Weekend

It has been a weekend. Yesterday we spent the day attempting various projects. Erik worked on the garage a bit. We are hoping to actually park a vehicle in there sometime in the new year. I managed to un-decorate the house from Christmas a little bit. Neither of us were completely successful in our ventures, but progress was made.
The cutest moment of yesterday was the dance fest in the kitchen. We have discovered Pandora, a website where you create your own online streaming radio stations, based on your personal preferences. We have stations for Oldies, 80's, Christmas, A capella, and finally Erik created the early 90's mix yesterday afternoon. The dancing commenced. There are no pictures or video because Mommy was too busy dancing! Everyone joined in and I must say, both my boys have moves.
Yesterday evening Erik and I went to Anthony and Sarah's for dinner, some new friends. They have an adorable baby boy who is at that super cute stage of crawling up into your lap just so he can smile at you. I'm addicted to him. We also had fun teaching them to play Settlers of Catan, a game that is complex to learn but crazy fun once you have it down. We had a great time with them, but the best part of the evening was arriving home and hearing from Brenda, our babysitter, that the boys were sweet all evening. Brenda is a BSF buddy from my time in the evening class. Her two girls are a senior in high school and a sophomore in college. Her life is different from mine. Erik and I prayed as we drove away for the evening that the boys would be a joy to Brenda and she would be blessed for the time she spent with them. God is faithful and He can do ANYTHING!! :-)
Today was a mixed bag. We served in Mosaic Kids, the Sunday School program at church, for just the second time. It is so fun getting to know everyone and the program itself. Our role is Gathering Host. It's a jack-of-all trades kind of job. We help get knew folks checked in while also helping teachers get needed supplies. When there is an emergency teacher absence (usually because of illness) we jump in and fill the position. This is easy because there are two teachers in every class, so the other one does the teaching. I got to be in the third-fifth classroom today. It was a blast! I forget how much I enjoy kids and then I get tossed into the mayhem only to discover, I belong there. Good times.
So the not so fun parts of the day involved violent action on the part of my three-year-old toward my one-year old. Luke has the horrible habit of pushing Paul and today Paul was pushed hard enough to fall down and smash his head into a doorframe in the hallway. I didn't realize the extent of the injury until later, but I could tell by Paul's reaction that he was in a lot of pain. I have never been that angry at Luke before. It was awful. When we finally got everyone calmed down, Mommy included, we showed Luke the small cut and large bump beginning to grow on Paul's forehead. Luke immediately apologized to both Paul and Mommy, of his own volition. I think he knew that he had damaged my baby and I wasn't happy with him. Forgiveness is precious because God is able to show Himself through us broken human beings. After dinner, during which Luke was rude, defiant and in all ways unpleasant, I was able to sit down with him and say, "Today was a hard day. I forgive you. Tomorrow will be better." Those were my exact words. I could almost see the weight of it lift from his face. His response was a simple, "Okay, Mommy."
And now some pics:

Luke loves Paul and vice versa.

Elephants arriving in the kitchen.

You can't tell, but Paul is covered in the dregs from a cup of hot cocoa he found sitting atop the piano. My bad. I was on the phone with Bestefar, Erik's grandpa, when I discovered my youngest covered in cocoa doing his best to spread it all over the piano. I described to Bestefar exactly what I was looking at. I didn't need the phone to hear his laugh all the way from Carlsbad, CA. :-) It made the clean up easier and my attitude better. I should call him every evening around 4pm when my boys can't manage to spend an hour without nearly destroying the house.