A Sewing Mistake

Anybody who knows Audra knows that she is the most obedient child on the planet. I'm totally serious- she was born with the gift of obedience. As a toddler, I learned to say things like, "Don't throw food on the floor- it's a rule!" and she would never throw food on the floor again.

But there is exactly one area in which she is not obedient. When she sews, she always has her fingers close to the needle, and I constantly tell her to move her fingers back. No joke, I tell her to move her fingers roughly 27 times every time she sews.

Well, today she learned her lesson the very hard, and very disgusting, and very painful way.

Yup, she sewed right through her finger. All the way through. I had to pull her finger back out.

It was awful.

Somehow, though, this girl proved once again how incredible she is. She didn't freak out (even when one of the other girls sewing passed out), she barely cried, she was as brave as brave can be. I can't say as much about her mother. This is one of my worst nightmares. I really had to do everything I could to be calm and collected for her.

I texted a friend who came and picked up Claire and Camille while I rushed Audra to Urgent Care.

They cleaned her up, cut off a little piece of nail that was sticking up, and put on a Band-Aid.

It will take about 6 months for her nail to fully heal, but it won't hurt for that long. In fact, she really isn't in very much pain right now at all.

Our first Urgent Care visit is over. Now I know where to go and what to do. It could have been much, much worse. But, seriously, I NEVER in a million years thought our first Urgent Care visit would be due to 4H.

When she thought about the injury she started to feel woosy.

 Before the incident:

There is one bonus: My mother did the same thing years ago, so now Audra and Grandma are finger stitching twins.

The doctor never asked her, but I was hoping that Audra could say, "I don't need stitches because I already sewed my finger," but the opportunity never came up.

Time For A Break

It has been an absolutely exhausting 72 hours.

It started Friday with the drama performance. Then, most of the day Saturday Ben and I were at our renal doing showings. Thankfully, we not only rented out our house, but also two other houses that are adjacent and owned by our friends. Three leases for one set of showings is pretty great- Ben and I are really good at showings. Ben says it's because we pay our tithing, and I can't disagree. But, that also meant that Saturday night was also spent up at the house getting the lease signed.

Then, this whirlwind weekend was capped off by going downtown and feeding the homeless. It is always humbling.

The woman in charge of Stand Up For Kids always says it best. Here are her words:

I gotta start with the 1st thing that comes to mind and that is that I really, really love this life we get to live and ALL of the people in it, the true friends that we serve as well as the people who consistently stand with us TO serve. Blessed doesn’t even begin to cover it. Christina Marriott and family and friends provided enchilada casserole, chicken taco casserole, salad, drinks, homemade sweets and LOTS of dog food! We served about 15 today and they all went away with FULL bellies and even “full-ER” hearts. Great convos were had with regulars and travelers alike. We’re still getting used to the changes here and the dramatically lower amount of roofless youth out here because of those changes but when one of our friends came up to us today and said “you know, I don’t know if you guys hear this enough but I want to tell you that you are the brightest spot in our day. When STANDUP shows up we just feel so loved and like we matter. You’re always here for us and you bring such joy and good vibes to us. I hope you know how much you mean to us”— THAT is why we do it-8 people or 80 people, if we impact ONE our job is done. People are people- LOVE them all no matter what.
We also went to the Triangle not with leftovers because there were none, but to donate some of our excess storage unit supplies that we don’t use to the Denver Rescue Mission. Had more talks with our friends there, witnessed many very high and one violently ill on something, then learning of a death last night due to a new popular drug called “Mamba” which is something laced with rat poison and other toxic things that causes a high but that won’t cause UA’s to test positive😫—can you even imagine the black hole desperation and hopelessness in life that would lead to that??? Thankfully We can NOT, but We CAN love them, feed them, nurture them and try to connect with them. So can you. Always, always, always remember that humans are humans period. ❤️

It was wonderful. And now I desperately need a good nights sleep!

Drama Club!

I looked and looked for a drama camp for my kids. There were plenty of drama camps.

And all of them cost a minimum of $250 for two hours a day for 5 days.

I even looked at the camps in the poorer areas of Denver. Didn't matter- still $250.

I don't know about you, but I simply can not justify spending $500 for 10 hours  just so my girls can stand on a stage.

So, once again, I did what any insane homeschooling mom with absolutely zero drama experience would do: I did my own drama camp.

I hand picked what kids I wanted in my club- kids I knew wouldn't cause problems, could memorize, would have fun and be positive, and would get along with my girls.

I was a little nervous, as I always am with these things. Thankfully, a woman from church happened to have a ton of Aesop Fables scripts that she gave me. I decided those would be perfect. I spent hours picking out which ones to use- I wanted everybody to have an equal number of parts and such.

On Monday we started, we met for two hours each day, and then tonight they performed.

It was SO. MUCH. FUN! It could not have gone any better- the kids really did get along perfectly, I am confident everybody felt like they had their fair share of parts, they loved getting their costumes ready (I am very proud of Audra's iguana costume and Claire's mouse/monkey costume).

We were even able to get the little kids involved in 2 of the 4 plays as we needed some animal "extras." All week Camille was so excited for Friday, which is when the littles got to come learn their parts.

We met in the HUGE backyard of some of the kids, and we got a huge Subway sub sandwich and everybody brought a side or dessert, and after the show we had a nice little pot luck.

The weather turned fierce and it ended up being a bit windy, but we were worried thunderstorms would come, but thankfully they didn't. Whew!

We started each day with about an hour of drama games that I found on-line. We met at a park each day, which was perfect.

Then, the performance. I was so proud of how well they did! They said they want to do it again next summer, but they want a harder script.

Ben says that Claire wins "Best Actress." She really went all in the for the Country Mouse.

The phthon:

My favorite picture:

Roxborough

This hike is about 15 minutes from our house. We are so blessed to live in such a beautiful area!

Father's Day!

It was so wonderful this Father's Day because the girls are old enough to cook Ben breakfast! They made his favorite- waffles and sausage. It was awesome. Life is good.

Pure Joy!

Look at the joy on this girls' face- and for good reason. On her absolute first try, she biked perfectly- without even a wobble!

She has been using training wheels since forever, like most kids. We have wanted her to ride her "balance bike" (which is just this exact same bike in the picture minus the pedals) for the past few months, and she has refused. She figured out that if she rode her training wheel bike, but didn't let the training wheels touch the ground, she was balancing. For the past few months she has, behind our backs, been practicing balancing all on her own with her training wheel bike.

We took her to the park with her actual balance bike so she could practice. Well, she never put her feet down! It was incredible! She balanced perfectly. We sent Ben home to grab the pedals, put them on and VOILA! She is now a perfect bike rider- a regular pro.

I couldn't be more impressed. Honestly, she did far better than both Audra and Claire, and both of them were awesome at learning to ride their bikes!

Balance bikes are easily the way to go! I truly can't overstate how easy it was for all three of them to learn to ride a bike- without Ben needing to run behind them while holding onto the bike seat.

What a great day. Except that now she is riding a big girl bike, taking showers by herself, learning to read....she is full of joy, but Ben and I are a little sad to see her grow up way too quickly.

Sea Quest

Tonight Audra and Claire had a Birthday party, so we took Camille on our date night with us. We met up with Ben's sister and headed to SeaQuest- an indoor aquarium at our local mall. It was a lot of fun- Camille was impressed, as were her cousins.