deals with it with it in a very mature fashion…by yelling……. Lord, change me .

-on ONE particular evening, Danny was off at church meetings, I was watching my kids, a friend’s kids, AND some neighborhood kids (9 kids to wrangle, feed, and get ready for bed! not to mention, the one I’m lugging around in my belly)

So in an attempt to get them out of the way so I could get dinner ready for everyone, I sent them to play in the backyard….where they had the GREAT idea to dig a hole, turn on the hose, FILL the hole, and “make their own mud pit” and this all happened within the span of 15-20 minutes!!! Malachi really loved the idea and appeared in my kitchen (with a trail of mud behind him) looking like this from head to toe:

 

So dinner was paused, all kids were stripped of socks and shoes and “caged” on the back porch while I bathed Malachi, scrubbed up mud from all throughout house (it even got all over my CLEAN clothes which Benjamin had dumped out of the laundry basket before leaving to go make the mud pit).  Well. We ate dinner at 8:30 that night. And mommy cried.  And is now laughing about it in hindsight (unfortunately, pregnancy hormones don’t allow for that type of perspective IN the moment)

-And most of the other low points of the summer have been due to Mommy breaking down over similar situations…

-Stay tuned for a low, turned high point for Danny this summer…