a thursday morning

this is my 600th post.
wow. that's a lot.

i've never been a very good journal-er, but i guess i maybe found my niche here, huh?
i mean, in my mind i feel like a journal has to be poetic and deep, and i get a little intimidated.
but here, i just talk like my normal self, and mis-spell words and stuff and for some reason i don't really feel like it has to be perfect.....huh.
interesting right?
if you've never blogged before, you should try it.
you might like it.
and then you'll turn around and realize it's you 600th post and it'll be official.....

now for today.
it's 8:18am.
let me tell you about what's happening around here.
i woke up to my phone alarm and and turned it off and spent about 20 minutes in my bed thinking about reasons that i didn't have to get up and get the kids off to school.
i considered a ditch day.
then i found my real big-girl brain and got up and told ella that at least we should just stay in jammies while we drop off the boys, then we can come back for a movie and a snuggle party.
but she wanted to get dressed.
so SHE did.
i staggered downstairs after doing a little clothing choice micro managing for the boys.
i felt like some yummy apple pie oatmeal that everyone is making on pinterest and instagram, but didn't have any idea about the recipes.
so i got this out and started throwing "apple pie type" stuff into it.

i get this at costco. it lasts forever.

let me just say...wow!
it was great.
this is what i put in.

brown sugar, granny smith, butter, cinnamon sugar, sprinkles

this was a big upgrade from cold cereal and the kids were super into it.
it would have been perfect if i'd had some yummy sausage or bacon to go with it!
oh! that'd be a perfect breakfast for dinner.
or as my kids like to say..."breaky for dinny"
and then break into this weird thing they say, "breaky for dinny and breaky for nakey!"
over and over until i get grouchy.
seriously, i have no idea how they started that.
it's annoying and it doesn't make sense.

so, are you wishing that i was going to tell you proportions for the apple pie stuff?
because i'm not.
i didn't measure.
i just followed the microwave directions on the oats (tripled to make about four cups?)
and chopped up an apple really small and then smacked in maybeeeeeee about....2 tablespoons of butter.
then i dumped in some brown sugar.
and then realized to make it pie-ish it needed cinnamon sugar so i did a little of that too.
i guess i could have just done cinnamon.
but pie is in the name, so i think this ought be nice and sweet.
and of coarse we had to add just a pinch of sprinkles to the top.
between my kids and i we ate it all.

this is the conversation that happened while we ate:

jake: mom, what animal does mac and cheese come from?


mom: well, it's pasta and cheese. so it comes from plants and from the milk from cows. but no animal dies for that.(this has been a subject of conversation lately...feeling bad for the animals that we eat :)


jake :oh, so the milk comes out of the cow?


mom: yep.


jake: yah i know all about that, you squeeze their....


mom: utter?


jake: (smile) yah and it's like "honk honk".

(laughter from jake, ty, mom and ella)


mom: oh wow! have you ever milked a cow? or did you see it somewhere? a book? a movie?


jake: i saw it in curious george.


mom: would you like to try it, ever?


jake: i'd like to honk.


mom: yah, i think milking a cow is a lot of work. if we lived on a farm, it'd probably be your and ty's job to get up early and milk the cow or cows.


jake: i don't like getting up early.


mom: yah, i know.

then, we had about 15 minutes before we had to be out the door.
so i grabbed the devotional "jesus calling" and got them to come sit by the fire place.
this is not something we do everyday, i just thought it would be cool to try after a friend mentioned that her son's teacher reads it to her class everyday.
and then i remembered that the passages are pretty short and maybe kid manageable.
(also i find myself yelling at my kids a lot to get us all out the door, so i thought this might help me find some centered self control??)
so we read February 9th in the book and talked about how to see Jesus in our lives.
 about how every good gift is from Him and how we can see him glimmer in the light in the trees and the way it feels when your daddy hugs you and the big smile and high five from your brother who's waiting to play football with you on the school field at recess, and the way it feels to twirl in a fancy skirt, and the smell of their hair, and feeling of sitting on your mommy's lap after school....
and we talked about affliction.
about how we can't try to hide form the things that hurt.
how do you describe affliction to children that have everything they need?
they have food and clothes and shelter and love.
but we all found something to share about our pain and how we can trust that God knows what he's doing in our lives, even if it hurts.

and that totally beat yelling.

and they asked to do it again tomorrow.

i really want to give them that.

that's us today.
who knows what tomorrow will bring, not to mention all the minutes after 8:18am that we still have today....