When I Knew

The latest production from SquidgetheMovieMaker.

[Here's the transcript, for those of you who are having trouble understanding the words:

Cameron: My mom and dad totally forgot about trash day but I remembered and took the trash out just in time. That's when I knew.

Andrew: I bench 100 ("one hummed") pounds when I was two. That's when I knew.

Ben: I slew the one-armed dreaded wizard when I was only four. That's when I knew.

Jonathan: I won the family March Madness pool and I couldn't even talk. That's when I knew.]

Incidentally, these were inspired by the boys being asked, "what do you want to be when you grow up?" Andrew's original answer was "a snake," but he was persuaded to adopt a loftier goal. :-)

It's really all about the frosting.

Happy Birthday Andrew!!

He's three!!!

Three days old, with big brothers

Eating his presents at his first birthday

Age two

On the seesaw last week, with Ben

Happy birthday, little man! We love you!

You can see more pictures of "AP" at last year's birthday post.

A few random observations

...for those of you who are sick of hearing about my health.
1. I think American culture reached a new low point when the Jimmy Dean sausage-wrapped-in-a-pancake-on-a-stick was invented.
2. I love my husband because he will call me from his car to tell me what station is playing "Love that Dirty Water," so that I can dance around the kitchen while making dinner and reminisce about good times in Boston.
3. Trader Joe's in North Charlotte? The pipes are in the ground. Stay tuned for further updates.
4. Everything I've planted in the garden has now poked its head up to say hello, even those carrots...but they don't look too good. Maybe it's too hot already?
5. March Madness has been good fun this year. 'Nough said.
6. Fifteen days until the Sox home opener, am I right? Getting impatient...

Oh, so that explains it.

I saw my GP this morning and she looked at me with a slightly shocked expression when I told her that I had had strep three times and I've never been given amoxicillin. Apparently there is a strain of strep in NC that is resistant to other antibiotics but is susceptible to penicillin. Oooh. So you mean I've actually had strep since December and never really gotten rid of it? It would appear that way.

My rapid throat culture came back negative this morning, but they are sending it to the lab to test it further, to see if I do have some lingering bacteria that is of the resistant strain. My doctor also gave me a prescription for amox to use if a) the long-term culture comes back positive or b) I start showing symptoms again. I have no fever today, no sore throat, no body aches, and I am feeling fine. She asked me not to use the prescription immediately since I have been on antibiotics so much over the last few months, and I agree! Repeated courses of antibiotics can make a person susceptible to other things like digestive problems and yeast infections.

Things learned:

• it is better to see my GP instead of an urgent care doc if I can help it
• I need to take better care of myself
• Tylenol with Codeine makes me dizzy
• A fruit smoothie from Jackson's Java brought to me by my husband is just about the best medicine imaginable

Things to be thankful for:

• That if, in fact, I have been infected with this since December, I have not developed other things related to strep infections, like rheumatic fever (a disease affecting the joints and heart) or kidney complications
• Attentive doctors who listen
• All the nurses who complimented my children's behavior this morning while they were all in the tiny exam room with me
• Friends and family who pray for me
• None of the kids have been infected! Amazing!

Meanwhile, you can pray for my friend Nicole who is the latest victim of strep! She is on amoxicillin so we pray that she will soon be back to normal :-)

Update...

I hit the supplements hard yesterday (garlic, Vitamin C, and echinacea) and I gargled with salt water frequently. I also made a point to get more than eight hours of sleep last night. Today I am feeling better, but I am going to go ahead in to my appointment anyway. I wouldn't mind talking with my doctor about what's been going on and hear her thoughts about it. Maybe I will go ahead and get a strep test, too, to see if I still have some lingering in there.

Thanks for praying, everyone.

Odds and Ends

Well, the dust has cleared after weekend #2 and Nicole is sitting pretty atop the "Keller Madness 2007" March Madness challenge, with Michelle right on her heels. Way to go, ladies! You have represented our gender well!!

Our weekend was a busy one with a bridal shower for our friend Wendy here on Saturday and a pizza social Saturday night. I love it when our house is full.

I finished my last round of antibiotics on Wednesday night of last week. Today, though, I am feeling like my throat is sore AGAIN. I have already made an appointment with my doctor (up until this point, it's always been urgent care that has diagnosed me) for tomorrow morning. I think the repeated (short) courses of antibiotics have left me with little defense left and have failed to kill the strep. From what I've read, I may look forward to a more aggressive, ten-day course of augmentin or something similar, along with all the supplements I can think of to build my immunities back up. I am not concerned about being contagious anymore...I think I am just a weakling. The rest of the family has been fine. Please pray that this stops happening!

