American Honey

She grew up on the side of the road
Where the church bells ring and strong love grows
She grew up good, she grew up slow
Like American honey
Steady as a preacher, free as a weed
Couldn't wait to get going
but wasn't quite ready to leave
So innocent pure and sweet American honey

Having an abundance of friends with children, I get to learn a lot about different parenting techniques and I get to spend time with their kids, watching their imaginations run wild. This past weekend, I had an incredibly unique experience.

The Children's Ministry Coordinator at my church has a daughter who is 10 years old. I call her daughter H.Stubbs. Well, for the past few weeks now, H.Stubbs has been asking me to come over for a sleepover. Her mother, being an amazing and daring parent, threw out some dates for me to come over and have a sleepover with H.Stubbs and her little sister, E.Stubbs. At first I thought, "Well that's kind of out of the norm. I mean, I'm 28 and I'm going to a sleepover, but I actually think it could be really fun! I haven't had a sleepover in years . . . unless you count friends coming in to town and staying the night. Which, I guess does count. This is gonna be SO cool!" Fast forward a couple of weeks and the sleepover date finally arrived. When I got to their house, her mom told me:

"She's been telling everyone that her best friend is coming over to spend the night. But the funny part, is that she never even mentioned that you weren't 10 years old. And they've already made it clear to me that you're here to see them, not to hang out with me."

We both laughed, and I felt complete awe and wonder at how (1) she called me her best friend, and (2) friendship knew no age limits to her. It was a great feeling. We had a blast too! We swam in their big pool in the backyard as we pretended to be mermaids, Olympic swimmers, and pirates! We spent most of our time in the pool, and I gave them dolphin rides around the pool and showed them how to do the "Wayne's World Fish Face." After swim time, we headed in to the guest bedroom that their parents set up for us. I got a huge bed for myself, H.Stubbs had a large mattress on the ground, and E.Stubbs got to sleep on the couch. We watched Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs and laughed so much at all the shenanigans in that movie. I told them I needed to get a ratbird of my own. ;)

After the movie was over, their mom came in and told us it was time for bed. The girls talked her into letting us watch 2 episodes of the Power Puff girls before we called it a night, and so we did. After that, we turned off the TV and had a full-on pillow fight! During our pillow fight, one of the girls said, "Oh no, I think I hear someone coming!" And I said, "Quick!! Get in bed!!" The other sister said, "If she comes in, let's just pretend to be asleep, okay? So you have to pretend to snore!" So we did, and it turned out to be nothing. We continued the pillow fight, and from time to time one of the girls would hear something so we'd jump back in the beds. We finally decided to head to our beds (for real this time) at midnight and E.Stubbs exclaimed, "This is the latest I've EVER stayed up in my WHOLE life!" We congratulated her and then turned in for the evening.

At 8 a.m. Sunday morning, the Smashmouth song, ALL STAR blasted through my laptop speakers to wake me up . . . yes, I actually DO need that kind of motivation to get going in the morning. ;) They woke up as well, and immediately pounced on me singing along and tickling me. Their mom came in a while after to let us know that she and her husband were going to head in to church, as I had told them I would take the girls in with me later so everyone could sleep in a bit. She brought them their clothes and made me a cup of coffee. Then they left, and our morning fun began! We all got dressed for church, had breakfast, and put on makeup. My favorite part was reassuring the girls that they didn't HAVE to put on a ton of makeup to look beautiful because they were already naturally beautiful. We still had fun with lip gloss and blush before we realized it was time to head out ourselves.

On the drive in to church, I played a mix CD I had made for myself and it included the song, AMERICAN HONEY, and after that song played, the girls both requested that I put it on repeat. We drove the entire way to the church (about 30 mins.) blasting that song with the windows down, belting out the words (as best as they knew) at the top of our lungs! I kept looking over at H.Stubbs and thinking, "I hope you never lose sight of the sweet innocence you have now. You are an amazing example for others!"

I got to talk to her grandmother before the service and she really encouraged me to treasure those moments and reminded me that even though my sleepover with the girls might seem preposterous to the world around us, it means THE WORLD to those girls and they will hang on to those memories and those little life lessons for years to come—they needed it as much as I did.

