From the monthly archives:
Let the games begin.
Gabe kicked off his basketball season this morning.
Dawson is out of town wrapping up his soccer season with a four game schedule today.
Basketball remains one of the harder sports to bring our crew of cheerleaders too. Crammed quarters. No where to move or run or stretch. And no food allowed.
Yeah, it’s fun…
*There has been some confusion. 
These are Etsy shop mailings…
Sometimes in the evening, I just grab the camera and run around the house for a second.
Trying to make time stand still for just a second. Someday it will be a fading memory and I will wonder, “what was it like? in 2009?”
And last night, there were moments of relative peace:
Dawson and Andy were at soccer practice.
Max was in the shower.
Gabe had snuck away to this chair to read–
And these two who rarely see eye to eye have found common ground…in Switchfoot.
I found them together in this chair intently watching music videos:
Kora is all about Switchfoot too and was parked on the couch next to them.
I was wandering around with stacks of clean laundry delivering them to the proper rooms. Stopping often to pick up the mismatched, dirty socks that seem to be everywhere.
And wondering all the while how in the world I ever got so lucky….
OK, if you are reading this, consider yourself in the “know.”
We are going to need your help.
Remember last year, we did $10 Fridays. For 6 weeks, we encouraged everyone to donate $10 on Friday. We uncovered a lot of clean water through the $10 gifts.
THIS YEAR, we are doing it ONCE.
Just one day.
24 hours.
And we need everyone.
NOVEMBER 13.
Online blog, twitter, facebook, email, viral campaign.
Asking everyone to buy water. $10.
To let their first gift of the season be life.
SO…here’s the image. The explanation is below. And the link.
IF you want to invite people ahead of time via email or your blogs you can.
But on NOVEMBER 13, we need everyone. Give $10. Encourage everyone you know to give $10 on November 13.
Can you imagine if we all just came together, from all over the country/world, for one day? And we all bought water together? We all spent $10 to give life?
On November 13, when people begin to open up their Google Reader, their blog list, we want them to not be able to escape this image–
Updates, posts and statuses all over will be about buying water.
(Below is a ready-made explanation of the First Gift Campaign. if on Nov. 13, you just want to click and drag it to your blog or email, you can. Otherwise, you can write your own).
Gonna be fun.
Be thinking.
The image and explanation are yours to use. Or you can write your own.
Link everyone here (yellow donate button) to donate. Here for explanation.
Got it?
November 13. First Gift online campaign.
We’ll be reminding you.
For now, you know the plan.
Consider yourself personally invited to change the world…
From a recommendation from a blog friend, we got these toys…these Magna-Tiles for all the kids to share during our last spree of 4 birthdays.
Oh. my. gosh.
The best toy ever.
All of the kids have played with them. The 3 little ones have spent hours playing with them. Hours.
Yeah. That never happens around here.
In fact, I think this is the first time ever we have had an actual toy that they all have played with repeatedly…for extended amounts of time.
They are pricey. But for us, they have been worth the investment.
Now, the Magna-Tile people should totally send me some free ones or a coupon or something.
But it’s true…they are hot around here.
What’s not?
The chicken and lentil soup I made last night.
That went over like a brick ballon.
…it’s not about me.
They were happy.
And so therefore…so was I.
Are you ready?
Here it is:
I do not enjoy pumpkin carving.
Yeah, not at all really.
Our sweet neighbors gave us their pumpkins and supplied some carving tools.
I was feeling a bit of guilt having convinced myself somewhere along the way that yearly pumpkin carving is part of the “good mommy code of conduct.”
So we made an attempt tonight.
Luckily, Andy is way better at it than me. And has a bit more patience for it.
I was done after 45 seconds of it.
See, he’s having fun?
I did do Zeke’s…genius piece of art that it is.
But, really??
I don’t get it.
this makes me laugh.
check out Zeke…who is checking out Xia.
