What I did over my summer vacation....the low-down.

Hey y'all,

Trying to update on our wild ride of a summer.  Sean's off handing out backpacks and school supplies at the church for Community Day, the kids are slippin' and sliddin' after a night of vomiting...and I'm running on about 4 hours sleep, sounds like perfect timing to blog to me.  Hey, I could be driving...operating a blog doesn't necessarily fall into the "operating heavy machinery" category, does it?

So, to catch you up.  Sean's company made some changes and let him go in June.  Yeah, that was fun.  But two days after that he got an internship at our church (Real Life) with the Immersion team, helping to train up pastors who visit the church every month.  He also started putting together a coaching program for those pastors, so they can continue to stay in touch with us after they head back home and try to implement some of the stuff they learned while visiting us.

It was a wild few months.  A few down moments, not sure where gas and food and bill money was going to come from, but somehow we made it.  And that's the most important part of this summer.  We decided that we were going to trust God to provide (for our home, our children, ourselves) and He did.  Both Sean and I slept like babies.  We never fought about money or what we didn't have.  The hardest day for the kids was the day we gave up cable.

So, June and July chugged along.  Sean would dutifully report to his part-time job interning at the church, and I continued in my role of supporting him at home.  We have great friends and family who came along side us, helped us from time to time and encouraged us to keep our chins up.

On the morning of July 27, Robin showed up in our bedroom at 7:45 am.  I was in that dozed state, listening to where Sean was in the coffee making process....I don't get up until I hear that hot liquid hit the edge of a mug.  Anyway, Robin climbs in bed with me and tells me, he's never going to get married.  I groggily look over at him and ask why.  He says, because "Jesus never got married and I want to do everything just like Jesus did."  Sean popped back in the bedroom at that moment with two steaming mugs of "wake up Heidi" and we started an hour long conversation with Robin where at the end, he said, "I want Jesus to be my boss forever."  And I cried tears of joy.

On July 28, Sean and I got to celebrate ten years of crazy and wonderful moments together.      

July 30, we got big news.  Sean was going to be interviewing for a full-time pastoral job at the church.  Basically doing what he had started doing as an intern, but they saw a need for him on a full-time basis and he started the long process of interviewing, praying and making sure it was the right fit.

At the same time, I got an e-mail about a part-time job opening at the church in the Communications Dept.  I sent in my resume on a Friday, by the following Thursday afternoon I had interviewed and was informed I got the job.

Sean found out the following day, he was going to be a pastor.

We were both given start dates, his was August 8, mine August 9.

That lead us to, what do we with the kids?  Sean had been working at home for the past three years, I had worked minimally since Robin was born, and a little after Katie was born, but nothing like I was going to be doing.  Homeschooling had been going well, and I was in the process of figuring out my plan for this next year.  So, again, I just asked God to help us figure this whole thing out.  And again, He did.

We have always been interested in a small prep school that's located on the church campus.  We have several friends who's children attend, and we've been to the school's talent show and graduations, and I just love the environment of the little school.  So, this fall the kids will both be attending.  Katie gets to start up in Kindergarten and Robin will be in the second grade.  Somehow, we can afford it, somehow the schedules all work out, somehow we've been given wonderful gifts we never even knew we wanted.

So, in the time span of about a week and a half, we went from being home together, to being at church together, and we couldn't be more excited.

We're still trying to even begin to understand how this has all worked out, and dude, I'm married to a pastor now!  We just can't believe how this entire thing was orchestrated, how we let God run the whole thing, and how He surprised around every turn.  He's a good Father, who has our best interest at heart.

In short, we've had the best summer ever!

I never thought I'd be so grateful for losing a job.

H :)

A story of a boy...and his cup...

Hey check me out...bein' all bloggity bloggity two days in a row!

Now that I'm back in the blogging world, I have to give you one of my favorite Robin the Wonderoo moments from the past few weeks.  I've told it to a few people in person, so if you've heard it before...um...deal with it. =)

I know a bunch of you are aware Robin played baseball with a pitching machine for the first time this spring and we got the experience of buying him his first "athletic supporter" (AKA: The Cup).  He got pretty comfortable with his cup in no time, wearing it for every practice, around the house, watching cartoons, eating cereal...the actual little plastic cuppy thing also frequented the inside of purse...sometimes I needed to carry it around with us..."just in case, mom".

The only problem with the cup was that we only had one set of the little underoo things with the right pocket in which to wear the cup...and I would get frustrated trying to find and clean the underoo things multiple times a week (I know some of you probably have tips on how to fix this problem for me...it's okay, we're all good now).

So, one night, it's later than normal bedtime, he's finally settling down to bed and I am getting him all tucked in...when I notice he's wearing the underoo things, again.

I sigh heavily, roll my eyes, and start to tell him to change out of the underoo things, knowing I'll need to make sure they're clean for his game the next day.

