Heap Big Smoke...

When I was growing up, TJ would always sing silly songs.  One that comes to mind is "Heap Big Smoke but no fire.  Him make big smoke, him make a lot of smoke, him big smoke."

Carter came home school on Tuesday before Thanksgiving wearing an Indian head dress and a matching vest cut out of a brown paper shopping bag telling of tales of a Kindergarten feast of lemonade, grapes, apple slices, cheese sticks and other traditional Thanksgiving fare.  (Actually, I didn't glean all these details from him, but we were all asked to supply items from a list so I saw the menu in advance.)  And his wonderful teacher sent out pictures from the event so I could see a glimpse of what life must have been like when the Mayflower landed at Towne Meadow and the natives sat down to dine with the pilgrims.  ADORABLE!

But even cuter is the Indian name his teacher gave him - White Rapid.  She named all the guests... pilgrims and Indians alike.  But each name was befitting the recipient.  "Moon beam" for one little girl, "Sunshine" for another.  One little boy was "Red Eagle" but "White Rapid" completely suits Carter.  So much so that I've decided to rename all my children with Indian names.

White Rapid is third Indian boy from the right

All the guests at the Thanksgiving Feast - White Rapid is center of middle row

The Thanksgiving Feast - White Rapid is far left between two pilgrim girls

Here are the names submitted to the Indian chief pending approval:

Carter will henceforth be known as: White Rapid
Kiefer will henceforth be known as: Wild Feather
Griffin will henceforth be known as : Quiet Storm
Fletcher will henceforth be known as: Little Big Wind

Him make big smoke, him make a lot of smoke, him big smoke! :)  (I crack myself up!)

At the dinner table that evening, Carter & Kiefer both wore their Indian Head Dresses...

White Rapid & Wild Feather (with his head dress on backwards!!)

He looks like an Indian Chief, doesn't he?

Peyton Manning was Sacked!

It was a great birthday for Kiefer!  We gave him a Colts helmet and uniform and he took it to school for show and tell and he's worn it every single day since his birthday!  I think he really likes it.  I'm not sure when I'm going to get it away from him to wash it, but I guess the grass and dirt stains just make it more authentic.  And it was a disappointing loss for the Colts on Sunday, but on our couch our little Peyton Manning wanna be was Sacked out!! Here are the highlights...

When you're sick on your birthday

There's something about being sick that is always a bummer-- you miss out on a nice day outside, don't get to play, don't get to see your friends that day.  But when you're sick on your birthday, that's just even tougher.  So when Kiefer had a 102 fever on his birthday, we tried to make the most of it!  When I was up with him at 4:30 a.m. and he was burning up and said he was hungry... we came downstairs in the quiet of the pre-dawn hours and we made a birthday pancake as big as a plate, complete with colored sprinkles applied by the birthday boy himself and featuring a lit candle.  Of course, he only ate one or two bites, but I got to sing to him first thing and celebrate when that sweet boy came into our lives.  Happy Birthday, Kiefer!  And for Kiefer, he had a great day!  He got to lay around all day and watch movies and suck his thumb and snuff his blankie...  is there a better way to celebrate?

Wired to work

Carter and Kiefer are wired to work!  It's very interesting to see.  When they're outside playing in the yard, they're always coming up with jobs or work they need to do.  They'll build a new road in the mulch pile, hitch up a train to the truck, but yesterday they provided a new service. I overheard Carter saying, "We only offer this service in the fall..." and I had to run and grab my camera.  We have more pine trees in our backyard than poplar so we actually don't get many leaves that fall, therefore, not many leaves to rake, which is fine with us.  But I think the boyz would prefer we had a few more, in fact, they were working to make sure we had a few more.  They got out the step ladders from the garage, connected themselves to the top rungs with bungee cords as their "Harnesses" and they raked leaves OUT of the tree! That's when I heard Carter's sales pitch.  They were offering a leaf falling service!

Not enough leaves on the ground? Speed up fall with our  leaf falling service (note safety harness!) 

"We only offer this service in the fall"

Safe & effective

When you gotta reach those tough to reach places, sometimes the only place to put your ladder is right in the middle of the bush!

Now moving onto the next job

The house needed "painting"

Those Jay Boyz get the job done right!

But when they tired of that, they moved on to "painting" the house with Jim's roller brushes and buckets of water.  At the end of that job, Carter ran to me soaking wet and I was convinced he fell into his bucket, instead he had accidentally dropped the hose and it sprayed him! Occupational hazard.  Good thing it wasn't an OSHA violation!

How is it possible?

