Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

things that make you smile

Saturday smiles: Fun with words edition

It should come as no surprise to me, a lover of words, that my children also seem to love them.

Here are two examples from this week:

Sometimes we just play with rhyming words and sounds, even if they aren’t really words. Corban started rhyming with Sodor (the island where Thomas the Tank Engine lives) and came up with Mordor (check my spelling on that). Which made me giggle thinking about Thomas as the next Hobbit or Lord of the Trains.

Izzy is in that stage where she hears everything and sometimes you don’t know what she’s heard until later when it comes out of her mouth. On her way to watch a high school soccer game with Daddy, she opened the conversation with “Daddy, how did you and Mommy meet? Where did you get to know each other? We don’t have a chance to talk about these things.” Too cute.

This doesn’t exactly have to do with words, but it makes me smile after the fact. At the time, I was hopping mad. I went to the grocery store. By myself, which is rare and usually makes for a less stressful trip. On this particular day, I came out of the store, loaded my groceries, which included milk and frozen veggies, only to find that I was blocked in. I had parked across from a cart corral and behind me was a car with two ladies in it. They were talking to another lady (a friend, I presumed) who was leaning in one of the windows. On the side of the car were the words: “If you died today would you go to heaven or hell?” In one of my least Christian moments, I was tempted to help one or all of them find out. I wondered what would happen if I just reversed slowly. I didn’t want to be rude, so I didn’t even politely ask if they could please move. Honestly, I didn’t want to talk to them because I thought I’d have to “prove” my answer to the question. What irked me most, though, was that other cars were driving around them, glaring. After all THEY WERE PARKED IN THE MIDDLE OF THE AISLE. And I chuckle because so often we Christians are so busy with each other we don’t even see what’s going on in the world around us. Maybe I’m still not over it, but the veggies made it home still frozen.

The vice presidential debate still makes me laugh. I actually had fun watching it and following on Twitter. (Does that make me sound lame? Oh, who cares. I am lame.)

And with that, I’ve reached the end of my available words that still make sense. It’s been an exhausting week, and my brain is suffering.

May your week be full of whatever makes you smile.

Saturday smiles: end of another week edition

Seriously? It’s Saturday again already? Time seems to be flying in our house right now. Which reminds me a little of those movie scenes where an airplane is flying directly toward a mountain and everyone thinks .they’re going to crash until the last minute when the plane makes a sharp turn or narrowly crests the mountain without a problem. That’s kind of how life feels for us right now. Not exactly something to smile about, I guess, unless you believe that God is good and you aren’t going to crash and burn and even if you did He’d have a plan for that.

Anyway, on to the weekly smiles.

How can you not smile at the first sign of spring? This yellow crocus, poor confused little flower, appeared in our front yard this week. With temps in the low to mid 50s part of the week, I can understand why nature might think spring is approaching soon. It is approaching soon, but I’m afraid the little crocus won’t survive unharmed till then.

The library. Even though I’m not checking out books right now because I have a backlog of books in the house to read, I still have an “I’m home” moment when I walk in. And I love that Isabelle can pick out no less than 15 books every three weeks to take home, even with a library of her own at home. Hello, we’re the Bartelts and we have a book addiction.

While at the library this week, I was reminded that three weeks from now, we’ll be on our way to Florida and halfway through the seminary semester. Crazy.

The time bake feature on our oven. I made these in the afternoon, then the kids and I took a long walk around the neighborhood. When we returned, it was ready to come out of the oven.

Last Sunday, the kids sang in church. Isabelle hasn’t quite been brave enough to do any actual singing since the kids have made regular appearances, but this time, she sang a little bit AND performed hand motions. Way to go, girl!

Making decisions as a mom. This week, it was little stuff, like making a dentist appointment for Isabelle (her first) and signing her up for soccer. I procrastinate and second-guess myself on decisions, so to have made two tangible ones for the well-being of my children this week feels great.

Isabelle’s starting to recognize and learn how to write letters. I’m not a teacher, so maybe this is old news for other parents of almost 4-year-olds, but it’s exciting. She can write her name and with a little direction copy letters and fill in crossword-type puzzles. Seeing her correctly identify letters that aren’t in her name makes me believe that yes, she will learn to read.

Corban’s terrible twos are turning ornery in the cute-but-naughty sort of way. He giggles and runs away when he needs a diaper change or takes something from his sister. I have to say here that it makes me smile because I can’t let him see me smile in the moment. It is sort of funny. But I know I have to lay down the law. He giggles about other things, too. While singing to him for naptime this week, I picked the hymn “Trust and Obey.” He repeated the words as best he could, then nodded his head and said, “I like it” followed by a giggle. It was enough to make me crack up during the song, too. Oh, the joy.

He also does stuff like this.

Friends, new and old, who keep me sane and encourage me.

Playtime at the park.

Making up after a fight.

Winning a license for a writing software I can’t wait to play around with.

Taking action toward meeting a writing goal.

So, what’s bringing a smile to your face these days?

Happy Saturday!