Cars and Trucks and Things that Go!

One of Zack and Nathan's favorite books right now is Richard Scarry's "Cars and Trucks and Things that Go". It's all about different vehicles and they both love it. The first page is one of their favorites because it has a mail van on it. Zack opens the book and says, "Look, Mommy! It's a JoshandJennyandForest van! Wow!" Zack knows that uncle Josh is a mailman, and he also knows that Josh and Jenny and Forest all go together. I just love it. So every time he sees a mail truck, he says the same thing. Nathan's favorite part of the book is the road building and earth moving equipment. He points at every thing and says "Sheeeeeeen" (for "machine") and gets so excited. Nathan was thrilled when our friend Kyle brought home a mini track-hoe and let him sit in it. I couldn't have bribed him out of the cab!

It was so cute - the boys were at their friend Emma's house yesterday, and she did the cutest thing. Some might think of it as a little strange, but I thought it was very sincere. She was taking a few of her animals on a picnic, and one of them was a dinosaur. As she was packing the fake food up for the rest of the animals, she added an animal to the picnic basket. I asked why she had that one in the basket, and she said that it was lunch for the dinosaur. Apparently they went to a dinosaur exhibit and Emma saw a video where one of them ate an animal.

So so sad

Just as predicted, Pete got called out of town last weekend for a job in BC. I wasn't sure how well the boys would deal with it, but they started to act up on Thursday. Pete had been gone for 5 days, and I had to stop by his work to drop stuff off (I work there too, just from home). We drove into the parking lot, and there was Pete's truck. The boys were so excited - until we left without seeing daddy... I explained that daddy's truck was there but he was gone on a long trip and would be back soon. It was a sad drive. Amanda, aka "Auntie 'Manda", came over on Friday and Zack was sad. He looked up at her with tears in his eyes and said, "I lost my daddy". I cried. I told Pete on the phone and he cried. :( It was so so sad.

Like a little child...

I never thought I could love my children even more every day! After church on saturday night, Zack and I were talking in the car. I asked him what he did in sunday school, and he said that he sang songs for Jesus. I said, "how do you sing to Jesus, Zack?" And I never want to forget what he said. "It's like a flower, you just open your heart and sing." I asked my mom about what they sang and where he got these words from, and she said that a lady sang a song for the kids about opening your heart to Jesus and there were flower puppets singing in the background. So there we go. I wanted to make sure to write down exactly what Zack said before I forgot it... I just love how he said it.

The Star of the Show!

My Zack is such a performer - he just loves to sing songs and make speeches to everyone! We were playing outside yesterday in our backyard, and we have a manhole cover in our yard (which is really not nice to have, by the way). Zack thought it would be a great stage. So Pete and I sat on the grass and Nathan and Zack took turns doing little performances for us - Nathan went first and did the actions to the Itsy-Bitsy Spider. Then Nathan came off the "stage" and sat with us and all of a sudden Zack says, "And now, ladies and gentlemen, Zack will sing Jesus Loves Me!" Pete and I clapped and smiled. Then, after he was done singing, we all clapped and said yay and Zack took a bow and said "Thank you, thank you!" We have no idea where he got it from, but it was hilarious and sooo cute. Zack's favorite songs to sing are Jesus Loves Me, the ABCs, the Itsy-Bitsy Spider, and Twinkle, Twinkle. I wish I could just have a video camera implanted into my head where I could just tap the side of my head and it would tape what I'm watching the boys do. They act so differently in front of a camera, so it's hard to get their true personality on tape. I really wish I could - Zack would have hours of footage for his wedding!

I felt like Fraulein Maria...

