Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Decorating a Life, a World

  • Our weekend held a God-encounter with a Romanian woman at the local farmers' market (a Christian sister who is curing her daughter of some mysterious illness through symptometry), dinner with our pastor and his wife, and our small group gathering met here. Twenty people inside our little 900 square foot home! It was a joy! There was a thunderstorm, so we put six of the kids in out bedroom with a portable DVD player and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. Twelve adults sat in our main room, and we used a projector to cast our parenting talk on a wall :)
  • Some friends from church gave us their two old yard toys -- a miniature basketball goal and a plastic cube with a small slide. Yeah, the kids are bonkers over them.
  • Ricky's spiritual birthday was a couple days ago. We celebrated with cheesecake, Upwords, and the movie The Mission. A small accountability group just started up that he attends, and Ricky is now joining with other young men (and an older tennis pro) to hold Tennis Tuesdays late at night after kiddies go to bed.
  • Oh, and let's not forget to document that my little interior designer decorated our walls with her purple crayon. You better believe that she has to scrub each mark off the wall (with those magic erasers that really do work) herself. Hopefully, the natural consequence will discourage her from repeating that antic. [She got a third of the way done before saying, "Mommy, I'm tired. This is hard." Yes, scrubbing walls is hard. I told her to push on and get halfway before she could rest and finish the other half after nap. Well, she did a little more after her nap when our last magic eraser disintegrated. So, we still have crayon art gracing the wall for now ;)]
  • Micaiah has been a little more tired, fussy, and feverish this week -- teething.
  • Chores: While I am still brainstorming some way to encourage her in bed-making (of some sort), here are the other chores Aolani is now doing: help transfer laundry, put laundry away, carry next day’s clothes to recliner, set table, take dirty dish to sink (and putting away things), wipe kitchen faces (fridge door, oven door), wipe door knobs, pick up toys, and any other task I ask her to help me do (which is a lot!)
  • Superwoman has had a 36-hour labor and just gave birth to a healthy baby girl a few hours ago! Leora Tess... (this is her fourth child)




From decorating the walls of her cardboard house to decorating the walls of her real house
  • Verses to memorize for the month of June: Colossians 1:9-12 ~ For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light.
  • I have recently started verse memorization with Aolani (as of last week). We are starting with these ABC verses. [She is so quick and smart, repeating them in their entirety after 2-3 days ;)] I just decided that since I am memorizing her verses too, naturally, then I might as well start quoting them routinely and add them to my arsenal (so the memorization on my part is not useless). Anyway, last week we learned Joshua 24:15 for 'A', which says, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." This week, we have learned 1 Thessalonians 5:11 for 'B' ~ Be kind to one another, and build each other up.