The Case of the Missing Toys

Who would have thought toys could be the center of a most annoying mystery around here?

Thursday Afternoon: Ethan decided he didn't need a nap, so I got him up around 3:30 and took him outside to play. He sort of wandered around the yard for a minute until I realized that apart from our Little Tikes slide, all of the plastic outdoor toys were gone. Wheelbarrow, giant dump truck, mini dump truck, mini bulldozer, shovels, rake, hoe...all gone. I had a few moments of thinking that maybe Dave moved them somewhere, but quickly realized they were nowhere to be found. I was a little ticked. I pulled out Ethan's basket of Matchbox cars and we started driving them around the little dirt roads. After about 15 minutes, I heard voices in the backyard and looked down the hill to see two young boys (one about 5 and another about 9) lurking on the neighbors deck and behind their lilac bushes. They hid for a minute and then peeked their heads around to look up the hill. When they saw me watching them, they started walking away. I know there aren't any kids living in the townhouses in the direction they walked, and I had never seen these boys before so I was slightly suspicious.

Thursday Evening: Dave and I decided to take a drive over to the shady hotels that back up to our neighborhood. Lo and behold, there were the two lurkers. However, finding them was only slightly satisfying. Along with the two lurkers were about 4 other boys, completely filthy, unkept and clearly unsupervised. They were running all over, climbing in and out of windows, and the only adult to be seen was far away and drinking a beer. Helpful. Seeing them made me think that 1) they don't know any better, 2) they are poor and don't have any toys of their own and 3) no adults have been paying attention to either notice or care that the kids stole toys. We didn't actually see our toys laying around, but I'm pretty sure those were the culprits. We decided to let it go unless more stuff starts disappearing and we keep seeing those kids around.

Friday: Ethan, Noah and I spent most of the morning running around to various stores trying to re-buy outdoor toys - wheelbarrow, dump truck, shovel, etc. After playing with them, I pulled all of them inside, which was probably a good idea. After naps, we were getting ready to bring dinner over to my in-laws; Ethan was playing with the new wheelbarrow and Noah was trying to take it away from him. Suddenly, I heard Ethan say, "It's ok, Noah. Another one outside". What?!?! Sure enough, I turned around and there was our wheelbarrow, along with several shovels that did not belong to us. Ok....so does this mean I can expect a return of everything else at some point? Or were the kids just bored with the wheelbarrow?

Saturday: I'm not entirely sure when this happened, but I noticed this morning that the pool/bath toys that were on our back deck behind the baby pool are gone. So really? I have to keep every single outdoor item inside now???

Now what? Do I just deal with it by taking the toys inside? Or do you drive over to a shady hotel and ask potentially drugged up drunken neglectful parents if their kids stole our toys? Do you call the police over dumb cheap plastic toys? Would it bother you that they were coming onto your deck and up to your front door to take things? Do I do a "turn the other cheek" thing and put out a big bag of food and extra toys with a sign to take them? So frustrating...

Grandaddy

Franklin Eugene Rayburn - Daddy, Grandpa, Grandaddy - passed away very peacefully last night with all three daughters and his son-in-law by his side.
He was 93 years old.

Here's a few family photos:

Grandaddy with Ethan (the first Spence great-grandson)

Ethan snuggling his great-grandpa

Opening presents at the family Christmas in 2008

With two grandsons (Dave and Brad) and one great-grandson (Zach) at Judy's 70th birthday party
Laughing over his favorite memory of Judy.

Of course, everyone is a little sad as we recall memories and realize that there's a little hole that requires everyone to shift to fill it. But then you remind yourself that he's in heaven and seeing Jesus and know that we're the only ones who are sad.

I wonder if he's checking out heaven with this gorgeous woman.

Bad Mommy

So, confession time. Yesterday, I was a bad mom. I know, I know...no one is a perfect mother. I know I'm not the only mother to do something like this, but still, that's no excuse.

Yesterday, I decided to clean my entire house in one fell swoop. Normally, I do it over the course of a couple days so I don't go crazy. But I was bored so I just kept cleaning. Plus, you know how it is...once you clean one area of the house, every other room suddenly looks filthier.

It should have been a clue that I had taken on too much when I started getting irritated at the boys for getting in my way. Every time I turned around, another box of toys was dumped or they were pulling lotion bottles out of drawers in the bathroom or climbing on the freshly made bed. At one point, Ethan started climbing on the bed again and I sternly told him not to climb on the bed. I walked away to put away something and when I came back a few minutes later, he was back climbing on the bed. For some reason, I just snapped. I yanked him off the bed, stood him in front of me and gave him a huge, angry lecture about obeying Mama, etc, blah, blah, blah...He just started crying and when I asked him if he understood me, he tearfully said, "Yes, Mama" then ran off into his room. I could hear him still crying in his room, and it hit me that I had scared him with my quick reaction. So cringing in regret, I walked into his room and asked him if he was ok. He looked up at me and still crying said, "I got scared!". Cut my heartstrings.

I just walked over, picked him up onto my lap, snuggled him and apologized to him. Yes, he was disobeying, but nothing justifies a reaction like that.

The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.

Proverbs 18:21

Grandaddy Rayburn

Dave's grandfather is 93 years old and lives with my in-laws. My boys absolutely adore their great-grandfather. When they hear him coming up the stairs on his mechanical chair, they run straight for the door to be the first ones to greet him. He usually sits on a chair in the living room or kitchen and the boys really enjoy showing him the cars they are enthralled with.
The best time to watch their admiration in action is after the Sunday church service. I bring them back to the sanctuary from the nursery and when I get to the back of the sanctuary, I put them down and they run straight to Grandaddy's chair, hang on his leg and say hi.

