For the past week or so, Bryce has been coming down with a cold. One of the first signs of this is that he starts struggling with his breathing due to asthma. Over the weekend his cold really hit him hard and so did the asthma. We decided this morning that we were going to keep him home from school today.

A few minutes after making this decision, Jayden came up to our room sobbing like his heart was breaking…

Josh: What’s the matter, buddy?
Jayden: I don’t want to go to school today (sobbing)
Josh: Why not?
Jayden (wailing) I don’t want Bryce to not be close to my heart! (sobbing)

Josh and I looked at each other. That was the cutest and saddest thing I’d ever heard. So we let him stay home. After all, it’s only kindergarten.

So here is a pic of the green tomato pie. It looks good, right? Here’s the recipe I used:

1 1/4 cup sugar

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg (I omitted this b/c I don’t like nutmeg)

1/4 cup + 2 Tb. flour

1 tsp Lemon peel (I also omitted this b/c I didn’t have it)

6 med. green tomatoes tossed with 3 Tb lemon juice

1 Tb butter

Mix flour, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and lemon peel. Peel and cut up tomatoes, toss with lemon juice and add into sugar mixture. Mix lightly until sugar mixture coats all of the tomatoes. Put into prepared pie crust. Dot with butter. Top with top crust. Bake 35-45 min at 425. Serve warm.

*Josh deemed this pie: “interesting”, Bryce said: “it’s okay”. I didn’t like it…I just couldn’t get over the fact that they were tomatoes. It was a little like apple pie, with a sour tang of tomatoes. If you like tomatoes and don’t have a mental block like I do, I would recommend trying it though. Shortly after taking this pic of it, I took it outside and fed it to the chickens, who did appear to like it.

1. An adult must not under any circumstance eat food that is not also offered to the children.

2. Meals are optional, but snacking is mandatory.

3. Instructions must be repeated 10 times before compliance is issued.

4. It is the responsibility of an adult to find any and all lost items. Even when the item is exactly where the adult said that it was.

5. Do not attempt to smack our hands or swat our bottoms. We will continue to do what we want to do when and how we want to do it.

6. Books should not under any circumstance be stacked in tidy vertical lines on the shelf. They should be in piles on the floor.

7. We are JUST FINE with looking like orphan children.

8. Anything inside a tube is better outside, anything on a shelf is better on the floor, anything inside a box or container of any kind really should be on the outside.

9. Under penalty of…well, whatever we decide is best in that moment, a parent should not leave us in a room alone. Ever.

10. Showers for adults are optional, but if you decide to take one, just be aware that we will find every item in every drawer in the bathroom and remove it.

11. Diapers also are optional and we will remove whenever the mood strikes.

12. When we are out of eyesight and quiet come and find us IMMEDIATELY.

13. If something is in a store, I will want it. The only exception to this rule is if I am a boy and the item is pink.

14. When you sit down, be prepared to be used as a jungle gym, a trampoline or a spotter for one of our various death defying stunts.

I’m sure there are more that I have overlooked. What would the household rules in your house be if your kids made them?

If I thought that the week prior to my last blog was busy, it was nothing compared to this last week! I am hoping that this week will be a little less so, but I’m not holding my breath.

The biggest news that is going on in my life right now is that this coming Wednesday the 17th. The new coffee shop at our church that I am running will celebrate it’s grand opening. And we (I) have finally, finally, finally decided on a name. It has been a long and grueling process, let me tell you. I mean, it’s literally taken months and hours and hours of time. But I have to tell you…I think it’s worth it. The name will be announced via email to all the staff at Grace today, so I feel comfortable announcing it to all of you as well. I’m pretty sure none of the elders at church read my blog. =) So without further adieu, the name of our coffee shop is….(drum roll, please)

Cafe Energeo

Energeo is a Greek word pronounced (en-erg-eh’-0) It means: “to work in”, “to be active, operative”, or “faith as the energizer of love.”

