Dirty Windows - 500th post

It has been 2 months since any blog activity here at the Nest...that's a first. While there have been many occasions I desire to document, the hold up has been that this post is NUMBER 500 & I want it to be significant, not just Arlo's adventures in potty training. I guess that was pretty significant but not what I had in mind!  I could probably list 500 reasons why I have not written this post yet but I'll spare you ; ) 

The following picture has been in my draft folder for over two years. It may seem strange but this dirty window brought about a significant moment in our home. The front door of the house we moved into when we returned to the homeland was clearly chosen by someone who did not have a dog & five sticky handed children which included one drooling baby. It was constantly filthy & seemed utterly pointless to clean.

One afternoon, the sun poured through the immense branches of the pecan trees that killed our grass & right into our entry way. Charlotte at 6 years old walked by & said nonchalantly "Mom, the sun makes our windows so dirty!" I laughed out loud as I realized that she noticed the filth too. While it was silly, it ended up being a moment where God provided just the response she & I both needed.

I replied "Do you know what Charlotte? The light doesn't make our windows dirty, the light exposes how dirty they actually are."

Ephesians 5:13 says "When anything is exposed by the light it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light" 

The filth on those windows is my sin & Jesus himself says in John 8:12 that HE is the light of the world. In his love, "God has shone his light into our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." 2 Corinthians 4:6

Sin is exposed but in confessing it to him, "he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." 1 John 1:9. 

Through the death & resurrection of Jesus, he has conquered sin & death. As a follower of Christ I know that when God looks at me, he doesn't see all the filthiness, instead he looks upon his Son who in love, paid the price for my sins. What a marvelous thing to celebrate.

The problem is, I still see all the dirtiness. I am well aware of my short comings & fall into the trap of feeling guilty & wondering "How can God love me?" I work so hard (sometimes) to keep the windows clean but it never fails, they get dirty again. In the same way, I am disappointed with myself for the snippy responses to my children, my desire for other things over time reading my bible, my struggle to be content in all aspects of the current stage of life. The list goes on & on....that could be another list of 500 things ; ) 

Specifically speaking of lack of Windex & paper towels applied routinely to windows in our home, I always think that when we move, I will keep my windows cleaner. Guess what? THEY LOOK THE SAME, HAHA!  Right now on our back door is mud from happy trench digging hands & Bella's 13 year old snout, splashes from when Arlo is "helping" me clean with a rag he dipped in that dirty snouted dog's water bowl, some snot & plenty of other gross-ness. But on one of the top panes is a cross drawn by one of the girls (by spit on their finger of course). They said "Mom, isn't that great to see?" Yes, it is. That cross covers every bit of my sin.

The windows of my home look dirty to me but to God, the "windows" of my heart look spotless, without blemish due to the sacrifice of his son. The best part is that I didn't have to clean them AND I don't have to keep working to keep them clean! Tomorrow, Resurrection Day is cause for great celebration & praise to our Heavenly Father. There is much to be thankful for. 

In closing, I want to share the lyrics to a song by Ellie Holcomb. She sings to me via my Bluetooth speaker while I clean the kitchen, fold laundry or collapse on the couch for a 5 minute, life -saving snooze when I can't make it through our read aloud time.

What a great reminder.

Marvelous Light

I am not who I once was, defined by all the things I’ve done
Afraid my shame would be exposed, afraid of really being known
But then you gave my heart a home

So I walked out of the darkness and into the light
From fear of shame into the hope of life
Mercy called my name and made a way to fly
Out of the darkness and into the light

Years of keeping secrets safe, wondering if I could change
‘Cause when you’re hiding all alone, your heart can turn into a stone
And that’s not the way I want to go

So I walked out of the darkness and into the light
From fear of shame into the hope of life
Mercy called my name and made a way to fly
Out of the darkness and into the light

There’s no place I’d rather be
Your light is marvelous, your light is marvelous
You have come to set us free
You are marvelous, your light is marvelous to me

So I walked out of the darkness and into the light
From fear of shame into the hope of life
Mercy called my name and made a way to fly
Out of the darkness and into the light

Bernice & The Super Squad

The Super Squad rocked the block that Halloween back in 2017 when I accidentally took a blogging hiatus! I do love coordinated costumes & was glad that they consented to my suggestion ; ) Once we decided on super heroes, it didn't take long for them to make their decisions. Craftiness has been on the forefront of my mind lately so making costumes was a given. It was perfect timing for sure! My mom & I had a weekend away in Fredericksburg so packed up the sewing machine & all necessary items to knock out some capes.

