All mixed up

We moved back to my hometown that I moved to when I was in high school and my parents still live in. It is becoming very clear to me that being gone for 13 years really changes things. Here are a few examples:

• The other night we got gas at a gas station that used to be a Wendy's. During marching band season in high school we would walk down there after school and get something to eat before practice.
• The ice cream store that was another place to meet when I was single and then when I was a newlywed is out of business.
• I am loving shopping at a grocery store that is in the former Borders. That was where I ordered items for my classroom before Amazon. That was where I met friends for a cup of tea when I was single and when Ram and I were newlyweds.  This grocery store has great sales and a great bulk section, but no cafe.
• When I was in high school our school football team rarely won games. Being in band, the halftime show was the most important so I rarely watched the game. But the other night when we were winning, watching the game was exciting! Our team has a good chance of going to state this year.
• Our rental house is not too far from the house I grew up in, a little farther from where I bought a house when I was single, and even farther from my parents new house. Some places in the area we go to take much longer than I am used to and other places we go just take a few minutes to get there from our rental house. I have to adjust my thinking how long it will take to get to everywhere.
• No matter which church we visited in the area, I ran into parents of my former students. I will always remember them as first and second graders, but my last class is now juniors in college and many of the older students are married and have started families.
• The school that I taught at closed by the Lutheran church and recombined with two other Lutheran schools at a different location. This makes me so sad that they can't go next door to the church for daily chapel like we did.
• The library branches were always good here and the new downtown library is awesome now. My boys have gone to a couple of programs at the downtown library and are looking forward to more programs. 
• Our calendar no longer is just for the 5 of us, but my parents are added to the calendar-all for when they can babysit for us, need a ride to something, or want us to come over for a visit/help with a few tasks around the house. I love that we are in the same town to be able to do this.

So it is not all bad changes, it just takes some readjusting in my thinking!

Church Advertising

Our church is located centrally in a growing city. In fact, it has grown 139% since 2000. We have visitors at our church almost every Sunday. Several times a year I hear comments like, "I had no idea there was an LCMS church on your busy street" or "I drive by that church every day on the way to work and I had no idea it was an LCMS church."

So our church decided to send out a mass mailing to the local neighborhoods reminding them that we are located in our city and telling them what time our Christmas services will be. I haven't seen the mailing yet, but I know it has a picture of the Holy Family.

With our church doing this, I have paid attention to the junk mail recently. We received 3 advertisements for local churches this week. One had a picture of reindeer antlers, one had a picture of a forest, and one had an angel. The one with a forest was an 8x11 size so cost the most to print.

Obviously the angel one was the best of what we received. But where is Christ part of Christmas at these churches?

We are praying that our mailing goes to some people that need a church that celebrates CHRISTmas.

Children Today

When I was teaching first and second grade, my grandma gave me a book titled, Your Child from 6 to 12. This was a pamphlet written in 1950 by the US Department of Health, Eduction, and Welfare. I decided to skim through this before putting it in recycling. I had a few thoughts after reading this that I want to blog about.

1. Houses and where we live-
Our house is much larger than houses that families lived in the 50s, but we live in the city. My boys have their own bathroom and I have a separate master bathroom. I don't want to give up my bathroom, but there isn't the necessary sharing of living space that families used to have. The opportunity for physical activity is also cut down by where we live. That physical energy must be let out by children and sometimes that means getting in trouble for being too loud or wild considering we have neighbors close by. Recently a neighbor boy got a little wild and broke the fence connecting our yard to a different neighbor's yard. If we lived in the country there wouldn't even be a fence for our boys to need to be careful not to break. We wouldn't have to abide by HOA rules.

2. Family Size-
The average family size is smaller than the 50s. We are blessed with several children in our neighborhood for our boys to play with. But there is a big difference between playing with neighborhood children and having siblings to always play with. I am thankful that each of my boys has two brothers to play with and wish that my boys also had sisters. With a smaller family each Lamb gets more individual attention from Ram and Ewe than if we had a larger family. Sometimes this is good, but sometimes I think it would be better for them to have to figure more out on their own and have siblings help each other more.

3. Inventions-
We don't have to do as much physical activity at our households as they did in the 50s thanks to washing machines and dishwashers and lawn mowers and more household servants. Even if I give the Lambs chores they are drastically different than chores that my parents did.