And then I stop myself before the words come out of my mouth....I'm realizing my wild and crazy seven year old boy is actually settling into bed without complaint or requesting more food...and realize it's not even worth asking him to get up to change.  So instead I say, "Rob-O, you've still got your baseball underoo's on, buddy, you need to stop wearing those all the time, remember?  We talked about this a few times now, but don't worry about it, just change in the morning, okay?..."

He starts to lay down on his stomach and I go to pull his sheets up when his eyes go wide and he sits straight up and looks at me.

"Mom!  I think I still have the cup in there!"

"Okay, Robin...." (this is the part where I'm still just getting used to life with a boy)

He opens up the waistband of his underoo things and sticks his hand down his pants.

I stand there waiting...

and waiting...

and waiting...

and waiting...

and waiting...

and wondering what on earth is down his pants...as he sits there....fidgeting....

and waiting...

and then he looks up at me with a big smile and just says, "Nope, it's not in there... that's just me!"

Rolls over, and goes to sleep.

And I laugh all the way back downstairs.

H :)

Just a smidge of catchity catch up...

I've had a couple of people ask me about my blog and lack of posts....so, here I am posting.

I don't really have a good reason for being absent for (hang on, let me click back and see when I last posted...)...Holy cow May 6!  It's July for crying out loud!  What's wrong with me!  Okay, sorry to all of my 28 loyal followers...I'll work on it.

As I was saying, I don't really have a good reason for being so ridiculously absent, other than family vacations, my husband is job searching, tons of family and friends visiting, and the occasional shiny thing that flashes before my eyes and I forget what I'm actually supposed to be doing.

So, what's new around here:  I did start up a tiny new little business thingy.  I started writing some of my quirky little sayings on coffee mugs, they are called Sassy Sippers.  I bought TONS of mugs from thrift stores, (I decided to go all green and recycle cool) cleaned them up and wrote things I have floating around in my head on them...it's slow to get going and I think I'm driving my husband crazy with piles of mugs everywhere and I could be a little high from the paint fumes, but I'm having a good time, and that's all that matters right?

Robin is now 7, and surprisingly better at being 7 than he was at being 6.  We celebrated Katie's 4 & 3/4 birthday in May with 75% of a hot fudge sundae.

Um, the dog got a haircut, Sean needs a haircut, I just cut Robin's hair, Katie would like her haircut...and I have been wearing lots of hats so I don't have to look at my hair.

Lots more things coming up soon for the Yount family...at least we're hoping for some exciting things to start happening...will keep you posted, I promise!

I have a few stories I need to get down before I loose them in my mental rolodex, I'll start working on those soon too.

Do people even still use rolodexes?  There's probably a Google Rolodex I know nothing about...

Sorry, shiny thing.

Talk soon friends!

H :)

Katie Lou Who-dini....

In my sleep deprived state this morning, I'm realizing it's been a few weeks since I've written an update about all the bugs crawling around in my salad.

This morning, one kid is sick....and slightly grumpy....I'll give you a hint as to who it is....his first name starts with an "R" and ends with "obin."

The other kid of mine is quite awake, despite her odd night of sleep.

The point of this blog isn't too discuss Robin's intestinal issues, or my lack of sleep, but rather Katie's ability to overcome any sleeping situation....here's the cockroach crawling around my greenery this morning.

Katie is a bit of a squirt for her age....she's always been in the lower percentiles....however, she can dominate and kick one or two adults out of a queen size bed without hesitation.  I know other parents out there know what I'm talking about.

It's pretty rare that she gets to sleep with us...it's usually the occassional bad dream or wind storm or illness, and of course she loves to crash with mom when dad travels for work.  She's pretty guilty of  kicks to the kidney, knees in the back, hogging of the pillow, and sleeping sideways so that we end up huddled onto a strip of the bed about a foot wide, just trying to keep some balance before teetering over the edge.

Katie has kicked Sean in the face while sleeping.

She has slapped me across the face in some dream stupor.

I've witnessed her stand straight up while sleeping and fall flat on her face.

One of my favorites was the time Sean was out of town and I woke up in the early morning feeling a little awkward....it was then that I realized that as I slept on my stomach, Katie crawled on top of me and fallen asleep on my back, face up, with her head resting on my rump and her feet draped over my shoulders....and sadly I slept through the whole thing.

But last night was another good one.  Robin asked to sleep on the couch and Katie asked to sleep on the floor next to my side of the bed.  I spent most of the night on "high alert" waiting for the puke sounds to start up, thinking it would be Robin having trouble in the night.  But no, somewhere around 5 am I heard a whimpering sound.  I sat straight up in bed and listened for a moment....and tried to crack my eyes open.  Then I heard the whimpering again, followed by a thud, then more whimpering.  Our dog sleeps under the bed so I assumed it was him and just laid back down.

