Tidbits

Daddy is off to Virginia Beach and we will miss him, but we will have fun.  Hopefully Daddy will get to visit Katie Carlin (oops, that's not her last name anymore) and her new husband. Yes, we are getting old.  The teenagers that were in the youth group when we were involved are now getting married and having babies!!!  I'm bummed not to make the visit, but Madeline has ballet lessons through January.  

Madeline has a new cute saying when she's bummed about something.  She tells me that she learned it from Jackson in our basement.  Is this true, Courtney?  She says, "Oh man, chickadees".  And now Ryan is saying it too.  Perhaps it will be in Webster's in a few years!

My hope in this blog is to print it out and keep the entries in a notebook for you both to read one day.  Thus, I thought it was only fair to include this picture.  Yes, Mommy confesses, while you watch your shows I often take naps.  When I awake I often find myself singing, "Hey Hey it's Jo Jo's Circus" or "Super Wwwwwwhy, Super Why", and a myriad of other "special" songs.  I don't know what moms did before Playhouse Disney.  I'm sure they were just really tired all the time. :)

Ryan and Tyler sit with a skeleton at the Life Science Museum.

My little climber girl climbed on the top of a tunnel just like she watched her friend Tyler do.

Why is it so hard to get four children to sit still for a picture? :)

Yes, this is the best picture I could get of Ryan and Jackson.  Why, do you ask?  Because they do not sit still when they are together!  They are a great match when it comes to levels of activity.  Unfortunately, I think they draw out the crazy, active sides of each other.  Only moms of boys can understand this.  To others this type of activity might be observed as out of control.  To those of us with little boys, we know that it is just our boys having some good old fun.  And we love it because it usually means a good nap is on the way!  Though I sometimes get overwhelmed by the volume of sound these boys produce, I love watching them play.  They just seem to understand each other, loving to wrestle and be physical.  At church a couple weeks ago,  I observed a sweet friendship moment between them.  They were at the train table, standing in front of each other, pumping their arms up and down in a mirrored fashion.  Ryan accidentally hit Jackson in the face.  Jackson said, "ouch" and Ryan said, "I sorry".  Jackson then said, "It's okay", and they continued to play (until the donuts came out, of course).  Cute, cute, cute.  And yes, that was the same Sunday we momentarily lost Ryan and Jackson only to find them playing in the back of a vacant room.  

Ballet, the Lake and the museum

We have had a fun few days.  Monday was Daddy's last day off before starting work again in the New Year.  It was a beautiful day so we went to Lake Crabtree.  We started at the playground and ended up spending most of our time near the water.  Madeline and Ryan loved running through the fields searching for sticks to throw into the water.  It was sweet to watch them run together and help each other find sticks, though there was the occasional argument over to whom the stick belonged.  We ended our afternoon together with a trip to 5 Guys Grill and a special treat from Kilwyn's, a nearby bakery/ice cream shop.

Tuesday was Madeline's first day of dance class.  I WISH I had my camera with me.  It was so sweet to see all these 3 and 4 year old girls in ballet attire trying their best to learn the basics. They were constantly running into each other and hitting each other with their arms, but they were having fun and trying their hardest.  One of my favorite memories of the day is Ryan in dance class.  We stood to the side the whole time, but he did his best to replicate the ballet moves that Madeline was learning.  Of course it was a very masculine form of ballet. . . :)

Today we spent the day with Ms. Tara, Riley and Tyler at the Life Science Museum in Durham. The favorites of the day were the owl, the alligators, petting the cotton snake and playing outside.  Actually, I think Madeline's and Ryan's favorite part of the day was riding in Ms. Tara's car and watching Curious George.  Ryan and Riley are really beginning to enjoy each other and Madeline has always has a soft spot for Tyler.  Poor Ms. Tara is due in just four weeks, but she did great with all our walking!

Hopefully tomorrow will be a quiet day at home.  Wait, what am I thinking.  Jackson is coming over for an afternoon visit.  There is supposed to be some napping going on, but we'll see. . . :)

Pictures

Our little tree hugger in a tree "house" at the museum.

This is Madeline attempting to put her arm around her brother, who kept refusing her attempts.

Petting the nasty smelling snake.

RyRy with the rat. The biologist told us they make great pets, better than hampsters or gerbils because they don't bite. Really, it makes no difference to me, because we will NEVER have a rat for a pet. Sorry Ry!

Madeline loves the furry, little rat, especially since it does not smell like the snake.

Can someone show this boy how to wear headphones???

Madeline LOVES her grandma.

This is what Matt calls forced family fun time. Mommy decides that we need to bond as a family even though it's only 30 outside. So we all pile on jackets, walk to the park, stay there 2 minutes because we are already frozen, and return home as icicles and grumpy because we are so cold. But we have bonded!!! :)

I just love this face.

When they are getting along, i.e., when Ryan is not hitting or kicking his sister, they are so cute together. In this picture Madeline is pointing everything in the exhibit out to Ryan and he's commenting with "oh yeah", "yes", "okay", "bird" and that's about it.