Even my little stranger-shy Noah is enamored. Although he usually refuses to go to another adult, even his own grand-parents (although it's getting better), he will stretch out his arms to Grandaddy.
The sweetest thing...

Celebrations Galore

This was a weekend of many celebrations.

First Dave got to celebrate the culmination of his dreams - a firepit in our "backyard". This is thanks to the surprise mulberry tree and holly bush disappearance and several hours of work by the landscaper friend to design and build a small firepit next to our driveway.

Sunday morning, we braved the heat to attend Fellowship Bible Church's 30th anniversary service, which was outside. I sort of just feel like I survived it. It was very hot. And although I was prepared with sunscreen and toys and drinks, neither Dave nor I thought to bring something to keep us out of the sun. We improvised.
After a while, it was clear that despite copious amounts of sunscreen, the boys were looking slightly red, so we rigged up a little tent behind our chairs. I was pretty proud of the kids for playing fairly quietly under there for most of the service.

The boys were so hot and sweaty when we got home that we pulled out the hose and sprayed them down. They were ecstatic.

After a very long nap, we headed over to the Spences to eat some burgers and play around with some low-key fireworks. Usually, Dave splurges on illegal professional fireworks, but after the very clear article in the paper about enormous fines and jail time, we opted to be wise and stick with the fun little stuff. Ethan loved the little poppers, and both boys had fun running around stamping on them to hear the noise.

Despite the fun of the poppers, the actual sparkly and noisy fireworks did not go over so well with Ethan. He was terrified. Noah, however, was completely unfazed.

Once we realized that Ethan wasn't going to get used to the fireworks, we took them home to bed. Dave dropped me off with the boys, I bathed them (again) and put them to bed (with the celebratory glow sticks) while he went back to have some more fireworks fun. Whew! That wore me out!

Sugar, Sugars, and More Sugars

Boy am I glad I invested in a KitchenAid stand mixer! I truly never thought I would use that thing quite as much as I do. But now that I've become embroiled in my own personal "Adventures in Cooking From Scratch", I use it all the time.


I also didn't know what I didn't know. I never knew people sprouted grains and beans or soaked their flour. I didn't know that you could make whole wheat bread better by adding vital wheat gluten. I didn't know that whole wheat pastry flour can be easily substituted out for all the all-purpose flour called for in a recipe. I didn't know you could make your own bagels. Or your own yogurt. And I didn't know that people sweetened food with things other than white sugar or honey.


Sweeteners have been another ingredient I've been experimenting with. I made this maple huckleberry (blackberry/mulberry for me) coffee cake using maple syrup. I sweeten my bagels with honey. I pretty much use turbinado sugar in every baked good. I've tried unrefined mascabado sugar in some other recipes that call for brown sugar. The only thing I had been unable to find in the local grocery stores is rapadura sugar.


This past weekend, we were visiting my family to celebrate Stephen's high school graduation, so I took a trip up to the Echo Hill Country Store, which is a Mennonite owned store that carries basically every healthy, natural, organic product you could ever want. I am in love. I was in awe. It's a small store, but they have an entire aisle dedicated to just flour alone. I may have to take a trip up there every time we visit PA. In addition to some super cheap whole wheat pastry flour, I finally found some rapadura (not so cheap, but just an experiment).


Today I noticed that the over-ripe bananas sitting in my fruit bowl were slightly over-over-ripe and needed to be used in something or thrown away. I opted to make some banana walnut muffins using my current experimental baking products - coconut oil, whole wheat pastry flour and rapadura. Rapadura is a funny looking product - its texture sort of reminds me of mini-Dippin Dots ice cream and it tastes very molassy. I don't particularly like bananas so I'll have to wait for Dave to taste them, but they baked up delightfully.



I feel like I'm running out of experiments. Any ideas?

Friends and Parks Make Everything Better

Well, I think the horribleness peaked yesterday and we're on our way back down to normal now. Today was much better. The disobeying and whining was at an average level.

Tuesdays and Thursdays are private gym days in the Spence townhouse. On those days, one or two of my friends come over and use our treadmill and our kids get to play together. I look forward to those days. Playmates for the boys and actual adult interaction is always welcome.

Today, both friends came over with their four boys and all six (yes, six. All aged four and under. Lots of testosterone goin' on around here.) played wildly and happily together.

After all three mothers had gotten a chance to run, we packed up the kids and headed for the park. We started out with an impromtu picnic consisting of Sheetz sandwiches and whatever else we could find in our fridges. Picnics are very distracting for little children when the playground is in plain view. Who wants food when there are slides to be slid and swings to be swung?

And in case you were wondering, crossing the parking lot with six boys is a minor challenge. Thankfully, they had fun doing it and stayed safe.

Off to play in the playground. Noah was slightly overwhelmed.

And also much too small for the swings. At least according to safety standards. Which I ignored in favor of fun, of course.

We headed back home for naps. Alas, Ethan decided he needed to throw one last temper tantrum in the car because he wanted his water bottle...or didn't want it...or did want it? I don't know. I ignored him.

We arrived home to find the holly bush had vanished along with the stump that I was (of course) unable to remove from the ground with my meager muscles. The landscaping friend was preparing to install a small firepit area. Anyone want to come over when it's done?