Thursday thirteen

1. Now that I have officially resigned from church, I cannot tell you how much more I am enjoying being with my children. I don't know why it correlates for me, but it does.


2. We have been enjoying our backyard so much this year. Last year, Dennis fenced it in and put up the play area. This year, we've been out there every non-rainy day. Daniel and Annalivia can play for a long, long time in the sandbox. We have to strip them down and shake them out every time we go inside. Daniel has sand in his hair literally every night. He may or may not have been the one to put it there.


3. I love Daniel's current stage of development. It is just delightful to watch him learn to communicate, play jokes, enjoy moving around, learn to jump. It really is a wonder.


4. Daniel has been reading books to himself lately. His favorite is a deconstructed (not in the literary sense) copy of The Little Engine That Could. He points to the characters and yells a lot.


5. He's also a big fan of tractors and lawn equipment. We went to a playground last week after ballet clahss and he just stood there watching a guy mowing the park. Swings and slides cannot compete with the combustion engine, apparently.


6. This week, we slept too late to get to ballet clahss. Annalivia was remarkably unfazed.


7. Annalivia has been singing a lot of songs lately. She has a great ear for music. She can return to the home key no matter where we've been and loves to make up songs. Her phrasing is great. I also love to hear her sing "This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us Be-Joyce and be glad in it."


8. She is also fascinated with the idea of childbirth and can often be found snuggling and kissing her dolls, talking about their beautiful chins, etc. And she's taken to renaming her dolls, which were previously given the perfectly-respectable names of characters in Kipper and Angelina Ballerina to things like "Gootie" and "Gook" and "Sweeha".


9. I feel like I am channeling Bob McClure lately, going through the house, flipping off lights. I'm practicing my grandfather's "Somebody's paying Cilco!" sing-song for when we move south. (cilco=central IL light company)


10. We have decided to not move any of our pantry when the time comes, so I've been making dinner from canned, frozen, and refrigerated ingredients lately. It's saving grocery money, but it's not very exciting.


11. We may not have to worry about whether our garden will be producing after our departure. The crows have been swarming it, pecking at the ground, and eating off of it lately.


12. Today is Dennis' second-to-last day at the place he was worked for 12 years. It's the end of an era.


13. We have done no packing today, yesterday, or the day-before-that, or the week-before-that. Tomorrow doesn't look good, either.