grump

[grmp]

n.

a cranky complaining person

Grr.

Do you want to hear me complain? My husband got to hear it tonight. Poor guy. Instead of feeling better afterwards, I felt dirty. To make matters better, I went to the deep-freeze and pulled out three fat cookies and ate them with milk. That didn't help anything but my gut.

Late one night, Jesus walked on the water towards the disciples' boat. They thought he was a ghost, and they freaked out. Jesus said, "Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid." Peter answered, "Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water." Jesus said, "Come." So Peter did. He got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, "Lord, save me."

It just seems to me that I've been a lot like Peter. Why do I get so caught up in circumstances and activities that I forget to look to Jesus, the author and perfecter of my faith? One day (years ago), Jared described me as "busy, busy". I think ONE of those busy-s can be okay. So lately, this Veggie Tales clip kept popping into my head.

I'm not even sure what these guys were so busy with. I'm not even sure what I'm so busy with. I just know that "grump" and setting my eyes on earthly things have gone together. It's all meshed together with 5 cups of selfishness. Cookies didn't help, and neither did complaining. Jared's love and encouragement DID help, but what helped most of all was the realization of my sin and God's forgiveness of it.

While I'm posting You Tube videos, how about this reminder:

(The video stinks, but just listen.)

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God" (Hebrews 12:2 ESV).

car talk

They say that you should turn off the radio in the car when travelling with your kids. Kids communicate better when you aren't staring them in the face, I guess. This is our normal practice to and from town. On one section of the road, we talk about what we're thankful for. On another, we talk about the day's plans. These subjects sometimes turn into more meaningful talk. Take Monday, for instance, which went something like this:

Myra: Today is Grandma Aberle's birthday. She's 57 years old!

Carly: And you're 31.

Isaac: How can she be older than you when you're bigger?

M: God just made me taller and bigger.

(The kids sat there, thinking thoughtful thoughts.)

I: Abraham's wife had a baby when she was as old as Grandpa Hartter!!

M: Wasn't that an awesome miracle? That's one reason why she laughed when God told her that she'd have a baby. She didn't believe it because she was so old. But God can do anything.

C: Yeah, you know that song, My God is so big, so strong and so mighty there's NOTHING my God cannot do! God can do anything He wants to.

Conversation followed. As we pulled up to the High Rise, the kids knew the routine. They'd go into the office and pick out a couple worksheets from their workbook to do before playing. Isaac summed up the whole conversation in a big, deep voice. He said with gusto, "Yeah! God can do REALLY HARD worksheets!"

I laughed and answered, "He can do a lot more than that!"

hustle

Squirrels love these trees. Acorns galore. No need to hurry, collect, and bury. There are plenty to last all winter long. Have you ever watched these nutty little creatures? They dart here and there, gathering, collecting, eating, tails twitching, not trusting the border collie who watches them. Squirrels are so busy-busy.

I've thought myself to be busy lately. I'm a list person. When I was young, Mom made us lists of jobs to do before swimming in the summer. We hated them, but it was such an accomplishment to make a fat check mark beside the completed task. So, looking at my lists these past few weeks, I've found myself running around like a squirrel. But if you would see my list this week, you'd have to wonder why I'm running around like a crazy-tailed animal. Seriously, it's not that long.

You see, I lost sight of God's priorities. I look at my list and wonder, Which of these tasks are God-given tasks? Jesus didn't finish all the jobs His disciples wanted him to do, like overthrow the Roman government or heal the rest of the sick and dying people. He prays in John 17:4, "I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do." God gives us plenty of time to finish His tasks. If there wasn't enough time for something, He wouldn't give it to us.

My biggest problem these past couple weeks was setting my mind and heart on the petty things of this world. I quote Colossians 3:1-2 often, and I'm going to quote it again. "Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things." It's when I stray from this mindset that my attitude turns more selfish, more proud. And I end up looking like a crazy squirrel, except with loud vocal chords.