4. Amusements-
The average family doesn't stay home together in their free time any more. The one exception is that we rarely go to the movie theater, when we watch a movie together it is usually at home. But the other activities that we do as a family aren't usually at home, we go to a park or pay to go to a baseball game etc. Gone are the old fashioned family sing alongs. We don't expect our children to find their own activities to play together in their free time. They have so many toys (in our house, it is Legos) that they don't even play with all of them.

5. Moving-
I have been shocked in my brand new neighborhood how often the neighbors move. There  seems to always be a house for sale on our street. Much of this is because of job transfers and some is because they really couldn't afford the house they bought. But some is just they move on to a bigger house or better neighborhood because they want to. This makes it difficult for children to form relationships in their neighborhood. And Ram and I don't have any adult friends in our neighborhood other than knowing their names.

6. Going to camp-
This pamphlet highly recommended sending your child to camp away from home as a necessary skill as they grow up. I must admit that none of my Lambs have ever spent the night away from home. Today many children attend day camp but few go away for a week. This is on our list to send them to a Lutheran Camp soon, but hasn't happened yet.

7. Play-
Lamb 1 has been frustrated playing with neighborhood friends recently. It is rare that our family and a neighborhood family are both home long enough to really play a whole game that he wants to play like a football game. And when they do have a long time to play the other kids don't want to just play one game for a long time, they want to do several activities. They don't have the focus to keep at one game. I feel sorry for Lamb 1, but know there is really nothing we can do about this. And we give them bikes and scooters and so many toys that they don't come up with their own games to play for an afternoon.

I have more to blog about this so this is to be continued...

Tea at the Mayor's House

The mayor of Meridian, ID hosted a tea at her house. I attended it several days ago but due to technical problems I couldn't show pictures until today. Finally, here are pictures from this fun event!

I didn't care about eating Paleo, I had a big scone with lemon curd, cucumber and cream cheese sandwich, and a gooey dessert! It was all worth it!

I wasn't sure if I would know anyone at this tea. I e-mailed a couple of friends about it, but didn't expect them to attend. I ended up knowing two people at the tea including my neighbor that homeschools and has 3 boys almost the same ages as my 3 Lambs. The people I knew had already planned to sit with others so I met some new ladies. The ladies I sat with were all Roman Catholic and assumed that I also was because I was wearing a crucifix necklace. They laughed that Lutheran was close enough!

The tea served was chai, cinnamon orange spice, or tea with Tammy blend. Unfortunately our table didn't see the "make your own" teabags until we had put the tea directly in our cups. The lady that sat next to me wasn't planning to have tea so she shared a clean cup with me after we found the teabags.

The mayor hosted this at her house in support of Stanton Healthcare. Our area of the country has worked hard to raise $ to pay for the land for this pro-life center that will be built next to Planned Parenthood. At this tea it was announced that the land is completely paid for! Now it is time to start raising $ for the building. Thankfully many talented people in the community have offered to donate their time as builders, electricians, plumbers, etc. All the money raised at this tea went towards Stanton. The mayor's backyard is beautiful and made a great place for this event. She would like to make this an annual event. I hope I can attend again.

Some of the Stanton mothers and one of the Stanton children were at this tea. One mother with a 7 year old spoke. I was in tears at the end of her speech thinking about how she was pregnant with her daughter at the same time as I was pregnant with Lamb 3. We lead/led completely different lives. Thanks to Stanton with God's help, we are both raising 7 year olds today. She is pretty sure that if Stanton had not been there to help her, she would not be raising her beautiful 7 year old daughter today.

A sculptor is donating her time and also raising the money to build a sculpture outside of the new building. It will be made of bronze and look like an olive tree. Stanton children names will be on the leaves. The most exciting part is there will be a water feature at the base of the tree. Companies would spend thousands of dollars to commission a piece like this outside of their building, but this sculpture will be completely donated.

They showed plans for the new building. All of their wishes were designed in the building by talented architects and engineers that donated their time or gave them a much reduced price. The new building will not only have ultrasound rooms and private rooms for counseling, but also have a baby boutique to get donated baby clothes, supplies, and maternity clothes. They will even have a room to wash the donated items. There will also be rooms for parenting classes.

I could go on and on about the plans about Stanton. They are in my prayers that they can accomplish what they have planned and raise the money to do it. My prayer is that Satan does not destroy the good work they have begun. My prayers are for the women that go to the Boise location, the mobile vans that go around ID, and the future Meridian location. May the Lord bless and keep the women and their children and the employees and volunteers that help these women.