There were lots of lists & lots of trying to remember whose pants are what color, who is refusing to wear a mask & who is SO picky about the type of fabric they wear....child numero uno.

My mom & her sewing machine, my goodness! She (as always) took the lead role & I gladly accepted the assistant to the sewing genius. I went ahead & bought super hero T-shirts to work around. We planned to make five capes, one skirt & accessories. Hobby Lobby provided some iron on decals for the capes which saved us SO much time & looked much better than what we could have come up with.  Spider-Man needed a spider on the back of his cape so we were on the hunt for something we could use. We came across some decorative webs & I went to town cutting pieces off until we had the perfect shape. It worked out well! I FaceTimed Anson & showed him the blue cape we made & his face just dropped. He said that he had really wanted a red cape & I felt so bad for my little Spider-Man that we got right to work on a new cape as requested. Thankfully we hadn't sewn that hand cut spider yet! I might have said "tough luck bud," probably not though.

We made multiple trips to Wal-Mart which is probably not the place that people frequent when on a weekend away in the lovely town of Fredericksburg! It got funny really fast when we kept going back & spending more & more money as we changed ideas. We were quickly reminded that homemade costumes are not always the cheaper way to go! We walked over to the Halloween section & saw the official Spider-Man & Batman costumes complete with muscles for a mere $15. After quickly considering how ecstatic the boys would be if we pulled those costumes out of the bag, we were at the checkout!  At least those were checked off the list. Over the course of the weekend we knocked out all the capes, the skirt & a couple of Wonder Woman accessories.

The Super Squad prep was in full swing!  You may wonder who the Bernice mentioned in the title is. To put it simply, she was the star of our favorite fall book & is still referred to often. The book Sophie's Squash by Pat Zeitlow Miller is just darling. It is the story of a little girl named Sophie who goes to the market & comes home with a yellow squash. Instead of letting her mom cook it for dinner she names it Bernice, draws a smiling face & assumes responsibility of sweetly caring for her. Over time Bernice begins to look a little splotchy & feel mushy like any squash would. All said & done, Bernice is buried in the garden when the cold season comes & when spring arrives, Sophie finds two baby squash named Bonnie & Baxter in which she shares "you look just like your mother!" It is full of humor, lovely illustrations & will be added to the library at the Nest. Here's Arlo enjoying it again just the other day...

We were complete procrastinators with getting a pumpkin to carve & when we found just the right one, Eloise & I named her Bernice as she asked me to help buckle her in. The continued procrastination worked in her favor but I guess it was only right to never carve her! She was well cared for but even with all the love shown to her, she began to rot just like the one true Bernice. Eloise was actually a little sad. We have had some good laughs in relation to the book. Once at the grocery store, the girls got my attention & said "Look! It's Bernice!" pointing at the line next to us. They started whisper screaming "Berneeeeeeece! Noooooo! Don't goooo with her!" Just last weekend I was about to cut up a couple butternut squash & someone wanted to verify that it was not Bonnie & Baxter. Anyway, that's probably more than you want to hear about Bernice but I want to remember later : )  

The next day was Halloween & contrary to the weather report, there was only a sprinkle of rain! Here's the Squad!

Anson requested spiders on his wrists to shoot webs....of course he got some! Only bad thing is that they came in a pack of a million & they love to have them with their bath toys. I have squealed on more than one occasion when one sneaks out of the tub and onto the bathroom floor! Bella Bella Blue Dog benefitted from the additional cape. She looked stunning ; )

We got some great pictures but there are always the greatest ones too...

After a restful afternoon, we got costumes back on & headed out to the street.

Arlo figured it out the mission rather quickly & decided he hated riding in the wagon. He got a mini package of Swedish Fish at the first house & held onto it nearly the entire time! Even once we were home & sifting through the rest of the candy it was tight in his grip! We did strap him in on multiple occasions & I think he figured we weren't paying enough attention so he would chew his way into a package & have chocolate all over his face, ha! I'm pretty sure I looked like that later that evening & maybe once a day when I would sneak into the pantry when no one was looking ; ) 

It was almost embarrassing to see how much candy we ended up with. We had a few pieces then all squeezed in to our room to our bed to watch the Astros play in the World Series. It was an evening where we felt like we didn't have a bunch of teeny tiny kids. While they are still young, they can stay up past 8 without losing their marbles...most of the time ; )

Here's the loot.

