Where have we been hiding? It has been awhile, hasn't it? I do admit that my time away from blogging has been well spent.
I had a sweet little experience involving a boy and his new toy motorcycle that I wanted to record, which made me finally have some desire to check in with the blogging world.
In our house we like to play a cleanup game with the kids. I gave them each a spot on the floor in the living room and they race eachother to put a designated toy away and beat the other child back to their special place. It gets pretty rioutous and fun as they race up and down stairs, slide into home base, and hold ready hands out for high-fives or a chocolate chip.
After cleaning one day I rewarded Sawyer with a little toy motorcycle. If you know this little boy, his obcession with cars, and his love of anything with wheels, you'd understand the huge grin on his face and the immediate love connection he had with this 97 cent Target special.
A few days later the family jumped in the car to make a family trip to Walmart. It had been raining all day and the kids and I desperately needed to get out of the house. As we walked in I noticed Sawyer had his hand jammed into his pocket. It was the motorcycle, hidden from Mommy, and although I knew he was breaking our "no toys leave the car under any circumstances" rule, I decided to let it slide and ignore it. (Hey, one must pick their battles, right?)
For the next hour we let the kids roam up and down the toy aisles, poking buttons, dancing to music, exclaiming over the beauty of this doll and that car. We picked out a couple puzzles for each kid to keep them occupied during the beloved/dreaded church conference time and headed towards the cash registers.
I felt an urgent tug on my hand and looked down to see Sawyer's eyes filled with tears.
"Morecycle? Mommy? Morecycle?" I pushed my finger into his little pocket, and sure enough it was gone. The alarm in his face told me that it was important enough to go back and at least look. Taking his eager hand, the two of us walked back to face those 6 aisles of toys while Keith and Lily went to check out.
It was just as fun and impossible as you could imagine. A distraught, then distracted, then distraught, then distracted (Morecycle? Ooh! Buttons! Flashing lights! Sawyer! Where is the motorcycle? Morecycle? Morecycle. Morecycle. Ooh! Thomas the Train.). After searching high and low for many moons I knelt down and told Sawyer it was time to go home and he should have left it in the car like Mommy said.
It was devastating. He sat down and then his head smacked the ground in sheer helplessness.
Gently, I pulled him to his feet and said, "Sawyer? Should we say a prayer?"
Tearfilled nods followed and he folds his arms.
"Dear Fawder. Morecycle help? Please? Name Jesus Amen."
I scooped him up and said, "Well, don't you worry, we'll find it for sure now."
I determined to take one last look through each aisle, but before I could do that, I looked down and saw just to my lower left, a little motorcycle wheel tucked beside a Finn McMissle car on the shelf.
You should have seen the absolute joy on his face when he scooped up that motorcycle and put it firmly in his pocket. Could have been luck, but I think it was a little help from on high because He knew it mattered to a little boy with a love for wheels.
We stopped and said a prayer of thanks and then I watched as he joyfully ran for his Daddy, triumphantly holding his motorcycle in the air.
Quick updates on the rest of the famdamily:
*Keith*
Ever the hero, he has been proving that Captain Awesome really is the most appropriate nickname for him. I can't even fathom how he manages to do all that he does. He recently pulled apart the rear suspension of my car and put it back together in a week (Wahoo! I can now go over 50 on the freeway without a death sway overtaking my car. It was scary there for awhile, but we are safe again.). And if that isn't hunky enough (what? fixing a car isn't a turn on for you?), he also finished-finished the wall in the backyard. That one deserves it's own blog. He also put together a computer, got to play with c-4 explosives for work, and has started running.
*Cherie*
I'm as boring as ever, trying to clean and keep up with the family and house. I did get a new job at church which is keeping me on my toes and giving me opportunities to stretch myself. I love the teenagers I get to work with and they don't scare me anymore! I've also been pushing myself to learn new photography and got my first 50mm prime lens. Woot! Oh, and I'm replacing the doors in the house. By myself. Imagine me with two kids underfoot, a router in hand, and paintbrushes/cans stacked up in my bedroom. You can imagine why it's taken me 3 weeks to do 2 doors.
I also chopped off all my hair. I'm not loving it, but it had to be done. My hairsylist fried it when she put highlights in last time, and a week later it started coming out in chunks. It was a necessary change, but my vanity is suffering a little.
*Lily*
This sweetie on the other hand looks adorable with her new do! She is living the highlife these days and loves being a big girl. She is starting to read really well, and has become a pro at playing computer games with the mouse. It's hard not to adore her, right?
Her favorite new thing is to make us lunch (Bread with a big dollop of peanut butter right in the center? Yes please. A banana that's been mostly squished as you painstakenly removed it from it's peel? Thank you. Water spilled all over the counter in attempts to pour me a glass. How refreshing. Oh, with a straw from the top shelf of the cupboard too. However did you reach that?)
She scored herself a big girl bed too. She is quite proud of it. The first thing she wanted to do was call everyone she could to announce that she can now fit UNDER her bed. Here I was concerned about her fitting ON TOP of her bed. Silly growing girl.
Speaking of growing, one of my funniest/weirdest moments this month was when a police officer knocked on my door. He had received a tip that I had a school aged child in the house. On the first day of school. At 10:30 in the morning. Sorry officer, she's still mine for another year.
