Anyone up for a pig rodeo?

Dear Everybody,

As I sit and write this new blog post I am marveling at the quietness.  I hear absolutely nothing coming from the upstairs kid's bedrooms.  Should I be worried?  I think they are just plain tuckered out.  Last night was a horrible night in our house.  For some reason, Madeline woke up at 3 AM talking and singing.  She was very happy but loud about it and it lasted about 2 hours.  At 5AM,  all 4 kids were awake and Danny and I thought that we wouldn't get any rest at all.  Of course as a Mom, all I could think of was: "Great, all 4 kids and I will be grumpy and tired tomorrow and Danny will be gone!"  But the day turned out ok after all.

Danny took off around 8:30 AM after a cup of coffee and some cinnamon rolls.  The kids were sad but knew that it would be only a one-nighter. We started our school day as soon as Dad left.  They got done with school on time and with great attitudes for which I was so thankful.  Madeline was a little bit more needy than usual but after lunch she got a good nap which made up for the tiredness.

our lunch

Right before lunch, I went and fed the pigs.  Remember that ok?  Because after lunch, I cleaned up the dishes and decided to give my sister-in-law, Kristi, a call.  The kids were playing a video game in the living room so I went to my bedroom to talk to her in peace.  As I'm talking, I look out the bedroom window and what do I see walking around the yard as happy as can be?  My cute fat piglets!  No pictures for this part, folks, I was panicked enough.  So, as I'm listening to Kristi, I get the boys attention and ask them to do a little pig round up and see if we can catch the crazy things and put them back in the pen.  I could just picture us running all over the camp!  But, contrary to my pessimistic thinking, the boys got them cornered and we put them in their pen, very quietly and smoothly.  It couldn't have gone any better!  I was pretty proud of my pig wranglers!  At least it was Mom's fault that they got out in the first place!

Then after I hang up on the phone with Kristi, someone walked up to the house.  No one ever comes on a normal day.  It's always when Danny's gone.  This time it is the census taker.  This year in Chile, the governenment is doing a census.  So I sat there and answered all her questions and got our sticker to prove it.  Hopefully I understood all those questions right, right?

Then I had the kids do something for Danny.  Micah came up with the design.  He sat down with a piece of paper and drew feet and figured it out.  Well done Micah! We sent the picture to Danny's phone to remind him we love him.   After our little photo shoot, I talked to my sister which is always fun.  Thanks for the long talk, Esther.

"Look at the camera.... toes up everyone..."

Today is Friday so as usual I baked some homemade pizzas and we had our pizza/movie night.  We watched the new Tintin animated movie.  It's awesome!  I grew up reading the Tintin comic books (in french).  They changed a few of the names for the English version but all in all it is very acurate.  Love it and the kids did too!

We had our family devotions and prayer time and now as I said when I started this post, the house is quiet.  We miss Danny but we know WHO is watching over him.  HE's the same God who is watching over us! What a great truth for the kids tonight!

Liz