After the church service, we had an all-church BBQ. I ate and connected with friends and then decided I needed to head to Home Depot to pick up the primer so that I could start getting the new youth room painted. H.Stubbs knew I was going and begged me to let her come with me and to help paint. After getting her parent's permission, she made the trip to and fro with me and helped me tape and prime. Throughout the day she kept saying that she needed to find a way to spend more time with me. It was truly one of the sweetest experiences ever—and not just because of her compliment—I was lucky enough to be encouraged by her imagination and her innocence that didn't see me as the full-grown adult that the world tells me I should be. For a day, I got to remember the sweeter things in life, and enjoy spending time with one of the most wonderful friends! And she even made me a super sweet thank you note!

I Want Candy

my thank you cards from the kids at VBS

Well, VBS week has come and gone and I had SUCH a fun time hanging out with all the little kiddos! It was really cool to see how things that happened to me daily would help me enhance the lesson for the next day. Yesterday's was especially funny.

I taught a lesson on sharing and part of the pre-set lesson plan instructed me to eat candy in front of the kids. The whole point of it was to talk to them about how it's not as fun to keep things to ourself, but it's fun to share the love of God and fun to share with others in general. Well, I was prompted to eat candy during the entire thing in front of the kids and then at the end, pass out share some candy with them. It was great to see their faces light up when they realized they got to enjoy a piece of candy too. This was really fun for the first class, and then kinda okay for the second class, but by the time the 5th group came through, I was nursing a stomach ache. I mean, it was only bite-size chocolates, but they were still too much! When I was talking toward the end of the day to my assistant, Taylor, she mentioned that my breath smelled like chocolate!

I was determined to eat a healthy lunch and dinner, and I did. I also pulled double duty on my teeth brushing routine. The funny part is that I have a dentist appointment this Monday!

My time helping with VBS was a LOT of fun and I totally recommend it to everyone who has a VBS at their church! As much time and energy as you give, you will be rewarded by the love the kids give back through their smiles, stories, and hugs!

Real Life Fairytale

Yesterday was so much fun! 

The morning started off a little rough... I got on the wrong bus. :(
(the blue shape is my house, the red shape is where I went at first, and the green shape is where I needed to go.)

You see, I use the online metro transit site to navigate my way around here, but when I typed Meridian Park into the destination line, I guess it never occurred to me that there was not only a Meridian Park in the Wallingford neighborhood, but there's also apparently a MERIDIAN PARK neighborhood in Shoreline, which is the COMPLETE opposite direction of where I needed to go. :(  who knew...

Anyway, I finally made it to the party and had a great time helping Christiaan Vodegel celebrate his FIRST birthday! :D  




And if it's possible at all, I think I've actually fallen head over heels in love with a park—MERIDIAN PARK!  It was so whimsical and all the playground equipment was just...the bee's knees! seriously!  All of the decor was centered around storybooks.  And there was SO much to do! I WISH this stuff had been around when I was a kid...it's seriously so innovative!











Then after the party, I headed over to Soundview Playfields in Crown Hill for a DOUBLE HEADER game! We didn't win either game, but we had a whole lot of fun just playing and cheering each other on and laughing so hard.  :D Unfortunately, we were short on players so I didn't get to take a whole lot of pictures, but trust me, it was fun...

...Unless you count the umpire, who obviously didn't know what was going on. First of all, he was calling really bad calls. But what's worse is that he would call it, and then be like, "I think it was a...." (REALLY??!!??) And then when he would make calls, he would kind of say them under his breath so we had to constantly ask him to repeat what the call was. And playing catcher, it was so creeptastic because he was all up in my area and i actually accidentally pushed him against the back board because he was so up on me that it was a natural chain reaction.  In my head I was like, "Look, H-Umpire... ease up off."  Aside from the umpire madness, it was a great time!  :D

Blame It On Me

Today was full of ups and downs...

