Even Superman wears glasses

So why not Spiderman? Well, the short story is that we casually took the boys to get their eyes examined only to find that Spiderman seriously needed glasses! Looking back now I can see the little clues he left that there might be a problem but I guess I rationalized them away. Now it's a whole new world for this handsome guy. He might as well be a celebrity at our house as the other kids are fawning all over them. I'm sure he is just thrilled to be able to see something!



We just finished up another family visit as Grandpa M & Great Aunt Liz came out for a week. Grandpa was busy working to get things ready at the farm for next month's hunting trip while Liz got to meet Spiderman and get reacquainted with the kids. The kids love having all the company and are now looking forward to Nov. when Grandpa comes back to hunt and brings Grandma along for spoiling the kids.

Oh, another note about Spiderman is that his new glasses resulted in him scoring 3 goals at his last soccer game. When you consider that they are the first goals he's made all season, you realize the glasses made a huge difference. He loved all the praise and attention. It's even more impressive when you realize that last year he wasn't even willing to practice with his team, much less play soccer because he just felt too "shy" (his words for it).

The Murphy boys playing offense. Goose prefers defense so she can sing songs to herself while waiting for the ball to come her way. :)

like a kid again

Our second round of family visits just ended this week. My parents only get to come out once a year so we relish getting to connect with them in person. The kids had fun showing off their new skills and playing games with Grandma. Spiderman even helped Grandpa remodel the hen house (guy stuff you know).


We usually have our visit at Thanksgiving but this year we decided to get together in Oct. to avoid the weather issues for travel and it worked great! Aunt Susie made it a Halloween theme one night and the kids had so much fun making the meal, decorating and eating this "dirt dessert". She is always full of fun projects to do with the kids

Get a load of these fun socks. One thing aunts have over moms is they can spoil kids and get away with it. :) Every day something new and exciting to do or make. Bring it on Aunt Susie, as long as I don't have to compete.

There was plenty of quiet and quality time too while everyone was here. I especially enjoyed feeling like a kid again. Having Mom & Dad here, watching The Brady Bunch with my big sis and singing silly songs from our childhood - yep, I'm pretty sentimental. It was sad to say goodbye and yet, we're still planning for a family reunion back out West next summer, Lord willing!

The chicken saga continues....

We have had quite a few weeks with our"pets" this month. I know it is silly for us to devote so much time and emotion into something that we eat all the time BUT these silly birds have brought so much joy for my kids this summer. So about 10 days ago we came home from a short parade here in town to find that a neighbor's dogs had come over, broke into the chicken coop and slaughtered our chickens. The girls were screaming and sobbing while we cleaned up the mess and we praised God that evening when one hen appeared out of nowhere at bedtime. Apparently she had escaped and hid out for the entire day. It was a small consolation but that one survivor gave the kids a ray of hope (and kept me from throwing in the towel on this whole thing). As Goose was unwilling to let "Grandma Cluck" move in with a friend's chickens, we set about to locate a companion for her. God provided us a rooster through a kind home schooling family and the kids spirits started to rebound again.

Here is Goose with "Lester". Whether it is because he is still young or because the previous family handled him alot, he is very tame and the kids love to hold and pet him. (Our old hens never let us touch them). God didn't stop the blessings there though. This family located a lady willing to sell us six laying hens, for a good price, and only 3 days after the massacre we now had 8 chickens. Here are four of them (though I think they all look the same so I just have to call them "the ladies" even though the kids have names for them).

We had some interesting talks during this time as we prayed about one chicken that was suffering, thanked God for the chance to have the chickens in the first place, and discussed the hard facts of life (chickens are food, they don't live forever, etc.). We also thought about Job who lost everything he had in one day and still praised God. Now, I realize that our chicken loss doesn't truly compare with that but for kids with big hearts, they did feel that way. Just as God replenished Job, we too received more than was taken from us. The kids are enjoying the new flock and we are reminded that nothing in life is guaranteed. We have to enjoy our blessings while we have them. I have no doubt that this won't be the last lesson we learn from these silly birds.