More pictures

Here are some recent pictures...

We've entitled this one, "Maybe no one will notice".

Haircut day

In honor of March Madness we have this huge setup on our couch occasionally. The boys dreamt it up.

Trader Joe's UPDATE

Well, for months now, the Trader Joe's location near us has looked like this:

Yup, that's it. A big ol' dirt pile with a sign...mocking me...making me feel like my dream is just out of reach...

Well, two weeks ago, the dirt started MOVING! There were real trucks and the dirt is now...FLAT. And I saw a surveyor. AND the Trader Joe's website now has the Charlotte location listed in their "Coming Soon" column.

And the fact that I'm trying to get back to eating healthy makes it so much more desirable!!

C'mon, TJ's!!! Get here now!!!

Thank you

for your prayers. They were most wonderfully answered by a full night's rest, completely uninterrupted. I really needed it and Jonathan needed it, too. He and Cameron are coming down with monster colds right now.

I'm off the couch

...and ready for (slow) action. I haven't had very good sleep for the last two nights, but other than that I am feeling much better. Thank you for all your well-wishes. Please pray that I can catch up on my rest tonight.
This recurring infection has caused me to look at some things in my life that I want to change. One thing I realized is that I treat health issues primarily from an "external" viewpoint; that is, I approach sickness and wellness from the perspective of keeping the germs away. If one of us gets sick, I go into hyperdrive cleaning mode and try to kill anything that might infect us. What I haven't been paying as much attention to is our immunity...how we might be able to withstand an infection if we internalize it. At the suggestion of two friends, I have started some natural supplements to try to beef up my immune system, which, after three infections in three months, is understandably depleted. I hope it helps. Of course we will continue to copiously wash hands and wipe down sinks and doorknobs around here.
This revelation translated into a spiritual lesson for me, also. I often think about killing sin "externally" rather than "internally." Jerry Bridges writes in The Practice of Godliness, "What makes these sinful desires so dangerous is that they dwell within our own heart. External temptations would not be nearly so dangerous were it not for the fact that they find this ally of desire right within our own breast." We can weed out temptations from around us but we must also address the sin that lies within.
"But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts." Romans 13:14

My sons in twenty years.

OK, maybe ten years?

See more funny clean videos at www.rhettandlink.com

Where am I? part two

I'm on the couch.

Strep throat, part III.

Apparently my body is really susceptible to this bacteria this year! So bring on the acidophilus. I can't stand being sick...I feel completely useless!

Some last-minute tips

In case you haven't picked your bracket yet, here are some tips from our family to be sure that you do well in the March Madness Tournament Challenge:

Cameron used a few methods:
Movies -- for example, he chose Notre Dame because of the movie "Rudy."
Books -- he chose Pittsburgh because of the book Pickles to Pittsburgh
Food -- he chose New Mexico because he likes mexican rice
Geography -- he chose North Texas because his geography game "has Texas in it."

Ben chose North Carolina because we live there.

Andrew really liked saying "Old Dominion." I hope I'm not giving too much away here, but in his bracket Old Dominion makes it to the Elite Eight, only to be beaten by (who else?!) Notre Dame. This does not surprise me, because when the boys play football, Andrew runs around yelling, "I AM NOTRE DAME RUDY!!!"

David and Kelly both chose schools that they almost attended: Kelly, George Washington; and David, Georgia Tech.

At this writing, we have thirty-four people in our group on ESPN. That is a new record! Thanks, everybody, for participating!

I don't know how she even SAT through the game.

Forget about standing...

Modern-day indulgences

Here's an interesting post on global warming and indulgences from Challies.

Where am I?

I'm outside.

Today: Sunny skies. High 78F, humidity 30%. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph.

The garden needs to be turned over, some things need to be planted, the kids need to run around, and I need some fresh air.

In two months it will be blindingly hot and humid outside so I'm going to soak it up!

Mothers of the Wise and Good

Sir William Jones and his mother

William Jones (1746-1794) was a distinguished British scholar, particularly in the area of language. It is reported that by the end of his life he knew thirteen languages thoroughly and another twenty-eight reasonably well. He is best known for noting similarities between Greek, Latin and Sanskrit. He thus spawned a new movement of comparative language studies. He was interested in Eastern culture and was a supreme court judge at Calcutta for eleven years.

He was born in 1746 and when he was just three years of age, his father died, leaving his mother the sole parent responsible for his education and upbringing. The author states that she "in many respects, was eminently qualified for the task." She had an excellent grasp of Algebra, Trigonometry, and the theory of Navigation. She was in high demand by members of the court to tutor their children; however, considering her son's education of foremost importance to her, she gave up the opportunity to teach in the British court to instead pursue better educational opportunities for him. At age four, William was able to read any English book.

