January 10 A "normal" Friday

Friday:  It was just me and Cal today at my house. This little guy really enjoys having the place to himself. He is not a difficult child to entertain at all--actually, none of the four kiddos are difficult to spend time with because they are interested in everything, they love to learn, and they love to play. Brendan is not a little boy anymore--which makes "play" quite different at almost 13. I really have to figure out more age-appropriate stuff for him to do when he is here. I haven't figured it out yet ... nor have I done a very good job with my Kaity-Girl about this very issue. BUT Brendan and Kaity are very different personalities with very different abilities and interests. Brendan is a reader. Kaity is not. They both love games, but they prefer video games of which I have ZERO. 

But back to Cal ...

He really loves to play with my toy treehouse. Erin told me last week that she was going to get a REAL treehouse in her back yard this summer! They do have some very nice trees in the back yard, but an official treehouse can be quite complicated to build AND a bit expensive. I didn't tell her all of that.

Cal and I decided to make our back yard scene a little more dangerous today. So we played out a whole scenario of alligators living under the pedestrian bridge. We brought "Happy" over as well as "Tiny grump" and our wooden alligator (we haven't named him!) and had fun making up a story about how dangerous the campground had become because of the invading alligators.

Cal loves "GARY" (scary) stories; so we kept this up for quite awhile.

Cal had some leftover spaghetti for lunch. He had a new, very fancy T-Rex shirt on today; so I convinced him to wear this paper towel "bib" to catch his spaghetti drips. He ate every single noodle! His "bib" was bright red and a real sloppy mess by the time he had finished eating, so I was glad it all landed on the paper towel instead of his new shirt.

After lunch, Cal began to construct a track for our cars. I helped him a little bit because he was having difficulty getting it to work properly. Once it was constructed, we raced cars for a very LONG time. Earlier, we had picked out about 35 cars (our favorite ones) and had them all line up to go to the gas station for a fill-up and car wash. Some of them had their tires checked too. It was a $10 charge--we had to send some of our cars to the bank because they didn't have the money available with them. So we had cars taking side roads to the bank and then getting back in line. It was a very big deal and took up almost an hour of our play time.

Cal! I think you love playing with cars as much as I do!

We drove home to Cal's house and arrived at about 3:15. Cal had fallen asleep in the car, so I decided to shovel the driveway. We had received perhaps 2" of snow throughout the day and I figured I shovel it out of the way before the kids came home. I was able to get in their front door! YAY! Jeeps. All of these weeks using their key WRONGLY was so ... stupid of me.

I brought "Sleeping Queens" with me so that Erin and I could play it. She loves this game. We had a great time playing together.

You are so precious, Erin!

Meanwhile in the basement, Aidan was intensely playing a video game. I already forget what game it was! 

I was attempting to get a good photo of Erin and little Cal kept photobombing my attempts! Plus, I couldn't find Erin's face for her hair--I showed her on my phone this upper left picture. She thought it was funny, but she did take her hands and moved her hair to the side--much better, Erin!

Aren't these cute pictures of these little people?!!

January 6 STUPID me

Monday:  I received a text last night from Kelly asking if I could pick Cal up from his preschool at 3:00 today. Dylan had a scheduled video conference from 3-4:00, and she had clients until late afternoon. Yes! I could certainly find a way to squeeze little Cal into my extremely busy schedule (I am joking here)!

I have no pictures to show you the following hours, so this narrative will have to suffice. I picked Cal up at 3:00 and we drove to his house arriving at about 3:20. The temperature outside was in the low 20's, so I kept the car running with Cal strapped into his seat while I went to unlock the front door.

UNLOCK THE FRONT DOOR?

How on earth hard could that be?!?!? I'll tell you what--I have been UNABLE to unlock their front door for months on end! It hates me. Truly.

A few weeks ago, we discovered that someone at their house (perhaps Cal) had gotten into the habit of locking both locks on the front door. The bottom lock is kind of a weird lock with NO key. So, even if you have a key to the top lock you still cannot open the door. This proved to be the case several times in the last couple of weeks. Dylan, Kelly and I have talked about this problem and they have made a valiant effort to make sure that bottom lock is left UNlocked for me.

