Teaching a three year old.

It's Holy Week and I'm absolutely loving experiencing the different worship services and times of remembrances that have been going on around me. From the various youth groups who got together last night to worship, to tonight's worship service at my own youth group, and looking forward to Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday, I can say that my worship cup is overflowing.

Part of this week has been sitting down with Nathaniel and talking with him about the death and resurrection of Jesus. It's something that is an ongoing conversation in our house as we try to teach Nathaniel the Bible, but this week his memory verse was Luke 24:6 "He is not here, he has risen". So, we sat down this afternoon and talked about Jesus' death and resurrection.

Except, Nathaniel was in a squirmy, goofy mood and I was in a "I only have an hour before I have to head back to work, please for the love of God just sit down and let me do this with you since you have Cubbies tonight and I really want to do other things like play with you" mood.

At one point I found myself feeling the same way I do when my junior high students act up and don't listen to what I'm trying to share with them. Coincidence? I think not :).

Anyways, we were talking about Jesus being the boss of our lives and I asked Nathaniel what happened when we put Jesus in charge of our lives.

He looked at me and said, "I don't know" (since that is his standard answer for most things -sigh-). I said, "Well, when we trust in Jesus, where do we someday get to go?"

He looked at me with a big smile and said, "Disneyland!!"

Yup, we definitely need to keep talking about this.

They amaze me...

I love my family. I have been so blessed with an amazing husband and two amazing children. Sometimes I sit back and just want to pinch myself because of how incredibly awesome they are (and how awesome my life is, I can't believe that this is what I get to live with every day!).

Do we have our moments? YES! This morning was one of those moments where one child was whining non-stop and we were all just taking deep breaths so that we would all survive the morning. But, those moments aside, I love my family.

I love how servant minded my children are. Okay, so Aaron is still just over one and in his little mind the world revolves around him, but Nathaniel's heart amazes me.

We've been doing some local ministry with our small group on Sunday afternoons. It is hard work. Not the actual work part, but the 'getting out of our comfort zones and loving people and serving a community that's hard to love' part. There are some Sundays where I would rather just hang out with my friends in comfort and talk about the Bible than get out and serve people. But Nathaniel, he happily knocks on doors and hands out goodies to people and engages people in conversation, opening up opportunities for us to have real conversations with people. He yells in his car as we pull up to where we go, "Wait! I want to go there!" because he loves doing this. He doesn't see any difference between "us" and "them" and has the same smile for all.

I think that's what it means to have faith like a child. I think that's why Jesus loved the children and told us to accept them and come to him like a child. Because it's easy for children to love openly.

Tonight, as we were sitting in the living room watching the boys run off their sugar high, I couldn't help but smile. These two little bundles of joy were giggling happily as they ran in circles and fell down. I could tell that they loved each other very much, and that made my heart happy. At one point I caught Aaron's eye and he gave the biggest grin ever, just letting me know that he was content to run around with his big brother.

I can say that Sam and I are content as well.

Our job as parents.

Last night we went to Disneyland as a family. It's one of those things we like to do occasionally as a fun thing. Purposely taking the kids out right at bed time and letting them stay up late. It's fun, although poor Aaron tends to have a dazed look on his face most of the night. Kind of like, "It feels like bedtime, I'm in my jammies, WHY AM I ON A CAROUSEL!?"

Yesterday Sam and I noticed, on two separate occasions, people being absolute jerks when it came to the etiquette of line standing.

The first culprit was a mom and her two kids. We were all in line for the tram and the mom had her two small children push up as close to the front of the line as possible (ducking under people's arms and pushing around them), and then "excused" her way to the front to join her children. That was mildly annoying because they got on the tram before us and we had to wait for the next tram because of their actions. Boo.

The second culprits were, once again, in the tram line. This time we were going back to the parking structure and we were waiting in (long) line to ride the tram back. As we were waiting in line three older teenagers calmly walked past every one in line and stood in the front of the line. They openly ignored all of the tired families standing there with their strollers and ignored everyone who threw them death glares.