There are many more photos of the tea here. In the photo of everyone, I was in the back but then they had everyone turn around and they took the picture the opposite way. So I ended up in the front row!

Vietnam Memorial

The Traveling Vietnam Wall is at a local cemetery this weekend. We stopped by tonight to show it to the Lambs. It was quite the production-bands, flags, veterans groups, even food trucks. The Lambs don't understand all this, but we thought it was important to show them. This reproduction is 80% the size of the one in Washington D.C. It was very sunny for all our pictures, but I wanted the Lambs to have a picture to remember tonight.

Lamb 2 is standing by John Adam's picture. Lamb 3 is standing by Abraham Lincoln's picture. You can't tell from their expressions, but they wanted their picture taken with their favorite presidents.

Being a rural pastor's wife post #17

Today I am going to discuss the mom of young children part of my role as a rural pastor's wife.
Most wives that I know here work. There are some, but not a lot of moms with young children in this area. There is no play group or mom's Bible study group. Since I have lived here since I've had children, I'm not even sure what else bigger cities have that I don't have offered here. I have a college friend that just could not imagine my life here and how she would have survived being a new mother without the moms that she met at play group. I have several areas to discuss about being a mom of young children when I live rural. I don't know about being a mom of older children when I live rural yet. Perhaps some of you with older children can comment about that.
1. When I was pregnant with Lamb 1, I called La Leche League and the closest chapter or leader was 2 hours away. There was no way that was going to work to attend meetings or meet a leader when it was a 4 hour round trip and especially not when my baby was born with MSPI. I read a lot of books, made some phone calls to a friend who was a LLLI leader, and just continued nursing Lamb 1 until we both figured it out. Do I think my way was the best way? NO! I would have loved to be in a bigger city with a lactation consultant and easier ways to get help. Lamb 1 survived (and that is very true with him having MSPI) and I figured out nursing. Nursing got easier with Lamb 2 and 3. One of my friends suggested once that I get help from LLLI and was shocked that I lived in a place that was not available. I post this to encourage you to keep breastfeeding even if your situation in a rural place is not the ideal way. Most of the ladies that I have met in this area did not breastfeed. When they had problems there weren't the resources here to help them. It doesn't have to be that way, you can breastfeed even if you don't have all the resources that bigger cities have.
2. When we moved here the town park had two very old rusty slides and very old swings and that was it. I told the city council that we would personally pay for new swings and they should remove the old slides as they weren't safe. Around the same time some moms in town decided to do a fundraiser to get a new slide. The people in town were shocked that it took $3000 to get ONE slide. One of the dads built and painted a couple of see saws. The town paid for new swings. The big fundraiser weekend raised enough money to get the slide. So now our park in town has swings, see saw, and one slide. It's not a lot, but it's better than it was when we moved here. When we get to a bigger town the Lambs love to go to the park because it is a lot better than our small park. We have not purchased a swing set for the Lambs because they can walk across the street to the town park. I post this because even if your town park is small, it may be enough to save getting a swing set for your yard. We also try to make the time to take the Lambs to a park in a bigger town when we go shopping because this is not offered in our town.
3. Winter is the worst when we are stuck in a small town and can't get outside. It really does get better in the spring when we can at least take walks around town. I keep reminding myself that all winter when they are driving me crazy with cabin fever. I try to forget about the times of year that are too muddy for walks, about the mosquitoes in the summer, and the dogs that every one in town owns and Lamb 1 is afraid of. Even just going outside in our yard is better than being stuck in the house.
4. We were given a big discounted pass to go to the Children's Museum in the Twin Cities. On the way home from Ram's appointment at Mayo in January we took the chance to use that pass. I was so excited to have a chance to take the Lambs to a museum as they had only been to one small museum before. I thought it would be great to give them an opportunity to do what the big city kids do. Wow, was I surprised when we actually went. The Lambs hated the crowds which made them hate most of the museum. I wasn't that impressed with the Children's Museum as I compared it to the museums in Fort Wayne that I had taken my students to before. We did have a good time that day, but it wasn't what I had expected-to have a great time. There was a little educational for the Lambs, but not that much. I couldn't imagine that big city parents regularly take their children there. This was an eye opening experience for me-perhaps my Lambs are better off just playing at home and outside in our back yard than doing what the big city kids do.
5. I would encourage you to look what there is to do in your area for children. Some of the things that the Lambs have done here: In February and March different towns in the area have sports/leisure shows. I'm surprised how much there really is for the Lambs to do and learn at these. They enjoy walking around and getting candy, bookmarks, stickers, other small treats. Sometimes the zoo 1 1/2 hours away brings animals for a small petting zoo. PBS brings educational treats. DNR brings animal furs and other educational things to touch.
One of the towns has a big Easter egg hunt the day before Easter. They get candy in eggs and there are also drawings for bigger prizes.
In the summer there are a couple of youth fishing days. The Lambs have been given fishing poles, tackle boxes with supplies, etc. Lunch is provided and also bait. The Lambs are pretty little so they haven't caught very many fish yet, but they have the supplies.
We go to a couple of county fairs. We walk around and get the free stuff, see the exhibits, and the Lambs that are old enough try the tractor pull.
We have done some of the community education programs offered too. Recently Lamb 2 took a cooking class and we're hoping that enough kids sign up for Lamb 1 to take a cooking class too. In the past Lamb 1 and 2 have taken Spanish lessons.
Last summer Lamb 1 and 2 took swim lessons.
In the fall different towns have a town festival. We don't go to all the events they have scheduled, but we usually try to go to the parades.
There aren't the activities offered through the library or park board or church or other places that a big city would have, but there are some things to do here. I had to live here for awhile to find out what was offered. Sometimes we tried going to activities that we didn't really know what they were until we tried them. If we move from here I would be very sad for the Lambs to miss the youth fishing day and some of the other activities that we try to attend each year. I learned that instead of complaining about what I don't have in this rural area, to be thankful for what we do have.
I have more to post about being a mom with young kids in a rural area, so I will continue this post tomorrow.

