The stuff of life

The boys doing what they love to do best.


How we knew it was time for a haircut.


One Friday evening, Curtis and I participated in a packing event with Feed My Starving Children. Initially, Bella was the one who wanted to volunteer, but she came home sick from school that day. Graydon was already home sick, so that left Curtis as our only available helper. Thankfully, he jumped at the chance to help out and was really excited to do so.


Our group packed 164 bags of food in the two hours we were working, which provided 35,424 meals.  It was such an efficient assembly line. Curtis and I were in charging of sealing shut the bags in our group.


When we were driving home, Curtis said, "I'm so happy. I don't know why but I just can't stop smiling." That night, he tapped into some deeper knowledge of how God has wired us. We feel joy when we do things that help others. It's how we are designed.

While we were waiting in between volleyball games one evening, Curtis tried out a hand trick.

He was inspired by this Facebook post that my brother-in-law posted. It's harder than it looks!


By the end of the night, he got it!


The boys had their first flag football game this past Saturday.


Here is their team!


They played well, but ended up losing. The consolation was that they lost to the Packers! These flag football mornings are the only time you will hear me cheering for the Bears!

Later that afternoon, we drove three hours west to West Salem, IL where there is another Moravian church. Andy and that church's pastor did a pulpit swap where Andy preached at this church on Sunday morning and their pastor preached at ours.

The boys waited patiently after the service while Andy talked.


Curtis often finds himself behind a pulpit. He was reading from the big Bible up there.


This church has big cemetery just like ours. Our two congregations are connected because the same pastor, Martin Hauser, started both churches. Our jr/sr high school is named after him. He founded our town and our church and, after several years, moved out to West Salem where he started that church. He and his wife are both buried in this cemetery.




Also in this cemetery was this tiny stone. Apparently, it's listed in Ripley's Believe it or Not as the country's smallest tombstone.


Fall is officially here! It's my favorite time of year!!

Our "new" coffee table

This coffee table joined our household several years ago while we were still living in New Jersey. A friend of mine was getting rid of it and, knowing how much I liked it, she offered it to us. It was actually never designed as a coffee table, but was a shoe display table at a department store. I always liked its large size - perfect for kids to color, play board games, and set a variety of snacks on for football games and movie nights. It's always needed a little TLC, but I never had time to give it until a few weeks ago.


Sanding it down was very gratifying. It had a lot of scratches that I was able to smooth out.


A close-up of some of the scratches.


I removed the top and sanded down the legs a little bit. I didn't need to go as deep with the legs since I intended only to paint them and not to stain them like I was doing for the table top.


Bella helped with the painting on a Saturday morning.


This after picture isn't the greatest. I was impatient to take it. The day was cloudy and I had a lamp on. Plus there is a glare from the door and window. But you get the idea. It looks so much better now!  We have few other pieces that I'd like to give attention to, but my fall classes have now started, so those projects may have to wait.

August Life

I've been continuing my cleaning and purging. One day, I was going through the busy bags that I had made the kids for when we'd go to church or found ourselves waiting in doctor offices. They hadn't used these bags for a while, so it was time to tend to them. While looking through the journal in Curtis's bag, I found some of these drawings. Based on his writing and spelling, I think he was six when he made these. Andy and I have often commented on how Curtis is a deep theological thinker. These drawings give physical evidence of that.

With some spelling changes on my part, this one says, "God died on the cross to make our sins go away and whoever believes, God will give you eternal life in heaven with God."


"This is heaven. This is God's dreamland."


"Praying yes. God I love you."


"The best day"


It was State Fair time again! There was a circus there this year, so that was the first item on the agenda.


While we were waiting in line to get inside the tent, Curtis saw a poster and recognized the man as Bello Nock, one of their favorite performers from America's Got Talent. Turns out he was performing at this circus! That was such a fun surprise for the boys.


They recognize this performance from the show.


There was also a really good juggler, which was neat because all of our kids have been trying to learn to juggle.

Our friends had plans to attend the fair that same day, so we met up with them at the circus.


They tried out the stilts at the pioneer village.










Half the fun of a fair is the food! I wish I could reach right in and take a bite of that funnel cake. It was sooooo yummy! And don't worry, I shared with everyone!


That pumpkin was over a thousand pounds.


I bought some face masks because I thought they would be fun to do with Bella. I was disappointed that both of the masks were more of a scrub. Not what I was expecting. But we made the best of it!


Another fun thing about this month is that I turned 38! We went out to dinner to celebrate.








Wrapped inside of those gifts are chocolate, wireless headphones, oven mitt and towels, and the Magnolia Table cookbook. I'm having so much fun reading through this book and marking the recipes that I want to try. I've already made a couple and so far the people I feed have been pleased!

A by-product of all my cleaning/organizing. I now fold my shirts vertically so that I can see all of them. Game changer! No more forgotten articles of clothing at the bottom of the pile.


All dressed up for a wedding this past Saturday. This is a new dress that I got from Lori for my birthday.


Bella made her volleyball debut this week! She was so nervous in the days leading up to it, but she played so well.


Ready!


She's been the most nervous about her serving. The power behind her serve is still a work in progress for her, but she got it over the net - which is something that I still cannot do overhand.






A few days after school started, Graydon started complaining about blurry vision. We got him in for an eye appointment this week. The verdict? 20/20 vision. The eye doctor thinks the blurriness might be from dry eyes and/or allergies. That would make sense because Graydon's eyes get really impacted by his allergies.


Curtis must have gotten a hold of a phone.


Last night there was a fly buzzing around Bella's bedroom while she was trying to sleep. I tried unsuccessfully to swat at it, but after a few attempts, Bella got it herself. Normally, she never wants to kill anything, but that fly was bugging her something fierce.