By the way, do you want to know what happened to one of those squirrels the other day? We found one dead stiff by the tree with flies eating its inards. I'm sure I could write 5 more blog posts on that, relating it to all sorts of topics including this one, but I'll stop the analogy here. I won't even include a dead-squirrel picture, although it's entirely possible. He's still there.

still

Still, my soul be still

And do not fear
Though winds of change may rage tomorrow
God is at your side
No longer dread
The fires of unexpected sorrow

God, You are my God
And I will trust in You and not be shaken
Lord of peace renew
A steadfast spirit within me
To rest in You alone

Still, my soul be still
Do not be moved
By lesser lights and fleeting shadows
Hold onto His ways
With shield of faith
Against temptations flaming arrows

Still, my soul be still
Do not forsake
The Truth you learned in the beginning
Wait upon the Lord
And hope will rise As stars appear when day is dimming

by Keith and Kristyn Getty

oobleck

Mix 1 part liquid starch with 1 part glue. Voila. You've got oobleck. I think it was my parents who gave me Bartholomew and the Oobleck by Dr. Seuss when I was a kid. This oobleck book fascinated me. Even the word OOBLECK is neat! The illustrations are great. Only the oobleck is colored; every other picture is in black and white.

stirring...

Mom taking over

testing...

Ew, yuck! It's stuck! (alarm)

digging in, making tough-kid sounds

"My fingers are dirty!"

letting loose

random

For you grandparents out there who'd like to know how our week went, here are a few random things we did.

• Played at the park. The kids came away with their pockets stuffed with acorns. We cracked one open and tasted it. Not bitter like I'd expected. Maybe we could've put them in brownies. I asked Jared if he wanted to take some home to plant some pretty trees. He refused, saying that we shouldn't plant anything they grow down here; his allergies have been driving him NUTS. (no pun intended--I guess that wasn't a real pun)
• Wasted time reading part of the Dee Henderson's O'Malley series.
• Baked raisin bread. It was great fresh and warm with butter, but I left the bag open overnight. In the morning, it was dry raisin bread.
• Listened to Jared preaching again that I use too much butter. C'mon, isn't there anyone else around that thinks butter (milk products in general) is the best? Honestly, I never used it until Jared told me in 1999 that it was good on toast. I was a margarine girl, but butter is my pal now. He shouldn't have introduced me to it.
• Went paddle boating Saturday. It was a beautiful day.
• Got more books. The Mary Cotton Public Library has the brilliant idea of putting stamps and stamp pads at the checkout counter to occupy kids while you check out your books. The Tom Green County Public Library doesn't do that, so our kids always have a hard time waiting patiently. I've been seen tearing out of the library with a bag full of books and two kids barely keeping up. Seriously.
• Isaac tried on the BEARD. I crocheted a beard for them, so they could sing their own Soggy Bottom Boy songs. They've been afraid of the beard until now.
• Isaac attempting to play outside in his underwear, just waiting for me to scold him.
• Counting down. Pulling off the chain links. 38 days left.

activities

So many ideas of things to do...

Lisa sent down books filled with activity ideas. Yesterday, we were belly-aching with utter boredom, so we passed our time with an activity using old magazines.

We love you, grandmas and grandpas.....even those unrelated grandmas and grandpas who have treated us like spoiled grandchildren. ;)

And now, for our happy faces...

Carly's

Isaac's

Isaac got a little carried away on the body parts. He thought it was funny to put 4 ears, 2 noses, and 2 mouths on this picture.

Myra's

If Newsweek has no other purpose besides publishing infuriating liberal news articles, at least it has good photography for making faces like these!!

Have a happy Monday!

images

Nothing new this week, but here are some pictures from the week anyway.

Umm...I'm not sure what's going on here besides the kids putting bowls on their heads.

our swimming pool landscaping

Family Art Night

We cannot paint, but it was fun acting like we could. Look at Jared's "happy little trees!" He must've learned a lot from...was it Bob Ross? Oh, Jared would go nuts if he knew I posted his painting on here.

I'm not sure what was so funny here, but it was good to hear the kids laugh for a reason other than naughtiness.

And now I'll give you a rest from blog posts for a few days (unless there's something pressing to publish). Alan and Sally are coming down to visit us this weekend! Yippee!

images

A trip to Baskin & Robbins

She's typically neat and tidy...until she gets an ice cream cone in her hands.

Monkeys

The best snack in the world. We call it GCPB&CC. You have to dip it for 5 seconds to get the full effect.

