Wednesday, September 15, 2010

The Giant Doughnut

It's been quite the week here at the Lovejoy household.  Just busyness...our schedule is close to unbarable.  I feel like we've been transitioning to our fall routine now for about a month!  This week was really the first that gave me a taste of what is in store for the next year and wow!  It's really crazy!  I feel like this parenting thing just keeps getting busier and busier.  At first, when I became a mom and had one little infant I thought it was sooo difficult to manage...lack of sleep, loss of my independance...but if I only knew then what I know now!  I would appreciate all those naps.  I could really use them NOW. 

Last weekend Mark did an outreach with some military guys (our military movement is called Valor for those of you who aren't familiar).  He took them out in the desert and played paintball - it's always a huge win.  He was exhausted when he left here at 7 a.m. on Saturday, but hopeful.  He came home with a great report (4 guys who had never heard the gospel got to hear it for the first time) and felt really encouraged!  That's always great.  The Valor movement has been slowing picking up speed over the past few years as we've seen some really key leaders surface. 

The next day, Mark took Jack and two other guys (one student and one graduate - Jake) up to the mountains to get firewood.  He's got this deal with Jack who wants to buy a lego x-wing fighter.  He has to go on a certain number of woodcutting adventures and also stack wood at home to save up and earn enough to buy it.  He's VERY motivated.  In fact, our neighbor has said that he will hire him as well.  They have it all figured out, how much he has to save in order to tithe, and then have enough to pay tax and buy the legos he wants.  It's been interesting to talk him through his purchases...he's had some things in hand at Target and then reconsidered when I reminded him what he's saving for...and that Darth Vador umbrella is probably not really what he wants. 


Well, this last week I think I realized that I CANNOT do it all.  I can't play taxi all day long, make lunch, pack lunch to eat in the car on the way to pick someone up and drop someone off, wake my napping baby twice a day to do all this, have dinner on the table and homemade snacks for Bible study, all with a smile on my face and a clean bathroom.  I'm not sure what has to give (well, the clean bathroom is really just a pipe dream anyway)...maybe the Bible study snacks?  Thank goodness my kids love peanut butter sandwiches. 

Over the past year, God has blessed me out of the blue two times with heaven sent snacks for Bible study.  Each week Mark has several college guys come over and they meet in our garage for small group.  I used to love making them treats, they're so appreciative and I love to bake.  One week Mark even made a lesson out of making bread and had me show them my method, then they got to eat fresh homemade bread as their snack.  They still talk about it now, after two years!  Well, I will never forget one day last year when I was feeling particularly UNmotivated to make them a treat...I was standing in the kitchen pondering what I had in the cupboards to throw together-quickly-becuase they were going to be here in about an hour.  Then the doorbell rang, I remember being kind of annoyed since I didn't have the time to answer the door!!  But, as I opened the door, there was our next door neighbor holding a perfectly beautiful chocolate cake (the double layer kind with truffle frosting-yum!) and a smile on his face.  He had just taught a cake making class at the gourmet cooking store he worked at (as a chef instructor) and had this leftover...would I like it?  Hm...let's see...WOULD I??!  To this day, I wonder at how God can use my athiest neighbor to show me He loves me! 

Well, I tell you all this just to set up yesterday's scenario.  As you can guess..something very similar happened.  I was sitting in my dining room writing my grocery list and thinking about what I was going to make for dinner and Bible study snack later that evening as my friend pulled up and ran up to the front door with a lovely coffee cake in hand...for no apparent reason.  She said she just felt compelled to buy it for me at the local bakery!  It makes me laugh out loud at how God cares for such trivial details in my life (and it reminds me of how important those Bible study snacks really are...), things like cake for heaven's sake.  So cool!  Oh, and in case you're wondering, the boys thought it was a giant doughnut....the Bible study guys loved it and this is all that's left. 


Monday, September 6, 2010

Garden Bounty

Every year we plant a garden.  Even though we leave for several weeks throughout the summer, it has worked for us.  We come home to a tangled mass of weeds and some dead plants but after two days of weeding and pruning we are usually able to finish out the summer with a fun variety of plants that suppliment our summer diet.  Through the years I've branched out in my selection and tried some new things and I've also planted several things that stick around for multiple years without much tending to.  We planted raspberries and an apple tree last year.  We have yet to see ANY raspberries and the one apple we had fell off in a wind storm so we ate it as a family - it wasn't quite ripe but it came off OUR tree!  Anyway, those things where kind of a flop this year (I know apple trees take a few years so I'm patient, but the raspberries - come on!).  But the rest of the garden has been great!  We've had tomatoes, zhuccini, corn, strawberries, beets, carrots, radishes, pumpkin (by accident, it came from our compost) and potatoes.  The kids and I pulled several goodies out of the ground the other day and made some baby food for Jasper - totally homegrown.  Take that Gerber! 

We Did It!

We made it through the first week of school!  It was super fun and Jack loves it.  His teacher is wonderful, we are so thankful that we chose the right school for us!  We are loving the charter school so far.  yesterday when Mark was out climbing with a group of students he ran into a teacher who said she had applied to work at this school.  She said it was a great place to be!  That's reassuring. 


Doesn't he look cute in his school clothes? 
So now we are just need to nail down our schedule.  I am already feeling like a taxi...if I'm not in the car on my way to take someone somewhere, I'm sitting in the car waiting for someone to get done with something so we can go to the next activity.  I don't know how parents do it, and then add the extras like soccer or karate to the schedule!?  That just seems impossible. 

In other news, LarryBoy has resurfaced.  This is acutally another milestone that we met this summer (not LarryBoy, but the bike).  Noah started riding his two wheeler!  I got to be the one who was there for it too.  Usually Dad gets to witness these things but on this particular day I was hanging out with a friend outside our hotel in Crested Butte when Noah just decided it was time to start peddling and go for it! 



It's funny when people come and ask us how old he is...'isn't he young to be riding a two wheeler?'  Yes, he's only 3.  Mark is very opinionated when it comes to training wheels, the ones that came with this bike have never been used.  I was a skeptic at first but it has worked for two kids so far!  Now they're both buzzing around the neighborhood on their bikes. 
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