Your Daily Family Funny

The kids begged for a story tonight so I asked them to pick their favorite bible story from their picture bible. Trinity picked Moses. As I was going through the story (always interesting to put your own spin when it's just pictures and the narration is on you) I paused to impress on them how graciously God responded to Moses when Moses basically whined that he was scared and ill-prepared for what God asked him to do.  Blake looks at me confusedly and says "like, from home to Egypt?" It took me only a moment to figure out where the misunderstanding happened. "No, blake. RESPONDED not RE-SPAWNED". Re-spawn is when you die and re-generate at another location in a game. Can you say, a little too much HALO? I love that boy.

Different Strokes for Different Folks

So I had some meltdowns a few weeks ago in parenting. We were back at that "THIS ISN'T WORKING" phase. Too much disrespect and sass, not enough love and sympathy. That's a song right? I will be so honest  to admit that I sat in Jeremy's lap and cried like a baby. Even typing that was embarrassing. So what to do? Well, get directly on Amazon and purchase two parenting books. Don't forget the TWO DAY shipping people. So after doing a happy jig when I received them I settle into the first one "Give Them Grace: Dazzling your kids with the love of Jesus" by Elyse Fitzpatrick and her daughter. Having read one of her previous books on marriage, which I greatly enjoyed, I was ready for some pretty awesome advice and tips. SO not the purpose behind the book. Basically it's JESUS JESUS JESUS and that is all. Did you misbehave? Only Jesus can help you. Did you make a good choice? that was Jesus helping you. While I actually feel incredibly challenged and a little excited to put into effect parts of this" all about the gospel" style of parenting there are parts I think are too much or maybe stretch the method a little too far. Read it and see if you agree with me. I will tell you some of the excellent takeaways from it though. "Pride and despair come from a self-reliant heart". That's a quote from the book that hit me hard. This was not discussing your children's behavior but your approach to parenting. What did I do when I was at my wit's end? Did I confess to God I was failing at this thing called parenting? Did I repent of my selfishness and the part I often play in our family drama? No. I sought wisdom, yes, even wisdom from believers but I was still trying to find the answer on my own. I have done this before and become prideful when the children excel and despairing when everything blows up around me. This is something I can work on with GOD's help, and by that I mean GRACE. Also, the idea that they not be forced to apologize until they are prepared to do so on their own. This I find healthy as I have seen the effects of being forced into an immediate apology. They say it because they have to, so they can move on. Today in the car when Trinity acted up I explained the trouble with not putting others first and we talked about how many "unfair" things happened to Jesus and how he handled it. She started crying explaining the age old grievous complaints of Paul "but what I do not want to do I do. . ." and then she said sorry. So, it CAN work folks. Also, when you can TAKE THE TIME to tie back their behavior (and let's be honest, yours too) to Jesus. Is their a bible story that shines a light on it? a person in the bible that acted "just like them"? This is a hard one for me. I am all about behavioral modification but the deep part of me BELIEVES that I can do better. So that's book one. Next I will be finishing Boundaries for Kids which I began but lost on a road trip to my mom's last year. I am hoping this one will have ideas for some of our purely behavioral stuff like the boys' picky eating.
    Hand in hand with this new take on parenting that I have been mulling over is my apologetic study. Who knew studying about the basics of apologetic would spill over into my parenting? I'll tell you why. A few days ago our topic was fallacies, what they are and learning to recognize them in ours and other's reasoning. In particular we learned the definition of the STRAW MAN = changing or exaggerating a person's position or arguments to make it easier to refute. Okay so in the aforementioned conversation with Trinity about putting other's first, I also pointed out to Blake that HE could have taken that step as well to keep the peace. He defended himself to which I replied that I didn't want an argument back I simply wanted him to acknowledge he understood my point with a "Yes, ma'am". After a brief pause Trinity leans over to him and says, "Blake! say yes, ma'am". "Trinity", I said "you are not to boss him, that is not your job". "Well I guess you don't want me to do ANYTHING good". "That is not true, trinity. . ." aha! she was using a straw man fallacy to make me look bad. Ha ha! I've got you now kid. I see how you work. So I called her on it. I said "Trinity that is not even what I said. I said that in this particular instance I did not want you telling your brother what to do as I had already addressed his behavior and mothering belongs to well, me! I certainly desire that you be good". I was grateful that after several weeks (possibly months, it just has a way of catching up with you) of  being in a parenting rut that I was able to apply new truths and that it seemed to be getting my children's attention.

June Birthdays - Part 2

So for years I have heard good things about this place "The Harvest Vine". It's a tapas restaurant in Seattle and guess what? It's BASQUE. woot!you know I had to try it and this was the year! What better surprise for Mom? The food was ridiculous. Best lamb I have ever had in my life and mom about died over the orange flan. I also got to wear my birthday outfit, thanks mom for the presents! Thanks nat as well for the cute dress. Oh but first we visited Mt. Si Nursery where mom went nuts over the concrete flip flops which was forced to inform her did not fit with her "Grandmere" wine tasting vision for her patio.

 trinity was still wet from her swim lesson so she borrowed Nee Nee's jacket

 this tree was not on the nursery property but had dinner plate size magnolias. We had never seen anything like it and it's just this random tree in North Bend! I'm not kidding that leaf alone is platter size.

the elderberry bush mom coveted and bought a smaller one of only to discover when she got home she already has one. ha ha ha, I would miss plants in that giant garden of hers too.

 a map of the homeland next to cappucino cups. yes, please.

 those plaques look familiar

 oh only some Best of Seattle awards up the stairway with the iron grapevine railing. . .

say hello chef! I LOVE that they cooked in full view of the customers

hmm what should we order??

the food is here!

 tiny coffee, this is how it's done overseas folks

 they gifted us the flan for her birthday! how cool is that!?

 a little closer up

 including the "Basque-ing in Seattle sign"

 mom's a cheese-ball and is that dad's reading glasses on his head? oh man. . .

Happy Birthday to my mother and I! 

still to come: Blake's big day and our Birthday day with the Diviney's