Working for the Weekend

So I thought that I should update about the weekend that we had. It was crazy busy and therefore felt very short as is the custom in the world of busy weekends. As I mentioned on Friday, we dropped the female Wild Things off at the grandparent Wild Things' house for a nice little over night stay while the youngest Wild Thing went with Roni and I to Camp Butman (West Texas, ahhh, home...) for a wedding.

The wedding went very well. There were only a couple of things that I happened to mess up. The first was to make up a new word- matrimonime- (if you can't figure out how to say that word never fear, it's not real anyway) and the second was while I was reading one of the scriptures. In Ephesians 5 Paul writes about the husband and wife relationship and goes on to explain how a husband leaves his mother and father and is joined to his wife. Yeah I misread a small portion of that, yet it is a portion that could really change things. I read that "for this reason a man will leave his mother and father and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." That is basically how it should read. What I read was that a man will leave his wife and mother...good times.

Oh and I did learn that you can rent ties for things like this, which is awesome since I'm not good at tying ties. I got to hang out with Brent and Zac and it was a good wedding and a good trip.

Little Bull was supposed to be the ring bearer for this occasion, but on the big day, when his number was called, he chose not to step up and walk that aisle. Thank goodness we were not counting on him to get the actual rings to us. I do have to say that he looked pretty good though, as you can see:

Overall it was a great wedding day and I am glad to have gotten to be a part of it. It did make for a late night getting back into Quitman though. Which wouldn't be a big deal if not for the fact that we had to be up the next morning for church. But it all went well so I was glad. For our MYF time we had an end of the year party out at Chuck and Brenda Davis' house and got to take out their boat and another couple's boat and do some tubing and swimming. The youth all had a blast and that so makes it worth it to do what I do, even on short, packed weekends.

And then once all was said and done with the party, it was time to get home, put the Wild Things in bed and then settle down and watch the series finale of LOST (which both Roni and I enjoyed and is probably worthy of it's very own post at a later date). So there you have it, that was our weekend. I hope you had a good weekend as well.

Peace and Love y'all.

Put Me In Coach and Rings

Boo had a softball game last night. They won 15-3 I believe and she played pretty well. Puck was supposed to have played, but it rained so her game got canceled. That however, did not stop them from playing the t-ball field during Boo's game. The only problem was that when it came time for there to be an actual game on that field, Little Bull didn't want to leave. When we got him off the field, he still insisted on being in the dugout. He was ready to get in the game and contribute if he could.

Despite the fact that he was ready and willing, he was not called upon to do anything. That's OK, it wasn't his team anyway.

This weekend Roni and I are dropping off the two female Wild Things with Mom and Dad while we take the smallest Wild Thing to Camp Butman with us for a wedding. He is going to be the ring bearer...so we will see. I will try to update after the wedding and let you know how everything went. Until then...Peace and Love y'all.

Date Night, Songs and Sticks

This should actually be better as a possible guest post from the Wild Things' babysitters for tonight. After all they are the ones who actually got to deal with them. Because the Moma and I were on a date! That's right we went on a date and it wasn't a birthday or anniversary or any other kind of holiday, it was just Saturday and we decided to go on a date. We went and saw the Quitman Community Theater's production of Moon Over Buffalo. I have to say it was a very funny play, in particular the second scene of the second act. We had a great night though and it was nice to be able to get out of the house and be just the two of us. I love my Wild Things, but there are times you just have to have a date with the wife. To commemorate the experience we even took pictures:

We look like we are getting ready to be part of the cast of The Biggest Loser: Couples Date Night. But the Moma wanted a different pose so we went back-to-back. It works.

Got to have lunch today with the rest of the office staff and meet our soon to be new pastor, Dick White and his wife JoAn. They seem to both be really very excited about moving here and I am ready as well. I think it will be a good, smooth, easy transition from Ken to Dick.

Speaking of Ken, tomorrow is his going away party after the 11:00 service. As part of the party those of us who were in the dinner theater cast for "Murder, Mayhem and Marshmallow Salad" will be roasting Ken after the meal. I'm not gonna lie, this should be a lot of fun. I do hope that Ken appreciates it and knows that it is all done out of love for him.

Finally the girl Wild Things have been working on a couple of songs for our upcoming talent show and pancake dinner fund raiser. Puck is going to sing "Tomorrow" (we hope) and Boo is going to be performing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." For the last couple of days now I have had the song "Tomorrow" lodged in my brain from listening to it online as Puck tries to learn it. Right now she sings the words that she knows and then kind of mumbles through the words that she doesn't know. Boo on the other hand seems to be trying to add her own stylistic twist to "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and that seems to throw off her timing. No worries though as I'm sure we will get it all worked out before the actual time for the show.

Well I believe that is all that is really going on as of late. Little Bull is simply being a two year old boy. He has started throwing all the balls over the fence in the backyard and then looking at me like he can't believe what just happened. Other than that he is having a fantastic time tormenting his sisters and hitting them with sticks. So things are pretty normal for him. I hope that all of you have a fantastic day tomorrow (Sunday) and that if you have a place where you worship that you will have a great time of worship there. Peace and Love y'all.

