Snow-Pacolypse!

Oh my goodness...we are on snow day number 4 and day number 6 of being stuck at home...

If my two little kids loved snow, and the cold weather, it would make it so much easier to get out and about or even go sledding.

But...this is the reaction I get from the two littles...

Not impressed....
So Leah goes outside and plays in the snow while the two little's watch happily from the inside of a warm house.  Autum will get out more than Blake.  If I even open a door, Blake takes off running to hide pointing his finger for me to leave him alone while yelling "BOOOOGAAAAAH!"  (which we have translated to mean "back off!")

So Friday of last week I was about to go nuts and the kids were getting stir crazy so we ventured out to our one snow hill in town to sled. 

He could not move in these pants.

And it was quite entertaining to us to watch him fall down and try to get up. He could not bend at the waist!

Race...3..2..1..go!!

This is the only way Autum would go down!

Buddy sledding!

Since these photos we have gotten another 7-10" of snow.  It's beautiful outside with the snow blanketing everything in its white pureness...I'm just hoping we can interrupt this wonderland with our sleds later today!  Whether my little Ukrainian likes it or not!

This and That

She HAS to dress herself  every morning for school, so Jerad told me to start taking pictures of the outfits she picks out to show her someday when she's older.  Very creative!

This is how we spent our Sunday, last weekend.  BEAUTIFUL!

This is what we did yesterday...only 4 days later!  Kansas, anybody?

Riding in sled while daddy pulls Autum...this is on our street, by the way.

Now daddy wants a ride!  I believe we got close to 12" by the end of it all.

And Leah took a liking to Brent, the snow blower, and followed him everywhere...

And more....

Wheeeeee!!

And my dad's birthday was this past week so the kids' sung a Happy Birthday rendition of their own.  At one point I believe Autum says "Happy Birthday Poopy Papa!"  Oh my....*sigh*

Short Stories from the Woods Household

Oh I swear just last night our house had more excitement than Allen Fieldhouse against OSU in 2 overtimes.  Autum decided to shove the end of a baby carrot up her nose after doctor's offices are closed on a night we are to get 12" of snow...and so it began.  Jerad had more tricks to try than probably should have been allowed  But we first tried to extract it with tweezers.  Then we used nose spray and tried to get it to run out. Then we made the poor girl sniff some pepper to induce a sneeze, which worked great...to get her to sneeze, but no carrot.  By now she was starting to get pretty upset and angry with us, so we put her in the bathtub with her goggles and and hoped she would maybe get it out herself by dunking her head in the water.  Buuuuuut, nothing.

When all our ideas failed, we hit up Google.
Oh my gosh.  We found a suggestion of sucking the object out of a child's nose with the vacuum cleaner!!!  And we almost came near trying it.  But I called my aunt instead, who deals with this stuff daily, as an RN at Children's Mercy Outpatient Clinic.  So suggested we get a straw and put it in the nostril with nothing in it...then cover her mouth (at this point we have her swaddled in a blanket)...so Jerad drew the short straw and got to do the blowing while I covered her mouth and tried to keep her calm.  We sat her up on the counter and gave it a whirl.  First try, nothing.  The straw got a kink in it.  So we stepped back, we reassured her, got back into position and tried again.  This time was a success!!! That carrot blew out of there like a rocket and stuck to my arm...hahahah!! Then Jerad did a toe touch, cheerleading move in the kitchen and yelled "we don't have to pay $500 for an emergency room visit!  YAY!!!"

Whew. What an evening.

And only the night before, Leah informs me that she had a talk with the head lunch lady at her school during her lunch break.  She said, "Mom, the lunch lady told me to tell you that the school is really trying to make healthier lunches for us kids!"

 I said, "whooooaa....wait a minute.  what??" "What in the world did you say to her??"

She said, "weeeeellll, I told her that you said I have to take my lunch box everyday because the school lunches are really nasty and unhealthy!"

*silence*  Then Jerad busts into laughter, while my head reels. 

"WHAT??" I said. "I said YOU have to take your lunch because you have food allergies to wheat and dairy, Leah.  And we try to avoid processed foods....not that is is NASTY." I said, "sometimes things we talk about at home don't need to be shared with everyone else..."  I say this as I'm trying to decide what to do next...do I call the school and clarify?  or do I just let it go?

