Definitely the fourth kid...

It's 4:40 on Halloween.  We're leaving for a party in about half an hour.  I still have no idea what my toddler will be.  I guess it's time to pull out the costume bin.  He's definitely the fourth kid.

FDBC*

In our continuing and unending search for a church, I've finally realized that we do care about denomination more than I thought.  When we started this search, I said I didn't care so much about denomination.  It's still not a deal breaker for me and we've visited several denominations.  It's been interesting and we've been to some great churches.  I still haven't been to a church and had the sense that this is our church home like I have in the past.  Who knows, maybe that won't happen this time.  We might just need to choose something. In all the visiting, though, I've realized that I'm more Baptist than I thought.   I'm not saying that Baptists are right and everyone else is wrong.  Actually I'd prefer to be in a church that doesn't do some of the traditional Baptist stuff.  I can just tell that those are my people - where I came from.  Dallas Willard, in The Great Omission, I think, said that he was on a plane once, and because he grew up Baptist, he could just tell he was on a plane full of Baptists.  They had a certain look. 

We visited a great church of a different denomination this morning, and it didn't seem like the one.  In talking it over with Chris on the way home, I realized that I'm a disgruntled Baptist.  I think I'm looking for a church that's basically Baptist but rolls its eyes at some of the traditional Baptist stuff - the church culture stuff, not the essentials.  So how do I google that?

*First Disgruntled Baptist Church

Remember...

I had a homeschool freak-out last week.  The kids weren't even that out of control.  But the house was a mess, Rand was cranky, I was overly committed to the day's list of schoolwork, I saw another sentence written in unreasonably messy handwriting and suddenly all of my reasons to homeschool seemed ... entirely insufficient.  I texted Chris that I was done with homeschooling.  He called, spoke softly to me and suggested I call my homeschool sage, Mary.  Mary, who was hours away from leaving for Rwanda to pick up her newly adopted daughter but still let me be completely self-involved for an hour, also spoke softly, helped me remember why I'm doing this and made a few small but crucial suggestions.  This week has been so much better.  So, when my freak-out (inevitably) hits again, I'd like to remind myself that we've had some really good days lately...

 David spent a lot of time on The Dangerous Book for Boys today.

David made this 3D paper model of a boat today during our History reading.

The boys built forts while we read our books.  We started Treasure Island and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland today and read one of my favorite picture books, Don Quixote and the Windmills.

In case I someday get overly nostalgic, I'd also like to remind myself that this...

is representative of what the entire house looks like every afternoon.

Four year old essentials...

We were talking to the boys about the Bible recently. We told them to imagine there was a boy living on a desert island who had never heard of America, never seen a TV or a computer,... They each had a blank book and we asked them to write in it all the most important things about life in America. David and Jacob weren't feeling this activity so much, but Bryan worked tirelessly until he had written:

STAR WARS IS AWESOME
COOKIES ARE YUMMY






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Lego day of jubilee...

Legos play a substantial role in the household h.  They function as currency, symbols of power and skill and are the subject of much of our drama.  A few weeks ago, the whole Lego balance was completely destabilized by the grandparents h.  Until recently our Lego economy had one superpower - David.  He controlled all the best Lego sets but was mostly benevolent with the developing nations - Jacob and Bryan.  Then Mimi and Granddaddy and Nana and Papa gave Bryan several new Lego sets.  It was like somebody gave Cuba nuclear weapons.  The power went to his head.  He would occasionally let David and Jacob play with his new sets but would demand everything back at random.  It was chaos for a few days until he got bored with torturing his brothers and the new Lego world order became stabilized once again.

The Lego drawers have been kind of sad for a few weeks, so we declared today Lego Day of Jubilee.  Everyone had to disassemble all of their Lego creations (except a few favorites and the ones that came as sets).  We sorted everything, and they're starting over.  

 Before...

The sorting...

After...

Going nil...

Bryan dressed himself this morning.


When I turned everything around, I found his Batman underwear facing the wrong way, too.

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