Not sure what to say...

We had a great Thanksgiving in Waco with Chris' family and will post pictures soon. Until then, here's a conversation from this morning:

Sarah, Chris, and his mom (Gram) were talking in the den while Noelle was busy playing. In response to a commercial on TV, Gram said, "I wonder if they ask, 'Do you smoke?'"

Noelle immediately responded, "Yes! Yes, with my Daddy."

Noelle's take on discipline

As we were getting into the van after church today, Noelle began to throw a fit, and we had the following conversation:

Chris: Noelle, you need to stop throwing a fit.

Fit continues

Chris: Noelle, you will get a spanking if you keep throwing a fit. Do you want a spanking?

Noelle: No!

Chris: Do you like spankings?

Noelle: No, but I do like bacon.

________________________________________________________

After thinking about our conversation for a little while, the following thoughts/questions came to mind:

1. Why did I ask her if she likes spankings? Did I think she was going to say yes? Was her answer going to have any influence on what I did?
   
2. Why would she all of the sudden mention bacon? Was this just a ploy to distract me?
   
3. Why would she say that she likes bacon? She's never even had bacon before!
   

The Influence of Puggles

Our church's AWANA program for kids starts with 2 year olds...it's called Puggles. For the first part of the year, the kids learned the Bible verse, "God made everything, Genesis 1:1". It's been a blast to see Noelle learn! She's taken it a little far lately, though. The other day she walked into her bathroom and said:

"Look at this BEAUTIFUL potty God made!!!"

AWANA lock-in (AKA: really long post)

Friday night three other leaders and I had a lock-in for the 3rd - 6th grade boys in AWANA at our church. We had lots of fun staying up late, playing crazy games, saying Bible verses, and doing a mission project. Here are pictures from 3 of the games that we played.



In the first game, I asked for 3 people who thought they could beat Mr. Butz in a Sprite-chugging contest. I had the boys open their Sprite, but then right before they started to drink, I informed them of one more rule: they would be drinking their Sprite through their sock.

In the second game, Spam Roulette, the boys began by sitting in a circle and passing around a block (6 servings) of spam. Periodically I would say "stop" and whoever was holding the spam had to answer a multiple choice trivia question about spam. (Side note: it's amazing how much interesting, random information about spam can be found with the internet.) If the question was answered correctly, the boy then got to choose the boy on his right or his left to take a bite of the spam. If the question was answered incorrectly, he had to take a bite of the spam. Then the spam was passed around the circle again until I said stop.

For the last game I asked for 2 volunteers who thought they could pick up Cheerios really fast. After choosing my victims...eh, kids...I spread out Cheerios on a table in front of them. Then I explained that they would not be using their hands. They would be using their face -- and the peanut butter that was slathered all over it. They each had 1 minute to see how many Cheerios would stick to their face.

A big thanks to Brian G for taking all these great pictures!

Murder at Deadwood Saloon

Last Saturday our Sunday School class had a murdery mystery dinner party. This was our first time to do something like this, and we had a blast. We each had a part to play, but no one knew at first who would be murdered and who the murderer would end up being. Chris was Montgomery Money, a wealthy investor from Chicago who was thinking about purchasing a saloon in the west. For his role, he didn't trust anyone and was obsessed with time (apparently they were type-casting). I was his wife, Elizabeth Money, who was snobby and had no desire to leave her life in the East.

We were assigned objectives throughout the night and important information was given to the people who needed it, but everyone's primary goal was to figure out who the killer was. Chris had no problem figuring this out since he was the killer.

The most fun part for me was getting to dress up. This was a little challenging considering I have a "baby bump" to work around. I did notice that adding a petticoat to an outfit really hides it well. :-)

Here's the gang at the end of the evening:

And a silly picture...apparently, Chris really enjoyed his murderer role:

In the end, Chris won an award for ending up with the most money, and I got an award for best dressed.

Thanks to Becca and everyone else who worked hard to put the party together. We had such a great evening!

We Interrupt the Regularly Scheduled Blog

OK. Today I was looking forward to posting some photos from our sunday school party, but I must tell you about a moment that I have been dreading my whole life. (Well, as long as I've been a mom anyway.) Today....Noelle commented on someone's size.

We were at the doctor's office because Noelle is sick. At one point a very tall, big teenager walks in with his mom. Noelle is fascinated and as soon as he walks by she says "BIG!" Since she didn't say anything else, I am really hoping that boy didn't hear her or put her comment into context. He sat across the room from us. Then after a minute or two, Noelle points and say "Mommy, do you see that man?" I immediately (and quietly) explain that it's not nice to talk about what people look like and that God makes everyone look differently. And then I shoved a sippy cup in her mouth and changed the subject. :-)

I should have known this was coming, because this weekend she saw a woman on an oxygen thingy at wal-mart and asked, "What's that on her face?"

Yikes.

Pumpkin Patch

A week or so ago we got to take Noelle to her first pumpkin patch. She had lots of fun running through all the pumpkins, playing on the tractor, and going on the hay ride.

Noelle had lots of fun at the pumpkin patch, but I don't think she enjoyed herself as much as this girl did.