"Love the Lord your God, walk in all His ways, obey His commands, hold fast to Him and serve Him with all your heart and soul." Joshua 22:5


Sunday, January 31, 2010

Snow Fun!

We don't get this kind of snow very often...  in fact, this was probably Will's first time to ever play in snow.  He loved it!
Shep's snow angel...
Will does everything Shep does... 
John's putting some finishing touches on the snowman.
Josiah drew a smiley face in the snow, but it's too bright to see it.
What's a good snow day without a snowball fight?! 
The Wasson boys with their snowman - great job guys!  (This was the first time our boys have ever been able to build a snowman!)

Dressing Up

The boys were waiting for John to take them outside to build a snowman and I was busy cleaning...  next thing I noticed... these three characters!

Saturday, January 30, 2010

Volcano, Snow and Boxing - A day in the life...

The day started out with a cold dreary rain and a yard full of mud...  too yucky outside to send all these rambunctious boys outside to burn off some energy.  I've learned that my guys need a break to expend energy in order to sit still again for school.  Boys. :)  Plus we had workers coming and going constantly which just makes the boys more curious and more energetic.  Not to mention that today was the day we were finishing our volcano experiment.  I had to take a break and assign the boys to jumping jacks, sit ups, push ups, and running laps around our interior circle.  Then on to the volcano experiment...  here's our finished volcano after it was painted.  Cool, huh?
Woohoo!  Lava!  (Or at least some red foaming substance that oozes out of the top!)  They were thrilled!
I love that all three of my guys can do part of their school together!  I hope that one day they will treasure this opportunity to build their relationships - especially as we have to work together to figure out who gets the only good paintbrush and who is going to pour which item into the volcano.  :)
Then came the snow...  the beautiful snow!  Shepard had to get out in it and played by himself for quite a while.  Josiah was more content to stay inside.  And Will was napping.
When Shep finally came back inside, his hands and feet were so cold...  I wrapped him up in a blanket with a heat pillow - ahhh - and made him some hot chocolate.  Life is good!  I went upstairs to tell John how Shepard was in ecstasy in his cozy environment and John chuckled, then said, "He's a lot like you".  Hmmm... I hadn't thought about that, but come to think of it, I guess he is.  I had made myself my own cup of sweet coffee with the intention of sitting in a cozy chair with a good book and watching the snowflakes fall - just the thought of it makes me feel warm and cozy.  But, alas, I'll have to just enjoy the thought of it because life is too busy for me to just sit and enjoy anything. :)  I was constantly up and down and then just as I thought I might actually get to sit with my now lukewarm coffee, Will woke up from his nap and I traded that book for some sweet cuddles with him for a few minutes.  That was a good trade - even if it only lasted a few minutes!
So, tonight was Family Night at our house and we cozied up with pizza and one of the Rocky movies.  I'd never watched any of them before and didn't think that I would have any interest in it, but it was good.  I was pleasantly surprised.  When the movie was over, we had the most rambunctious boys ever.  Their reactions to the movie were so according to their personalies.  Shepard immediately had to BE Rocky.  He stripped down to his boxers and went into character-mode.  Will was begging to get out of his seat even before the movie was over so that he could "box" - he just had to get in some action.  And Josiah was planning his next Wii characters - Rocky and Apollo.  I would have taken pictures of the boys, but in their underwear?  Will came out of his room with striped underwear to put on over his diaper and eventually added a stocking cap and gloves for his boxing outfit.  I wish you could have seen him hopping and punching the air.  Too cute!  And in the middle of all this - and I was really enjoying it - the Lord reminded me that these are boy-men and that the rambunctiousness of boys is part of the process of growing them into men.  I had been longing for quiet and calmness earlier in the day - (remember the missed cozy chair with a book and coffee? :) ) - but the Lord showed me how blessed I am to have these little growing men to train in His ways.  Boys just come with rambunctiousness.  I figure that cozy chair will be part of my life again one day in the future.  Until then... Lord, give me strength!

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Making a Volcano

I admit it...  I felt like a cool mommy today! :)  We are studying volcanoes in school right now - a subject that my boys love.  I hate to admit it, but I'm not one of those fun moms who does lots of projects with our school (or any time really).  But today we made our own clay from scratch and then shaped our volcano.  I'm sure lots of families have done this same experiment, but this seemed like a big project to us.  (And actually, now that I know how super easy it is to make clay, we could do this again!)  Now we just wait a couple days for the clay to harden and then we'll paint it and create an explosion - that's the really cool part.  Here are the boys working with the clay...  you can see that Shepard did not like to get his hands dirty.  So, Josiah did most of the work and Will was eager to join him.  That is, until Will fell off the bench with a big crash bruising his chin and biting his tongue in two places - yes, there was blood.

Isn't it a beaut?!  I explained that real volcanoes don't have smooth edges either. :)

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Sing It, Will

I've been noticing lately that Will tends to drag out the old guitar just about every day.  He doesn't know much about how to play it, but he sure loves it.  It's completely out of tune, but he delights in the sounds it makes.  Last night I heard him strumming away again and then I realized that he was singing the words "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus" over and over again.  What a precious sound!  I think it was the best worship song I've ever heard!  What comes to my mind are the words of Jesus, "Let the little children come to me."  My heart says, "Yes!  Go, Will, go!"

Here are a couple of pictures of the other boys in some of their latest costumes.  Dressing up seems to be the theme of the season.  And they are getting very creative. :)

Saturday, January 16, 2010

Things I Treasure

Today was hard...  just plain and simple, hard.  When we finally finished school and all the workers had gone for the day (we're remodeling two bathrooms) I told the two oldest boys that I needed to rest for a little while - while Will was taking his nap.  Shepard immediately got up and went to separate corner of the room and bowed his little head and began to pray out loud...  "Lord please help Mommy to feel better" etc.  Oh, I treasure his prayers!

Tonight as the boys were getting ready for bed, Josiah came to us and expressed an interest in helping to serve at the Community Rescue.  His face showed a true compassion as he was telling us about some of the families that he remembers meeting there.  Oh, my heart swells.  I praise the Lord for building this character trait in Josiah.

And little Will...  whenever Shepard has his latest injury and the tears keep flowing, Will is quick to stand by his side and gently rub his back until he feels better.  So sweet!

These are some of the things I want to remember!

Monday, January 11, 2010

It's Monday!

Anybody else have MONDAYS??  John noticed the trend first...  Mondays just never run as smoothly at our house.  We started a new curriculum in school today...  why would we do that on Monday?! :)  Actually, that went ok, but we've got to get our new school schedule figured out.  This afternoon while I was helping Josiah with his schoolwork, I heard Will start to cry and then Shepard started crying, too.  There was blood.  That's always a bad sign.  Apparently Shepard was climbing up the bunk bed ladder with the big garbage truck toy - trying to find a secret place to play with it most likely - and he accidently dropped it on Will's head.  That explains why Will was crying.  But, then Shepard fell off the ladder and busted his lip.  That explains the blood.  All is calm now...  Will actually asked if he could go take his nap - he MUST be VERY tired! :)  Shepard is resting on the couch.  Josiah is doing school.  Ahhhhh....  peace!  It won't last long, but maybe the "Monday" part of our Monday will be behind us????  We'll see...