A Beautiful Story

I'm not sure that I can summarize all that has been in my heart these last few weeks, but I will try, with simplicity, to explain my thoughts and musings.

A few weeks ago my dad called and told me that my grandma was not doing very well. He had visited her at Thanksgiving and then again in March for her birthday and her body was rapidly declining. THANKFULLY, God knows the timing of all things and last summer Ben and I had decided to take the kids to Idaho for our vacation. I know, a rip-roaring time, in the small town of Weiser, Idaho- known mostly for the fiddle festival, which makes it's showing the third week of every June. But we went down during this spectacular event and spent the week with my grandma and grandpa. I am so thankful that we did this. In hindsight, we had not lived in Spokane for a year yet and we left just two weeks after we had moved into a our new place, so it wasn't the most convenient time, but we went. So thankful for that time. Thankful for the prompting. Thankful to spend time with my gentle grandma when her health was still relatively good. Extremely thankful my big kids got to be with her and sit on her lap and feel her hugs and taste her cooking. Thankful I got to sit in her presence and be loved by her. Thankful I have pictures of Titus with her, even though he will never know her sweet touch and yummy tapioca pudding. Thankful.

My strong and gracious grandpa had been faithfully taking care of her for, well, 63 years of marriage, but the last 5 had been especially taxing when she began having some nerve problems in her feet. These last years were filled with small steps towards an inevitable ending. But he was faithful, faithful to his bride, the true meaning, right before my eyes, of "loving in sickness and in health." A privilege to watch this all take place. Love.

And then that call - the call when my dad said, she's not doing well, we should go see her. And over the week she continued to decline and I prayed. Oh God, please, please let her stay alive so I can see her one more time. Kiss her cheek. Hold her hand. And the whole way there I prayed, please Lord, keep her alive. We arrived and she smiled at my dad (her youngest son) and she looked into my mom's eyes and then, I will never forget, she looked at me and with no words just her eyes and her smile, she said, "I love you." Then my grandma went to sleep. So we kissed her cheeks and I pulled up a chair to sit by her side. I held her hand and my grandpa would stroke her hair and she slept. Her breathing was labored, shallow and sporadic, but she slept. Hope.

It's hard to know exactly how to explain what that time felt like. It's such a specific feeling that happens so rarely. It's like I knew that there was peace but there was also a deep, heart pounding of hope. Words don't always come easy to me (I know, hard to believe) but in those moments all I wanted was music. Music. Music to fill the space between the known and the unknown. So we turned on a tape (yes, some people still have tapes and tape players) and we listened to music and tried to talk about the normal, every day things. And my grandpa told us, that he had told her, she could go, that he would be ok. And my eyes watered. Then he got up and helped swab her dry mouth with water...And all I could think was this: I am looking into a mirror. At the end of my life. What do I want to have next to me? A man who loves me to the very last minute. A son and daughter-in-law and granddaughter who love me and hold my frail hand and ask me to keep breathing just a few more breaths. A God who is beckoning me into His heaven because He can't wait to declare, "Well done." Yes. These things. Desperation.

Then we all decided to go to bed. My grandpa on a mat next to her bed. And I slept. And I awoke to the sound of a grandpa crying. A grandpa crying will break the grand daughter's heart. Because she will know what it means. And then, my grandma was gone. Sadness.

All the events after this are not necessary. Because this is the Beautiful Story. She lived a beautiful life. She made beautiful children. She raised her kids to know her beautiful Jesus. She prayed fervently for her beautiful grandchildren and their children. She loved. She was loved. She passed beautifully in her sleep. She is with her beautiful Savior, in a mansion made for her! Joy.

Thankfulness. Love. Hope. Desperation. Sadness. Joy.