We'll start with the ups. This morning's service was so good...In the Jr. High we had Maggie and Spencer, and Spencer's older brother, Chris (who is a sophomore in high school)...who wanted to come because Spencer had been saying how much he has been loving Jr. High time for the past few weeks... :D yay! So I'm thinking of giving an open invitation to any High Schoolers at Westside who want to join us...because I can swing the teachings to reach both. And we did the Cinnamon Challenge and had so much fun! We were all laughing so hard! And after the teaching we finished off with a fun game of POISON..which is Spencer's new favorite game! It was a hit!

A good in between was my Sunday morning nap. I did intend to eat lunch, but once i sat on my bed, i suddenly (okay, not suddenly) fell back and fell asleep... until about 4:30 p.m. It was a nice little nap. :D

The down happened when I went to go babysit. In the past few weeks, I've been babysitting a lot and all the parents of the kids I've babysat have been so happy with the way I've babysat. They said that their kids get excited when they hear I'm coming over to babysit, and that the kids have dubbed me their Number One babysitter :D which is odd because i hardly did ANY babysitting (except for my niece) when I was back in Austin. But not I'm suddenly number one. Which makes me feel like I have this big thing to live up to and if I mess up, it's a sign that I'm not as good as others think I am...but that's a whole other issue I'm currently working out in my life.

But the whole evening of babysitting was going well until I had finally calmed the kids down while watching Ice Age...and decided (now regrettably) to step out into the back deck for 5 minutes to sweep up the nacho mess the kids had made. Usually when I babysit, I like to also pitch in and clean things up, just because I know it's calming for the mom to come home and not have to do damage control... So I had been playing with the kids all afternoon, and checking in on them in each of their play areas, bandaging boo boos, teaching that their friendships and relationships are more important than who got the last handful of popcorn, and playing fairy warrior princess (with my fellow princesses) to defend my end of the deck against the dark warrior boys... and then when going from place to place, letting the kids know that i was cleaning parts of the kitchen and to come get me if things got out of hand. They're normally really good about it, so I've had no problems. But in that 5 minutes I took to sneak away from the popcorn eating kiddos...their parents had come home to find tornado alley in the living room...popcorn everywhere and kids running around like maniacs. Needless to say, I felt like a HUGE FAILURE. I know that it must have looked like I was the WORST babysitter ever. They probably thought that I didn't care about watching their kids at all...or that I was a negligent babysitter. Needless to say...I'll never risk that break time again...if i ever get the chance to redeem myself. I guess I may not be babysitting for a long while now. And I'm pretty sure I've forfeited my spot at number one. :(

But to end on a positive note, I'm recovering from the bruised ego with a pint of Ben and Jerry's Low Fat Frozen Yogurt (Cherry Garcia)

I think this current whirlwind of emotions I'm on is seriously tweaking my ability to function.

Time Lapse Lifeline

Today was a pretty crummy day...
I overslept... (and on a day off too... guess i needed it)
My hanging organizers BOTH fell in my room today, leaving me with some Bob Villa projects to embrace and lots of ceiling dust scattered about my stuff...
Target doesn't have the game Pop5... lameski. 
My Starbucks Perfect Oatmeal wasn't so perfect...
And though I had fun babysitting today, I over-sugarfied the kids on accident...i think it's due to my lack of ability to say NO to adorable kids with awesome manners... seriously. So now they're at home, with upset stomachs... :( I feel like a villain. :(

The plus side was my ability to enjoy something so simple in the day—the simplicity of a child's life.  Today as I was watching Isaiah, Eliza, and Luke, we were all playing with squirt guns in the back yard around the kiddie pool. And while Eliza and Isaiah took turns trying not to "accidentally" shoot each other with water (it was SO cute, i wish you coulda seen it!), Luke kept asking for "more agua."  Let it be known that yes, a toddler knows more spanish than me :( fail.   hahahahahahaha

But I loved it cause I would bring him back this pail of water, which he would receive with a smile, and then proceed to immediately dump it on the ground... look up at me with a giant smile on his face and ask for "more agua." over and over and over...it was so adorable, I couldn't help but oblige him! 

But it took me back for just a bit to the times where simply dumping water out on the ground over and over and over again...was considered fun...was enough to keep someone entertained. It really made me smile. I loved hanging out with the kids today.  I learn a lot from them.