Fair Day

First, I'm trying the new format of Blogger, so please be patient if there are problems with this post.

Yesterday we spent almost the whole day at fairs. In the morning Ram sat at our Early Childhood Initiative booth for 2 hours at one local town festival. I took the Lambs to the events for children while he sat at the booth. First there was a parade where children were invited to wear costumes. Lamb 1 was Thomas the train. He wanted to be Eeyore but the costume was too little for him. Lamb 2 was Eeyore. Lamb 3 was a police man. Lamb 2 got second place. I think it was a sympathy vote because he was so hot. He won $10. We are going to have him split the money with Lamb 1 because Lamb 1 really wanted to be Eeyore. Next, they had a music entertainer and Lamb 2 was the best at singing along, volunteering to play instruments up front, and especially doing the actions with the musician. Lamb 1 was too shy and it was a little above Lamb 3. We walked around a little looking at everything and then let them play at the new playground a little bit. I was so glad to see a booth for Orphan Grain Train giving free lemonade and cookies. Ram was finished with his shift so we gladly got out of the heat and went home for lunch.
After a short break at home then we went to the next county over from us to their fair. Ram had to sit for 2 hours at the LLL booth. We missed the deadline to give our coloring pictures to earn a free ride at the fair. So I paid to let each Lamb ride one ride. We walked around getting lots of free items and looking at different exhibits.
The fair has a nice building for the children to see several animals and pet puppies and chicks etc. As we started towards the building Lamb 1 noticed there was a dog by the entrance. Lamb 1 ran off so I talked to a boy there and asked him to hold the dog while we went in the building. Lamb 1 wasn't about to go in that building when there was a dog there. So I took Lamb 2 and 3 in and left Lamb 1 right outside the building.. We weren't in there very long. Lamb 1 was crying and someone thought he was lost-they didn't understand that he was afraid of the dog. When we came out of the building to meet Lamb 1, the lady didn't believe me at first that he was my child. We finally calmed Lamb 1 down and went to take a break in the cooler building where Ram sat at a booth. We really didn't do very much at the fair today in 90 degrees plus humidity. We ate at one of the Lutheran church booths and headed home.
We let the Lambs play in the sprinkler when we got home. They were a muddy mess so baths were first when they came inside. I made non-alcoholic watermelon drinks and it was bedtime for the Lambs. Lamb 2 and Ewe both got a little too much sun yesterday and everyone has lots of mosquito bites (from summer, not just yesterday). Yesterday was a fun day and we look forward to a local parade today.