BUT ... when I tried to unlock the door, it did it's usual unopening routine for me. I went back to the heated car and explained the situation to Cal--who is surprisingly easy-going during these times of stress for me. He just smiled at me and reminded me that Brendan would be home soon and maybe he could get the door to open. Yes.

BUT ... when Brendan returned home at 3:30, he couldn't get the door to open either. I was so bummed. And I was angry too! The little kids wouldn't be home until 4:15 and we were stuck sitting in the car for 45 minutes waiting for them only to tell them we can't get in the house! Frustrating.

I sent a text to Dylan with my complaints about his front door. I wasn't very nice either (sadly). I requested that he come right home after his video conference was over.

Brendan and I got into the back seat of my warm car with Cal and I played cute animal videos off of YouTube (on my phone) while we waited. I couldn't get the sound to work, though. I later discovered (while driving home) it was because my phone and my car are "synced" together and for some reason, YouTube was playing through my car speakers (which were turned off).

Dylan drove up the driveway almost in sync with the little kids' bus dropping them off at the corner. Dylan had the garage door opener and everyone got inside the warm house. Whew.

Here's the kicker though:  I asked Dylan to demonstrate opening the locked front door for me, using my key--and ... VOILA' it opened right away for him. He twisted the key to the RIGHT. I had been turning the key to the LEFT; but in all fairness, I had tried turning it RIGHT quite a few times (not today). When I did, nothing happened at all. Turning the key to the left? At least the key TURNED in the lock and it sounded like it was UNLOCKING the door. So I didn't bother turning it to the RIGHT again. 

Humbling and humiliating that at 71 years I can't open a simple door with the correct key.

Thankfully, I have an understanding and merciful son! He really needed to stay longer at work to finish up some business and I guilted him into coming home immediately because I was too stupid to open the front door. I stayed and played with the kiddos for an hour, which did allow Dylan to "remotely" finish up some of his necessary work. I played one game of "Sleeping Queens" with Brendan and Erin, and then just Erin and I played a second game. Brendan won the game he played, and I won the second game. Erin was not pleased, but she recovered. I brought over my new Mo Willems book: "Don't let the Pigeon drive the Sleigh" which we read and laughed about too. 

January 4 Sleepy Kaity

Saturday:  My dear Kaity-girl was not quite her usual self today. I picked her up from her dad at about 4:00--and it appeared as though I woke her up at that hour (!!). We came over here and ate some leftover spaghetti for our meal--and she was quite talkative as we ate--and then we played two games of UNO--they were super quick games! Kaity won the first one in about two minutes, and I won the next game nearly as quickly. I had to excuse myself for an extended bathroom stay and when I came back into the main room, this is what I found:

I decided to tuck her in right up to her chin and let her sleep, thinking that she would awaken in time to go over to Altitude to jump. But jumping was not in the cards tonight. Our Kaity was just too tired to wake back up. I watched her as she slept and prayed for her. I asked the Lord to give her a heart of faith, to believe that Jesus loves her and died to save her, that she would understand enough to give her whole life to Him. No one else will ever satisfy the deep, deep longings of her heart. You are loved, dear granddaughter.

January 3 Our third week of FOUR

Friday:  That's a confusing title to this post--it means that this is week three of having all four Pahman kiddos over for a few hours. This is the last Friday of their Christmas break from school. We have done very well all together here at my tiny place. Even Brendan, who is quite a bit older than "the littles" seemed content enough to be here. 

It is constant movement, action, service the entire time they are here--but it is very fun ... these are lovely children--so interesting, creative, smart, and very fun (all of them)!

There is a lot of stuff to play with over at my little house. The children know where everything is kept, so they make themselves right at home; which is very nice.

Little Cal actually played with the treehouse today without any competition ...

... his siblings are ARTISTS and were busy being creative in the next room.Cal hasn't really shown much interest in drawing/coloring/sketching, etc. yet. Aidan was an enthusiastic artist at age TWO (I'm not kidding), even holding a pencil properly! Brendan has always enjoyed art as well--and he is very good at sketching animals and robots, and all kinds of stuff. Erin started enjoying artistic things at about age four. She is quite a little artist now and is always busy making things for me! How sweet she is.

