Modesty

We've been talking about modesty a lot this summer. With all the skin we've been seeing at these beach retreats and skimpy clothes of the summertime, how can you miss this opportunity!

I have this bathing suit that I only wear at home, in the backyard, when I'm laying out or playing in the pool with the kids. I like sun on my tummy, what can I say!?

Zeke came up to me one day and asked why I had my undies on. Note: Everything is "undies" to Zeke that shows ANY skin and a guy is considered "naked" if he has his shirt off;)

So, after totally laughing out loud I decided that this would be a great time for a talk about modesty with Areyna and Zeke.

I talked about, when we are at home it's okay to wear certain things, but when we go out, we don't want people to see "too much skin". I went into quite a bit more detail with them, of course.

Ever since that little talk, both Areyna and Zeke have been very in-tune with their modesty. It can be pretty hysterical at times, actually.

It's been so awesome to see them responding to something so quickly and with something so simple.

I think, too often, we underestimate the capacity of these little minds. They can totally grasp way more than we give them credit for. You better believe Zeke keeps Areyna and me in check as our "Visible Skin Monitor" before we go out in public now, ha!

Fun Facts For Friday - Our Playroom Just Got Significantly Smaller

Even though the twitter hash-tag looks somewhat misleading, #kidsexchange, we look forward to this semi-annual event. And it's time for the HUGE NC Kid's Exchange this week. I dropped off all my things to sell on Monday so I could get in early yesterday and get (almost) first dibs on everything on my list.

Here's what I was going for:

Cloth diaper accessories

A tunnel for Cai to crawl through, since we know he loves it so much!

Costumes

Winter clothes for Areyna

Sweaters for the boys

Drums for Zeke

Scooter for Areyna

Christmas presents for cousins and our kids

I came back home with:

Some brand new FuzziBunz for Cai - half-off

Costumes for Areyna and Zeke

A full winter wardrobe for Areyna, including winter coat, scarf, hat and glove set and shoes.

Sweaters for the boys and hat and mitten sets

A drum set for Zeke - $130 off the original price! (we'd been scouring craigslist for MONTHS looking for a set for his birthday.

A scooter for Areyna - scooters keep our kids occupied during band rehearsals! This was a smart buy.

All my Christmas shopping done for the Via cousin side of the family and our kids!

I couldn't NOT give a special thing to our kids when we got home, so I sorted out what we'd save for Christmas and decided on 1 costume for each and 1 big thing for each to play with. We took them on a scavenger hunt around the house to find their special gifts! You should have seen their faces.

Here are their favorites from the sale that we've already gotten our money's worth out of.

1 - Zeke's drum set: He went straight to his drums before even telling us good morning this morning!

2 - Areyna's scooter

3 - A bell costume for Areyna

4 - A bigger Spiderman costume for Zeke - which means an old/new spiderman costume for Cai! (you gotta love hand-me-downs)

5 - A tunnel maze for Cai - He LOVES it! How much? Well, let's just say he wanted to crawl in the tunnel before eating breakfast...and you KNOW how much this boy likes to eat!!!

I know this sounds so stupid, but I'm just being honest.

I had such mixed emotions as we gave our kids their gifts. I mean, we hardly ever buy toys, even for birthdays, much less for no occasion at all. One, they are a lot of money and two, they already have so much! In a society that is already telling them that they "need" more stuff, it is a constant reminder that we need to teach our kids gratefulness, contentment and thankfulness.

So, last night before we went to bed we asked to kids to specifically thank God for all He had given them and today we are all going to find 3 things that we can give away to someone else that may not be so privileged.

O, Box, Pizza, Square

0=Circle

Box=Square

Pizza=Triangle

Square=Rectangle

According to Zeke, that is.

I am beginning to realize that Zeke is going to be a tough one to teach. He just thinks on a totally different level than me. He thinks creatively and abstractly and I am struggling to find ways to teach him. Music is just going to be his thing, and I know that, but it's hard to pay the bills if you don't know your numbers ya know?

He wants to do school, but he wants to be at Areyna's level. Areyna knew her letters by the time she was three, so the fact that she is reading 4-letter words right now comes as no surprise. Zeke gets upset that he can't do school from her book and gets frustrated. We've tried to make a game out of it but I'm still trying to find his niche.

He knows his colors, but numbers, letters and shapes are a no-go.