Weights, Aspirin, and T-ball

It hurts to move very much right now.

I started the day in the gym on the treadmill. Honestly it felt good to run this morning. Maybe my brain just wasn't awake yet, I don't know, but the 2 1/2 miles that I was able to run was nice. Granted the scenery doesn't exactly change on a treadmill, but oh well. After that (and this is why it hurts to move now and will probably be worse in the morning) I decided to do some weight training. I did a quick dumb bell work out that included lunges (my knees were not exactly happy with me), push-ups, squat and shrugs, curl and presses, some rows and some dead lift. All combined it took about 10 minutes to do. Now because of that it will take me that long to be able to move out of bed in the morning. Thank goodness there is aspirin in the house.

Puck had yet another game this of t-ball evening, and once again they "won" the game. In fact if they had counted outs (they don't in case you missed it the first time I wrote about this) we would have done pretty well. Granted we were playing a team that was predominantly 3 year olds, but it's the small things in life like that really. Puck did really well once again and hit the ball very well and even chased down and fielded a couple of grounders. She even avoided running over a couple of little boys from the other team that were in the base path playing with the chalk and picking flowers.

Boo had a long practice tonight: 2 hours. Puck's game ended and we still had to wait an hour for Boo to get done. Pretty boring stuff.

Little Bull spent the day terrorizing his Mama and be a true Wild Thing, and even carried that on into tonight.

But right now, in this moment, it is quiet but for the tapping of the keys on the keyboard. Roni is sleeping behind me, the girls are sound asleep on the bottom bunk and the boy is out like a light in his own bed. So now that I have popped my pill, given you useless information about this day, and turned off all TVs and light, I shall join my family in sleep.

Peace and Love y'all.

Discipline

I was reminded of a story tonight that happened a couple of years ago actually. As I was watching the Spurs and Suns this evening, Little Bull was sitting and watching with me. He loves to watch sports at this point, which I think is great, even if it is at times intended to keep him from having to go to bed. So we were watching tonight and there came a time in the game where one of teams took a time out to stop and slow things down and regain their composure.

During the stoppage Bull asked about the game stopping, so I told him that it was because of a time out. So he repeated that in his 2 1/2 year old voice and way of talking. It was at this point that this story came rushing back to me.

I don't know about anyone else out there, but we use a variety of practices when it comes to discipline with our children. We are not opposed to spanking (it was used on me and I have turned out alright as far as I can tell at this point), but more often than not we use the time out corner. This was brought into focus a couple of years ago just how much we may have used time out as a form of discipline when I was watching a basketball game that went to a time out.

One of the female Wild Things that lives with us asked about the game and I told her that they had called a time out. And she looked at me with all seriousness and asked me "What did they do to get in trouble?"

Peace and Love y'all.

Jesus is Sad

This is what I learned this morning from Puck. And it seems that the reason that He is sad is because of me. That's right, according to Puck I have caused Jesus great sadness this morning...by not giving her a drink of the milk that was left in my bowl after finishing my Reese's Puffs. This is what has made Jesus sad today. No doubt I have caused Him great sorrow and sadness in the past and I will again in the future, yet this is the first that I have heard about Him being sad over cereal milk. Maybe Puck has a more direct line to His feelings than I do.

He is also sad because of Little Bull. I think Puck's exact quote to him was: "You know Jesus, the Jesus in your heart? He's sad for you too, because you pushed me."

So just in case you aren't feeling like your prayers are getting through to Jesus today, well now you know it is because he is doubly sad at the Durham males here where the Wild Things are. So, yeah, sorry about that. Peace and Love y'all.

1-0, 6-6, and All White

Well I guess I should update about Puck and her first ever foray into organized sporting events, as well as a bit about Boo's second softball game.

Puck's team "won" she informed us after the game, which is great I suppose for her to think that. I don't know maybe we should feel bad for letting her think that. I mean after all, it is developmental t-ball. Everyone bats, everyone crosses home plate, there are no outs, and they don't actually keep score. So really, technically the score was like 20-20 and the commissioner decided to let the game end a tie. The main thing though is that Puck had a blast getting to play. I guess one of these days she will know what's really up with it, but for now, well no sense is bursting the 4-year-old "I'm the winner" bubble.

Tonight Boo had her second game. I have to say that it didn't go quite as swimmingly as the one on Monday night. Our team played the team from Raines this evening and I do believe that we tasted defeat for the first time. Boo played pretty well, but we a nervous moment with her in the first inning. We were a player down tonight so she ended up starting the game at first base, which is a place that she has never played before, not even in practice. She was nervous going into the game and then she's in a place where she has never played before and so that added to it.