At a church picnic beside Spring Creek

lately

Today is... french toast, laundry, and wiping noses. Isaac had a fever yesterday and through the night. His sinuses are mildly crazy, but he can still say his Ns. And he was still singing Fee-Fi-Fiddle-E-I-O, Fee-Fi-Fiddle-E-I-O-O-O-O, riding his trike to the laundry room. We've all taken our turns with being sick since we've been here, except me. Jared is just now getting over his month-long cough. Carly's cough doesn't sound quite so bad anymore, but she's sniffing something up her nose right now. A part of us is hoping it's H1N1 so we get it over and done with.

Yesterday, Jared stopped by a barber shop in a Mexican neighborhood on the way home from class. A co-worker back home had recommended this place. He needed a haircut, so he gave it a shot. Jared sat and waited his turn, looking around, feeling like there was something strange about the place, or at least something strange about the guy getting his haircut ahead of him. The man and the barber noticed a police car driving by. Jared found it equally strange that they were interested in this. He began to conclude that these people must be into drugs, and he thought his conclusion was verified when the man opened his wallet to pay. The man and the barber started talking in Spanish instead of English like they'd been doing all along. Jared tried not to stare, but he noticed the man giving the barber extra cash. Thinking this was surely a drug deal, he got his haircut anyway. When he pulled his wallet out to pay the barber, the barber told him that his haircut had already been paid for. A drug deal? Nope. Just a guy doing an act of kindness.

Carly has been taking her big-girl-ness a little bit more seriously lately. She's been helping Isaac dress in the mornings, and she willingly helps me wipe the dishes at night. Carly also bosses Isaac around and consistently gets mad when he states that he's bigger than everyone else in the house. "NO! God is bigger! And you're bragging. And it's not nice to brag!"

Isaac has made an executive decision that no one else can toot in his room except HIM! Especially not Daddy. We think this is quite unfair, as he frequently toots in our room. His decision still stands. We've been trying to work on Carly and Isaac's "L" sound. So the other day in the pool, you could hear us practicing saying "LLLLLISA," but the only sound you could hear was "YYYYISA!" The L sound is just not there yet, but the soft th- sound is. Finally, it's three, not sree. Next sound up is "R." Now, how to do that...?!?

bored

Pig was feeling fed up. "I'm bored," he moaned. "Bored, bored, bored, bored, bored! There must be something to do that's fun and I'm going to find it!" So off he trotted. Pig, thinking all the other animals had more fun than he, decided to try being something else: a giraffe, a kangaroo, a bird... He figured out that being a pig was the most fun of all.

As a kid, I remember moaning "I'm borrrrred! There's nothin' to doooooo!!!!!!!!" as I would dramatically fall into a living room chair. I'm glad our kids haven't figured out the word yet. Lately, I've been comparing the San Angelo summer to Sabetha winter. The temperatures are on the opposite ends of the thermometer, of course, but their extremes make it simply unpleasant to do much outside. Except swim. But there's only so much you can do in a swimming pool where the kids can't touch.

So we need your feedback. What should we do while we eagerly await Sabetha winter? (We're already excited to tromp in pastures, hunting for sticks to break for kindling. But we can't think about that just yet - it's only August.) :) How about commenting with cheap/free ideas of ways to pass the time?

We did go to Wal-Mart this morning thinking there must be something to do that's fun. Here's what we came back with:

perler beads

pinto beans

Isaac is making pretend lamb eyeballs out of his pile of beans. This stems back from our time living in temporary housing on base, where there was cable TV. The only channel in the evening fit for kids was the food channel. One night a man was trying delicacies, which included lamb eyeballs. This was a memorable moment for the kids apparently.

we are

It was my last day of school at Jardine in Wichita. The kids knew every teacher was killing time until 3:10. I gave a quiz, but this one was supposed to be fun. A 20-question true/false quiz about the teacher - Ms. Hartter, given orally. "True or false...I grew up on a farm." "True or false...My mother was born in Germany." "True or false...My great-great-great grandma was the daughter of a Belgian prince." The last question on the test was, "True or false...I go to church." A snicker came from Taylor Murphy's side of the room. He looked at me, laughed, and said, "Yeah, right!" Now, Taylor Murphy was a big, squirrely eighth grader who often got in trouble, but he taught me an unforgettable lesson. Even after spending at least 30 minutes each day with him for 10 1/2 months, he would've never guessed that I was a church-going person.

