Snack bowl!

My friend Gabe has this awesome snack bowl on her counter. She fills it with stuff and the kids know that when they get home from school, approved snacks are in the bowl. I have always thought this was brilliant, and I guess I mention it at her house a lot.

Today when I got to the church office, my friend Gabe presented me with my very own snack bowl! What a great, unexpected gift! She made my day, and Kate's too, as evidenced in the picture.

This is brilliant. Everyone should have a snack bowl!

I've been Amy/Jaime-d

When I was a kid, Amy Comtois and I ran the show at ye old Baptist church. (Others thought they were in charge, but no.) Amy and I were inseparable and ran all manner of relatively harmless schemes.

One of our favorites was to try to con our families into eating lunch together after church. Some weeks, they'd come up with this on their own. But when they'd say, "No, not this week. We're just going to go as a family." That's when we got to work.

It was pretty easy, really. One of us would find out where the family was headed for lunch. "Oh, Captain D's sounds great, Mom!" Then the other would gently persuade (insist) that the only place she wished to have lunch was innocently the same. Voila! Everyone had lunch together and we were happy.

Today at church, I heard Sam talking Stu into Freddy's for lunch. Sounds good, I thought. But as I'm walking out the door, my good friend Gabe says, "Collin really wants to go out with you all to lunch sometime but we just can't today because we have these other plans..." Wait, I thought. I didn't invite Gabe to lunch. That's right. We'd been Amy/Jaime-d.

My legs

Walking home from school, Kate was complaining about distance. We talked about her day and mine. I said I've been busy working, "kicking butt and taking names."

"My legs are the butt you're kicking!" she cried.

Toothless wonder to the extreme

Another night, another tooth. That makes 3 in less than a week, if you are keeping track. She has another that's a little loose, but we should be a few weeks off. How she'll eat, I don't know.

Unfortunately, she pulled this one over the sink. Not such a bad idea for messiness, but the tooth went down the drain. Dad is working on it now.

I added a picture to the blog. This is the book we are reading now. Look similar?

Another one down

"My teacher needs to have her tooth chart done, 'cause this girl just lost a tooth!"

Soaked to the bone

I decided to walk to pick up the kids from school today. I saw some grey clouds overhead, but they didn't look too ominous, so I continued. About a third of the way there, huge raindrops sprinkled down. Oh well, a little light rain. So, I continued.

Then it really started raining. Again, I figured, how bad could it get, and stayed under the trees. Now I was late and wet, but I tried to convince myself that it was a nice summer rain and that we'd have fun walking home together.

When I got to the school, the kids were gone. As I started up the hill, it was pouring. I continued home (what else could I do), soaked to the bone and blinded by the rain in my eyes. Finally, a good samaritan mom picked me up. Turns out her daughter is in Sam's class. So nice. I rejected her offer initially because I was dripping wet, but she said, "no problem! I have leather seats!" I explained I was worried about my kids and sure enough, we found them huddled together, walking home.

We picked them up too and made it here safely. We had to strip off the soaked clothes-- my running shoes may never be the same-- and take warm showers.

Kate just sat down next to me and said, "Sam told me we'd survive, and we did. He was right, God did have a plan for us to get out just in time!"

So cute. God does have a plan. (I think it includes no soccer this season for Kate, unfortunately. Haven't had practice in 3 weeks due to rain. In the desert of all places!)