MCCL Booth at the fair

This year was the first time in 6 years that we didn't have a baby in the "Adorable Baby" contest at the county fair. Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life sponsors this for babies up to age 2. I was asked to sit at the booth at the fair to take people's ballots for the baby contest and hand out pro-life literature. I gladly accepted and sat for 3 hours on Friday.
There wasn't a lot of activity in the afternoon, but a few people stopped by the booth. One was involved with Birthright and was full of information of how important the pro-life work is. I would have loved to have talked to her more.
One had just moved here from Vermont. He was shocked that there was a need for a petition to stop sex-selection abortions in MN. His response, "That happens in China, not in America!"
The most shocking for me was two girls (and I want to stress girls) that stopped by the booth with one boy. The boy asked which model showed a baby at 18 weeks. I showed him and he pointed out to the first girl what her baby looked like. He started bragging about his baby then. Then he teased the girl about having to deliver that baby if it was that big at 18 weeks. I had been quiet until then, but I spoke up and told him that if he was the father, he better be there to help her in the delivery room. Then the second girl spoke up and asked how her 12 week old baby looked. The first girl was obviously pregnant, the second one I wouldn't have known she was pregnant if she hadn't said anything. I am so thankful these girls kept their babies, but I can't imagine what they are going through now. Ram and I were a team when I was pregnant-especially when I was so sick with Lamb 1 and in the delivery room for all 3 Lambs. I can't imagine being pregnant without the support of a husband. These girls are in my prayers.
Several people stopped by the booth to express their support of pro-life even if they didn't vote for a baby or pick up any literature. There was only one that stopped by to make a point to tell me that he didn't agree with pro-life work. I tried to think quickly to have a response for him, but all I could think of was that he should be thankful that his mom didn't abort him. His response- "Maybe the world would be a better place if that would have happened."
This happened at our small county fair in just 3 hours-and it wasn't even busy at the booth. When my shift at the booth was done, I thought, "Lord Have Mercy".

These photos were taken today-I'm not kidding!

Lamb 1 and 2 in our back yard in the SNOW that fell last night. Yes, the snow fell on OCTOBER 9. Lamb 1 really asked when we were getting out our Christmas tree. His next question was if there would be snow on Christmas.

Lamb 3 with the ONE green pepper (and a small one too) that we grew in our garden. We planted about 2 dozen pepper plants. We planned to have red, yellow, purple, and green peppers. Crazy weather this spring, summer, and fall didn't help. My sprained foot in May meant that we didn't get out there and weed or do anything in our garden until the middle of June. Then we were off for vacation and didn't take care of it. Oh well, we'll try again next year.


We planted cherry and Roma tomatoes this year. We picked a couple dozen Romas and about a dozen cherry ones when they were red. We picked these before the first frost. I know it will take awhile, but they really will turn red. We should have had hundreds more than this for the amount of plants we had. Crazy weather-we'll try again next year.

Lamb 2 was the first one up this morning. He came running in our room. "Mama, there's SNOW on the garden!" I had to ask him to repeat the word garden several times before I understood him. Yes, these are our poor tomato plants after last night. I'm glad we picked what we did in the previous photo.

This is the tree in our back yard that is going to be cut down because our small town is putting in a new sewer system. This was a nice tree because the leaves stayed green and on the tree longer than the other trees in our yard. Earlier this year, the church members helped us remove another tree that was dead and rotten. With the loss of two trees in our back yard, I'm expecting much more standing water. Lovely thought. The town is in desperate need of a new sewer system, but this is no fun to go through. We've been warned that we won't have water for six hours at a time while they are working on this. Most families don't work from home or homeschool like us. It's going to be so much fun to put all the winter clothes on the boys to take them downtown to go to the city hall to go to the bathroom while they work on our system. Since we live on an alley, we're not sure where we are going to park while they work on our yard. Every day this week the machines have woke me up much earlier than I want to be up. And the best news was this is just the beginning. They are hoping the weather stays nice so they can complete the majority of work yet this year and finish up next spring. I'm not counting on that happening since it snowed today! If I knew when they were working on our house I would take a vacation-even if it was just a few hours away to a Looper friend's house. But we have no idea when they will get to our yard other than guessing that we will probably be one of the first ones because they began the major work across the street from us. The Lambs have enjoyed watching all the trucks and machinery so I try not to be negative in front of them. It's all an adventure to them!

