Serve Week

One week this summer I was luck enough to serve with the teenagers from our church. Every morning we made sack lunches, one for myself, two to share. Every day we had a different project. Monday (July 5th) we picked up trash at a park in Kansas City. You can imagine what we found at Swope Park on the day after the 4th of July! The best thing I found was a couple walking down the street. They were collecting cans. We looked through my bag of trash and picked out all the cans. As we were digging, the lady told me that they can get $1 a pound for cans. She also asked if I had an extra pair of gloves. As we were walking to my car to get the gloves, I told her that we had packed extra lunches and water that day and asked if she was interested. She was. I gave her two lunches and two bottles of cold water and two pair of gloves. We said goodbye and God bless. Then I thought. $1 for a pound of cans? One Dollar? One pound? That's a lot of cans. And what does one dollar buy you? This was the first of many humbling experiences during the week. I thanked God in that moment for a house and a job and a family. We are so blessed.
After we picked up trash, we ate our lunches and talked about all the gross stuff we picked up. Then we headed out for downtown to hand out some lunches. It was really simple. We drove around and looked for people that we thought needed a lunch. We did this for 3 days. We gave out about 60 lunches. Some people took the paper bag and walked away. Some stopped to tell us their story. Many were very grateful. One man giggled, he was so happy! We drove in our cars silently, humbled by the situation.

Tuesday we worked in two groups. One group sanded and painted a lady's porch. The other group picked up trash in her neighborhood. Someone stopped as we were picking up trash and asked why we were there. We just answered that we were doing what we could for the people in the neighborhood. The lady whose porch was painted was very touched by our work. I was told that she said "thank-you" a million times and was moved to tears at the end of the day.

Wednesday we worked at a food pantry in Kansas City. We sorted bread and packaged cereal. We all got to wear sweet hairnets! In the afternoon we did some yard work for a special lady. Her husband had just passed away and she was preparing to host people at her house around the time of the funeral. It was raining and we were doing yard work. Mainly we were pulling weeds and bagging up grass. Heavy, dirty work.

Thursday we sorted clothes at a local clothes closet. Easy work compared to the previous afternoon! Later that morning we did some work at another food pantry.

In this entire week, I never heard one person complain about the work, the heat, the trash. We served with open hearts an I think everyone left having been changed.

Judah, Our Two-Year-Old

Judah turned 2 on July 1st. To celebrate, we put him in the car for 4 hours! I'll get to that. We tried to make a big deal about his birthday even though it was a crazy day. Since February I have wanted to get Judah a big stuffed Thomas that I saw at Target. A few days before his birthday we were in the store and found that they still had the coveted (by myself) Thomas. That was his special present from our family.
Since it had been months since we were in Iowa, we decided to go for a visit. We had to make a few stops before we left town. James had an interview for a job in Kansas City (more on that later) so we all drove to that. While he was interviewing I took the boys to Crown Center. We had a bagel at Panera and then went to the Clifford exhibit. The boys had fun, although I wasn't really impressed.
The drive to my mom's house was uneventful. We went to the city band concert on the square that evening. Most of the time the boys were clueless that there was a concert going on.
Saturday of that week my sisters came and we had a birthday party for Judah. He seemed to be afraid of the candles but loved his cupcake and ice cream!

Judah loves:
running around...yelling (He either says "ready, go" or "to infinity and beyond" before he runs.)
cars, trucks, trains
books
babies
animals

Judah is 34 inches tall and weighs 26 pounds.

Oh, by the way. It's a boy! Our third baby...is a boy!

My Birthday

Here you go. I know you've been wondering about me. I'm still alive, just not motivated. We've had lots of exciting moments this summer...it all starts with my birthday.

Let me say that I have the best husband. The day before my birthday, James took the boys out shopping. That's not necessarily fun on your own, especially since Asa wanted to stay home with me. On the morning of my birthday, James had picked up breakfast (from Wendy's, my favorite) and put it on a nice tray for me. Breakfast in bed! Then there was a series of clues all over the house to lead me to my present. He had printed some new pics of our family for our living room and also got "The Sound of Music" for me. Asa and I watched that instead of cartoons! Judah joined when he finally woke up. We went to McCallister's Deli for lunch that day. Yummy! I was showered with treats from my friends all day. That evening we had a picnic with the staff from church. It wasn't in my honor but it was a lot of fun! We played some sand volleyball after eating. Then on the way home, I hit a deer. Good news is that it just knocked out the headlight which James eventually fixed. (That's another story...he ordered the light and it didn't fit so he had to return it and order another one...long story.)
So my birthday was a great day! I felt very loved and lucky to have the family and friends that I have.

Friday, Friday, Friday's Here

I just asked Judah for a kiss and he shielded his face.
Excuse me, I am your mother.
I will kiss you.
Whenever I want.
Even after you get married!