Grandma time

Well I'm obviously behind in writing but I hope to post a few things this week to get caught up. :) Fall is a pretty busy time around here as it seems our house is full of out of town family. We enjoyed having Grandma M here for Spiderman's birthday party and filled our week with lots of fun. As is usually the case, it was an emotional goodbye at the train station when we dropped her off. I thought this photo captured the emotion well. It helped cheer everyone up to realize that she would be coming back in just a few weeks.



I can't leave out that Jaybird joined the ranks of the proud hunters this month. Following in his little sister's footsteps, he bagged his first squirrel and is proud to show it off here. Way to go boy!

a SUPER 8th birthday

Spiderman became Batman for his birthday. If he had his choice, he would have been the Human Torch from the Fantastic Four but I didn't think he'd really like it if we set him on fire. :) Anyway, we represented all superheroes at the party and he loved it! As for me, I finally learned that there are some limits in decorating birthday cakes. Scyscrapers are to be avoided in the future but I had thought that a long rectangle with "supers" scaling it would be easier than a "super" himself. Well, after decorating an 8 story/layer cake tower I learned it wasn't such a great idea. Overnight the building came tumbling down, decorating my kitchen in grey frosting. Before the birthday boy saw the demolition, I wisked it away to the freezer and salvaged it horizontally for the party that afternoon. He was happy, I was wiser. Whew!


Getting into the superhero theme, my kids all got dressed up for the party and here they are displaying their powers. Boo backed out at the last moment but had been "Ballerina Girl" before the party. Unlike last year, Spiderman seemed very at ease with all the attention and revelled in every bit of it.

The highlight of the party was our "evil villain hunt." I had explained to the kids that we needed them to patrol the grounds for evil villains and we armed them with "plasma bombs" (AKA water balloons). I told them four were hiding in the trees and one was loose in the backyard. As they pelted the bad guy faces in the trees, they moved to the backyard and all of the sudden "the Joker" appeared armed with a super soaker. The boys were in hysterics as they chased my man, I mean the Joker, around the backyard pelting him with water balloons. I only wish I had it on video! I was informed later that I had armed him with a faulty Super Soaker and the battle was truly one-sided. What a good Dad!
Can you see the grin on the birthday boys' face? The joker was definitely outnumbered.

God is so good!

This was the big week for Kinsman Redeemer. We held our first ever Community Informational Meeting on ways to be involved in orphan ministry. Though it was only weeks in the making, it felt like months! :) The day finally arrived but it was not without much warfare and trouble. The day before the event, my man erupted in a major allergic reation to a sulpha drug. It was a real doozie and resulted in a trip to the doctor. The next morning he was actually worse with fever, chills, aching and shaking violently. The head to toe rash was getting worse and we ended up back at the doctor. He wanted to admit my man into the hospital and as we got to the parking lot, the battery in our van was dead. After getting a jump start, dropping my man off at the front door of the hospital ("bye honey, you're on your own"), going to get a new battery installed, then back to the hospital, we finally saw Daddy resting comfortably in his much too short hospital bed. The kids were real troopers throughout all of this but there was some real concern on their part as to just how serious this was for Daddy. Spiderman seemed especially concerned that Daddy's life was in jeopardy, a reminder to me of just how many fears this little guy must carry with him still.

Anyway, we spent a hour or so with my man before we had to leave, grab dinner from a drive-thru, run home to change and close up the house we had abandoned earlier that day. For the first time since we had our chickens, they would NOT come back to the hen house for us and we finally had to leave them roaming so we wouldn't be too late for the Big Meeting. You might imagine by now just how stressed I was feeling from the day's events and I don't say this to complain. As we set up the tables and information while people were arriving early, I had no idea what I was going to say to the crowd now that my "behind-the-scenes" role had evaporated. (My man was supposed to MC the event and now it fell to me) I pulled my friend Lori aside for a quick prayer and told God that I was counting on His words to come out of my mouth as I had nothing prepared. I begged God that everything said would bring glory to Him. He answered mightily.


