the great sleuthing sleepover

OK, so I'm finally posting some pics from the Mystery Sleepover - which was a TOTAL success! The girls had a GREAT time - and so did we. My sis made it, even though she had to come directly from her hospital stay, where she was having a procedure done to remove kidney stones, and while she was pretty uncomfortable (and fairly medicated) she was determined NOT to miss it, since we had put so much work into it!! Anyway, the girls did great figuring out the clues, finding the evidence and solving the crime. They were totally into it from the moment we got started, which made it such a joy for Bets & I; definitely worth every minute we put into the planning. Here's the shots we got:

The Junior Agent Team


Figuring out the clues...


Questioning Countess Lauralynn Johnston


Count DeLuca and Countess Lauralynn


Questioning the eccentric Duchess Angelina Fizzly


Examining the document on the suspicious disc


Angelina Fizzy, Duchess of Berlinville, and her kitty, Lord Francis


Crashing after a full evening of sleuthing to watch the Greatest Sleuth - Nancy Drew!

touching

This, my friends, is a beautiful sight. It almost brings a tear to my eye.

I was trying to get a basket of laundry folded today (the same one I've been meaning to get to for days now...), and I had offered Luke that he could help if he wanted. I no sooner sat down to begin folding and got called away to help someone with a school question. When I walked back through the living room I saw this pile of folded towels,

and knew I hadn't folded them. I was astonished! I asked Luke if he had folded all this, and he simply replied "yes". I asked him to show me how and got the full demonstration! Yep, this is goooood info to know - and thus, the 3-year-old gets added to the chore chart! Oh, yeah!

party time...

Yesterday and today was jam-packed with activity, so this is the first minute I've had to sit down and post about our wonderful Valentine's party yesterday. I definitely didn't have any blogging time, but the 10 things I was thankful for were these 10 little people (though baby Eva was napping and didn't make it into the pic, so you'll only be able to count 9. But Ang is in there to make 10 people, and I'm thankful for her too...)


Betsy came up with great games like this Valentine BINGO that included v-tine pics and little pics of everyone at the party - very creative!

The kids loved it; they played 3 times



while I got the pink pancakes ready.


It was a precious moment when they all held hands and prayed before they ate.


Then we did 3 great crafts:

The first one was adorable hanging hearts (see pic above).

Then we made these cool key chains; they made them out of clay, then we baked them and attached some beads and the key ring. We also made fun bookmarks (which re-used the pictures from the bingo sheets).



I think everybody had a great time. The little ones were plenty worn out til the end of the day, and some of them had to leave a bit early to get a nap. We took these pics to make V-tine cards for the daddies, but ran out of time. So I thought I'd at least share them with you, (and maybe hang on to them to make daddy cards some other time!)



And I had to post this...just cuz it was too cute not to!!

The Great Casserole War

Ugh...tonight was a rough night at the Clemmer house.

I guess you could say I threw down a gauntlet. I made a casserole (horrors!!) Let's just say that Bryce is a picky eater, who does NOT like his food mixed together, OR have any kind of 'sauce' on it, OR have cheese in it - all of which the 'Country Chicken and Biscuits' that I made tonight had. After an hour and a half at the dinner table, and much weeping and gnashing of teeth, he finally managed to get down enough of it to be released. (Kate, Todd & I loved it the meal. The other two boys initially announced that they did NOT like it, before tasting it, then changed their minds after the first bite or two, and said it was pretty good. Then after watching Bryce carry on so, they decided to revert back to the original conclusion...but it was too late. They had already given away the truth, so they had to eat most of it as well. Sheesh!!)

My philosophy (pre-Bryce) was that I was not going to be one of 'those' parents who catered to a picky eater - let them get away with not eating, or worse yet, made something different for them! Hee hee...isn't it funny how we are all parenting experts - UNTIL WE HAVE KIDS!! Then all bets are off! We still stick with making our kids try at least a few bites of stuff, and even eat things they don't like, with a few exceptions. (For instance, Bryce HATES potatoes in most forms - other than chips, french fries or hash browns. It used to be such an issue that when he was younger he would wake up every day from his nap crying, asking (with fear and trepidation) if we were having potatoes for supper. To me, that kind of trauma was just unnecessary - especially for a food with so little nutritional value!) But we try to make the policy that they eat - or at least try - most things. (Note: I don't hold to this in public because it's just not worth it. I prefer to choose my battles wisely, but keep the most brutal ones to the confines of our home. We don't allow rudeness, but neither do we push things that we know they won't like. The kids are not allowed to ask for something different...if they choose not to eat what's served, then it's their choice to be hungry. If it's a better option to them to be hungry rather than eat something they don't like, so be it. But at least we avoid making an uncomfortable - for everyone - scene.) But I've found myself dreading meal planning and preparation just because of his responses. So I've sort of strengthened my resolve that he's old enough to just start dealing with more things, and I'm going to expand my meal repetoire.

