Beautiful Boys

I have recently re-watched Mr. Holland's Opus. It is without question one of my all time favorite movies. I know the characters in no way give God much thought, but the whole focus of the movie is on priorities and Mr. Holland makes the right choices; even if he doesn't always want to. And even when he has to be taught the right choices when it comes to his deaf son, he gets it right eventually. I think I cry every time the end of the movie happens and he sees that even though he was "only" a teacher and did not do "great" things, he touched the lives of so many people. I have the soundtrack to the movie and will sometimes tear up just listening to his Opus!

I got the soundtrack to the movie for one reason, though, and it is a Beetles song. I am not a Beetles fan. The main thing I know of them is that they all lived in a yellow submarine holding hands; but I really like the song Beautiful Boy that John Lennon wrote for his son. I originally bought it for my beautiful boy Nathan, but have since been blessed with two beautiful boys! The song states that "life is what happens to you when you're busy making other plans." I interpret that to mean that we can get so busy planning things and making plans for the future that we miss out on life as it happens. That is something for me to remember.


Being all boy!

My beautiful boys having fun


Mr. Holland's life did happen for him while he planned for his songwriting career. During that life he touched the lives of many people, including, eventually, his son. I hope and pray that when I retire, not that you can ever retire from being a mom :), I will be able to look back and see that my life touched others; especially that I am a positive influence on my beautiful boys.

Deep Thoughts

I had a deep thought this week. Something that really puzzled me. Why do the lights in my bathroom not reveal the clump of hair on my knee that the lights in Sunday School illuminate magnificently! Last week, being Easter and the beginning of the Spring clothes season (yes, I thought about more than clothes on Easter, but that is really too deep for this discussion), I peeled my white legs out of my winter boots and tights (my legs really do look much better when only the shape of them can be seen and not the color!) and braved wearing a knee length dress with heeled sandals. I thought I looked rather nice considering that my legs have been hibernating for several months. But I knew that there are certain spots on my legs that tend to get missed easily by my razor, so I made a special point to examine those areas before leaving for church. To do this involves yoga like postures as I hoist my legs onto the bathroom counter, right underneath 4 bright bulbs. I looked over all areas, knees, ankles, toes, and was satisfied. But then, as I was listening to the SS lesson, I got distracted by the huge clump of hair right below my left knee. I quickly crossed my legs the other way and thankfully see that I had managed to shave that leg better. Needless to say, I spent the rest of class trying to keep that leg behind the other and hoped that no one else saw my missed razor activity.

Yes, my mind can sometimes go deeper than hairy legs, but this week, that is all I can muster! Oh, and in case anyone is interested, it takes about 8 months for a toenail to grow back to almost normal length. It is even painted now!

Amy

Being at the wrong place...

at the worst time!!

Dave left for TX this morning to go to compounding medicine school to be certified (although he says he knows it all!!), and Nathan had to be at church at 9 for a skit in the 9:30 service. So my morning began by getting up a little earlier than usual for a Sunday; driving Dave to the airport; and then going straight to church. Since we were early for church (that never happens), I got caught by our preschool director (whose job I would never want!). She asked if I could work in the 5 yr old room during the 9:30 hour. I said I could (can't seem to say no), but after Nathan did his skit. So after the skit, I go to the preschool hallway and the look the director has for me makes me think at first she doesn't need me after all-but alas, she doesn't need me in the 5 yr olds, but in the toddlers. As I walk past the teacher holding a child outside of the classroom, the comment is we also have another problem to deal with. Not thinking much about it, I proceed to help keep children off of one another and to stop one girl from crying, and then I learn the other problem-LICE! I am starting to itch again just thinking about it! Even though I probably won't get lice, it is a yucky possibility. All the kids in that room were given notes about how they needed to wash their hair-so I did that and washed the boys' hair-don't know how far those bugs can jump!

A bathroom update...

We are, and by we I mean Dave, is making progress on our bathroom! We have my mom's family all coming over for a reunion April 3, and would love to have 2 pottys! Although I am not holding my breath for that, at least we might have the tile up in the tub. YEAH!! So just wanted to give a brief update on our bathroom. When it it totally finished, I will invite anyone over who wants to use our second potty :)

The tiles sitting in our bedroom just waiting to be stuck on the walls!


The pattern of how Dave is going to stick them on the walls-I hope they are off our floor soon!

Dave working in the bathroom-a wonderful sight!

Tile on the wall! There is hope that we may have another tub someday soon!

Ordinary Days

I guess I am becoming older, or more mature, or maybe wiser, ha, but I am happy to have ordinary days. I am especially happy to feel better after about a week of a miserable lung disease as Nathan described it! It may have been a touch of bronchitis or not, but it was a yucky cough that hurt my chest and made me sluggish. I am thankful that I don't have any serious sickness in my life and feel very bad for those people with breathing problems. Even today, I will sometimes take a deep breath and not feel it fill my lungs. Then I will get a good, lung filling breath and just say thank you, that feels good.

So I am thankful today for my health. I missed being able to run and jump around like usual without getting winded. I went back to the gym today and worked out on some type of machine for about 30 minutes. I could tell I had been sick, but am looking forward to going again tomorrow and getting back to my old self-I hope!


So now I will say goodnight and go lay down and take lots of good deep breaths.

The Olympic Bug

Our family was infected by the Olympic spirit for the past 2 weeks and it was fun! I thought I was bad staying up until midnight+ most every night to see Bob Costas sign off and the last medal awarded, but Nathan's enthusiasm surpassed mine. He plays Olympics all day, has won medals in many events including luge down the driveway, downhill down the driveway, aerials off the swings and ice skating on the hardwood floor in the back of our living room. He reads about how axles are done in his Sports Illustrated for Kids and even knows how to pronounce that icky Russian's name. While watching the games, especially the skiing, he wears his ski goggles! It is really cute. His other outfit I unfortunately did not get a picture of, was his red fleece PJ bottoms, his White fleece PJ top,and his blue fleece PJ top on his head. Dave was perplexed as to the why of this particular outfit, but it seemed quite obvious-he was dressing as any good American; in red, white and blue!

The end of February

Every Christmas I redo the entire look of our house with Christmas decorations-some Christmas specific, and others just wintery looking-like my snowmen. My thought is that I can leave my snowmen up until winter is over because they are winter decorations, not Christmas. But I also leave up my "winter" lights on the mantel with my "winter" greenery; and my "winter" lights outside on the play set. These are simply multi-colored or white lights; no red and green.


This year I had great hopes for kids playing on our play set with the lights on at night, but alas, the rains came. Our yard has been soggy since December! But I got tired of not using my lights, so the other night, between rainstorms, I let the boys play outside in rain boots or old shoes. Finally my plan happened!




The other thing I leave up year-round, are my "HOPE" letters. Years ago I bought JOY, NOEL and HOPE. After Christmas was over that year I put away the first two, but thought that HOPE was something I needed all year long. My HOPE has been for different things over the years ranging from things as trivial as hoping for snow to the first thing I really hoped for when looking at my letters; becoming pregnant with Camden. They aren't like a lucky charm, but rather a reminder that I need to pray for my desires and put my hope in the One who can fulfill them. I will be moving my HOPE from the front table at the end of the month when I put away all my winter decorations (and the pine branches on the mantel are very dry and needing to be thrown out by now!), but it will remain. We all need a little hope!