I always vow to get moving on next year's costumes more that two weeks in advance. Let's see how this year goes!

Celebrating Arlo

The littlest of the bunch turned two in October & boy did he enjoy a relaxing day at home. I think we all did! It's like he knew it was his special day & that we would let him snuggle up in our bed no matter how early he woke up. Around 5:30 am he peeped & I swooped in to get him before he woke up his roomies. We crawled into bed & got all cozied up together. He will snuggle FOREVER so we did..until everyone else came in to wish him "Happy Birthday!"  They are always so loud ; )

Arlo liked posing for his picture...ha! He takes awhile to wake up in the morning. I think he gets it from the Ellis side of the family.

He really perked up when we served him ten cinnamon rolls!

Some birthdays we go all out. Some years we do the opposite. This was one of those EXTREMELY simple birthdays & we loved it.  We got him two Spot lift the flap books that we have read too many times to count. On birthday eve, I printed out pictures of Spot the dog & let each of the kids color whichever & however they wanted. We slipped some twine through hole & hung the from the light fixture over the kitchen table.

Lolo said that while Arlo likes Spot, he would really like a silly picture of himself. If his teeth happen to look like that, we may request donations to his orthodontic spending account in lieu of gifts! Arlo really did like all the dangling pictures as evidenced by his constant climbing onto the kitchen table, pointing & saying "Spot" over & over.

He received some fun gifts including his very own battery operated train! Two siblings (that happen to closely resemble each other) have trains that a little someone likes to play with. Uncle Kyle's gift was a win-win-win! I love baby hands.

Flipping through pictures of the day it looks like he doesn't even have sisters! The three amigos had such a wonderful time playing together which makes this mama happy.

We built SO many train tracks that were much cooler than what we usually build.  While Daddy was at work, we broke the rules & emptied a couple shelves of his library to add some height to our track.

Thomas the Train happened to be a bit faster than the old engines & would rear end them as the raced down the track. We found out how strong he really was when Robby put a 1 liter Nalgene bottle on the kitchen table & he pushed it right across!

When they ran out of books, they moved on to Bella. She is such a great (& tolerant) dog at nearly 13 years old to happily or rather unhappily provide a stunt option at the end of the track! 

The bounce house was in use for about 4 hours that day & Arlo decided it was pretty exciting to jump with siblings.

I sat & talked to him for a bit while we watched Elo the Butterfly Whisperer catch butterflies with her bare hands. He was making the most hilarious faces.

After lots of bouncing & a long nap, we were ready for guests. GGran, Grammy & Grandpa joined us for dinner & cake. We made a lasagna & the ravishing two year old ate more than the rest of our children combined! I guess he's a growing boy!

Again, minimalist décor on the cake. Some printables cut into squares & taped onto toothpicks placed atop a Betty Crocker cake. Simplicity at it's finest.

a spontaneous family picture always captures such natural smiles.

Arlo was the happy recipient of a cool tool set & a Little People RV camper he can either push around or pop open to play with what's inside. Both have had plenty of attention since the big day.

Arlo must have emailed GGran to let her know she should wear green. He loves his GGran...and the jellybeans she brings everytime she comes to visit!

Grammy & Papa are up at the top of the "like list" too.

I think we are at the tippy top of that list.

These two, oh my. They are sweet together! When Robby was leaving for work that morning he said "Bye Arlo, I love you!" & for the first time ever Arlo responded with "I luh=oo too!" All of our hearts just melted.

He is darling alright!

Party time with those Polish Valentines!

Long, long ago in July we had quite the exciting two weeks with some very special cousins! As mentioned in the previous post, the visit started off with a bang when Jenny ended up in the hospital & Steve was stranded in Houston on the last leg of his trip back from Poland. The only exciting part about their situation was that I got to visit Jenny twice while she was an inpatient & we got to talk for about 6 hours uninterrupted. That certainly did not happen the rest of the visit! A few days after discharge the crew moved in to the Valentine Nest with lots of suitcases, snacks & smiles!

This picture was taken just moments before we sent them on their way. It's my fave of all the cousins together.

One thing we enjoyed about a weeklong stay was the opportunity to do some normal daily activities. For example, we spent an afternoon at the library looking at books & learning about bees. Quite possibly the most energetic bee keeper there ever was led us in song, showed off her beekeeper attire & sent everyone to table after table to taste honey, look at bees under a microscope & make some cute little antennae. There was a number of questions from a kid about pollination which ended with her saying "that's called the birds & the bees & you can talk to your parents about that!" Oh my, were we giggling!