I have to admit, I'm bracing myself for some big battles, but still hoping for the best. I think it might help to keep having discussions prior to the actual meal so Bryce can know and understand my resolve in this. I think he got a glimpse of it tonight, while he was gagging and starting to act like he might puke, when I stared him down, eye-to-eye, and informed him that if he chose to throw up, that he would also be cleaning it up...that I would NOT clean up one bit of it - he would do it all. Interesting...it stopped the gagging fairly quickly (though not immediately...I did get a bit nervous that he might cause us all to lose our supper before this battle was over!). I had trouble keeping my anger in check, and had to walk away from the table once and let Todd deal with him because I was about to lose my cool.

When I tucked him in bed tonight, after all the tears were dried and he had some time to play 'army' with his brothers, I informed him that I was going to be making more 'different' foods, and not just making things that he liked all the time. I told him that he was going to just learn to deal with it, and eat things, even that he might not love, and that we would not be having more mealtimes like tonight. He gave me a resigned "OK", and though I could tell he obviously wasn't thrilled, most of the 'fight' was out of him. I've seen so many changes in him in the past few years, and he's grown in so many ways, that I have great hopes that this will be another learning/growing experience that he will be able to take on and get through.

I'll keep you updated from the front lines...

he'll always be my baby

Time sure flies, doesn't it? This is what I was doing 3 years ago yesterday...



And this is him today. Three years already! I think my baby is officially not a baby anymore. :(

Which means - I guess I'm out of the baby years of parenting! How exciting and sad, all at the same time.

Elvis impersonators

My guys were dressing up and playing Elvis this morning...here's their impersonation shots.

Then they went downstairs to play 'band'; the words to their first made up song were:

"We were born to have great hair!"

No lie...

cleats

Don't have much time to post as I am off to have my devotions...part of my personal goal is to spend more time in the Word than blogging...and I haven't had my devotions yet today (but I must say, reading through Genesis again sure does raise lots of questions and discussions I'd like to bring up with God when we are face to face. TONS of weird stuff in there...)

But, since this blog is also serving partially as a 'journal' for me of stuff I want to remember about my kids, tonight was a milestone. We registered both the older boys for little league. They were pretty excited, but the thing they were MOST excited about was revealed in conversation after they got home.

Bryce: "We FINALLY get to get cleats!!"
Seth: "YEAH MAN!!!!!"


Oh, gee...why do I see potential puncture wounds in our future?

"can you feel the love tonight....?"

Awww...what a loving bunch, right?



HA! Don't be fooled.... (this ensued immediately following the first pics...)



And so went my day...

eye-pod??

Yesterday Luke came out with this eye patch on, and announced "This is my iPod." We corrected him "You mean, eye patch." He was insistant "Nooo, it's an iPod!!". We tried to explain "No, Lukey, that is an eye patch. An iPod plays music." He promptly pulled off the patch to examine it saying "This plays music?"

impact

Had a great time hanging out tonight with our good friends, the Tavella's, and spending some time with Dustin ---------------->
while he's home from YWAM for a little bit. My kids absolutely ADORE Dustin, (we love him too!!) and God's done, and is doing, such amazing things in this guy's life that it's awesome to see, and such a blessing to have him for my kids to look up to (and his 'little' sis, Tara, too - who is also serving in YWAM). Dustin is an amazing musician, and if you'd like to check out his sound, you can hear him here.

I can't even tell you how cool it was to hear him and Bryce jamming together in the family room tonight...Dustin on electric guitar and Bryce on drums. I think Kate might have videoed a minute or two, and if I can figure out how to load it, I might try to post it tomorrow. Bryce was definitely born with a musical gift, but I'm really grateful to Dustin for encouraging Bryce so much and really playing a big part in drawing that gift out of Bryce. It was Dustin who first taught Bryce to play the jhembe, (which was very brave letting a 4 year old play with a rather expensive instrument!) (by the way, in case you aren't familiar with one, a jhembe is a bongo-type drum), and Dustin who went and picked one out for us when we were getting Bryce his own. When our friends, Luke & Laura, got married, Dustin led worship at the wedding, and L&L asked Bryce to play jhembe with him. At first Bryce was too scared, but when we assured him he'd be ok playing with Dustin, and he could just forget about all the people and just watch Dustin, he agreed. That was apparently a huge hurdle for Bryce, and he's really come out of his shell a lot since that point. (He even played with our worship team when we lead worship at Todd's parents church, and wasn't nervous. He actually said, since he played in front of so many people at the wedding, now he knows he's ok to play in front of anybody!) Dustin has taken time with Bryce whenever he could, just to connect with him, not only about music, but just in general, and Dustin may never realize how much he's impacted Bryce...but I do, and I'm grateful.