Then I heard the little muffled, "moooooom"....."moooooooooom!"  I sat up again trying to figure out where the noise was coming from, peaked over the edge of our bed to see Katie....or what was left of Katie to see. All I could see was her heels poked out and kicking from under the bed...she looked like the scene in the Wizard of Oz when the witch gets squished by the house.

So, I hopped out of bed, grabbed her by the ankles and dragged her out from under the bed on her poor little face.  I think she cried....I doubt she woke up.....I hugged and kissed her and placed her in bed between Sean and I....where her feet proceeded to attack his kidneys.

Our little Katie Lou Who-dini is quite the little sleeper....I'm hoping tonight we have better nocturnal results.

H :)

Educating for the future....of wrestling.

This week Robin has decided he would like to be a professional wrestler....apparently he is now a fan of Rey Mysterio....who I didn't know existed until this week.

He's had obsessions in the past.

He has been a professional football player, baseball player, but only plays college basketball (the pro's are ridiculous).  He has been a skateboarder, motorcycle rider, ninja expert, surfer, spy, police officer, professional video game player, and all of the Marvel comics characters, and he tends to combine these careers also.  For example, he's been a police officer who is a super hero, but his powers are to surf on the basketball court....it happens.

But apparently he's pretty serious about this wrestling thing.

I have been trying to figure out curriculum for school through the summer and next year.  But now that he's made this decision for his professional career, it helps me to really streamline and focus our education.

This week we've been watching a show we found on Netflix about the top 50 WWE Wrestlers of all time.  Needless to say, I've learned quite a lot about the Wide Wide World of Wrestling.

Sounds like I need to teach him to work a microphone.

He's going to need to look good in his underoo's so....more sit-ups at recess.

Bodyslamming 101.

He's already written his own entrance song....the trouble is how does he perform it live, as he's making his entrance.....that's a stumper.

Katie can teach him about costume design.

Smack talk is vitally important, might have to work on that multiple times a day.

Theatrics....nah, he's got that down okay.

He'll need a catchy name.  He has been asking to change his name to Tripp....Tripp-tastic, Tripp-onator, Tripp-o-lama-ding-dong...

He'll need to learn how to squander his wealth, mostly on velour body suits and gold chains...oh and maybe a cool sidekick animal...he could have a big walrus on a chain and be Tripp and the Big Tusk.

Mastering the jump off the top rope will be a challenge...but we have a front porch with a railing, we'll get creative.

Sequins, sequins, sequins.

We aren't called the Wrestlin' Rhino's School for Misfits for nothin'!

H :)

So, let's talk about vegetarians...

Robin and Katie were in the backseat of the mini.

They were listening to music.  Katie's favorite song is called "Katie", it's by Deana Carter.  It's about a little girl named Katie who is a vegetarian.

Katie asks Robin, "What's a vegetarian?"

Robin answers right back without even a pause, "It's a person who cleans houses."

Katie says, "Oh, but I'm not a vegetarian."

Robin just looks at her and says, "No, but you will be when you grow up."

And that's the end of the talk on vegetarians.

First baseball practice of the year...

Robin's playing in the farm league this year.

Basically that means he finally gets upgraded to the pitching machine.

Sean bought him all the gear.  New cleats, new batting gloves, new socks, a new throw back net, and a new cup. I guess you could also call it an "athletic supporter".  I only had sisters, so Robin is my first experience with a boy...I have a lot to learn.

Katie helped Robin figure out how to put the cup on.....thank goodness she's around.

All of the gear, coats, cleats, and children were dumped in the car and we rushed off to the first practice of the year.

Robin did well on his first outing.  Stopped grounders, snagged pop flies, his throwing mechanics need some work, but he swung the bat well and didn't pretend to turn into a Transformer or anything on the field like last season, so that's progress.

It was about 50 degrees with 25 mile an hour wind gusts tonight...so Katie didn't last too long watching from the bleachers.  In fact, she lasted a total of fifteen minutes and we headed back to the car, where we watched baseball like most North Idahoans do in April....through the windshield.

So, for the next hour and fifteen minutes Katie sat with me in the front seat of the mini and we chatted and watched brother play baseball.

Katie showed me how to work the bluetooth.

We talked about what age she can get her ears pierced.

We chewed gum and blew bubbles.

We made faces in the rearview mirror.

We discussed the value of a good pair of pink cowboy boots.

And if I remember correctly, there was a discussion about chocolate bunnies, why she has brown eyes...and how long it will be until she gets to drive the car.

It's now about bedtime.  Kids are brushing teeth and putting on pajamies.  They've eaten corn dogs for dinner and watched a smidge of the Chanel de Disney.

There's pink cowboy boots on the floor, sweatshirts scattered all over the living room, and an athletic supporter on the dining room table....and one day of baseball practice down.

Katie starts soccer this weekend....that should provide some blogger fodder....so stay tuned!

H :)