* Titus Nathan turned 4 years old!
* Seth Gabriel turned 14 years old!!!
* Seth Gabriel had his first SHAVE.
* My precious Grandma Florence (my mama's mom) died.
* We went to Seattle for the memorial service & had a nice time remembering her & visiting LOTS of family.....on my side & on Justin's.
* I threw a BIG birthday bash for Seth's birthday.
* Justin & I started going to Celebrate Recovery at our church.
* No, I will not tell you why. Nothing major has happened, don't worry. But if you want to know my deep dark secrets, you'll just have to join my life support group. :P
* Yes, we like it. It feels just like church or Bible study group except everyone is honest about their struggles. When someone asks you, "How are you?", they mean it! And you don't have to say, "I'm fine" if you're not. Everyone should go to CR, in my opinion.
* I am on the worship team at church for CR, doing vocals & keyboard & I'm very happy to be back in music again.
* Isaac is saying a lot of words now. He even mimicked me last week & yelled, "Shut da door!" to one of his brothers. When he hears me yelling for one of his brothers, he joins right in. He's helpful like that. "Seeeeeeeettthhh!" He definitely has the words, "mine" and "no" down pat.
* Isaac is throwing lots of fits.
* Isaac is lucky he's so dern cute.
* Seth is learning to play the bass.
* Jarod is becoming quite the little chef, thanks to his aunt Emmy planting the seed. He is constantly making a complete mess out of my kitchen & creating "gourmet" dishes. He watches cooking shows all the time. He hopes to have his own show someday. He made some sweet biscuits last week that ended up being a little dense & flat, so he called them "cookies". When the coconut shavings on the top of the "cookies" got a little singed, he said they were supposed to be that way & named his new creation, "burnt snow". He made some banana muffins that were mushy & didn't rise, so he sliced up bananas to put on top & called it "custard". It actually tasted like bread pudding & didn't taste half bad!
* I have so many super cute pictures from the past couple months, but we are having technical difficulties....so I guess I'll just have to randomly post some of them as I am able.
* Gideon has taken up lying. He is quite terrible at it sometimes......for which I am thankful. But other times he fools me & makes me feel so bad for not believing him. And I am concerned because he seems to be somewhat pathological about it. He is great at freaking out & screaming at the slightest offense, to get his big brothers in trouble. When he wails & says, "MMMOOOOOOOMM!!!! Jarod punched meeeeeeee!!!", it is usually an exaggeration. But sometimes it's true.......so that doesn't help me figure out the truth. But when he comes to me from the kitchen, where Jarod is washing dishes, with arms covered in bubbles up to his elbows & claims that, no, He did not dip his own arms in the bubbles. Jarod threw the bubbles at him & they magically landed on his arms......just in that shape! "Really, Mom! It's true!" Um, yeah. I believe that one. He is also ever the charmer & in love with his mommy. Or trying to get out of trouble. Not sure which. On our trip to Seattle, out of the blue, he grabbed my hand & said, "Hello, My Darling! You light my soul on fire!" and smooched the length of my arm like Peppy Le Peu. He is pretty manipulative, but he's so freaking cute, it's hard not to fall for it!!! I hope he doesn't start torturing small animals. *Sigh* I guess he's not being so different from Seth at this age. Sometimes I forget that "normal" kids do lie to their parents from time to time. I didn't. I was a good girl with a major guilt complex. Which is not normal.
*Micah has apparently been bitten by a genetically altered spider & has discovered he can scale the walls in our halls....all the way up to the ceiling, quite easily. He also climbs to ridiculous heights in our tree in the back yard. Which I don't like. At all. At the park, he somehow ends up on top of the swing set, instead of sitting in the swings. He thinks it's pretty cool to walk across it like a high beam in the circus. I don't like that either. His dad does. Tells me to leave the kid alone. *Sigh* He's going to die.
*Titus, who has always been so literal & so serious.......is finally getting a sense of humour & using his imagination more. He keeps telling everyone. "Wasn't it funny when I punched a ghost? Heeehehheee!!!" Um. OK. But that's silly for him. Trust me. He, like Gideon, has also tried his hand at lying. But Mr. Serious & Literal just doesn't quite grasp the concept of deceit. Deceit requires that one state something innaccurate. Titus does not appreciate innacuracies. Last night I came into the kitchen & saw that he had had some fun with the egg slicer & demolished all of the hard boiled eggs that had not been put away after dinner yet. I asked him, "Who made this mess?" He said, "Umm......It was Gideon!" I kind of raised an eyebrow at him & he said, "Mom? Was that a lie?" I said, "Yes, Titus. That was a lie. You did it, didn't you?" He said, "Oh! Yeah! I did. Haha!" Nice try, little buddy.
*We had a teenager named Danny, from our church, boarding with us for about a month. I was a little short on boys around here & thought I needed another, so I took him in. Now he's off to Bible College.
*We have started another school year.
*Seth's a freshman in high school. For. Crying. Out. Loud. Not sure how that happened.
*I am a little overwhelmed with trying to figure out Seth's online classes, his teachers' expectations & how to use the new high school program. It's a little stressful. I feel like I am the one starting high school.
*Gideon is starting kindergarten. Micah's in 3rd grade & Jarod's in 5th.
* My life is passing by me at lightening speed. Next time I blog, the boys will probably all be in college & getting married.
*We only had 2 stomach flus this summer.
*The kids are coming down with colds.
*Jarod caught a rodent at the park. I did not let him keep it.
*Justin installed a beautiful new sink in my kitchen,
*The kids broke a cabinet door.
*I changed the decorations in my rec room/ dining room area.
*Seth is constantly texting on his phone. To a girl.