When in his ninth year he had the misfortune to break his thigh bone, which detained him at home more than a year; his mother was his constant companion, and amused him daily by the perusal of such English books as were adapted to his taste and capacity. To his incessant importunities for information she was in the habit of using one reply, which from his earliest years made a due impression on him. This remark was, "read and you will know." At a subsequent period of his life, Sir William Jones was in the habit of saying, that he owed all his intellectual improvement to his early obedience to his mother's favorite maxim -- "read and you will know."

This attitude towards reading and the knowledge attained thereby was influential in his conversion. He became enraptured with the Bible and the God described within its pages when, at the tender age of five, he read the description of the angel in Revelation 10. Later in life he commented,

I have carefully and regularly perused the Holy Scriptures, and am of the opinion, that the volume called the Bible, independent of its divine origin, contains more sublimity, purer morality, more important history, and finer strains of eloquence, than can be collected from all other books, in whatever language they may have been written.

It is plain that his mother's early attention to his religious and linguistic instruction made him the scholar that he was. Our efforts as parents can, by God's grace, have similar effects on our children. I consider it important that our children see us reading -- especially Daddy! -- so that they, too, develop a lifelong love for the written word.

"Great leaders must be great readers."

"Read and you will know."

Post #301

...and it's the same old, same old.

Is it a full moon tonight?

Everyone around here is getting into trouble. Yesterday I came across several broken objects and upset little boys, along with a cabinet that had been completely emptied onto the kitchen floor. Everytime I turned to deal with somebody's problem, behind me something else was happening. Today I have already had to call breakfast to a halt to address behavior and we've had several other discipline issues. Jonathan is miserable (he's getting his eye teeth) and he has already fallen down and poked a hole in his bottom lip with one of the aforementioned teeth...

It's one of those days where it pays to have a sense of humor and a park play date planned...

Even if it's not a full moon, I may go out and howl at it tonight.

More pictures

What's he thinking?


This is how my life with the boys feels...everyone is going full speed ahead in different directions, and nobody's doing the same thing.

"Mommy, I didn't say I wuv you!" - Andrew, 3/7/07 after Daddy left for work

(we called him)


Overalls. Just plain cute.


"Mom, Mrs. Longbrook won't stay dead very long, because she will rise up from the dead with Jesus just like everybody else!" - Cameron, 3/4/07, after pastor David's prayer

Saturday night

We had a partial eclipse. Did you see it?

Oh say can you see...

My husband just sent this to me over email.
Would you do it? I think I might if no one I knew would be there!

My new cookbook

Due to my friend Joy's good influence, I recently bought the More-with-Less cookbook. I had heard about this cookbook for years from fellow stay-at-home moms, but it was Joy's constant use that finally convinced me to buy it.

The book's subtitle is "Recipes and suggestions from Mennonites on how to eat better and consume less of the world’s limited food resources." The book has a huge assortment of simple recipes with (mostly) simple ingredients, using less meat and more alternative protein sources. The other night I used an apple crisp recipe from it and I was pleasantly surprised with the results! And I made a curried lentil recipe not long ago that the kids loved.

I really enjoy the heart behind the book, too. The pages are scattered with reflections from people from around the world who have benefited from the recipes and wisdom found within its pages. Some of these are missionaries, some are Americans who would simply like to be wiser about using the world's food resources.

Good read

John Piper's journal entry on his father's death.
Hello, my father just died

The Mohler-McLaughlin Sessions

It's March

March madness is almost here! In keeping with our traditions, we will be creating a group at ESPN.com for the 2007 tournament. We enjoy this annual online reunion of all of our friends and family from across the fruited plains. I'll be sending out an email soon to invite everyone, but in the meantime, please save us one of your five entries! Selections are announced on March 11th; brackets lock on the 15th (that means you have to have your picks made by then). No wagering allowed unless it's amongst family members for personal favors (picking up your socks, making dinner, etc.). ;-)

I can still pass for a teenager...

...at least, when it's dark and I have my back to you.

Oh, and I'm wearing running gear and a baseball cap.

The school bus slowed down to pick me up when I was out running this morning. :-) Rest assured, the driver immediately accelerated past me when he saw my face.

My cheeks hurt

This week has been an interesting combination of emotions for me. I have cried harder and more easily than I have in a long time, but I've also laughed harder than I have in a long time.