I love you grandma. Thank you for being a beautiful legacy for me. ~Your Crystal

School + Fish

Oh kindergarten, first and second grade how wonderful you are...
You love to encourage kids to bring show and tell.
Oh K, 1 and 2... you push kids to stand in front of classes and tell their crazy stories,
You, oh you, bring mothers to their knees.
(I know this doesn't rhyme - I'm not a poet and I know it)

Taking a fish to school seems not so hard.
But it is.
It is hard to take a fish, that needs water to live, to school.
BUT when your dog is too crazy, your cat is too shy and your chickens are just too much. You want to bring your fish to school. And you convince your mother that it is the best pet to bring to school and that it won't be hard to do at all. And then you realize in an instant that you ride the bus. And then you beg your mom to bring your pet fish, Bruce, to school because it would be a little tricky on the bus.

And then your mom agrees. Because your brown eyes are so big. And your voice is so sweet. And you won't stop bugging her. But most of all because show n tell doesn't last forever.

Luckily, the boy with big brown eyes, sweet voice and determined little spirit has a very nice, careful and wonderful sister.

Fish holder

And so Bruce took his longest trip yet and went all the way to Freeman Elementary School.

Where he had his big break on the TV screen!!

You have to look close, but so cool to see it this way!!

And the boy was happy.

Do they do show n tell in third grade??!?

Caleb, I love you so much, I would bring Bruce to school, again, if you really wanted.
~Ms. Simplicity

Our Father In Heaven

Sometimes I like one of my kids more than the others. It's true. I'm being honest. The good thing is that it always changes. So one week it's one kid and the next week it's another. Probably over my life time they will all be my favorite equal amounts of time. ... I hope.

Anyway, the point is that right now it's Nathan.

He's just so dang likeable right now. He empties the dishwasher without a fit. He folds his clothes without having a shouting match with me first about whether or not he should have to fold clothes before stuffing them into his dresser. He takes showers without arguing. He asked recently if he could start wearing deodorant (aka; he doesn't stink). He likes getting his hair cut occasionally.

He is also super compassionate and kind. He puts on Titus shoes for me when we are trying to get out the door. He plays with Titus outside without pushing him, yelling at him, or getting frustrated with him (well once last week Nate did stomp into the house and said, "Mom, none of my bribes are working on Titus, he will not come in the house."). He reads books to Titus and Alena. He doesn't hog the whole couch to himself.

Tonight I heard him say, "Good-night KB, I love you," after they finished their ritual nighttime talking sesh. It melt my heart. And that's why I remembered this picture I took the other day and I just had to blog about my boy.

Nathan has been reading through his Bible recently. We have The Action Bible and it's pretty cool with kid-language and awesome animations. He's been working on getting through the whole thing and he is so excited to tell us about each thing he reads. It's amazing when your kids love Jesus, on their own. Anyway he came upstairs a few weeks back and said, "Mom! Did you know that Jesus taught his disciples how to pray! He did, and I have to memorize what He said. I want to pray like Jesus taught them." So we started brainstorming how he could remember the prayer. Finally he decided he would write it down and carry it in his pocket so he could say it whenever he needed to pray. ..... Have your kids ever challenged you to be a better follower of Jesus? ... Obviously mine have. Wowzers. Well, I was just awed every time he'd pull out that little piece of paper and read it. So I had to, of course, snap a quick picture of the piece of paper so that it will forever be a reminder of how precious his sweet little heart is. Plus, I will have something to look back on the next time he freaks out because he actually has to pick up all his Legos.

If you need a refresher on the Lord's Prayer, or just a reminder of the simplicity of it, check out the picture below.

Love my boy Nathan forever ~ Ms. Simplicity

Screen Time... Or Lack Thereof

This week we did a little screen time "fast". Fast, as in, abstain or refrain. Not, hurry up and watch the screen. Ha! It was good, for all of us. See my friends and I are doing a little challenge (more on this later) and this week I decided my kids should join in on the challenge.