This opened up a conversation with Sam and I. Do we point out the rudeness and inconsideration of these people, or do we sit there and stew in our frustration with stupid people?

After we got off of the tram I said to Sam, "You know, I don't know if it's our job to point out the rudeness of others, but it definitely IS our job to raise our children not to be jerks."

He agreed.

So, I promise society that I am raising my sons to open doors for ladies, wait politely in line, and generally be a positive addition to society.

Of course, once they hit their teen years, I have no guarantees that the things they are taught will stick, but I can only hope and pray that no one looks at my kid and mutters some of the things that I was muttering under my breath last night.

Sure, they play together, but they also fight more now too.

I just got back from doing our weekly grocery shopping (because apparently, having a family of four necessitates weekly shopping now instead of our usual every other week shopping). Since I'm such a nice wife (ha) I took both boys with me so that Sam could have a chunk of time to crank out some homework and study for his midterms.

He owes me. BIG time.

First stop was Trader Joe's. Usually our trips to TJ's are pretty pleasant. The boys get a snack from the sample place, Mommy gets a little coffee and we slowly browse the aisles, grabbing things we need/things that look yummy and the old ladies drool over my adorable kids.

Not today. Today people were steering clear from my clan like we had the plague. I was getting "those" looks (all moms just nodded their heads in agreement of the look I'm talking about), along with the "I'm not sure where to look" looks. Aaron was in rare form, grabbing his brother's hair any time Nathaniel came within grabbing range of the cart, and Nathaniel was super whiny because he didn't eat his breakfast and was hungry. He actually threw a fit because I put Pumpkin Pancake Mix into the cart.

sigh.

Because I was feeling extra masochistic, we went to Ralph's too. I loaded the boys into the double cart (the one shaped like a race car!) and got approximately five minutes of peaceful shopping before the children started hitting each other, pushing each other and (yes, I swear this happened) slamming each other's heads onto the steering wheels of the cart.

I hightailed it out of there as soon as I could.

Of course, as we were leaving the store Aaron so sweetly turned and waved to the store clerks.

Cue unison "Awwwww" sound.

Never again (until next week).

Daylight Savings is overrated.

What do you get when you take two boys who are fighting illness, add in an insomniac mommy and throw in a time change?

Craziness at the Grummons' apartment.

Nathaniel has been coughing for over a week now and Aaron spiked a random fever last week so Friday morning saw us in the Dr.'s office waiting room (along with the rest of the world, so it seemed--seriously, it was standing room only!). After looking over my children the Dr. so kindly noted that NOTHING was wrong with the baby (the one who had run the fever the day before) and Nathaniel (who was only coughing, nothing else) had a sinus infection. Ugh. So, off to the pharmacy we went for more of that yummy pink medicine that my children seem to get at least once a year.

Saturday morning Nathaniel woke up with a fever and has been holding onto that fever ever since. It fluctuates, but it has hovered around 100 degrees. Nothing bad, but it makes him uncomfortable and a little irritable at times.

Saturday evening we anticipated the time change and tried to get the kiddos into bed early (or on time, after the change) and while that happened, they still fussed and cried for awhile before finally succumbing to sleep.

I, on the other hand, managed to stay awake until 3:30am. It didn't help that the dog next door decided to bark his maniac "I'm going to eat your face off" bark right as I was drifting to sleep. Then the boys woke up at 6:00 and it was all over.

Last night, thinking that I would get some better sleep, the boys fought sleep until 9:30 and then woke up at 5:30 because Nathaniel peed the bed and Aaron woke up with the chaos that ensued from that. Luckily, we were able to get everyone back to sleep for another hour or so (including us) so I feel a bit more awake.

And Nathaniel? Still running a fever.

Sigh.

But, an amazing thing happened this week.