Today we went to the church building to help clean out what is referred to as the "Teacher's Resource Room." It's just a room with millions of books, crayons, puppets...you name it. I really didn't help much. I had my kids there. They were eating breakfast. I was eating breakfast. But I did see a lot of books & stuff! A lot! After an hour, I left. I hope the other ladies accomplished their goals. If not, we'll try again next week.

We had to leave the church because a group of people (also from church) were going to open gym at this gymnastics place. The kids love it. They run around and jump on things and scream. What could be better? Asa crawled up the huge inflatable slide and went down. Twice! He's never done that before. He looked a little scared halfway down the slide. It's like he wondered if he was going to fall off. But he was very proud of himself. And I was proud of him. Judah especially loved the trampolines! Until he decided he needed a drink and tried to run away.

Oh, before I went to the gym, I stopped by the ATM to get some money. And guess what? I COULD NOT remember my PIN!
Really?
REALLY?
I tried twice. No luck. What's up with that? I know, I'm pregnant. But I couldn't remember my PIN! So I drove over to the bank drive through to get my money. Lame.

After gymnastics we went to Wendy's for lunch. Judah managed to beg a fry away from a grandma as we were waiting in line to order. Judah also fell off his chair right after Asa spilled my Dr. Pepper on the floor! Then the worst thing happened. Asa was on the floor under the table. I was just looking over to tell him to get back on his chair when I saw him LICK THE FLOOR! Gross! I guess he spilled some of his dip and was trying to clean it up. He's such a great kid!
Why did he lick the floor? He doesn't even lick the floor at home! We'll have to have a talk about that.

That's about it for my Friday. So far. We'll see what the evening brings.

Favorite Things

These are a few of my favorite things:

Whenever I use my hair dryer, Judah runs over to the bathroom door. I point the hair dryer at his head, he giggles and runs away. In a minute he runs back and waits for me to blow it on him again. This continues the whole time I'm drying my hair!

Sometimes the kids will be playing in the basement and James and I will be in the living room watching TV or something. If we hear someone coming up the steps, I say, "Pretend you're asleep." We both close our eyes and lay really still. A few times Asa came in and just looked at us. He thought we were asleep and went back downstairs. Now he just runs and jumps on us, giggling.

James is the #1 griller in the whole world! His chicken is perfect every time!

Yesterday in church I sat with one of my many friends with a brand new baby. Babies are my favorite! I got to hold little Baby C and tried to feed him a bottle but he wasn't interested. Anyhow, this little baby was so sweet! He laid there and made the cutest little faces. It made me very excited to hold another little Light baby in a few months! Oh yeah, did I mention that we're having another baby? It will be our little Christmas present in December!

I hope everyone had a great Mother's Day. My boys were sick and stayed home from church with James. It was weird going to church by myself. James made breakfast and lunch. What a treat! I wish every day was Mother's Day.

The Return of the Goal-Of-The-Week

My goal this week is to de-clutter the main floor of my house.
Next week's goal is to de-clutter the basement.
Week three is to de-clutter the garage.

I've already gone through a basket-full of papers and organized them into piles. That's a big accomplishment.

Here are a few highlights:
From the back seat I hear Asa exclaim: Look! A bus school!

Asa often requests something for dinner. In the morning.

That's all I've got. Maybe there will be more blogs soon! Maybe.

Lent

This year during Lent I've been doing something a little different. A good friend gave me a little packet with weekly suggestions. I thought this would go along great with my weekly goals. (They do still exist and I'm going to write a book about how it changes your life. I will be famous.) Each of the last three and a half weeks I have given up something. The first week was sweets, second week: meat, third week was media: TV & the radio.
Pause. You're wondering why I'm doing this. You're asking, "Is she Catholic?" No. I'm not. Then why observe Lent? Well, I think it's a good time to restart. To focus. To examine myself. If I'm supposed to be living like Christ, how am I doing? Not so great. Time to realize my priorities. Time to figure out what is really taking up my time. I want these 40 days to be a journey. I want to come out different than I entered.
How am I doing?
I was tempted most with week one. It wasn't just sweets. It was sweets, treats & self indulgences. Buy nothing for yourself. Nothing you don't need. That was pretty hard. What did I learn? I'm pretty selfish. Many times during the week I said to myself, "Nope. You're not allowed to buy that. Stop looking at it."
Anyhow, week two was tricky. I was supposed to pick a food category or a meal to fast for the week. I chose meat. That makes it hard to plan meals, especially when the husband doesn't eat veggies! It wasn't really a craving, just something I had to work around.
Week 3 was mostly difficult when I was driving by myself to the grocery store or something. No radio. Just sit and think. Pray. Watch out for other drivers! It also was a nuisance for James. No TV to unwind at the end of the day! We played a game one night. Rummikub.
This week is a fast from the internet and social networking. HOLY COW! That is hard. I will have to use the internet some because of some church communications that can't be ignored for a week! I think this week will be my biggest challenge yet.