Let me be honest with you. We don't have cable. We have an antennae in our window that picks up some channels for us. Let's say, maybe, 12 channels. And we love chanel 7 (PBS kids!) and channel 34 (qubo). Qubo, is a 24-hour cartoon channel and I'd say there is probably only one show on it that we don't let our kids watch and it's on at like 2am. It's He-man. And honestly I'm not sure exactly why we wouldn't let our kids watch it since Ben and I grew up watching it and we turned out ok...but it's on at an unordinary time anyway so mostly our kids could watch Qubo any hour of the DAY and be ok. Therefore... sometimes they watch it a little too much. What's too much you ask? Well, one of Titus' first words was "show" - I think that might indicate the amount of watching. So, yeah, during the winter I pretty much forget the whole rule about screen time that webmd.com and healthykids.com suggest. But with spring just popping it's head into our neck of the woods, I thought to myself, "Self, this is a great time to do a family screen time challenge."

Monday, here's how things started:

Me - Hey kids, we are going to do a challenge. We are not going to have any screen time for a whole week.
Kids - (silence, looking at me like I'm an alien)
Me - Yeah, it'll be so good for us! We'll get fresh air, play lots of games and yeah, woo hoo!
Kids - Like video games?
Me - No, like board games and stuff. This is going to be great!
Kids - Ok, so can we play our DS's?
Me - Nope
Kids - Hmmmm, do we get to watch cartoons in the morning?
Me - Nope
Kids - Are you and dad doing it too? No computers or phones for you guys too?
Me - Yep
Kids - Ok, we are in!! (high-fives around the table)
Me - (silence, looking at them like they have just told me a truth about myself that is not so pretty)
Kids - Maybe we could celebrate at the end of the week with family movie night.
Me - Totally, that would be so fun.
Kids - With popcorn and candy and ice cream?
Me - Yep, let's do this.
Titus - Show?

So reality slapped me hard in the face. And here I am reflecting on it. We do so much on our electronics, it's just crazy! For me my grocery list, to-do list, procrastination tools games, work schedules, email, calendar, weather report, news, music, running log, coupons...all these things are on my PHONE. So I am constantly looking at it. Luckily, a month ago I clued into taking facebook OFF my phone, at least then it's not as easily accessible to, once again, take my eyes off of the kids and onto my phone. But there is still so much to look at on my phone. It's becoming ridiculous.

My kids have noticed.

Thus the fast. The abstaining. The refrain.

I still had to use my phone this week. But it's been much less. And honestly Titus and Alena did watch 40 minutes of Sound of Music so I could run on the treadmill (at someone else's house, so really it was my only choice of entertainment)... but Ben and I have not been on the computer nearly as much and none of us have watched any TV or played any games on the Wii or DS. Amazing. (I found out on Friday night that someone did cheat BEN! and played a half of a game once this week.... geez what do I have to do to get some loyalty around here....kidding babe)

Below is a list of things that we DID do. SOME of the things would have happened with or without 'the fast', but most of them happened when we would have normally been watching TV, a movie, or I would have been doing FB or some other non-necessary thing on my phone/computer. I love this list and will treasure it for a long time. We just might do this fast thing monthly....or maybe quarterly :)

Read books
Pet the dog
Went to bed early
Made actual phone calls (instead of texts)
Watched soccer practice
Took bubble baths (the kids and me too!)
Looked in real cookbooks
Cleaned the boys' nasty bathroom
Pet the cat
Made cookies
Got caught up on laundry and organized the laundry room (!!)
Wrote actual emails (instead of texts)
Said "no" to Titus a bazillion times when he said "show?"
Read the news
Looked at a magazine (this was FOR work, not necessarily enjoyment)
Played board games
Pulled "weeds" out of the flower garden (I couldn't use the internet to find out if they were weeds or not so I just pulled out all the ugly stuff)
Made earrings and bracelets with Alena

On Saturday night we took the kids to an actual movie at a theater. Don't mind doing the math for how much it costs to take 6 people to the movie, we recognize we probably could have paid off all our college debt, but we spoiled our kids instead and it was SO fun! We even took them out to dinner afterward! It was such a great family time - and get this.... No one wanted to watch cartoons this morning! Well, except Titus. But we'll work on that.

Try a media fast, it's good for the brain and for the soul.