The boys started playing together. Actually playing together! As in, running around and laughing with each other and building things and playing together.

It's very sweet.

Out of the mouths of children

The kids have been having a lot of fun lately. Nathaniel has been getting out his costumes and the two of them like to dress up and play pretend.

Here are a few pictures and a couple of fun stories.

Aaron likes to play with Nathaniel’s Iron Man mask. This thing has gotten quite a bit of wear since Halloween!

The other day Nathaniel was dressing up as a fireman and wanted Aaron to be his dog. So, they did that. Then Aaron went down for a nap and Nathaniel decided that he wanted to be a dog.

I think he looks pretty silly.

The other night Nathaniel was playing with a stuffed dog and pretending that he was a dog too. At dinner time he set the table and then got a bowl for “food” for his puppy. I then watched him grab the stuffed dog, put it next to the bowl and whisper in it’s ear, “You can’t eat until we pray, okay?” and then he put the dog’s face in it’s paws so that the dog could pray.

Nathaniel is also talking about how many siblings he wants. He keeps saying he wants another brother and a sister (four kids total in our family). I asked him today if he wanted there to be four kids in our family and he said, “No, I want ten.”

I laughed and told him that when he grew up he could have as many kids as he wanted when he got married as long as his wife agreed. Nathaniel said, “I want to get married.” I asked him who he wanted to marry and he said, “I want to marry Kaatje!” (Kaatje is his buddy).

I asked him some very important questions. 1. Does Kaatje love Jesus? (yes) 2. Is Kaatje your best friend? (yes) 3. Do you and Kaatje have fun playing together and let the other person play too? (yes). I then asked him if he wanted me to call Kaatje’s mommy and ask her if it was okay if they got married. He said yes, I should call her mommy.

I told him he needed a ring first.

Nathaniel is also officially reading. It's crazy how it's clicked with him. This morning he was sitting with a book and he pointed to a word (a small print word on a page with no pictures) and said, "me" which is what the word said. He can read several small words and is also really into rhyming. I can't believe my three year old is reading...yikes!

Aaron is officially only walking. It had gotten to the point where he would sometimes walk but mostly do his funny little bear crawl and scamper away. This morning I noticed that he was walking everywhere, even when he got a little wobbly. It made me sad.

Maybe it’s time to get one of those brothers or sisters Nathaniel’s always talking about.

Maybe not.

The family that runs together…

Yesterday we did a family run.  It was cool that we could do something like this together.  Sam and I ran a 5K while pushing the kids in a double stroller, and then Nathaniel did the 1K fun run.

You might notice the blue sky and puffy clouds.  Doesn’t it look like a perfect morning for a run?

Please also note the wet pavement.  It poured all night long and was still raining (pouring at points) as we drove to the race.  We could have easily decided not to do the run, but I think our thoughts were, “Well, we paid for the run, we might as well do it.”  The rain stopped the minute we pulled into our parking spot and then started up again when we left the race.  It was amazing!

But, because of all of the rain we had to run through some pretty amazing puddles.  There was one puddle that was easily three inches deep.  Needless to say, our shoes were soaked (and are still soaking wet).

Nathaniel was pretty excited to run a race of his own.  At least, he was until we got up to the starting line.  Then he started crying and saying he wanted to go home.  I told him that if he ran the race and didn’t like it we could go home and he would never have to do it again.

The horn blew and the runners were off.

And here is what Nathaniel looked like:

Luckily, he wasn’t the only kid crying (and we didn’t finish last).

Overall, it was a good day.  We got to get some family exercise and Nathaniel got to go home and eat popcorn and watch a movie.  Aaron had a blast, although we realized that he just isn’t in the stroller as much as Nathaniel was at this age.  He started getting fussy about 25 minutes into the run.  When Nathaniel was this age we were training for the half marathon so he was used to sitting in the running stroller for more than an hour at a time.

We’re looking forward to doing this again!