"thanks be to God!" Malachai told me today as we walked to school "the rug in the living room was clean when I woke up this morning!"
um. I guess I should do a better job vacuuming on a regular basis.

On that note, this past week as I was cleaning my living room and noticing the scratches on my wood floor, the chocolate smeared on the arm of my white (yes, purchased before kids . . . but it had a zipper up the back and I thought that I would be able to actually take off the cover to wash it.) armchair, and the black crayon mark that mysteriously appeared on the wall behind the couch one Sunday afternoon . . I was reminded how GOOD it is to be surrounded by these traces of life - - of my Malachai and Josu, and of all those who have come into our home and eaten and played and lived with us; and as I think about it in this way, these marks actually become endearing! (um, not so endearing, though, that I'm not going to give that spit-up encrusted onto my couch a good scrubbing)

Where no oxen are, the manger is clean,
but much revenue comes by the strength of the ox
Proverbs 14:4

Grandpa used to clip our nails; I think it was his way of caring for his crazy grandkids that would cross over the Mexican border with half of Mexico's dirt under their fingernails. He would clip and say "snipp, snapp, snurr" as he went along; I wondered how it was possible to ALWAYS end on a perfectly rounded snurr. weird. how could my nails always need clipping in fractions of three?

I didn't clip any nails today. all three of my kids probably could have used a good nail clipping, but I didn't clip.

we did make butter though, and read about . . . well . . . Snipp, Snapp and Snurr (see, it does all fit together), and how they coaxed the sun to peak his head out from behind the clouds and smile his sunniest smile, so that the grass would grow, so that Uncle Freddie could feed it to Blossom the cow, so that Aunt Annie could milk her, so that mother could make butter to spread on the fresh baked bread.

It went off even better than I expected - - didn't take too long for my (less than dedicated) Malachai to shake that cream into buttery goodness, AND he was thrilled to eat bread and (he made it himself - - woo-hoo!) butter. We'll do it again. in fact, I think it would be a perfect thing to invite a four year old friend along to do it with us. maybe even two.

Joy in my today:

breakfast with the church
and hearing Malachai ask - - "when is the church coming over?"

You've probably heard us talk about this before - - that we are challenged with the idea that we are subtly influenced with the way we use our words. (seriously, we rant on and on about this, so if you've heard it before, go ahead - - glaze over, skim to the bottom of this post, and just write a nice comment with the time you would have spent reading and deeply contemplating this post) for example, if we say we are "going to church" enough times, eventually, it's quite possible that "church" becomes someplace we go instead of something that we are and live and love! Yes, yes, I know that a proper understanding of Christ's church goes far beyond a mere grammatical reshuffling, but it seems a good place to start, and so, as a family, we have taken to differentiating between the church (a group of people who follow Jesus) and a building in which that church meets.
so there you have it - - this next week, as you are getting dressed on Sunday morning, or as you load into the car on Thursday night to head over to the Pue's cozy apartment for dinner and LOST, tell yourself that you are "going to be with the church". Come on now, humor me; give it a go!

in the newspaper today

Child obesity in Europe: Spain ranks number three on the highest percentage charts.

possibly even more important, Pau Gasol - - Spain's claim to fame in the NBA has been traded to the Los Angeles Lakers. contact Joshua for more details.