I think this is awesome on a number of levels. But in particular, what has come because of the word…and that is our mission statement. I knew for a mission statement, I wanted a verse…but I didn’t know which verse or exactly what I wanted it to say. But because of the word Energeo, God helped me find Galatians 5:6 and our mission statement via the Amplified Bible “….faith activated and energized and expressed and working through love.” THAT is the heart that I have for the cafe.

I am hoping to be able to stencil these things on the walls of the cafe so that everyone will be able to understand the meaning and the heart behind it. I am so excited to be a part of this ministry. I feel like I have been waiting for years for a ministry to come along that truly speaks to my heart and my gifting and I’ve found it. Coffee. Coffee may sound like a strange ministry. But I think it’s the perfect example of how God can take someone’s gifts and their likes or hobbies and turn them into something that He can use for His work. I have ALREADY seen God working in this and it’s not even open yet! So I know He’s here. And in God’s presence is exactly where I want to be.

You know how sometimes you go for a while without blogging because there’s nothing going on worth blogging about? These last weeks have been exactly the opposite. I have been so incredibly busy and there’s so much going on worth blogging about that I just haven’t had the time! So instead of writing big long detailed posts about things, I again have to do a ‘catch up’ bullet type list. So here we go!

*Last Saturday the girls turned 2. Yes, I know. 2. We had a little party over the weekend for them. It was fun. They wore cute dresses and they totally adored all the attention. They finally ‘got’ the whole present opening thing and it was so fun to see them figure out that if they pulled the paper off or out of the bag there were fun things inside for them. It has been such a hard thing for me emotionally to see them turn two. They’re my babies! And they’re getting so big! And so mobile…and so destructive…and have learned to unscrew things…waaaaa!

*I am currently working on a project for my church. We are opening up a coffee shop inside of our church and I have volunteered to run it. I know that I have 2 year old triplets and how can I think of doing something like this? Well, I’ll answer that. First and foremost, I feel totally called to this ministry. Ever since a couple years ago when they first mentioned that they were putting a coffee shop in, God told me that this was for me. I didn’t know in what capacity he wanted me here, I just knew He did. So that’s the first thing. Second, I need a break! Having a good reason to get out of the house on a regular basis and do some good interacting with other adults has been very good for me. And it’s going to continue to be a good thing for me. I’m totally excited. The coffee shop opens in about 2 weeks and this is going to be the busiest 2 weeks for me.

*On kind of a whim and as spontaneous as a family with 5 kids can be, we decided on Friday night to go on a ‘last hoorah‘ overnight to the beach last night. (Sunday into Monday) It was totally fun. I don’t believe that we’ve ever been on an overnight trip with our kids…certainly not since we’ve had the girls and if we’d done it with the boys…it’s been a long time. Anyway, we went to church on Sunday and then headed straight out. We stayed overnight in a hotel ( which Bryce was totally over the moon about) with 2 queen beds and a little kitchenette so we could bring some of our own meals. Definitely not the nicest place I’ve ever slept, but passable. All today we spent walking around Seaside and playing on the beach and the girls LOVED it! So did the boys. All in all it was a great weekend and great family memories. Tomorrow I will post some pictures.

*Tonight is a very sad night for me. For weeks now I’ve been struggling with the fact that soon Jayden will be leaving me during the day and going away to Kindergarten. As the time has drawn near, the sadness has grown. Even just now as I’m thinking about it, I’m getting teary. No longer will there be anyone here during the day to have a conversation with, or tell me what the girls are up to, or help me with anything, or make me laugh because of funny things he says. There are pros to them being gone during the day..a little less work, less whining and fighting and arguing. But mostly, I’m just going to miss them. Tonight as we were tucking the boys in to bed, Josh started talking about going to school and I started crying. Jayden also started tearing up, but I couldn’t tell if he was because of things he was scared/worried about with starting school or if it was because he knew I was sad about him going. I think it was mostly because of me. He has such a tender heart about him. He was sad because I was sad. He said he would miss me. Oh how I will miss him. His life is about to change. He’s about to grow up and I can’t stop it. He’s no longer my baby boy. He’s a big boy who goes to school now. Man, this is hard.

Well, these are the big things going on right now. I will try and keep updated as much as I can…there are definitely things to blog about!