Wren and Her Words

Our sweet girl is suddenly talking.  A lot.  And sitting up (although dangerously wobbly still) seemingly all the sudden.  I love this baby phase.  She is into pacis, fruits, Sophie the ridiculously overpriced French squeaky giraffe, laughing at her big brothers goofing off, flapping her amazing cheeks, grabbing hair and pulling as hard as she can, taking good morning naps, keys, and anything crinkly that she can put in her mouth.  She is such a delight!!

The Naked Cowboy

We had the privilege and delight of having a visit from my mom, aunt Martha, sister Marnie, Pax, and grandma over this past weekend, and we had such a blast.  On Sunday afternoon we rode the bus into NYC and walked from the bus station into Times Square.  There our eyes were sullied by The Naked Cowboy, who is basically what his name suggests... a man with a cowboy hat, cowboy boots, and some really tiny underwear.  Just that small piece of white is all that stands between him and public indecency, although you could argue that he already violates that.  

The boys have realized that we have pics of this man on my phone, and they have endless curiosity about the Naked Cowboy.  Howie doesn't know what to make of this man.  After I've explained several times that it's not acceptable to go out in public in your undies, I think he can't understand why this makes us laugh but yet why it's not ok.  Howie and Josh had a heart-to-heart about the Naked Cowboy... Josh reported the conversation to me as going down like this:

H: Daddy, remember that naked cowboy we saw in the city?

J: Yes.

H: I know lots of naked cowboys!

J: Howie, there is only one naked cowboy. He is a very silly man.

H: No Daddy, he is a cowboy.

J: Howie, he is not a cowboy. He is just a silly man who dresses like a cowboy.

H: But Daddy, he had on a cowboy hat, so he is a cowboy.

J: Howie, just because you have a cowboy hat on does not make you a cowboy.

H: But Daddy, he had cowboy boots on!

J: Well, just because you have cowboy boots on does not make you a cowboy.

H: (pausing to think)... That cowboy was in his undies, daddy.

J: That's right. He is a very silly man. A real cowboy wears pants and not just undies.

H: (you can see the wheels turning in his mind)... Yeah, a real cowboy has pants on and no undies.

J: Well, actually a real cowboy has undies and pants on. Also, a real cowboy rides a horse and lassos cattle. You won't find any real cowboys in the middle of New York City.

H: Yeah, a real cowboy rides a horse. That naked cowboy was in his undies!

J: I know, what a silly man, huh?

You can guarantee that the next time we go into Times Square their little eyes will be straining to see the Naked Cowboy.  Enough about him.

We had a wonderful visit with my family.  We also went to the Bronx Zoo, which was another highlight.  Howie and Pax had a wonderful time chasing the peacocks that roam the zoo, and Justice delighted to watch them eat his popcorn right off the ground in front of him.  I was amazed to see their beauty up close- God is the original artist for sure!- and they inspired me to paint a room with those beautiful peacock colors at some point in my life.  

We hated to see them go but can't wait for our next visit!  

Little House on the Prairie Apprentice... The Show I Wish I Was On

Forget the Donald... I wish I could be Ma Ingalls' apprentice. Howie and I just finished reading Little House in the Big Woods and have moved on to Little House on the Prairie, and I need a little more Ma Ingalls in my life.

This is what I mean: One thing I've come to learn about myself over the past several months is that I'm lazy. Dreadfully lazy.

One of my new year's resolutions was to stop being lazy. Ha! That sounds funny when I write it out. But I realized that all of this time I've kind of given myself a free pass on a lot of things, like housework being probably the biggest one. I realize that having 3 small kids at home isn't a great time to have a sparkling clean house, and trust me, on my best day it's never sparkling clean. But what I've come to understand is that I'm never going to want to do housework, and if I keep waiting for myself to get organized and figure out a plan for attacking my household chores, it's never going to happen and the boys are going to grow up thinking that a slovenly household is the norm. As much as I may long for one, I will never have a house elf.

To this end I began to think of simple ways that I could become a bit more organized and keep things neater without a ton of daily work that I truly don't have time for. Here were the things that I decided on... these have become the things I have drawn my line in the sand on and I try my best to not compromise (although watching tv or knitting always sounds better than getting these done!!!). Realize that these may sound like housekeeping 101 to most of you, but to me, this has been revolutionary.

1. Laundry: I now try to do a load every day if the pile warrants that. I used to wait until the laundry had piled into mountains before doing any, and then I was buried under an avalanche of clean laundry to fold, and most of it never got folded and put away before just being dug out of the basket and worn. So now I'm trying to not remove any laundry from the laundry room, or at least the basement, without folding it. What I prefer to do is fold the dry laundry as I take it out of the dryer. This then prevents me from having a huge back-up of clean but unfolded laundry. We have been known to have random baskets of clean but unfolded laundry cluttering up our house, particularly our bedroom, and this gets very depressing.

2. Kitchen: I now try to not go to bed until the kitchen is clean and the dishwasher is running. If I leave any dishes it's just a pot or pan or something that can be done very quickly while the kids are eating breakfast. This has also been huge. Those of you who ever came to our apartment during seminary can attest to the fact that dishes have long been my nemesis. But with the Lord's help I am taking the dishes captive!!! Another thing that has helped is working the day to load dishes into the dishwasher as they're dirty, not waiting until after dinner. Again, I realize that most of you have known these things all along, but it's like I just read Housekeeping for Dummies.

3. Papers. Josh and I have long had a paper problem. In an effort to end this paper problem I bought a shredder at Target back when we lived in St Louis, but alas, it was one heck of a cheap shredder, and it died shortly thereafter. So this past weekend I just went to Office Max and bought a mackdaddy shredder, and now there is no paper that is safe in this house. We desperately need a system for organizing papers... this is still a work in progress. But we're aware that we have a problem, and that's at least part of the battle.