I chose to go with the latter, as Jerad continued to die laughing, while shaking his head.
I should know this by now....I have the most honest, literal child...

Royal Law

"If you keep the royal law prescribed in the Scripture, 'Love your neighbor as yourself; you are doing well" -James 2:8

I do not know how many times in a day I say, "Leah, treat others how you want to be treated..."  My scholarly wisdom usually has to do with Leah pushing Autum, Autum biting Leah...Leah getting mad at Autum biting her....and in I swoop before the battle ensues to hair pulling!

What's amazing about this is I am reading a book that discusses this very topic.  How this one commandment reverberates through the Old Testament and the New Testament, and provides a keyhole glimpse into the entire law.  This verse has much more depth to it than stopping 2 kids from pulling each others' hair.  In fact, in Leviticus it is called the "Royal Law"...(hmmm, going to have to get that posted somewhere in the house!)  But what I'm realizing even more is that it means exactly what it means...word for word.  Let me explain, as I was reading this I realized it doesn't say "Love your neighbor as much as you love your kids..."  "Love your neighbor as your favorite sports team..."  So in my mind I compared that to "Love your neighbor as much as you love anything important in your life...that you spend the most time thinking about, that you put the most effort and expense into...then it must be pretty important, right??

No, it says "Love your neighbor as y.o.u.r.s.e.l.f.."
UGH.  All I know, especially as a woman, it is stinkin' hard to even like myself...let alone, LOVE myself.  It goes so far as to pick apart details about how I was created to look, be, sound, feel, do...most days I'm just not lovin' myself.  It's a work in progress, that requires lots of Scripture reciting to expel the fiery darts of the wicked...the thoughts that creep in...redirection at its finest.  Heck! I should be an expert at that by now, with a 2 and 3-year old in the house...but it doesn't come so easy for me. 

So as if that's not enough to swallow...I'm to love my neighbor...my friends, my family, and base my future relationships on...how I. love. myself...  WHOOOAA!  So as I'm reading this I'm feeling guilty, thinking I'd never treat my neighbor the way I treat myself...ever.  I wouldn't think about them the same way I think about how I look somedays.  I'd never say to them what I self-talk to myself through my inner thoughts.  Noooo way!  So what in the heck does this mean?  I kept reading...because I was confused.  How do I love my neighbor as I love myself?  It just doesn't make sense.

What I do know is that God created us to love and care for ourselves, we are wired to think/work that way.  In literal thinking, most of us pick our hand up off a hot surface upon realizing it burns, right?

Then I read this line:  "imagine how mangled our bodies would be if we took care of them, the same way we tend to our hearts." 

*crickets*

Soooo you are saying...I have a heart problem...and I have a selfish problem...  Obviously.  Not a self-love---as described by modern psychologists today---problem.  I realize I wouldn't be spending all this time obsessing about myself, my looks, my thoughts, and making all of this whole verse about "ME"  if I didn't LOVE. ME.  It's just a distorted love.  An ugly, deceitful, yucky kind of love, that spews out of my sinful heart...leading me to believe untruths.

And this is where it all came together for me...
LOVING OTHERS....cures favoritism and selfishness...plain.  and.  simple.

So you are telling me that...loving others turns out to be liberating to me.  It is a cure for my broken heart.  For my "self-love" issues.

It makes perfect sense.  I know these things, yet I didn't know them.
With me?

I know that whenever I am around people, helping someone out, smiling at a stranger, leading others, learning from others, giving of my time and efforts...my heart is full.  It fills my soul.  Makes my cup runneth over. 

And this is now what I get...because it is taking the focus off of ME. 
And here this whole time I truly, honestly thought I had a problem with 'loving myself.'  When all along I had a problem with selfishly focusing on 'myself.'  TOO much.

It seems so backwards.  Yet so simple.  The greatest commandment is this, "to love your neighbor as yourself"  because...it is the perfect law of freedom.  Like the author said "it is how all sides win."

I get it.
Wow.  Now I'll have to come up with some other 'golden rule' to correct my kids' wrongdoing...this verse has way to much depth to it to be applied to pushing and shoving...