How is it possible that my baby is already 5 months old?  I can't believe how quickly time is passing!  It seems like just yesterday that we just brought him home from the hospital... that I was just pregnant not that long ago.  But that's the thing about time. It passes whether we pay attention to what time it is or not!  It's a good thing we don't measure all our ages in months... Fletcher's nearly a half-year.  Carter's almost 72 months... I will be 456 months old soon!  That's a lot of months.  Days add up to weeks, weeks, months and months pass all too quickly into years.  The choices we make today matter.  Am I living today to the fullest?  I'm certainly trying!  This blogging tool is just one way I'm trying to harness the moments and capture the memories before they fade away too quickly.  There's so much more I want to do, desire to accomplish with my time... I seem to be doing the same things over and over again: laundry, dishes, cooking, cleaning, caring for children and their ever changing needs (or needing to be changed! (in more ways than one!))  But my prayer is and should be to do even these repetitive deeds with as much love and grace as possible.  Am I praying more today than I did yesterday? What is the fragrance of my love offering to my children?  And little you... how can it be that you're five months old today? I feel I've just met you... and at the same time that I've known you much longer than just five months.  We've been through a lot together already.  I can't imagine my life without you! How blessed am I to have four new smiles in my life?  What a huge responsibility I've been entrusted with.  This is the most important job I'll ever have. I want to do better than my best.  Love beyond my limits.  To the moon and back.  The only way that's possible is with the grace and gifts given from above.

I just love little baby feet!

And the way a happy baby puts his feet up in the air!  Just hanging out!

He's already a devoted thumb-sucker!  And I love how he's figured out how to smile with the thumb still in!

Soooo sweet!

They don't stay little long... especially my babies!  Such a big guy!!

More Kieferisms - Deep thoughts by an almost 4 year old

Talking about his upcoming birthday next week, he asked me, "Mommy, how old are you?"
I said I'm almost 38!
He asked, "Will I be 38 when I'm that tall?"  Then he asked how old Daddy is,
"He's 41."
More processing... then, "When I'm 65, how old will you be?"
"I'll be almost 97!!" Wondering in my mind if I'll actually still be around to see him as a 65 year old man.  "Mommy, when I'm 10, then I"ll be 11." "Yes, that's right!"  Then... "When I'm 11, you'll be 14."
 I wish! "Then we would be friends and I wouldn't be your mommy."
"When I'm 11, you can be 10 and Daddy can be 14."
Sounds good to me!

Age, it's all in attitude anyways right?

How to bake the love in

We had some special friends to dinner the other night and I made my Grandmother's recipe for homemade apple pie - including homemade crust.  As I used her rolling pin, antique pie pan and referred to her recipe, I couldn't help but think of the countless pies she made for others.  She would bake people's favorite pies for their birthdays - double crust apple for TJ, blueberry for Uncle Leonard, pumpkin for Bradley... and she would nearly stalk them to make sure they returned her pie pans (but wouldn't imagine using a tinfoil pan!) Even when her fingers were completely numb and her hands were so hard to manipulate she would still peel the apples, core and cut them into slices and nimbly work the edge of the crust.  I've learned baking and cooking are a way to show people how much they mean to you. That you're willing to go to the extra effort to make the crust from scratch, to peel and core the apples... to bake the love in.  It tastes better that way!

Rolling out the dough with Grammy's rolling pin

Grammy's Blue Bird antique pie pan

Grammy's "Fool Proof" Pie crust

"Home is where your story begins" sign in the background

A sink full of skins

Grammy's secret ingredient: Harvey's Bristol Cream

YUM!

Carter making his pie

Carter joined the fun in time to make his own little pie

Carter enjoying apple skins

Carter likes to make his own pie with extra apple skins baked in

Kiefer enjoying long apple skins

Baking the love in!

"Look, Mommy!  It's the number 6!"

"Looks good hope it tastes good!" And it was delicious!

Kieferisms - Theology of an almost four year old

Kiefer has been asking some really cute questions and observations that only an almost four year old could say... I wanted to capture some before I forget...


The other night while watching the sunset on our drive home from the lake he asked, "Where does God keep his paintbrush?"  (we usually say, "Look at that beautiful sunset that God painted in the sky tonight!")

He and Carter were having a theological debate in the backseat of the car on the way to church about whether God can see us everywhere we go... ."Yes he can!" Carter said emphatically, "No he can't!" argued Kiefer.  They continued to the point of tears!  I had to step in and agree that the Bible says that God can see us and can see everything...

A few days later, in the middle of the day Kiefer asked, "How can God see us if we can't see him?"  Then after a pause, excited said, "I know how God can see us - he uses a telescope!"