4. Vacuuming. I actually like vacuuming so this hasn't been so much of a struggle, but I'm trying to vacuum frequently as the area under our kitchen table often resembles the floor of a barn and our brown shag rug is like a pet.

5. Making the bed. We have never been good about making the bed since we got married, and I'm attempting to do that every day now. It makes a huge difference in my attitude! And our room just looks nicer.

So coming back to Ma Ingalls, out of necessity she was a hard worker. She didn't have any shortcuts like dishwashers and washing machines and grocery stores and refrigerators. I admire how she worked hard without complaint (or at least none recorded by Laura), and she had a system for attacking her myriad housekeeping chores. Here's what Laura writes on page 29 of Little House in the Big Woods:

"After this was done, Ma began the work that belonged to that day. Each day had its own proper work. Ma used to say:

'Wash on Monday,

Iron on Tuesday,

Mend on Wednesday,

Churn on Thursday,

Clean on Friday,

Bake on Saturday,

Rest on Sunday.'"

I love this because it gave Ma and the girls a rhythm to the week and an organized way to complete housework. As I grow into my role as mom and housekeeper that the Lord has placed me in right now, I'm looking to people I admire like Ma Ingalls for help. While I'm grateful I don't need to take a day for ironing (hallelujah), I've learned that doing a little work at different points throughout the day makes for a happier mama, happier kiddos, a happier husband, and a cleaner house. Keep working on me, Ma Ingalls. We've got a lot of books to go.

Oh Dear... These Are Something Else

We have a professional photographer at our church who was taking photos for our online church photo album last week, and we managed to create some doozies. These had me doubled over laughing when I saw them. It's curious how Justice managed to look so hilarious in most of these.

In this pic Wren was kind enough to add some spit up to the mix.

I guess if we have to declare a winner this would be it!

Mama's Day Out

We're adjusting to life in New Jersey and finding ourselves liking it more and more, but one thing that isn't improving is how much we miss our family and friends. In fact the longer we're here the more reality sets in that we are very far from our families and many of our friends and that's not going to change any time soon. (Although of course we are deeply enjoying getting to know our new church family.) But one thing we love about New Jersey is the fact that we can take a short bus ride into NYC! Josh is blessed with Thursdays off and over the last few weeks he has given me the day off to go wherever the wind takes me, and so I've ventured into NYC on my own... that has been a sheer delight. The first time I went I decided on the advice of a gal from church to walk as far down 5th Ave as I could, so I walked from about 50th St all the way down to 18th or 17th when I was totally pooped and still had to return to catch my bus on 42nd St. So walking downtown from the bus station in Midtown is not possible for me, I discovered!! Last Thursday I figured out how to board the subway from the Port Authority where my bus arrives and rode downtown to the 9-11 Memorial. All along the way there were signs that said you have to have an advance visitor's pass to enter the memorial, but I thought I would just walk down to the entrance to see if I could see in through a crack in the fence. When I got there one of the employees asked me if I wanted to go in, but I told her I didn't have a pass and thought that would be that. She said it was a light visitor traffic day and they were giving passes to the public!! So I got to go in!! After passing through airport-like security I entered and was completely amazed. It's impossible to understand the scale of these huge pools through a photo. It was pretty awesome. And the towers still under construction were pretty awesome too. So after that I went to an espresso bar, drank a mocha, and knitted for a couple hours. All in all I'd say it was a pretty nice day.

1 World Trade Center... when completed it will be the tallest building in North America at

1,776 feet!!

South reflecting pool

North reflecting pool

While downtown I happened by Zuccotti Park and got my Occupy Wall Street on... jk actually it was totally empty.

aforementioned mocha

aforementioned knitting

Wren and Her Subjects

Wren has pretty much stolen all of our hearts these days. She is undoubtedly the princess of the house, and the boys are all too happy to make themselves her devoted subjects. I just want to say that I do take pics of our boys too, but they are so difficult to make sit still long enough to take a pic and Wren is just so easy at this stage. Thus the many pics of her in this post. Plus she's just really cute, if I may say so.

Big girl just tried baby cereal for the first time today! She definitely enjoyed the experience, though I don't know how much of it actually got into her stomach. More and more she is looking at whatever we're eating longingly, so I thought I would give it a try. It was a hit!

Gotta love the Halloween bib. First one I grabbed.

We are so grateful for this precious baby girl!!

A Story of Parental Failure

This guy is really something else. He can make you do things you always said you'd never do. Here's an example from last night. I took the boys (and Wren- still not used to that!) to Chick-Fil-A for lunch yesterday (who knew Chick-Fil-A was in New Jersey?? YAY!!) and we had a wonderful time. When they asked for a snack later in the day, I wanted them to eat some fruit since lunch was a nutritional bust. Howie ate his without complaint, but Justice is another story altogether. To make a long story short he eventually ate a little but I wanted him to eat a bit more before having anything else to eat. He was set on eating some animal crackers right then, with no more fruit before. I was weakening and weakening... this is embarrassing... and I finally told him to take one more bite. It was an apple slice, and he threw it down on the floor. I told him that was not ok, but then he kicked it under the dishwasher. I found this so hilarious that I was laughing behind my hands. I gave him another one and told him to eat it, and he pushed that slice far under the dishwasher with a maniacal giggle. At this point I lost it, and he too was laughing his head off. He definitely won that round. Although defiance is not funny, you wouldn't know it from that interaction. Gotta work on that doing what mama asks with a cheerful attitude.