After we did our usual routine at my house [i.e. lunch, playing, watching short animal videos I had saved to show them, snack time, and a few more short videos], we headed back to their house. 

The kids' Aunt Shannon was here in Michigan to visit them! I missed out seeing Shannon last year when she came and I had quite forgotten that she DID come. I tried to get a few pictures ... young Mr. Cal was into "photobombing" as you can see ...

Gah! You are as cute as a bug, Cal!

We played with Aunt Shannon for awhile. She is currently living and working in Tulsa, OK and loves her job and her roommates too. She is such a nice person.

Look at Erin in her little hooded cape! 

It was a good day. Super thankful for good health and enough strength to share in the joy of this dear family.

January 2 KT and KenZ

Thursday:  When I arrived at Jesse's Thursday at about 4pm, I was greeted by a nervous Kaity stating that "I hope this won't be any trouble ... but can Kenzie come over too?" Yikes. Surely Kaity should know me well enough that I would give a very hearty YES to that question! But I do remember giving a very hesitant "yes" in the past when both Kenzie AND her sister Harper were invited (prior to my knowledge) to come over and play with Kaity (including dinner)--my reluctance was due to the fact that those two sisters did not get along very well (back at that time) and to complicate matters, Kaity didn't do well with the two sisters TOGETHER either. But just having either one OR the other come over has always been fun. I was more than happy to have Kenzie come over. And I actually had a ton of leftover spaghetti for dinner!

Here are a few pictures of these two playing:

Kaity and Kenzie enjoyed a few rounds of Trampoline Pong ... so glad I hadn't folded it up and put it away yet!

They made up their own games as well using my new set of tiny magnets and some jingle bells that I had in a container with my MagnaTiles ...

We also went to Altitude, where the girls jumped for an hour. Kenzie no longer has a membership there, so we looked up online how much it would cost for us to have a "friend" come to jump for an hour--since it was only $10, it was no problem. BUT what was even nicer was once we were checking in at Altitude, the owner/operator recognized Kenzie as a "regular" jumper and refused to charge us anything at all! He was sad that her membership had expired. What a nice fellow he is!

PS. Kenzie's mom (Megan) is scheduled for a total knee arthroplasty tomorrow morning. I warned Kenzie that her mom will need a LOT of help during the next six to eight weeks. Please help Megan's surgery to go well, Lord!

December 31 "He makes all things new"

New Year's Eve: This past Sunday (12/29/24), we had an extended communion service to usher in the new year. Pastor Jim only gave a short devotional "encouragement" to us that was so impactful. As a church, we've been studying the book of Ecclesiastes (which is not an easy book to understand) since September. Solomon is the author, later in his life, and he gives a whole bunch of really discouraging insights to life. I remember this book being Grandpa Jim's favorite book in the Bible. I think Jim related to the realistic picture Solomon painted of life--how hopeless and meaningless it can be--the nothingness of existence on earth. But Solomon also saw sensible and wise conclusions to his mental dilemma of living too.

Ecclesiastes is included in Holy Scripture under the inspiration of God's Holy Spirit--so it is good to respect it as such, even if it is difficult to understand. Pastor Jim has done a really good job teaching through it, stating that oftentimes we feel exactly the ways Solomon felt ... because life is difficult and sometimes really ugly. Solomon had a lot of complaints. Something that really bothered him was that "there was nothing new under the sun" and that everything had a monotonous rhythm of repeating itself to no one's advantage.

So Pastor Jim contrasted the "nothing new under the sun" thinking with the new life given to us IN Christ. We looked at 2 Corinthians 5:17 "Those who become Christians become NEW persons. They are not the same anymore, for the old life is gone. A new life has begun." This is exactly what Jesus was saying to Nicodemus when they talked that night. Jesus told him that he had to be born again--that the Holy Spirit "gives new life from heaven." 

In Revelation 21.6 it says: "Look, I am making all things new!" If I am truly a Christian, I am been made new each day as I walk with Him. New! Fresh! Restored! Forgiven! 

We also looked at Mark 2.22 when Jesus talks about putting NEW wine into NEW wineskins--not the old, because the old skin would break and both the wine and the skin would be ruined. 