On Sunday afternoon, Beth hosted the ladies for a knitting time at her house. I sat beside my friend Jess on the loveseat and we laughed about silly things until tears came to my eyes. She kept talking about her knitting instruction manual how there were pictures of yarn with happy little faces on them so you wouldn't be afraid of knitting. The absurdity of being afraid of yarn just made me howl with laughter -- although, as an inexperienced knitter, I can completely relate to the feeling as well.

On Monday night we had our usual "spaghetti Monday" with the Kellys, and this time around was our friend Tom's inagural spaghetti Monday. We played a little bit of Cranium, which provided many opportunities for laughter, and the Kellys' little girl Emma made me laugh harder than usual. She kept sitting inside a toybox and at one point she fell all the way over backwards, still sitting in the box. You had to be there, I know, but I was rolling!!

And last night, after a long day with the funeral and luncheon for the family, the kids and I came home to "regroup" for guests last night. At times when I am particularly pressed for time to get the house ready for guests, I usually put on loud upbeat music...yesterday's selection was Barry Manilow's Greatest Hits Vol. II. Completely pagan, I know, but boy it got me moving! Andrew and Jonathan danced to "Copacabana" with me as we cleaned up the downstairs. I wondered what the neighbors thought (yes, the blinds were open) but I was having too much fun to care.

And then our guests arrived...five young ladies who all moved here together from Indiana to teach in Charlotte schools. They were here until after 10:30 telling stories about their lives and about each other. It was a unique opportunity to get to know them all together, because on a few occasions they "outed" each other with embarassing stories, at which we all laughed together until, literally, my cheeks hurt. I shared my own embarassing stories, too. And their visit reminded me of the difference between men and women...this became particularly obvious at one point when one of them emerged from the bathroom and commented on how good the soap smelled. I cracked up, just thinking about how men never notice stuff like that. It's not a bad thing...it's just different.

So we have company for dinner tonight and again after church tomorrow. I look forward to more laughs and perhaps some more tears together.

" A joyful heart is good medicine...." Prov. 17:22

Thursday Thirteen

This is my fourth post today, but it couldn't wait until tomorrow. Sometimes as I am cruising down my blogroll, I feel so grateful for the rich resources at my fingertips.

Thirteen Good Uses of Your Time on the Internet
(or in other words, read this stuff!!!)

1. Amy's series on "Life With Three Under Three" found me nodding my head. I do many of the same things she does to make life with a lot of little people more manageable. (and the "conclusion" is not to be missed!!!)
2. Tim Challies has begun a series called "The Extraordinary Value of Women." So far, so good.
3. Here's a truckload on why the "Jesus Tomb" is a bunch of hooey, mostly thanks to Justin Taylor. Look here, here, here, here, and here.
4. If you missed Al Mohler's appearance on Larry King Live this week -- talking about the aforementioned load of hooey -- you can read the transcript here.
5. The Girltalkers have a new book coming out this summer. It's about time management (one of my favorite topics!).
6. The Irish Calvinist posts on the Shepherd's Conference, which is happening next week. This was one of our favorite times to point our car to LA when we lived out there. Free books? Yeah, there are free books.
7. Here's a great one by Dr. Mohler on reading and eating (two of my favorite things to do!) and how they go together well, particularly for children.
8. Closer to home, please continue to keep the family of our friend Linda in your prayers. Here is her son Nathan's first blog post since his mom's passing.
9. I loved this recap by Noel Piper of her husband's sermon and their subsequent conversation. She is so blunt yet so tactful. Those two words don't usually go together, but somehow she fits them both.
10. Beware the homeschoolers!
11. Again from Justin Taylor...a partial review of The Secret (and you can click through to the whole review by Don Whitney). Apparently this is sweeping the nation? I had no idea...I guess I live under a rock. Or I picked the right time to stop watching Oprah.
12. Like Starbucks coffee? Get some for free this month.
13. Finally, the ladies at church have joined together in a private blog for those of us who are unable to attend the weekly Bible study. I hope to have many, many fruitful conversations over there. If you're a lurker here but you'd like to be a part of "The Ladies' Room," please email me.

Little Readers

One of the most-often asked questions of me when I say that I homeschool is, "what do the little ones do while you're doing school?"

I caught them in a quiet moment this morning...





Of course, there are mornings when they spin around and get dizzy until they can't stand up anymore. :-D

You're a keeper!

I found this chocolate fish at the drugstore the other day. It was on clearance with all the other Valentines' Day chocolate.

Who comes up with an idea like that?!

He givest and we gather

Last October I plunked some mixed greens and lettuce seeds in the ground, thinking that certainly nothing would come of them. I was very wrong! We have had fresh lettuce all winter. The romaine did not survive our snowfall, but the mixed greens did.