Spiders and Snakes and Bears, Oh My!

I have obviously been absent from blogging for a couple of weeks, so I have to back up a little to post about our quick trip to Tahoe. Friends of ours have a friend with a house in Tahoe who offered to let them stay there for a week. And they, very generously, invited us to join them. We turned the offer down at first because of full schedules, high gas prices, and the 9 hour drive. But, the more we thought about it, the more we thought that it could be a really fun getaway with friends that we shouldn't pass up. We knew that we couldn't swing a full week, but could probably pull off a few days. And, I am so glad we did. Although it is the end of May, there was a full winter storm happening in Tahoe, which made the weekend perfect for the kids. Let me just say that I am not a cold/snow loving person at all. I would more accurately be described as a cold hating person. We grew up vacationing on various lakes, waterskiing in over 100 degree heat, jumping in the lake to cool off every time the person skiing would fall. That's my idea of a good time. Bundling up in huge, heavy layers while lugging snow equipment up some big hill and freezing my butt off, is not. However, I will admit, that it was a really fun time, and we're so grateful to our wonderful friends for including us in their vacation. It really couldn't have been better. One of the main reasons that it was so fun, despite the cold, was because our kids were absolutely loving every minute of it. And, as a parent, that makes it all worthwhile. They never complained about the cold, or the hard work of traipsing through the snow to find a good sledding hill, or the lugging of the sled up and down the hill over and over again. They just had great attitudes and a great time. Jake immediately began turning his sled into a snowboard and declared that he has now decided to become a champion snowboarder.

Another one of the highlights of the weekend for them was this...

One of the nights I was in the kitchen cooking up some bacon for a breakfast casserole when I looked out the window and saw this bear RIGHT outside of it, just walking down the street. I don't think he could resist the smell of the bacon. Unfortunately, by the time I thought to get my camera, I only caught a little bit of his backside.

So, that explains the "Bears" portion of the title, but you may be wondering where the "Spiders and Snakes" come in. Well, a few days after returning from Tahoe, I had sent the kids outside to play. In what is a very rare occurrence around here, the entire house was clean - as in floors, bathrooms, everything - all at the same time, and I intended to keep it that way for at least the afternoon. So, I gave the munchkins specific instructions that if they wanted to come inside for any reason, they needed to talk to me about it first. When they came running inside without following these instructions, I was about to let 'em have it. That is, until I actually listened to what they were shouting, which was, "Mommy, there's a rattlesnake in the garage!" Over the past few years, we have had several rattlesnakes around the house and neighborhood, and I knew that Jake knew what he was talking about. Apparently, the kids were playing in the garage and Jake decided that he wanted to catch a spider to keep in his little bug catcher. The spider went behind an old mattress that we have leaning up against the garage door, and Jake was reaching his hand back there to try to catch the spider. Yes, that's what I said, REACHING HIS HAND BACK THERE, completely unaware that he was reaching in the very spot that a rattlesnake had taken up residence and was now feeling threatened by the fact that his space was being invaded. Addi was, as usual, right by Jake's side. That's when they heard rattling and looked and saw the head of the snake, and then ran in to tell me. Jake said that it wasn't a very big one, which is even scarier since the babies are more deadly than the adults. I called Jay and told him that he needed to come home and kill a snake. Jay has become kind of the neighborhood rattlesnake killer when anyone has one in their backyard because everybody else is afraid to deal with them. So, that's what he did.

The snake was hanging out behind that mattress in the picture and Jay had to use his "snake-killing" tools to pull him out from behind there. That, of course, did not make the snake happy, and he kept trying to strike at Jay.

Jay was giving the kids a little science lesson on the fangs of a rattlesnake and also on the way that the body continues to move even though the head has been cut off. Seriously, the body kept curling up and appeared to keep trying to strike at us even after his head had been cut off. Crazy!

Addi was going to hold the snake to pose for the picture until I told her that she would have to wash her hands after that. Then she decided that it wasn't worth it. She's a busy woman and can't be bothered with hand-washing. It was her turn to get to keep the rattle though, so she put it in a baggie and then proceeded to lose it within the hour.

Jake then buried the snake and built a little shrine for him.

It's A...

Boy!!! Everything looked great on the ultrasound and we are all thrilled...except, of course, for Addi who was set on the baby being a girl. I'm glad that we decided to find out the sex so that she's got a few months to get used to the idea of a little brother instead of a little sister. He is already measuring about a week bigger than where he should be at 20 weeks, so I think we've got another big boy on our hands!