Well early in the inning a ball was hit to the middle infield and the fielder got it and threw it to Boo. She missed it and it rolled past her and to the fence. Instead of turning and running to get the ball like she normally would, she kind of hung out there at the base like she didn't know it was up to her to go and get the ball. After the play ends though, the first base coach goes and gets the ball for her, and then starts walking toward home and is motioning for one of our coaches to come over. The next thing we know all our coaches are headed that way and are around Boo helping her to walk back across the field to the dugout. Turns out that she got really dizzy and her vision went all white and her stomach was hurting, and she got close to fainting out there.

Her Moma of course hurried out of the stands and into the dugout and they got her a nice cool, wet towel and got her cooled down and calmed down (from the nerves) and she was fine. In fact she went up to bat fairly early on in the inning and got another hit (she had three more hits tonight which brings her total up to 6 and makes her 6-6 batting so far this season). When she went back out in the field she got moved back over to shortstop where she has been playing in practice and did pretty well the rest of the game. It was a little bit of a tense moment though at first. Of course, the Moma has lots of experience with the whole passing out thing, so it's good she was there to sit with her. I'm going to post a couple of pictures here from Boo's first game this past Monday.

Tomorrow will be yet another adventure with The Wild Things I'm sure. Peace and Love y 'all.

Sacred Cows

We were headed out this morning to distribute our bunnies for our fund raiser when we passed a field with a small herd of cows. It just so happened that there was a group of them all standing together as we passed. When we did, Puck informed about what was actually going on with that group.

Puck- "Those cows are having a meeting."

Moma- "Really? What are they talking about?"

Puck- "Jesus."

It made me wonder, would that make those sacred cows?

Peace and Love y'all.

First Game(s)

Tonight was the night. Boo had her first coach pitch softball game in Alba and her team did great. They won the game by virtue of the 10 run rule, 13-3. In the game Boo went 3-3 with a couple of RBIs and scored a couple of runs as well. I was a proud daddy for sure.

Tomorrow will be Puck's first game EVER. She will be playing T-ball and I'm sure that if nothing else it will very interesting. She will be in the developmental league so there are basically no rules for her. There are no outs, and everyone gets a chance to bat every time. When they field the ball, well it's more about running after the person that hit it than it is about trying to throw them out. All I know is that it's going to be very interesting to watch.

I guess that Roni was "told" tonight (though not exactly directly) that it was rather cruel to strap the leash/backpack on Little Bull. This did not sit well with the Wild Momma, and she casually mentioned that perhaps if the person who felt this was so cruel was the one having to chase Little Bull all over the place they might feel differently about the backpack/leash. Have I mentioned how much I love my wife and her good natured sassyness? All in all it was a good day, and I look forward to tomorrow and more time and adventures with The Wild Things. Peace and Love y'all.

A Wild Thing Under (Plexi)Glass

Saw this picture and had to share it of our littlest Wild Thing. I just thought it "fit" with the idea and name of The Wild Things. Peace and Love y'all.

Ultimate Frisbee

My knees are sore tonight.

So is one foot, and I'm sure my back will be a bit that way in the morning. It's like I'm breaking down or something. That's OK though, it's worth it tonight. We played Ultimate Frisbee tonight for our youth time and it was great fun. It had been too long really. It doesn't matter that my team lost the game 10-6 and actually blew a 3-0 lead. We had 9 kids for a Sunday night and we had fun. I'm looking forward to more things like this.

Except for the aches and pains after the fact. I don't look forward to those.

Peace and Love y'all.

Wild Kingdom

Yesterday we went to Dinosaur Valley Park in Glen Rose. Great place to go and take the Wild Things, mainly because it is outside and gives them a chance to be out and about and use up some energy. Also it's pretty cheap, $5 for adults and kids 12 and under are free, so that's what I'm talking about you know?

One of the cool things about the park is the fact that there are actual dinosaur tracks there that you can see and take pictures of...or in.

These prints are cool for sure, but not quite as cool as the prints that are at the water's edge a little further into the park. Then of course there is the Paluxy River that runs through the valley and it is easily crossed to find tracks on the opposite bank. Of course the rocks are a little slick with moss so you have to be careful or else you end up like Boo and Puck:

Millions of years of history to experience here and I'm pretty sure that the thing they enjoyed the most was the playground.

Overall though we had a really good time, and Roni even cound some bluebonnets to make us all sit in and take pictures.

Peace and Love y'all.

Brotherly Love

Sweet. Affectionate. Loving.

There are few things that, as a parent, make our hearts swell more than seeing and hearing your children be this way with each other. These are precious moments and I cherish them when they come along.

Today we had one of those moments on our trip back from Glen Rose. Puck and Little Bull were in their seats in the middle section of the van when Roni saw them being this very loving to each other. She was listening to the sweet words Puck was saying to her baby brother.

Leaning in toward one another, heads together, her hands hugging his head Puck doing the talking.
Puck: "I love you too much...Ughh, stop picking my boogers!"

Yes these are the moments we live for with the Wild Things. Peace and Love y'all.