What would you do?

We came home from soccer practice tonight to indulge in a meal that I had prepared earlier today. I left it in the oven on 200 to finish cooking and joked that I'd probably burn the house down. When we all returned with rumbling bellies, I opened the oven and felt no heat. The heating element/coil/not-sure-what-you-call it had burned out. I felt the dish and it was still hot, but noticed a type of film all over the oven. It sort of looked like there was a fire in the oven. I also noticed the clock was not working any longer...either the oven was completely dead or the breaker was tripped.

I called our knowledgeable neighbors to see what was most likely going on. She confirmed that the coil had burned out and that usually trips the breaker. She also said we shouldn't eat our meal, because of the possible contamination by fumes.

Normally, I invite any excuse to go eat out. However, I was craving this roast & it was too close to bedtime to think about going out. I also don't have a whole lot for back up in the house...that sounds appealing to this pregnant lady anyhow! So I didn't like the idea of throwing out a delicious (and expensive) roast. We considered that the lid was on and seemed to have protected the food. There was a film on the outside of the dish and it's lid, yet none on the inside rim of the dish.

Why is this such a tough decision for me this time around? I've done it before, but usually because I botched it up or burned it.

What would you do...would you risk it or chuck it out?

(We did end up loading up in the van and heading to the boys' absolute favorite place...Mickey D's. But I'll save the food, until I know for sure whether I'll be poisoning my family!)

New clothes for new life

Just wanted to post an opportunity to share some spare change and buy some new uniforms for some precious children in the Dominican Republic.

Several months ago I posted about God opening doors for us to come alongside Makarios International by sponsoring a child. We have been blessed to support & pray for "our girl" and hear updates, not only about what she's learning and how she's excelling in school, but also about how the other children are being impacted by God's work at Makarios.

At the beginning of this school year, just like we do here in the States, Makarios has costs for new uniforms for those growing kiddos, among other starting expenses. Consider whether you could help any of these kids through this ministry.

Don't quote me on this, but I believe that $10 will help to cover the costs of a new uniform for each child.

You can simply send a donation to the address listed on the bottom of their homepage. If you have any more questions about sponsoring a child or about the ministry, their people are so caring and helpful...I'll send you one of their email addresses. And while you're checking out their homepage, dive a little deeper to learn more about their passion to reach the Haitians & Dominicans there! It's pretty amazing...God is doing a great work!

Love this computer

Brent did a work on this computer...after we took it to the Geek Squad and they told us what to do. But he did the work and now I can log in to my favorite stuff again! I'm pretty excited about a faster computer back in action. Let's see if it actually makes an impact on my blogging frequency. I was ready to send it back and jump to mac...but we're not ready for that price increase quite yet!

In other news...our hermit crabs are still alive, after 2 days. In fact, they both moved to a new "home" the day that we brought them to OUR home! After our day at COSI, the boys found a new shell for them from a random collection here at home. They put them in the crab's containers, we left for a couple hours to run some errands & we returned to find original shells were empty. The boys were so thrilled! Just wish we could have witnessed their moving skills! Little Brudder's actually moved again that night while we slept, after we had offered him yet another shell from the collection. What fascinating creatures!

The boys and their new pets - "Crabby" & "Hermit"
Wow, we exude creativity!

Feeling a bit more energy these days. Felt quite productive today, which hasn't really been the case for quite some time. Now that I have this computer back at my disposal though, the productivity around the house may decrease again. I can still play that pregnancy card, I think. Brent may be on to me soon though! :-)

Catching up!

It's been quite a month full of wrapping up summer vacation! My mom came for her annual Longaberger Bee and stayed with us. It's always fun to have her out here for a few days. She's usually back and forth from downtown Columbus, where her meetings are and then to the Longaberger Homestead, for her big shopping & basket-making day. We did a little shopping while she was here and she also watched the boys for us while we had a date night!

We turned around and drove her back to Iowa with us when we took our annual trip to visit our families. A week at the Bower's and a week at the Bailey's...we kept going, but also had some nice "down" days too. More on that trip later...but no promises with the way I'm blogging lately.

Back to Ohio for a week of catching up before Brent went back to teach and Big Brudder went off to school for his first time!! We were all very excited for school to start and see what this new world holds for all of us. Our school system does a staggered start where 1/3 of the class begins on Tuesday, 1/3 on Weds. & 1/3 on Thurs. Then they all return to bombard the teacher on Friday! I think the 2nd day was harder for me to let him go than the first.

Little Brudder starts pre-K next week and we are looking forward to his first experience there also. We think it will go well, but you never can tell, so we just keep praying.

Today we had some fun as a family and went to a COSI Hermit Crab workshop for the boys. (COSI is the kids' science center here in town. It was rated #1 in the US by Parents Magazine recently! A good friend of ours is director of membership there, so we just had to get a membership. :-) It's a treat to go whenever we have a chance!)