If I ask him what shape a circle is he will make the shape with his hands and say "O", but can't remember that it's called a circle.

If I ask him what shape a square is he will make the shape with his hands and call it a box.

I can't seem to connect the two for him.

So, this morning I made up a game called "The Shape Hop".

I tell him to stand on a certain shape.

He has to find the beginning shape and then he jumps through the maze of shapes to find that same shape until he can make it back to the original one.

He really enjoyed it and Areyna joined in the fun too. I think repetition will work for him so maybe after a few weeks of this he'll have at least 4 shapes down:)

What We're Having - Taco Bake II

Thanks to AllRecipes.com we have been able to find awesome meals with ingredients that we have on hand.

Tonight I made Taco Bake II and it was a hit! Micaiah ate just as much as Zeke did and Areyna almost cleaned her plate!

Revisions:

I put in a whole can of chiles and just plain diced tom.

I substituted chips w/ whole grain tortillas

I used some other kinds of cheeses in my layers

We had a side of watermelon which was delicious but the thing that made Zeke say, "Mommy, this is a GREAT day because we have dessert! You are the best mom EVER!", was the Frozen Lemonade Squares.

Big Day

Monday was family errand running day. We hadn't reinstalled Micaiah's car seat base from our beach trip so we went ahead and made the switch. I know...a couple of weeks early, but he'd outweighed his infant seat by about 3 pounds so we figured he was safer in his new seat.

He giggled and kicked with glee the whole time we traveled to our first destination. Areyna was so excited that he would be able to watch movies with them on road trips. She reminded us SEVERAL times about this along the way:)

One of our stops was Triangle Town Center Mall. Josh needed to stop by the Verizon booth to see what he could do about his phone. He had jumped in the pool with it at the beach last week and it totally died. The Verizon people were awesome. They said, "Let's just pretend that it never got wet and we'll mail you a new one in 2 days." WHAT?!

Anyway, while he was at the Verizon booth I took the kids to the indoor play place. I think this was the first time he'd been able to play freely on a playground without me having to worry about him eating wood chips or handfuls of dirt. He LOVED it!

The other moms observing him cringed every time a bigger kid came close to touching him, but he's a tank so I wasn't worried at all. All the other kids loved on him, but Areyna was quick to tell them that he was her brother!

He LOVED the tunnel.

In And Out...In And Out

He also liked the climb up to the slide

and going head-first DOWN the slide while laughing the whole way!

I think I've got our first climber!

Finding God In The Clouds

Areyna has really matured over the past several months. Josh and I have noticed a big change in her attitude, but even more importantly, in her character.

Here are a few examples of what we've been seeing:

After Zeke had been begging for me to cut up a lemon for a meal I promised I would give it to him and Areyna for dinner. Well, when it came time for the much anticipated cutting of the lemon for dinner it was time for Josh and Zeke to leave for band rehearsal. I asked if Areyna still wanted to eat the lemon. She replied, "No, because I don't want Zeke to miss it because he wants some."

When scurrying around, gathering ALL of our stuff around church, this has become quite a task lately, I began calling out, "come on, kiddos, it's time to load up in the car". I couldn't find Rainy anywhere. And so it began..."Rainy, you need to obey right away baby!" I stopped in my tracks as I looked over to find Areyna helping Kayil, her younger cousin, put her shoes on so Kayil could, in turn, obey her mommy.

Areyna has also been very sensitive to listening for God. She is searching to hear from Him. She's been asking LOTS of questions about how God speaks to us and why she can't feel Him or hear Him. We have tried to explain that God doesn't usually speak to us in a voice we can hear with our ears. A lot of times he chooses to speak to us when we pray, through the Bible, and through other people.

One day, hours after deliberately disobeying me, Areyna came up to me and this is the conversation that ensued:

Areyna: "I'm sorry, mommy."

Me: "What baby?"

Areyna: "I'm sorry."

Me: "For what?"

Areyna: "For disobeying you."

Me: "What are you talking about baby?"

Areyna: "When you told me to stay on my pillow and I got up and threw toys in Cai's bed."

This was a perfect segue into how God truly talks to us. God had spoken to her heart and convicted her of her actions. It really seemed to click for her at that moment.

