Treasures

Colsen recently surprised me with this creation of his, and I think it's one of the best things he's ever made!

Inside the giant F, he repeated words like,

"We mourn together, we rejoice together, we love together, Loved, happy, fun, we are men of our word, we toot*, we are joyful, Prayer, strong, we are cool, we love each other, brave, we are loved, we are awesome"

*I feel compelled to clarify that only some of us do that.



Then Miles decided to do his own version -- which I also love!

His says, 

"Fun, smiles, laughs, love, Miles, Colsen, Rayna, Peter, Amy, joyful, kindness, men of our word, kindness, faithfulness, self-control, think about others besides yourself, Colsen = love; Miles = joy; Peter = Reads the Bible; Rayna = laughs; Strider = funny; Amy = patience; funny, some of school but a little bit of playtime, trying to move, God."

I just love hearing their perspectives on our family life!


And while I'm talking about things I'm "treasuring up," I thought I'd just slip this in at the end with the hopes that Strider won't read it until he's past the age of wanting me to never talk about him.  :)   This past weekend he went to a graduation party (how can he be this old??), and came back that night telling us how much fun it was.  Apparently all the students went down in the basement and did swing dancing all night!  I'm just so thankful for this group of friends he has, and the school he goes to.  How cool that a group of teenagers in this day and age can have so much fun together doing something creative like that.   Definitely something I've treasured this week!

Another episode in "Raising Boys"

I saw Miles looking a little pensive in his room and asked him what was up. It turns out that he had said that he never wanted to get married so his teenage brother called him asexual. Pete overheard this and responded that that was not appropriate to say to a 7-year-old, and now Miles wanted to know what was wrong with being asexual, and what it means.

So I calmly sat down with him and tried to give him the basics. Maybe I didn’t cover enough, though, because a few minutes later he came strolling out of his room yelling, “Guys, I’m sexual! Did you hear me? I’m SEXUAL!”

Now Colsen of course wants to know what “sexual” means… Here we go…

Recent random moments

At one point during dinner tonight Miles was marching around the table chanting, “No more war!  No more war!” and Strider told him, “You sound like an ignorant hippie.”

Just another refined and dignified meal at the Frank house.

 ****

Colsen walked into the bathroom while I was taking a shower, and just stood there and sighed.  Bewildered by why he was there, I asked, "Ummmm, what's up Cole?"
"Ah, nothing.  You know me, I'm just a noodler," he said.
"A noodler???  What's that?  A thinker?" I asked.
"No," he said, "It's a guy who catches catfish!"

Well that just explains everything.

*****

Strider took his first college course this semester at Wingate – Principles of Macroeconomics – and he took the final exam yesterday.  I think this is a huge milestone, but he keeps rolling his eyes and leaving the room every time I try to talk about it. 

“I feel like I was JUST in college myself,” I said to him.  His response as he walked away was, “Well, you weren’t.”

(He got a B in the class.  Not too bad for the first one.)

******

And then there was that day that we had ice cream in a VW bus...

********

....And the day the Dreschers came over and a violin jam session broke out...

Happiness is...

.... planting a windowbox while the kids are fishing over yonder.

And I got my helper, too!

When Grandpa and Gee-Gee come to visit

Since their visits are few and far between, we try to pack in some fun while Bud and Jane are here!  Well, that and some good (challenging) house projects to keep Bud and Pete busy.  This time the guys installed an ornery ceiling fan and replaced our garage door opener. (yay!!)

  But in between those projects, we did things like go out for ice cream, celebrate Mothers' Day, and just enjoy each other.

Grandpa holding court

Some togetherness time (looking at Gee-Gee's phone) right before bed

 We also had the opportunity to take them to one of our next-door neighbors' famous parties -- this time a Cinco de Mayo occasion, complete with tiny cookie tacos I made.  :)

They even had a pinata for the kids to bang on.

We also got to watch not one, not two, but three rousing soccer games on Saturday.

Oh -- and there was the Kentucky Derby to watch intently, too.  :)

\

Thanks for coming, Grandpa and Gee!

A mine and some wine

While Bud and Jane were here this past week we took a little jaunt out to Midland to visit the Reed Gold Mine and Rocky River Winery.  Both places were awesome!  Miles even found real gold, and the adults got to drink real wine.  A successful day all the way around. (Poor Strider had to go to school instead.)

This is their "scared" faces, heading into the mine

Yep, that's what they're doing.

"Look!  I think it's real gold!"

"How can we take it with us??"

Looking at baby birds in a nest

This place was so beautiful

Our Ecunemical Weekend

This weekend our whole family found ourselves running through very heavy downpours TWICE, but all of the extra wet clothes and laundry were well worth it.

On Saturday afternoon we headed out to the Hopkins' house for "Farm Jam," which was an event for their church (Warehouse).  The kids scattered, finding friends, snakes, wiffle-ball games, and fishing activities to keep them occupied, and Pete and I had a great time catching up with friends as well.  Towards the end of the evening the music started and we had such a great time singing along -- Rayna, especially, was in her element!

Then the heavens opened up and everyone had to race for their cars!

Since we were most of the way to Huntersville, we decided to spend the night at Mom and Dad's, and they welcomed our drenched and dripping selves in.

The next morning we attended a very different kind of church.  Strider had been asking to go to the church where his teacher from Greyfriars is a pastor, and since it's in Huntersville, this was a good opportunity.  It was a really good service, and we all enjoyed hearing Mr. Shelnutt preach.

(For the younger boys, the main highlight was getting to sit in the balcony.  I had been reading "A Bear Called Paddington" to them this past week, and in one of the chapters Paddington goes to a fancy theater (theatre) and gets to sit in "box seats." I had tried to describe that to the kids.... so when they saw the balcony in the fancy church, they begged to sit in the "box seats!")

After our 24-hour getaway, we attended our own church life group, our third community of believers for the weekend.  Since our life group is rather large, this is always a big event.  Once again the storms arrived in the evening and everyone got soaked.  While the adults were still inside trying to focus on the Bible discussion, the 16 (or was it 61?) kids designed some "rides" in the rain, making it sound like an amusement park with all the shrieking and screaming.

So, it was a good, varied, wet weekend.  :)

From the mind of Rayna

As usual, Rayna's presence in our home is very appreciated.  She keeps us all on track, remembering things the rest of us forgot, and keeps us all close together.  (She likes to sometimes even make us all stand in a circle and do a group hug.)

This past week she suddenly announced one afternoon that we needed to get a sheet and go out in the backyard.  She spread it out and then told us we were to all lie on it and "do that thing again where we smell the sky and stuff."  So we did.  :)

She does drive me a little crazy sometimes, though, when she keeps repeating some nonsensical phrase or line from a song or poem over and over.  For instance, she loves to sing that song, "Mary, Did You Know?"..... but she only says this line over and over:

"Mary, did you know that your baby boy... would one day walk on the moon?"

Now the boys all sing it like that, too, so that's just great.

She's a delight, this girl!