After reading the Bible story of Isaac and Rebekah, I said to Micah, “Well, now-days we don’t do it quite like that. — Can you imagine if Dad sent his servant to go find you a wife?”
Micah laughed, “Noooo! Now I can just driiiiiiive around the city and look for a wife [big driving motions, looking all around]. Then–‘Hey she’s pretty!’ [leaning forward and opening an imaginary ring box] ‘Wanna get married?'”
With a huge grin on her face, Carissa played right along. “Nope! Don’t want to marry you–but I’ll take the ring!”
Love these crazy kids!

Before children I literally used to wonder why my stay-at-home mom-friends couldn’t always pick up the phone when I called.

I literally thought, “It’s not like they’re in a meeting or something.”

But now. I get it. The phone rings . . . and . . .

This is a sample moment from my week. They are not all like this (thankfully!) But here’s just one moment, all this was happening simultaneously.

Nathan was screaming in the kitchen in the bouncer seat, waiting for baby food. Mara was understandably reading in her room.

Micah was scratching his head at the dining room table, asking, “Is ‘we’ a verb? I can’t remember what verbs are!”

From upstairs, I could hear David calling down, “Mommy! I need underwear! I pooped myself!”

And then the soft voice of Carissa, my nature-loving girl, as she gathered supplies, proudly declaring: “I’m going to start my very own fruit fly farm!”

So there’s a little glimpse into what’s going on when you call a mom and she doesn’t pick up.

Tonight while David was taking his bath, Micah just happened to find a water gun in my bedroom. “And David asked me to check his hair,” Micah told me, “but it still had soap in it, so I just sprayed it off.”
How did I miss this excitement?
“In the future?” I said. “Let’s not use water guns in the house.”
“What if we’re *both* in the bath–at the same time?”
Wow, that could get out of hand quickly. I know these boys. “Water guns are just for outside.”
Today I smiled as Carissa galloped through the house in her pink cowboy boots and hat, shouting, “Yee-haw!” And as I heard David pulling his wooden train down the hallway, “Whoooo! Whoooooo!” And as Mara and Micah planned and acted out a Rumpelstiltskin play, and sang along with a CD from the bottoms of their hearts, “What a mighty, mighty Savior you are! ”
In just a few days (or perhaps weeks), there will be another little one bringing new personality and love and excitement to our family. But it’s been these four for the past 3-1/2 years and, despite the crazy moments, what a treasure this time has been!

I asked Micah if he wanted me to sign him up for summer camp at the wildlife refuge again this summer. “YES! I LOVED it!”
“Do you remember how hot you were? Every day when I picked you up, you said you were just too hot, and you didn’t want to go back.”
Micah sighed, and the look on his face said he would find a solution. It only took a second or two: “Do you think I should just strap an air conditioner to my back?” he asked excitedly.
Speechless, while envisioning my son walking around wildlife camp with an air conditioner strapped to his back, I shook my head.
His face burst into a huge grin, “Then ALL the other kids will be like, ‘HEY! Why does that guy get an AIR CONDITIONER?!?!'”

“But it doesn’t have anything to do with Charlotte’s Web!” Mara protested, after only three chapters.
Micah agreed, “It should be called Fern’s Pig.”
“Just wait,” Daniel said. “Wait till we finish the book.”
They beg him to read more.
I love hearing him read to them and seeing the kids’ excitement.