Another time we were driving in the evening (now that the sun sets so much earlier!) we came to a round-about that has red lights to illuminate a decorative cement planter and Kiefer says... "Look! It's the burning bush!"

Mom, Can you fix this?

Kiefer has adopted a new friend.  His furry little yellow puppy dog that he calls "Abby".  This week he came to me holding the puppy's ear and said, "Mommy, can we superglue his ear back on?"  No, we couldn't glue it, but we could sew it.  So fortunately, we had a window of time in the afternoon when it was just the two of us and we went down to the sewing room and fixed it.

So often projects get pushed aside and I don't have or make the time to fix them.  I tried to stop what I was doing just then to fix it because it was important to Kiefer.

I also couldn't help but think that I'm grateful for the simplicity of childhood.  That so often the "tragedies" that the ball and lose it over aren't actually tragedies at all. I try to gently say as much in the midst of their agony, "Oh..., at least this is something we can fix."

After attending a funeral this week of my dear friend's brother who died very suddenly and unexpectedly - I'm grateful for the little things that I can fix.  Loss does help us put our life in perspective.

Variety Shows

You never know what you're going to find around the Jay household on a given day.  This morning, it was a train show... set up in our front hallway.  Trains one day, puppet show, airplane show or chimney sweep show the next.  I love that they get all wrapped up in the thing d'jour.  Every day it's something new but always entertaining! And worth the cost of admission!

Proud to be an American

Carter's artwork for this week it says "Defending Freedom"

Carter's school had a Veteran's day program today and we took up a whole row with his fan club. Carter made all the calls and invited all his grandparents and he wanted to invite Mikail. Everyone gladly accepted and Mikail said he would plan to wear his dress blues uniform.  He looked fantastic! He even shaved his head for the occasion! The program completely exceeded my expectations.  It was quite a tribute to the men and women who have fought for our country's freedoms and who have made the sacrifice to serve for our country.  I'm so glad that our children are learning about this!  I know I never did as a child!  There's something about children's voices singing in unison... the National Anthem, the Pledge of Allegiance... then each grade level shared some facts and sang the theme song of each division of the armed forces.  Carter's class sang to the Navy... I've heard him practicing... "Anchors away my boys, anchors away...goodbye to college days...ships ahoy..."  but to hear them all together and see them marching and saluting.  It was precious!  They had any veterans or military personnel from each branch stand and allow the children to sing a tribute to them.  When it was the Marines, Mikail stood at attention.  So tall, so humble, so deserving of a parade in his honor for his SEVEN years of service!  Memories came flooding back to me of the day he enlisted. The tears I shed that day because the war had just started.  How he had to put school on hold to serve during the Katrina disaster and then again for the whole year last year when he was in Iraq and Afghanistan.  We've watched him grow up, from his seventh birthday party where we first met and roller skated together to dancing with him at our wedding. Seeing him make a straight face in his ROTC uniform in high school and then earning his Marine uniform coming back from bootcamp so skinny and looking much older than his enlistment photo.  To this mature man before us.  A Marine.  A decorated Marine.  SO thankful that his tour ended safely.  The prayers lifted up on his behalf.  Little voices remembering him during dinner and bedtime prayers and those random grocery store "I hope Mikail is ok" prayers.   The too few care packages we sent that reached him months later.  Imagining him in his tiny bunker. Seeing web video of his glamorous sleeping conditions and carrying the 80 lb bulletproof vest and 20 lb machine gun and I don't even know how much amo weighs.  He's a Marine.  He's seen more darkness than I even know.  But still has such a tender heart and has won the affections of our children.    After the ceremony where I think all the grandfathers shed tears! (I know I did!)  And our hearts were swelling with American pride... then the Marine changed into combat clothes and single handedly took on the boyz for some man-to-man combat in the basement. He was talking to me today about his school plans and when he's done about joining Big Brothers to serve as a Big... I told him later he's serving in that role to our four boyz.   We love you Mikail!  Thanks for all you are to our family and all that you've done to serve our country!  We salute you!!  We're so proud of you and the man you have become!  

our fan club saving seats

Mikail and Kiefer

The school children

Papa Dick stood as an Army veteran

A decorated Marine

Me & my Marine & Griffin, too

Who's the Big Brother now?

Carter ran to the car to see Mikail

And gave him a HUGE hug!

He can't help but stand tall & proud

He's our hero!!

Carter & Mikail

Kiefer & Mikail

Man on man combat - a Marine vs. Superman

Balls were bouncing, kids were flying... it was war

Kiefer kept coming back for more... "Can you do that again?!"

Superman can fly!

Tickle wars!