~Ms. Simplicity






 

Nines!

The boys turned 9 about 2 months ago.

I forgot to blog about it.

I'm not a bad mom, just a little....slow.

I do have to say that I realized this is the last year before they turn double digits. So it could be one of the last times I can actually blog about their birthday and post all the pictures online without them being slightly embarrassed. They still let me kiss their cheeks at school for now too.

 We went to Tacoma for their birthday and then did a small dinner here with two of their friends.

The boys soooo enjoyed seeing their old friends:

Boy Power!

Get food fast...

eat food...

with friends...

awesome time!

Alena also got friend time:

Jubilee is teaching Alena how to read

I only lost Titus once while we were in Tacoma. I won't tell you exactly how and where because you might turn me in to CPS, but thank goodness for Jakey-bee saving the day!

Ruby and Titus always get along

And I got a dose of this cutie pa-tootie:

Hailey

All in all, the boys so enjoyed playing baseball with their friends and turning nine with just a few presents and a lot of driving :) Somehow old friends AND new friends bring comfort -- that is a wonderful thing. And, it is worth celebrating.

Life moves on, quickly, and yet, there are some things that stay seared in our minds always ~ Friendship is one of them. ~Ms. Simplicity

Nate and Reed (Spokane dinner)

Adam and Caleb (Spokane dinner)

Happy Birthday my big boys! Your mama loves you from your hearts, to the moon, and back.

Being Real

If you haven't read Heart Challenge, maybe do that first before reading this blog post.

I just want to be real.

Loving the poor is hard work. I think in my last post I made it sound like it was going to be easy. And yet, I have been scared, worried, and frankly sorrowful this month. It's SUPER EASY to buy the granola bars. But it is scary and anxiety-producing and hard to actually give them away. It is a little easier when it's just me. It becomes a bit harder to do WITH the kids. Why?

Example : Alena sees the man on the corner of the street. I ask her if we should give him a granola bar. She says yes. We pull over into a parking lot. She doesn't want to get out of the car. I am nervous. She is scared. I wonder if I should make her get out. Or do I, again, go hand the granola bar to the man by myself. See, it's a little easier to walk over and do it on my own. It's a bit harder to take a child who is scared.

And the debate becomes, do I help her heart break through and DO it? Or do I let the Lord bring her to a place of that in His timing? .... I don't know the right answer. But I made her get out and walk with me. She saw him, she wanted him to have a granola bar, so I made her come. ... Have we passed the people on the corner one too many times in her 6 years of life? I don't know, but we held hands and did not pass him up this time. We were both nervous and scared but we did it. Oh Lord, give me the strength and boldness to always proclaim your love, and not miss opportunities, open my eyes!

In other news, the boys' penny drive was a HUGE success! Their class got second place in the whole school!!! They get a Krispy Kreme party this Friday to celebrate! So amazing!! And yet, I do have this ache in my heart, that kids get cancer, and we can pray that those pennies do all they can to further what is needed to help kids not get cancer. But kids get cancer. Help us to raise kids who want to help other kids. Always. Even when they don't win donuts.

So life - it proves difficult, when I want it to be easy. And sometimes this is because we have to choose to break through and sometimes it is our own trials that become a block. But trials, they are tricky things. They mold us into who God wants us to be. I am learning we must embrace the trial. Embrace the circumstances and ASK God what He is trying to do in our life. I don't want trial, I don't want pain, but I believe the biblical equation goes something like this:

Suffering = Perseverance, Character and Hope

And Romans 8:18 says "I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us."

So Lord, help me reach into other people's sufferings and not be afraid of what I might see, be exposed to, or how I might be affected. Give me wisdom to allow my kids to reach in too and help pull people out of their fires. Allow me to see that perseverance, character and hope come from suffering and that there is an eternal glory to be revealed that compares to NOTHING ON THIS EARTH. And let me show others this eternal glory and hope that there is in Christ alone.