Who are we? We call ourselves Christians, but do we act like it? Do we even talk like it? At Jardine, I had apparently done neither. Pray for us - that we would walk as faithful believers. Pray for boldness to seize every opportunity to spread the Word. "For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline" (2 Timothy 1:7).

images

from this week

mix and paint

Carly: the new photographer

Myra: enjoying a 10-minute kneading session. I attempted to make homemade bagels. I added blueberries, thinking they might turn out like Sara Lee's. Messing with the dough was fun, even therapeutic (something I recommend for an uptight woman needing something to squish)...

...but my bagels turned out tasting like yeast-flavored cardboard.

the kids making muffins and quickbreads for Grandma and Grandpa...

Carly wears this dance outfit (was it from Lisa?) when she wants to listen to fast music. She'll dance, but only if she's sure that no one's watching. If she's alone, music makes her come alive!

the purpose of alum

Alum is a chemical compound, also known as hydrated aluminum potassium sulfate. You can find it in the spice section of your local grocery store. Alum can be used for pickling foods, in developing photographs, for preventing bleeding due to small shaving cuts. It was even used as a deodorizer years ago. And alum can also be used in punishing a child for saying naughty words. Just a tiny finger, licked and dipped in the alum will do the trick.

A year ago, we were using Dial soap. I remember getting soap as a kid if I called one of my sisters "stupid" or if I stuck my tongue out at one of them. It didn't taste good. We were using it with our kids if they had a problem with something bad coming out of their mouth. Soap would "clean out their mouth." (That came with an explanation of the reason why we use words that are pure.) I know that prayer for our kids is the ultimate solution; even being a strong, Christian model for them is crucial. Jared and I felt that using soap was a practical, immediate solution to the naughty-words problem. By "naughty words," I mean a defiant "NO!" or something of that severity coming out of the kids' mouths. Later, the kids started thinking it was funny to baby-talk in a snotty, sing-songy tone. Soap was the answer for that too.

But then, the kids overheard me laughing with Jared about Kaden's soap issue. If I can recall correctly, my sister Jeanne told me how Kaden claimed that he didn't care if she gave him soap anymore. He proclaimed, "I LIKE soap! It makes me STRONG!!!" Isaac adores Kaden. Shortly after that, Isaac started liking soap too. We needed something that didn't taste so good.

Enter ALUM

This idea came from sister-in-law Tara. Jared and I both tried it before giving it to our children. It does the trick. It does not taste good when smeared onto your tongue. And it fits well in my purse.

Now, as much as we try to shelter our children from bad language, they somehow come to learn it anyway. A lot of this comes from the words we say. For example, when the kids were just learning how to talk, I heard Carly say "DARN IT!" during her play. Years later, we caught Isaac saying "Dag nabbit." And we realized that what came out of our mouths truly shaped what came out of our kids' mouths. When I say "bad language," I'm talking about purposeful language, not the made-up syllables/words that end up sounding like bad words.

A few days ago, they learned and started using "Oh my gosh." This is not a terrible phrase, but it sounds terrible coming out of a small child's mouth. I looked at them and said that I didn't want them to use that word because it wasn't nice. Battle picked. A couple hours later, Isaac tried it again and looked at me. I looked back and reached for the alum. I told them that "Oh my goodness" sounded nicer. Then yesterday, he said, "Oh my....." and looked at me. I looked at him and didn't say a word. He smiled. Seconds later the kids raced for Carly's bedroom closet. I heard them both laughing loudly, saying "Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh!" They weren't laughing anymore when I joined them in their closet with alum for each of them. Okay, so maybe this was a petty battle to pick, but I don't want them to end up changing their phrase, using the Lord's name in vain.

ALUM. Our current answer for pickling-the-tongue needs. Any other suggestions?

images

Okay, maybe I'm an annoying parent who takes too many pictures and posts too many kid pictures on this blog. My excuse: the grandparents following this blog probably don't mind seeing pictures of their grandkids.

Here's a little bit of our week.

Coloring Sunday School pictures...

Isaac got a little carried away.

It doesn't usually rain in San Angelo. The kids loved this shower.

A new park

Isaac chose his outfit this day.

ABCs