Fisherman

"As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fisherman.  'Come, follow me,' Jesus said, 'and I will make you fishers of men.'  AT ONCE they left their nets and followed him.  When he had gone a little farther, he saw James. . .and his brother John in a boat, preparing their nets.  WITHOUT DELAY he called them, and they left their father. . .in the boat. . .and followed him".  Mark 1: 16-20

I read this passage this morning and was struck by the response of Simon, Andrew, James and John.  How I long to uproot myself to follow after Jesus at once and without delay.  I am so bogged down with the details of life that I am often saying, "Okay God, just give me one more second and I'll be there", because I have to finish up whatever it is that is occupying my time in the moment.  I hope that 2008 is a year in which I follow after the Lord AT ONCE and WITHOUT DELAY regardless of what I am doing or the plans I have concocted to execute in a certain manner and time interval.  Lord, I pray this year I will eagerly run to you to be a fisher of men!  

Sarah is Dead!

Yes, it is true, our dear hermit crab bit the dust last night!!!  Why do the animals choose to die when Matt is out of town???  First Sally and now Sarah.  She was really active last night. . .I could hear her all the way upstairs in my bedroom.  Retrospectively, I think she was trying to escape from the cage due to the frigid temperatures (the Wells' keep their home at 64 at night).  This morning I came down and saw Sarah out of her shell lying on the bottom of the cage.  Thankfully today is trash day, so after breaking the news to Madeline I brought her in her cage to the curb (just don't tell Madeline this :)).  I think the Wells are done with pets for a while!

Cathe Friedrich

Laugh as you may, but I have an obsession with an exercise enthusiast on Fit TV.  Her name is Cathe and she does a program called Cardio Blast.  The woman kicks my behind with her workouts and I love every moment of it!  If you like high intensity work outs and want to build muscle, check out Cardio Blast on Fit TV.  And what I really like about her is that she is both fit and feminine.  All this to say that I have added a link to her blog and I thought I should give an explanation.  Anyone want to take a trip to NJ with me to do one of her classes in person???

Happy New Year

For New Year's Eve, we had dinner at a Japanese steakhouse with many of our neighbors and Grandma.  The chef gave us a lively performance and we were all entertained.  Of course, this is the first time Madeline and Ryan have ever been to a Japanese steakhouse.  After the chef had packed up his cart and moved out of the dining room Madeline turned to her Grandma and told her how kind that man was. . .to her it appeared that this stranger came, put on a show, cooked dinner for her and filled her plate with food.  In her sweet innocence, she had no idea that it came with a price tag and not out of the kindness of the man's heart.

Today we had a great time at Raleigh's Life and Science Museum.  We ended up at a story time where we pet a 4 or 5 foot long pine snack, a very large rat, and an African cockroach.  Matt and I were so amazed by our children's courage and sense of adventure.  They both eagerly pet everything and Ryan even held the snake (actually, only a part of it since it was much larger than him).  The rest of the day Ry kept saying snake and Daddy kept saying, ask Mommy if we can have one (my response. . .over my dead body!!!. . .of course, I did not say that to Ryan).  Of all the creatures, the one Madeline showed timidity over was the cockroach.  Though it was large for a cockroach (4-5 inches), it was nothing like the rat or snake.  It is so interesting how we are all fearful of different things.  Oh. . .just remembered a cute saying from Madeline. When we walked into the museum, there was a huge replica of a great white shark's jaw (it was probably a 2.5 foot circumference).  She was quite impressed by it and told me that if she was a mermaid she would see this.  I thought it was such a funny remark.  It was clever that she associated the sea with mermaids and sharks, and funny that she said nothing about the impending doom if she was really a mermaid and came face to face with the jaw of such a shark.  Though the live animals were a great hit with the kids, Madeline's favorite part of the museum was the room where there were dinosaur replicas and a little television program on how a smaller, but sharp tooth biting dinosaur can kill a very, very large dinosaur.  The replica actually showed a bite out of the big dinosaur with blood running out of it.  Hours after we left the museum, she continued to talk about this, saying it was her favorite part of her visit to the museum.  Hope she won't be discussing this on the coach of a psychiatrist in 20 years! :)

And yes, the dreaded "thing" occurred when we returned to the car.  We lost the parking ticket. It was very windy today and we are convinced that it blew off of the inside of the windshield when we opened the doors, though we have no idea how it went unnoticed.  So, while we were only there for 2 hours, we paid for a full day of parking.  And to make matters worse, Mommy got us lost on the way home.  Thankfully we all had a good afternoon nap and put our car woes behind us.  

Oh and as a warning to those who have never gotten close to a snake, they do something called "musking" when they are frightened.  It is a disgusting smell they emit that seems to attach itself to clothing and the inside of your nose.  I have been smelling musking snake all day long!!!  At time during the day, when I was in the kitchen and Madeline in the family room, she told me that she could smell that gross snake on me. . .of course, I think she was just trying to be silly, but perhaps she could. . .