On this journey together ~~~ Ms. Simplicity

Heart Challenge

Have you ever been stuck? I'm talking stuck in the snow, stuck in a ditch, stuck in a small space, stuck inside a sleeping bag and someone is sitting on the opening and won't move?? (That happened to me once by my brother an unnamed source, it was scary.) Anyway, what do you do when you are actually stuck? I'm of the type to panic. Freak out. Get all crazy in the head and start to reverse, drive, reverse, drive, shift to 2nd gear, reverse, drive, reverse. Sometimes I get out of the stuck spot and sometimes I get myself deeper... Sometimes I just need someone to help me GET OUT, and sometimes I just need to calm down. 

Once, I was stuck on the side of the road. I had decided to go grocery shopping late at night and I was driving to the Winco in Federal Way, and my tire blew. Ben had to come and save me. And guess what? I went on to Winco and he went home. We must have really needed those groceries. Or maybe, if I remember correctly, Caleb and Nathan were 3 and I needed some "time."

Anyway, on to the real reason for this post. Since moving to Spokane, settling in, moving to the country, settling in, raising chickens, raising kids, making new friends and helping the kids make some too, I was getting a little stuck. I didn't really know that my heart was slowly slipping into the ditch of snow (read: complacency) but it was. And I'm not upset that it was going there, because all it meant was that God was going to have to do something to wake me up and help me GET OUT.

It's amazing how God gets us unstuck. His usual ways are: parting seas, floods/arks, knocking over giants, whale tummies, closing the mouths of lions, making the sun stop in it's place, healing when someone simply touches his clothes. Buuuuuut, I must be a really simple person, because for me it was none of the above. It was a text from a friend (read: Mrs. Bee) and a blog challenge. So here it comes....

HEART CHALLENGE--- What if Jesus was serious when He said... "Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me." Matthew 25:40

Here's how the Message Bible puts it:

"I was hungry and you fed me,
I was thirsty and you gave me a drink,
I was homeless and you gave me a room,
I was shivering and you gave me clothes,
I was sick and you stopped to visit,
I was in prison and you came to me.....
Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me---you did it to me."

What if! What if...and my heart starts beating. Like, a wild crazy beating, like, oh man, I've been stuck and I see it now and what do I want to do about it? So for a few days I went drive, reverse, drive, reverse, 2nd gear (what IS this gear when you drive an automatic anyway??), and then I just decided to calm down and let Him GET ME OUT. But one thing I had decided was this--- when I get out, I'm bringing my kids with me. I want their hearts to beat with compassion for the least. I want their eyes to see and their souls to act. I want to see and to act with them.

So, readers, if you want, you can come on this journey with us! It'll be simple because my kids are involved and they make me keep it real. Simplicity with Power.

Here's how we are going to start. This is how Jesus is leading us out of the stuck place:

#1- Granola bars.
#2- Pennies.

Simple plan #1: Buy granola bars at Costco. Give them to the homeless people we see. Easy. The homeless are on all the street corners we drive by. And the kids always want me to read the signs to them, or give them the snack (sometimes half eaten) that we have in the car. Now, we will drive around with granola bars and give them away. I like this plan because it's who my kids and I see day to day, and we're building a heart of compassion! Awesome.

Simple plan #2: At the boys' school they are doing a penny drive for the Washington Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. They came home with passion comparable to when they did the rubber ducky cookie dough fundraiser. So we are collecting all the spare change around the house. And, get this, they began by emptying their own piggy banks first! I love that they want to help and they want to know how they are helping and they ask questions about cancer and why the kids don't have hair. And although I see the tears well up in my boys' eyes when we talk about it, I rejoice in the compassion that is evident in those wet eyes.

So this month we might not be feeding the homeless under the bridge or praying for kids at the hospital, but we are taking baby steps to get there! Join us if you'd like and please, post in the comments what you do to take your kids on a journey to serve the least. I need ideas because I can't afford to get stuck again. Heart. Beat.

With urgency ~ Ms. Simplicity

Check out my friends' response to this blog/heart challenge! Here and Here