Small town anniversary

I have been meaning to post photos from our small town 130th anniversary celebration last July. Our town celebrated all weekend the last weekend in July. Ram posted about his part in the celebration here. Hopefully I can eventually post pictures here. It was pretty impressive that a small town of 113 people could pull off a whole weekend of activities including a big parade with entries from all over the state.
I want to add that when Ram gave his prayer at the kickoff supper, the audience had no time to mingle before the program started. Some had not seen friends for 40 years or more. So it was very loud for the program. They finally settled down a little bit for Ram's prayer. But even for the prayer it wasn't completely quiet. Ram wrote the prayer the afternoon that he said it. I thought it was a great prayer and he did a great job. He had never done something like this before (270 people that were not our church members). It was a great weekend and our family really enjoyed the activities.

Visit your local parks

The town 7 miles away had a visit your local parks kick-off today. We have all summer to visit and do activities at 7 parks. Then they will have party in August and give prizes to the children that complete the activities. We made clay tiles after collecting items on a nature hike. The sun was in their eyes so it was a little difficult. They asked if they could make a second one, because they enjoyed it so much. We also planted morning glory seeds to take home.

It was chilly, in the 40s. Lamb 3 had a difficult time being top heavy and trying to walk in his coat. He just wanted to be held until we put him in the stroller while we were eating a picnic lunch and he went to sleep. I don' think he will be our nature lover-but maybe when it is warmer, he will be.

Lamb 1 and 2 with Papa on their walk after lunch.

I wanted to take a photo of the Lambs at each park we go to. Lamb 1 was upset because he didn't get to jump over the stream so he refused to be in the photo. He finally asked to have his photo taken by himself when he realized we weren't going back to the stream. But I didn't get a photo of the Lambs together besides this one.

We'll be busy this summer doing the activities at the local parks. It should be fun. I like that is is free! Look for more photos on my blog of the parks that we visit this summer. Hopefully it will be warmer when we visit more parks.

Farewell Troops

The last two Mondays we have attended church services at LCMS churches for the military in the area that are being deployed on Sunday. The first one, Ram assisted with the liturgy. We have two members being deployed from two of our churches in our tri-parish. The second one, Rev. Smith did the whole service. It was difficult for him because his son is one of the ones being deployed. Here is their family.

These 5 are all members of the same church being deployed. That is a lot from one small church.

We were a little late to the second service and it should have been easier for me because Ram was in the pew with me. But Lamb 2 didn't feel well AND none of the Lambs are used to Ram in the pew AND this was the 7th service the Lambs attended in 9 days. So I wasn't able to hear everything. But from what I did hear, it struck me that not only do our troops really need our prayers now but our country also needs our prayers.

Here is the hymn we sang from the Armed Forces Hymnal.

Lord, guard and guide all those who fly

And those who on the ocean ply

Be with our troops upon the land

And all who for their country stand;

Protect our nation day and night

And may our trust be in Your might.

Watch o'er our cities; guard our skies

And calm our fears in trying times.

Console the families suffering loss;

Help us to bear their heavy cross.

Give us the will to do our share

For lands and people in despair.

Oh may our nation always be

A torch aflame with liberty,

A haven for the dispossessed,

A land that welcomes many guests.

And may we keep our motto strong

"In God We Trust" be e'er our song.

Beach Party

The town 7 miles away received an early childhood grant. We live in this school district so we have benefited from their activities. Today they had a beach party.

Lamb 2 enjoyed eating fruit, meat, and cheese kabobs.

Lamb 1 thought the music was too loud and covered his ears for the whole hour.

Lamb 3 had the best time of all our Lambs. He played with a beach ball and...

danced and danced.

Here's the steel drum band. They were really loud. They even played the Hallelujah Chorus. I bet you've never heard that on drums!

When we got home Lamb 1 wanted to have his own band.

Lamb 1 and 2 making music.

Lamb 2

Lamb 3 with Ram. Ram, Lamb 1 and Lamb 3 had matching shirts from Hawaii from when Ram's parents went. Lamb 3 wasn't born when they went so Lamb 2 didn't have a shirt to match. He wore a different Hawaiian type shirt. Ewe didn't wear her matching dress partly because she didn't want Lamb 2 to be the only one that was dressed different; because she couldn't nurse Lamb 3 in that dress; and because it was 10 degrees today.

We had a fun afternoon at the beach party after I got the minivan stuck in the parking lot at church this morning and had to be shoveled out. At least we had church and we were healthy enough to go!