Back to today...the boys have been fascinated by ocean and water animals for quite some time. After our pet fish bit the dust, they started their request for hermit crabs. So this seemed like a perfect introduction to the creepy, crawly creatures. I signed them up ASAP when we learned about it!. A cool surprise was that each kid in the workshop was going to be taking home a pet crab after the class! The class was wonderful and had a great mix to keep them occupied. It was well worth the investment!

We had some lunch there and checked out the outdoor exhibits before catching the Extreme Screen movie. "Fly Me to the Moon" is now showing there in museum length (45 min...just perfect for their ages) and it's in 3D!! I don't know if all their movies are shown like that, but this was a neat one for the boys. Their first 3D movie, so we weren't sure if they'd keep the glasses on. If you didn't, it wasn't near as cool to watch. Kind of blurry and annoying, actually. It was very funny to see all the kids in the theatre reaching out to grab for the flies and other objects in the movie! The movie got poor reviews for the full-length movie, but we thought it was perfect for kids that are our boys' age! We say "Go see it!" if you're even considering it!

Cute & funny

These boys of ours are such blessings and have kept us having fun and laughing this summer for sure. I had this goal of posting more frequently this month, but I guess life takes over sometimes. And then a computer goes nuts and won't let you login to your fave accounts. We still have a dinosaur computer to work off, but I don't dare try to upload pics/videos with it. I'd be here til next week. Therefore, no pics with this post. (I love to include pics...because I just love pics!)

Brent has spent much time with the boys lately. It's been so spoiling and has allowed me to have some shopping time and a chance to get things done that just need to get done. I had a doctor appt. last week and ran several errands that day too. Later that night, we were all driving in the van and our little guy piped up out of the blue,

"Hey Mom, how was your dr. appt.?" I didn't realize that he even knew what I was doing today.

"Great! Thanks for asking! I really like my new doctor." He melts my heart sometimes. My boy that is...not really my new doctor.

"What was your doctor's name?" He really wanted to keep chatting about this.

"Dr. Raymond is his name and he loves Jesus! That means a lot to us!" I said.

"Oh. I know a doctor and his name is Dr. Bob!" (The boys love their pediatrician.)

"You're right and he loves Jesus too! That's really special that both our doctors love Jesus."

"Yeah. And I love Jesus too! I will love Him for 100 days!"

Apparently that's a long time for a guy his age. He just makes us smile!

Then today, I asked the boys to help me clean up a bit. I was assigning them a task and the big brudder said,
"It would be great if I got to make all the rules around here."

"Oh really? What one rule would you make first?" I asked.

"You would be the one to do all the work around here." I guess that's his idea of a rule.

"Great. Then what would that make you?" (I was thinking he would answer "A spoiled brat" as that's what we tell them they'll be if they always get exactly what they want.)


"A dad."

Wow, how did he make the coorelation?? The one who does little work ends up being the dad? Hmmm....very interesting! Ha! Obviously, based on Brent's awesome involvement lately, he's not deducing that from our household. Not sure who else he's been watching though! :-)

"New" friend in the blogosphere

As of late, several friends have started blogging and I'm so excited to hear from them! It's really cool that even when you know someone personally, you can get to know them even more through a blog and how they write. God had made people with so much depth...He's made so many sides to each person.

Enjoy the writings of a sweet friend, Heather, and what God's doing in her life and her family's life right now. She's always been one to keep ears open for God's voice. It sounds like He's speaking in His "loud voice" to them right now. :-) And they're following one step at a time. Her husband's been blogging for quite some time now and now he's got her connected! It's quite contagious, so be careful...you may be the next one to sign on!

Creation Education

We're going to rewind a couple of weeks back to our VBS week...

Operation Space: A Close Encounter with God's Word

...an excellent week and one of the most memorable each year for our family. Each year the curriculum is written around the truths of Creation Science and how God & His word relate to and fuel our lives today.

This year we focused on....SPACE (you guessed it) and the amazing way that God created our planet to be the perfect & only known place to display His glory in His own image - humans!

Our boys LOVED it and were so thrilled to start a new day & arrive at VBS each morning. We usually struggle during our busy weeks. So it was "somethin" that they didn't whine & throw fits when we had to get out the door in the am. Clearly the hand of God helping out in our daily lives and drawing our boys to love what they were learning about Him!

During the week, our good friend mentioned her son has been listening to a set of CD's called "The Jonathan Park Series." I wondered if they would be more appropriate for older kids, but we picked up a set at the VBS bookstore anyhow. Well...BOTH boys are HOOKED on them!

They ask to hear them in the van, no matter the length of the trip & as they go to bed at night. This 4-CD set is packed full of 12 episodes of adventure. While these made-for-radio dramas are classified as fiction, they are based on actual places & scientific discoveries. Brent and I have really enjoyed listening along and have learned a lot ourselves!

If you're looking for come good ear-candy for a road trip, we suggest Jonathan Park to keep the whole family in tune & learning more about defending our faith in God & His creation!

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