Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

Good Friday

Saturday smiles: Life edition

Today, the sun is shining and the temperatures are in the 50s and feel like the 50s. Which means spring is drawing us outside.

I see and hear life, and I smile.

The highlights:

Talking to Isabelle while we’re outside with sidewalk chalk. Me: Isabelle can you draw me a picture of the clouds? Izzy: Well, I’m not very good at clouds, but I’ll try. (She then draws a cloud.) Izzy continues: I can draw a pteranodon. (Which she does. So, to clarify, not good at clouds but excellent at extinct animals. Got it.)

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Overhearing this in the living room. Phil, looking at something on the computer: “Son of a bee.” (His actual phrase. I did not censor.) Corban, immediately following, “Son of a bee?” Insert uproarious laughter from all parties. (Note to parents: watch what you say. They are listening. We’re still learning this.)

Receiving this awesome prize pack from author Dani Pettrey. Coffee, chocolate, books. I don’t win a lot of things, but this was one great prize.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

 

Isabelle wanting to go to the Good Friday service in town. I’m not sure it’s what she thought it was going to be, but we went because I want to encourage my kids’ faith. On the way out, a woman offered us some treats from her car, so we came home with cupcakes and squeeze tubes of orange gelatin (looks better than it sounds).

Signing another contract for an article I sold earlier this year and receiving a check for the other one.

Registering and planning for a marriage conference this summer. Phil and I are Nashville-bound in July. Woohoo!

And this:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Saturday Smiles: World Peace edition

I know almost nothing about current events and/or sports except the snippets I catch from my husband’s ESPN viewing habit. So I have NO clue why some guy, whose name is World Peace, is in trouble for some kind of physical altercation on the basketball court. But the irony is so funny, as are the many tweets and Facebook statuses I’ve seen about it.

That’s something to smile about. Unintentional humor gets me every time.

We had our own “world peace” funny in the house this week. While playing this game, Isabelle decided the faces needed friends not matches. So she set down United States boy and picked up the Afghanistan girl and said, “There. They can be friends.” I have no idea how this translates to foreign policy, but maybe we need to get the U.N. to play this game and give everyone a friend. Later she matched India with Iran and said they could be friends. There was a lot of boy-girl matching going on, so if the foreign policy gig doesn’t work out for her, she can always run a dating service.

She is the source of many smiles this week.

Like when she pretends to be a cat.

And finishes her first-ever soccer clinic, complete with end-of-session medal.

One afternoon, I was lying on the couch because I could not keep my eyes open any longer. (Tell me you’ve been there!) She comes right up to my face … or should I say, she backs up to my face, pauses then walks away. I asked her why she did that. “I tooted on you. It was a BIG toot.” My husband, who was supposed to be working on a paper, busted out laughing. Trust me when I say, she is his child. This is learned behavior from a Dad who often shows his affection in dad-like ways, like tooting in their general direction. What was funny to me was how funny he thought it was.

I’d never considered that teaching your kids about Jesus could have unexpected side effects. Isabelle was singing to her brother out of the hymnal (she can’t read it yet) and her song went something like this: “He makes us happy when we sing. He makes us happy. He makes our ants die, die, die forever. They die forever.” Our kitchen is currently under attack by ants and I’ve launched a counter-attack in ant traps. Isabelle has been fascinated by the illustrations on the back of the packaging that show ants dying. Stay with me; I’ll get back to Jesus. Later, she and Corban were playing with a Little People ambulance and an Ariel doll (Barbie sized). Ariel was sick, or as Isabelle said, “She died forever.” Izzy carried her to the play kitchen oven and put her in because it was “a dark lonely place.” I assume this is her interpretation of Good Friday and not something altogether sick and twisted. Let’s go with Good Friday.

I’m amassing a collection of photos for which my son will hate me when he’s a teenager. Here’s the newest addition.

Here’s a more respectable one for him. He was jealous of the Izzy-as-cat picture at the time.

He looks innocent, but he gave us a “first” this week. We’d been to storytime at the library, where he and his sister had made ladybugs, and somewhere along the way, his ladybug lost an eye. By the time we sat down to lunch, it had lost both eyes. Corban’s had a bit of the sniffles lately, so we’ve been blowing his nose a lot. Just before lunch, Phil had Corban on the couch blowing his nose when I heard Phil exclaim, “Corban Ranard!” Wondering what warranted such a reaction, I rushed to the living room to find my husband holding one of the googly eyes from the ladybug. It had come out of Corban’s nose on one of the blows. I don’t remember Isabelle ever sticking anything up her nose. I think we’re in for a treat with this one.

Two workouts in this week plus a chance to get out of the house on a nice-ish sunny day in the middle of the week. The rest of the week was surrounded by cold, gloomy, rain-type days.

My husband’s senior banquet … a date night equivalent. We dressed up. I didn’t have to cook. Someone else watched the kids. The celebrations begin.

Three papers stand between my husband and graduation. Last week it was seven papers/assignments. One step at a time.

Happy Saturday!