Here I am introducing the last part of the evening, our parent panel made up of foster and adoptive parents. I still look back and marvel at the evening. I don't enjoy public speaking at all and yet, once I stepped up to the podium I felt a complete sense of peace. I was able to speak from the heart, make sense (so I've been told), and connect things to scripture as I introduced speakers and fielded questions. God's Presence was so vivid for me and afterward, one man even told me that he noticed I didn't read from a script and my heart felt words had challenged him deeply. He and his wife are considering adoption. The other board members also had similar encouraging conversations and opportunities. We know of at least 5 families who communicated to us that they are looking into foster care or adoption and we are rejoicing for whatever small part we can play in that process.

Here are the kids with Daddy earlier in the afternoon. The other amazing thing that night was that these 4 children did so well being self contained and not requiring "Mommy" in the midst of the chaos for the 3 hours we were at the meeting. Afterward, we went back to the hospital to "tuck Daddy in" and then home. It was about 9:30 pm and I went to lock up the chickens when I saw that they never returned! This was the last straw for me. Since the chicks were "devoured" two weeks ago, and this had never happened before - I was at the end of my strength for the day. I know it sounds silly now but I prayed so much for those 5 silly hens that night, I begged God to protect them from whatever predators were lurking around. I just knew the kids (OK and me) couldn't handle losing all of our chickens, on this day especially. It was just too much. I cried my eyes out thanking Him for the meeting and asking for my man's healing but I knew it was life and death for the hens that night. What a huge relief to go out early and find them clucking around the coop, trying to get in for breakfast. You can call it luck but I know my God had a guardian angel on those stupid birds that night! The kids were so relieved.

Life is back to normal now. Daddy's out of the hospital and finally symptom free. Here he is "watching" football with Goose (gotta love it!) The big meeting is over (though the good feedback of God's working in hearts is still coming in) and I get to go back to regular "Mom duty" as I prepare for a birthday party this next weekend. Just had to share how God is so much bigger than circumstances and how thankful I am that I can trust him to carry me through the trying times.

She's a killer...

OK, for all of you who are anti hunting or PETA cardholders, please skip this post. Remember, we are country folks.


Can you see the pride on this little girl's face? Last weekend she chose to go squirrel hunting with Daddy and at the last minute said she wanted to try and shoot one (usually the kids choose to just go watch Dad try). As I've been told, Goose was sitting on Daddy's lap cuddling in the woods when he spotted a squirrel. She quickly took aim and shot it but her gun shifted and kicked her arm. She started to cry and my man said, "you shot it Goose!" She thrust her arms into the air in triumph and in her tears said, "it's just what I always dreamed it would be!" This was her first ever hunting kill and Daddy was beaming! (you can see he got one too) It's obvious to me who she gets this from and it is NOT me.

As is typical during hunting seasons around here, everyone lined up to get in on the achievement. Boo LOVED holding Daddy's squirrel and practically cuddled it like a babydoll (???) Spiderman shocked me by actually tasting the squirrel meat (which my man is required to cook) and asking for more! Amazing.

The ironic twist in all of this is that our beloved 4 chicks were apparently "hunted" by some sort of predator yesterday. When the kids heard that we found one of the bodies (confirming they had not just run away), the sobbing and screaming was intense in the same kids that were so excited to handle the squirrels. They obviously feel the big difference between wildlife and pets and as much as they handled these chicks,they truly were pets. The hens are still here, being much wiserbut it sure isn't the same to the kids. It's hard to see them so worked up.

On a better note, this is what the boys have spent their week doing. They saved up to buy these gliders and have put them through the ringer (and the trees) this week. Sounds like a great investment huh?