I was cooking dinner. Why is it that Micaiah only seems to want my full attention when I have to get dinner in the oven? Anyway, Areyna picked up on this and came to get Cai. She has learned to lure him into another room by dangling a favorite toy or bubby where he can see it:) He eventually followed her into the living room where she kept him entertained until I was free to join in the fun.

Zeke was on the verge of a freak-out moment, but quickly collected himself and calmed down. He is finally learning to cope with his sudden bursts of emotions (I could learn a thing or two from him, ha!). Areyna saw his self-control, which she knows we have been working really hard on, and said, "Good job buddy, you had self-control! Way to not freak out!!!." Then she looks at me and grins, "I wanted to encourage Zeke."

On our walk to the park one evening, while the sun was making it's decent behind the clouds, Areyna looked at the light streaming through the clouds and shouted, "Look mommy, there's God!"

I pray that I will be as sensitive when God shows Himself to me as this child of mine. That I would be as sensitive to His presence, even in the simplest of things.

Traveling With Cloth Diapers

We did it. We made it through our first trip without using a single disposable diaper! We were gone 5 days and 4 nights and by the last day I had 3 fresh FuzziBunz that I could use for the trip home and for bed time.

Here's what I took with me:

EVERYTHING!

Yup, I brought my whole stash. Laugh if you must, but I had no clue as to what exactly I needed so I got a HUGE bag and stuffed it full of all my cloth diapering stuff. It basically included all my M, L, and XL FuzziBunz, day and night prefolds, all my FuzziBunz inserts and my single Flips insert, Bummis covers, biodegradable liners, swimming diaper and wet bag.

Here's what I did:

I'd start the day out with a fresh FuzziBunz, but instead of putting the inserts inside the pocket diaper I'd lay it on top and add a biodegradable liner. After a couple of hours I'd check the diaper to see if I needed to switch the insert. My goal was to catch the FuzziBunz before it got too wet to use again.

Things To Be Noted:

• You better believe I started laundry as soon as I walked in the door!
• I had to do an extra cycle to get the odor out since the diapers had been sitting all week.
• My little wet bag held everything from the whole week except for 4 diapers. I didn't think I could cram it so full.
• My wet bag held the odor IN as well!
• My nighttime regiment failed me every night. Cai had never leaked out of my nighttime prefold and Bummis cover gettup until camp. He was absolutely soaked in the mornings. I think it must have been the crazy schedule with going to bed late. He was also guzzling water since it was so hot during the day so that is probably part of it. When we got home I stacked a 4-layer FuzziBunz insert in my diaper with a 3-layer insert on top and he was completely dry every morning. So, problem solved!
• I even used one reusable swim diaper. Yes, he did poop in it but I dumped it right in the toilet and washed it out in the shower right away and it was good to go again.
• I definitely like using FuzziBunz the way they are intended better than as a cover. They absorb much better and last much longer between changes, but for traveling purposes it worked fine.

We are home all this week and then we're off again. I think we've got a good system down so we're gonna stick with it!

For Your Viewing Enjoyment - Lady Gaga and The Rabbit

This was part of a series of videos for our camp we did last weekend.

I'm not a huge video watcher on blogs,

but I literally laugh out loud every time I see this!

Fun Facts For Friday...On Saturday

1 - Poor Zeke had to wait a whole week to play with his birthday presents. He's been talking about getting home and playing with his stuff all week long.

You know when you only see something for a short time and when you think about it and imagine it, it gets bigger and bigger? Well, I think that's what happened to Zeke. He'd been thinking about "ALL" his presents he'd gotten and thought he had way more than he actually did, so when we got home and he saw his stash he was a little disappointed and kept insisting that there was more.

Don't worry, he got over it as soon as he started playing with the stuff he actually did have:)

2 - It really was nice to just walk right in the hotel cafeteria and eat food that I didn't have to prepare OR clean up, but as much as I have loved Marlins for two out of four weeks::sense the sarcasm:: I am so glad to be home in my own kitchen. I'm actually ready to cook for my family this week.

3 - I love when we get home after a trip because the kids are content to play with their toys for hours on end.

4 - Our family gets to stay at home for a whole week together before venturing out for another camp. WOOHOO!

5 - Words Of Wisdom

Zeke - "Mommy, when do we get to go home?"

Me - "In two days buddy. Don't you like to be here at the beach?"

Zeke - "Yeah, but I like to be home better. I miss my home..."

Have a good weekend!