We had a ladies outing that included lots of debating at Half Price Books about how to spend $3 & then Sonic for some frozen lemonade.

They really had fun together & were cute as they could be. I do think all those little brothers made them a bit annoyed but that's what little brothers are supposed to do sometimes, right?

Those little guys (don't tell them I called them little) took a trip to Central Market with Steve & Jenny. Isaac had a jam session in the car while Owen & Anson watched. That kid has some moves & I think he got them from Aunt Lala!  They had a blast running in the backyard or racing Hot Wheels on a track down the entire staircase......and picking on the big sisters!

One obsession ended up filling lots of time for the big girlies. It was an Animal Rescue Team which we are pretty sure stemmed from another obsession. Dolphin Tale, the movie had been on replay for a long time in both our homes & practicing animal rescue was on the top of the priority list. They decided to start small with roly-polys but quickly advanced to the most miniature frogs the park had to offer. There was a sign posted on the door of the Animal Hospital headquarters and lots of decorative posters on the door to where the animals were kept. Take note of "Save the BABBY animals!" During one of our drives we overheard the three of them talking about when they were 19, they would move to Clearwater, Florida to work at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium where Dolphin Tale was filmed. They decided they would room together & drive a Corvette. I guess that means only two could get around at a time...that's where the plan breaks down & shows that you still need your parents to help you make the right decisions!

The girls took notes & even brought a ruler to measure how far the frogs could jump. The rescue kit was filled to the brim with necessary items like water to make sure the frogs could stay damp if needed.

Here's the best bug catcher I know with a roly-poly.

We played a LOT! Char got a new Polish game called Nogi Stonogi & it is perfect for all ages. It's a battle to make the longest caterpillar by rolling dice. One night we played another game that Aunt Jenny thought would be awesome. It was, depending on who you ask. It is called Bean Boozled & is basically a game meant to see how many people can gag without throwing up. There are 10 colors of jelly beans but each color has two vastly different flavors. It's a guessing game & there is no turning back once the nasty flavor is in your mouth. Uncle Steve was surrounded as he took his turn.

Check out the possibilities without gagging..

It's hard to pick the worst but for me, the dog food & barf flavors just about did me in. If it wasn't enough to taste the flavor you picked, our children walked around blowing their nasty breath on our faces!  We didn't let Owen pick the color that could be rotten egg flavored as he gags if someone sits next to him with a plateful of scrambled eggs. I so understand! I would have avoided a color if it could potentially taste like a banana. Our favorite part was when Anson walked by the "spit cup" & his eyes said it all. YUCKY game but good for some laughs!

The park held lots of opportunity for burning off energy & taking pictures with goofy faces.

Safety Steve playing lifeguard with eight kids.

I loved getting to know Karis, Isaac & Olivia at their current ages since I still picture them as 5,3 & 1 when they left for Poland in 2015.

Bob & Jeannine hosted dinner at their house for the Valentine & Blanton families. It was loud & fun as expected! Last time we had a full family picture, Arlo was hiding in a baby bump & we didn't even know he was a boy. Special crew.

We made promises we couldn't keep like camping out in the backyard. I'm not sure what we were thinking promising that! The heat index was 105 degrees so we apologized as we opted for a sleepover in the playroom instead. We closed the blinds, turned on the lanterns, sang a couple songs & heard a scary story from Uncle Steve. It was fun for a little bit until people started bothering other people & were sent to their rooms, as expected.

Grandpa helped the kids make Charlotte's Snap Circuits work. It was interesting for all as you can tell, even Arlo!

Those are some happy grandparents!

Gigi even mustered up the courage to brave the Texas heat & join us to see the Polish Valentines. Her parents came to the United States from Poland....fun fact! Here she is with some of the grands & great-grands. I LOVE the picture of Livi-Lou & Owen!

Just a couple nights prior to their departure, Bob & Jeannine treated us to dinner at Uncle Julio's. Dinner was delish but dessert made me wish I hadn't eaten for the previous 24 hours! A chocolate piñata filled with churros, chocolate covered strawberries & plenty of other yummies was delivered to our table. I was nominated to take a swing & did a fantastic job allowing us to eat seconds later.  

We love these two (and their three) & enjoyed evenings of visiting after we got 8 kids to fall asleep. At the weeks' end, we were all tired but oh so thankful for our time together.