I've Been Bad

It seems that almost everytime I go out of town, Shawn goes to the movies with friends and watches some movie that we've BOTH been wanting to see. Then I come back in town, ready to go out with my hubbie and find out that he's already seen what I've been waiting for. He did it with Star Wars (the third one), Lord of the Rings (the first one), Batman Begins, and Spiderman I think.

Well, this week I had to spend a couple of days away from my family. While I was in Missouri, Mom rented I am Legend... a movie we've been wanting to see for like a year it seems. I was laughing with Mom telling her that I couldn't wait to tell Shawn that I got him back. As it turns out, Mom and I got pretty freaked out. I wished I had Shawn to cuddle with to make me feel safe. Serves me right I guess.

We talked and he asked me what I did tonight. I confessed and he headed to RedBox to get the movie. He's brave to watch that movie all by himself! I bet he'll wish I was there too!

why my back hurts

Last night I felt as if I were in college again. Only this time, my crazy roommates were my two boys. It was way past their bed time and we were just finishing up baths. They had just slipped into their p.j.s and were showing off their dance moves. Landon has apparently learned a "hippo" dance from school which involves him swishing his hips around and then quickly poking out his bootie for the grand finale. Then Ashton was showing us his moves, which words can not describe. Seizure is the only word that comes close. That's when it got interesting.

Ashton lye flat on the floor and then started wiggling around trying to do "the worm". Then Landon tried. I was laughing so hard, I soon found myself on the floor. I flipped and flailed the way no real worm does (unless it got stepped on). I tried and tried and tried. I finally decided that my back was just not flexible enough, but did that stop me...no. I kept trying until I hurt my knee. Shawn just watched shaking his head. Then I challenged him. A smirk found it's way to his mouth and he hit the floor and showed us his best worm moves too. I've decided that the Gray's are not meant to do the worm.

It took me a couple of hours to figure out why my back was hurting this morning!!

Lessons From Landon

As a parent, I'm constantly thinking of ways I can teach my children. I want to teach them about God, how to treat girls, the importance of being obedient, how to play sports, and good manners-with boys, this one is key especially with little sounds that escape from little boys.

Today, I am reminded of one of the many things that I have learned from them. Kids are so black and white. They know what they like, where they want to go, what they want to do and who they want to be with. However, kids have to adapt all of their wants to the adults in their life. They may want to eat at McDonald's and McDonald's only, but we go to Red Lobster instead. As an adult, I'm sure if such a high percentage of my opinions were trumped by someone else, I think I would go crazy. When decisions are concerned, kids rarely get their way. Do they always deal with that in the right way...no. But they do learn quickly how to be submissive and how to compromise. These are lessons I need to learn desperately.

A couple of months ago, Landon taught me something so valuable. We were up at the church and we had been in the office for a long time. They boys were playing nicely and had kept Daddy busy folding paper airplanes. The time had finally come when Shawn and I were ready to go. We had gathered our things and were footsteps from the door when I looked down at Landon and his shoeless feet. He was so busy playing with his plane that he forgot to put his shoes on. I got frustrated and sternly told him to quickly go find his shoes and get them on his feet. One thing you have to know about me is when I'm ready to go...I'm ready to go now. Any delay is very annoying to me. I waited for what seemed like 5 minutes, but was probably actually only like 15 seconds. I stormed off to find out what the hold up was and saw Landon and his paper airplane "flying" extremely slowly through the office doing a "air search" for his shoes. He was doing what I asked him to do, but he was having a good time doing it. He was so lost in his imagination that he just couldn't stop.

When I get asked to do something I don't really want to do, I rarely have a good time doing it. Children are being asked all the time to do things they don't want to do, but they are still able to have fun doing it. How? Landon taught me that day, to just slow down. I get ruffled over silly things that I could actually enjoy.

I just need to slow down. I just need to slow down. I j u s t n e e d t o s l o w d o w n !

I'm Being Forced

I haven't posted anything in such a long time due to facebook and myspace. I'm mostly on facebook now, but Shawn had an idea. He's made a website (finally, poor thing) for Get Real Student Ministries. He wanted all of the adult staff to make a blog and he's adding links to the website to all of our blogs. Pretty cool I thought. So anyway, that means that I must start posting things again.

Nothing really new in my life. Just the same-ol-same-ol (is that how you spell it?)...me playing volleyball, Ashton playing basketball, Shawn working hard, parties with friends, getting beat at nertz, Landon cracking us up daily, Ashton learning to read, me helping in Ashton's classroom occassionally, making plans to get grass on our dirty yard, listening to bumpn' music in the Get Real Mobile...you know the usual.

In the middle of all of this living, I'm realizing more and more that God wants more and more of me. How much more is left of me? I'm not sure. I keep catching myself red-handed stealing bits and pieces of myself back from God. I've gotten so good at it, that I hardly realize when I do it anymore. There's got to be a support group for this or something. Oh, wait, there is. And it's name is Get Real Student Ministries. I just love that guy. (If you read the Junie B. Jones book series then you are laughing right now.) Shawn's been going through the seven deadly sins. Each one is really hitting home. This week he's talking about gluttony, which will probably make me puke right on the gym floor. I'm not encouraging self purging, It's just an expression I use a lot. I'll have to let you know tomorrow what color it was. Gross I know.