Here are a couple of cool pictures. To me, this is such a miracle to see. The whole process of pregnancy and childbirth is so amazing to me, and such an incredible picture of God's greatness.

Future Top Chef

Well, since yesterday I posted about our future songwriter, I thought that today I would post about our future chef (actually, Jake has many, many things that he says he wants to be when he grows up, and a chef is not on the list, but I'm pretty impressed with his egg-making skills!). Breakfast is the one meal that Jay sometimes makes, and when he does, the kids love to help him. His specialties are eggs and pancakes. He has gradually passed more and more of the egg-making responsibilities over to Jake, and he can now make eggs, from start to finish, entirely on his own. I think that's a pretty impressive 6-year-old skill, and one that he never would have learned from me. I would be too nervous the whole time about him using the stove on his own, but luckily for him, Jay allows him to venture out a little more than I do. I have instructed him, however, that one of us has to at least be present while he cooks - no surprising us with breakfast all on his own...yet. I'm hoping that Jay hasn't told him anything different!

Future Singer/Songwriter

I thought I would just give you a little taste of what we get around here from Addi...constantly! She is truly hilarious, and definitely gets away with a little more because of it. Basically, if she is not talking to one of us, she is either talking to herself or singing to herself. Her mouth never stops moving unless she is asleep (or unless we are asking her to say something to someone that she doesn't want to say...then you might think that she was incapable of speech). The funny thing about her songs though is that she never sings songs that are actual songs. She really only sings songs that she makes up as she goes. So, here she is doing her chores and singing what is sure to be a future hit!

He is Risen, Indeed!

Yes, I am aware of the fact that we celebrated the resurrection of Jesus a week and a half ago, and that this is not a very timely post. I am obviously behind in posting anything new to the blog though, just as I am behind in most other things in my life. I was going to try to just give a brief overview of some of the things that we did to prepare for and celebrate Easter using mostly pictures, but, unfortunately, I did not take pictures of a lot of the things we did. So, I will do my best to just kind of sum everything up.

Each day of the Holy Week, starting with Palm Sunday, we did something a little different to try to prepare for Easter. Actually, we started our first project a couple of weeks before that because it needed time to grow. Here is our "Hill of Calvary" that we created. The idea came from here, and then we just added a couple little touches of our own.

On Good Friday, we pinned Jesus up on the cross. We also created a list of some of our own sins that we could think of and pinned those up with Jesus on the cross, representing, of course, that our sins are what put Him there.

On Friday night, we took Jesus (and our sins) down off of the cross and placed them in the tomb. The soldiers were Jake's idea. He put them there to guard the tomb. (As you can see, our grass started to die and look a little sad!)

On Easter morning, the "stone" was rolled away, and Jesus was no longer there. He had risen!

The Thursday before Easter we did our own version of a Passover dinner. We read about Jesus' last supper and talked to them about communion and what it represents. Jake and Addi took their first communion with us and then we washed each other's feet and talked about why Jesus did that and about ways that we can be servants to others. Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of any of those things. I think that the munchkins were most excited about getting to drink grape juice. They seem to think they had never had it before, but I'm not so sure. Regardless, you can see where their priorities are!

Then, in an effort to put into practice the fact that we are to be servants, as well as to incorporate the idea that Jesus is "the bread of life," "the bread that was broken for us," etc., we baked some homemade bread for our neighbors. The kids really loved doing all the kneading, watching it rise, etc. I'm thinking that we definitely need to do that more often. If only I could just relax a little more when we take on those projects. I'm constantly on them about being more careful, trying not to make a mess, etc. I know that I take a lot of the fun out of it. Fortunately, they still seemed to love doing it, so I guess I didn't totally ruin the experience.

We did a few other things throughout the week and on Easter morning (like these "He is Risen Rolls") that I did not get any pictures of, but here are a couple of Easter morning pictures. (I really did take some other ones of the morning, as well as of the afternoon with family, but I can't seem to figure out where they ended up.)

We did a couple of "Spring" activities as well, but chose to keep those separate from Easter. I'm sure you will not be surprised to hear that the Easter Bunny does not visit the Herron home because we don't want to confuse the kids about what Resurrection Sunday is really all about. So, we still did egg coloring and an egg hunt, but did them prior to our Holy Week activities. We explained to the kids that those types of things are fun Spring activities but that they do not play any part in our celebration of Easter and the amazing sacrifice that Jesus made for all of us.

I will leave you with a couple of pictures of those oh-so-Holy activities...because nothing says "He is Risen" like a bunch of kids fighting each other for a million little eggs filled with a million little pieces of junk!