Pastor challenged us to ask the Lord to change our hearts this year, help us to submit to His plans and ways, and grow more and more like Jesus. Stop thinking of the old ways. Stop seeking wisdom apart from Him. Seek the Lord--an adventure! 

I am encouraged to OBEY this as much as in me lies. Surely God is not finished with us yet. I hope to memorize this verse this year:

"I keep working toward that day when I will finally be all that Christ Jesus saved me for and wants me to be." Philippians 3.12b

December 28 Game Night and Gifts

Saturday:  Jesse's kids and I have been trying to get together for Christmas--last weekend didn't work because there was another birthday in the (almost) family that couldn't be interrupted; so we decided upon TODAY. 

Everyone arrived at 3:00 as requested. We opened gifts first ... and actually, it was ME who got to open the first gift! Chris and Ella gave me a gift bag with THREE gifts inside: a cross-shaped plaque (navy blue--it goes perfectly with the colors in my main room) with part of Jeremiah 29:11, "I know the plans I have for you ..." which I can finish--"to prosper you and not to harm you; to give you a hope and a future." AMEN!  I have always loved that passage of Jeremiah! I neglected to take a photo of the plaque, but I am pretty sure I know right where to hang it. Another gift was a little white rock with a circular pattern on it--I love rocks! And the last item I pulled from the bag is a darling little lighthouse (see the last picture on this post) that actually lights up! Wow--good job, you guys!

After I was finished opening mine, I handed out everyone else's gifts to be opened however they pleased.

Koda received 2-pair of warm socks, and I picked out a Grinchy hot chocolate assortment for Ella. Emma was easy to buy for because she has a Wish List on Amazon that is easy to access and choose from. So I picked out a handy little cleaning utensil that is somehow motorized, some hair ribbon, a photo art board of some type, and a game box that has four separate games inside.

Chris asked for a game controller which was NOT guaranteed prior to Christmas, so I was a little bit worried; but it came even before last weekend! I also picked him up a little car vacuum--I am uncertain of the quality of this product, but it looked handy to have.

And Matthew received a battery of some sort that can be used on multiple tools, which Matt says he will use everyday ... AND one of those around-the-neck flashlights deals that are hands-free and good for mechanical work as well.,

Jesse received his gift two weeks ago--so he was without a gift to open--which always makes me feel sad, but I just have to get over it and move on!

Everyone around the table eating my first-time-ever homemade Italian meatballs, spaghetti, garlic bread, and jello salad. I think everyone had enough to eat. We also had lots of sweet snacks laying around to munch on.

I did not take any pictures of the first two games we played: "Worst-Case Scenario" and "Blank Slate". Emma played these games with us and we had a lot of fun laughing while we played. They are interactive games and get people talking and comparing, etc. I was really glad to spend the time together with these guys in this way--because they are all grown up now and I hardly get to see them anymore. It's nice to reacquaint myself with them at least once per year--I so wish it could be more often.

Jesse did not stay for the games because he does not like games! So he went home. Emma and Koda left after the first two games, but the rest of us were not finished playing yet! So I got out Battle Box and this other little game for everyone to play while I was searching for the legs, paddles and balls for my Trampoline PingPong game ...

Matt and I played one game of ping-pong, and then Chris and Ella played two games (I think). These two are extremely competitive and really a blast to be with. It is clear that they enjoy each other and are good friends. I'm so glad! They have been dating now for more than FOUR years, which is very remarkable especially considering they live in separate towns during the school year.

We also played a round of "Liar-Liar" which is always fun to play. Chris won! I have a terrible memory (which is quite crucial for this game), so I lost--but that's okay--I just enjoy playing games.

Here is the little lighthouse--a terrible picture of it, though, because I mis-focused and the lights are blotting out the entire top of the lighthouse. The lights are actually tiny little lights, about eight of them, that surround the upper part of the lighthouse--just like a real one would have.

Matt, Ella and Chris left somewhere around 7pm. I washed up the dishes and put most of the games away and dropped into bed at 8:30!!! I had so much for which to thank the Lord tonight as I was going to sleep.

PS. Kaity-Girl was very much missed tonight--she was out of town with her mom.