Well, we sure had a fun time on Saturday! We had seven kids for the day, and boy was it busy. My friend Rienna was in a pinch and so we offered to take her 5 kids for the day. So between all the kids we had seven. Perrin, Kylara, Caedmon, Lael, Arwen, Zack, and Nathan. Wow. We had a great time though, despite the state of the house afterwards! :) The kids had a great time, and the older ones especially liked playing Gamecube. The little ones felt so left out without having a controller, so Pete dug out the Playstation and the younger 3 played pretend video games. It was so funny watching them play - we started the nintendo after lunch so everyone was quiet and staring at the TV, all sitting in a line with their controllers. Then we went outside for the rest of the afternoon and Pete had an awesome time horsing around with the older kids. Arwen took quite a shine to Zack's tricycle and she rode it up and down the street while I walked with her - she's quite a chatterbox when you get her by herself, and she was hilarious to talk to! She asked me why I didn't have any girl babies, and I told her that Jesus chose to give me 2 boys and no girls. She said, "I'm gonna have a girl baby when I'm big." I asked her if she would like any boys, and she said no. There was a long pause in the conversation and then she asked me, "Mrs. Heinbuch, why do people get dead?" I told her that if someone loves Jesus, Jesus wants them to come home to heaven. She said "Oh.... I'll go to girl heaven." I asked if there was a boy heaven and she said, "No. Heaven is only for girls."



We had such a fun time with the Nagel kids - they were so well behaved and fun to talk to. Perrin is the oldest boy, and he reminds me so much of my brother Josh when he was that age. My grandma often tells the story of when she and grandpa were driving up to the lake with Josh in the back seat. Josh talked the whole 2 hours. It rained, and Josh got louder. Then it hailed, and he got louder again. Well, Perrin gave us an up-to-the-second play-by-play of every event, especially the MarioParty game we were playing... "Hey Yoshi, it's your turn, press A. Okay, how many did you get? Oh, 6 spaces. What will you land on? Oh, a blue space. That means you get three coins. Now it's time for a mini-game. Which game will it be. Oh, what's that one? How do you play?" It was pretty much non-stop - I laughed to myself the entire time.

Sharing is not fun.

My Nathan is such a funny little boy. When he and Zack are taking turns with their favorite things to play with, it's interesting to watch how they deal with the emotion of losing their toy. The favorite these days is a home depot hard hat with a mining light on it that we got them for Christmas. Well, whoever grabs it first in the morning rips the light off the hard hat (it's got a big elastic that goes around it), and they turn the light on. Then they run to everyone in the room and tell them to say "aaaah" while shining the light in their mouths. It's so cute. When I tell Zack that it's Nathan's turn with the light, he politely gives it up and goes to play with something else or read books with mommy. Well, when it's Nathan's time to give back the light, he very nicely gives it to Zack. Once the toy has left his hands, however, he stomps and cries and then falls on the floor face down. I try so hard to be sympathetic, but it's so hard not to laugh when he does a complete emotional 180.

Just a tad emotional...

When we sang my favorite hymn this morning in church and I cried yet again, I decided I would look it up online to see if there was maybe a history on how this song came to be. Most hymns were written by people who had just gone through trials or had experienced God in such a way that they could only express their emotion musically. This is from the history of my favorite hymn "The Love of God" by Fred­er­ick Leh­man.

"the lines had been found pen­ciled on the wall of a pa­tient’s room in an in­sane asy­lum af­ter he had been car­ried to his grave, the gen­er­al opin­ion was that this in­mate had writ­ten the epic in mo­ments of san­ity."

Wow. Here's my favorite verse:

Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above,
Would drain the ocean dry.
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.

Chorus:
The love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure
The saints’ and angels’ song.

That means that if we tried to write down how much God loves us and all the water on earth was ink, and the sky was paper, and every piece of wheat and grass was a pen, and every person on earth was a writer, that we would drain the ocean of ink and we couldn't fit all of that writing on the sky because it wouldn't be enough paper. I can't even write it without feeling amazed.

Pete the Patronizer

Sometimes Pete likes to bug Zack because it can be so easy... Well, yesterday, Pete was bugging him more than usual to get a rise out of him. I said "Pete, don't patronize him!". Zack turned to Pete and said, "Yeah, daddy, don't paint your eyes!"