Haircuts Gone Wild

Poor Kristofer was the victim of hair clippers gone wild on Saturday. I walked in on Keith attempting to cut Kristofer's hair and the first words out of my mouth were, "Don't worry, Sweetie. It will grow back!"

I quickly took some scissors and salvaged what I could. The stricken look on his face eased some! Now, he looks like he recently joined the Marines.

I'm none to happy with the timing of this haircut, but I shouldn't be too surprised. Stuff like this always happens right about the time I'm planning a family picture. Last year, it was Kylie's hair getting stuck in a small motorized vacuum cleaner. (Don't ask!) She got the hair at the top of her head stuck in it so tightly, that I had to cut it off. For months, she had little tufts of hair sticking up at the top of her head.

Previous years, there have been other disastrous moments that made family pictures difficult. Keith struck again with Kade and Konner, giving them buzz cuts that looked really nice about a month later, but not in time for Christmas pictures. There was the year that Kathleen gave Kylie a haircut. Then there was the time that one of the kids (I forget who) had a black eye. It's always something, I guess! I'm just happy when everyone looks fairly happy and is looking in the same direction!

Yesterday, we took off from school. Public school was off, too, for teacher work day, so the kids spent a lot of time playing with their friends. I joked with the kids that since it was teacher work day, I guess I had to do all the dishes, laundry and cleaning. What I actually did was sit and read most of the day nursing a headache. I was just kind of feeling off all day, so it was a good day to not do much. We did manage to do some clean-up around the house, but today the dishes are still stacked up waiting for a turn in the dishwasher. It'd going to be one of those days where I need to run the dishwasher three or four times to caught up.

Keri Lynn saw a bunch of pots and pans that had been washed still sitting on the counter. She sighed, "I guess I need to put these away now, they're driving me crazy!" Ha! Ha! Little does she know that is part of my master plan. Drive the children crazy so that they'll pitch in to put the things away that I don't want to put away myself! (Keri Lynn, you're not supposed to read this part!)

We've started having Bible time and group school time at 11:00 in the morning instead of right after breakfast so that we can go right into lunch without interrupting school time. The big kids work on their DVD lessons before that and then for a few hours in the afternoon. I've been teaching Kylie, Kade and Konner. Since I had to return the DVDs for Kylie and Kade, I've been kind of making it up as I go along until I can get the teacher books I need. I'm renting the rest of the DVDs for the bigger kids until we're done with the year's work. They're coming along.

That was good news for me, since I seem to have trouble putting things away. It's the same with dishes and laundry. I can scrub pots and pans for hours, but I become paralyzed when it's time to dry and put them back into cabinets. I can do load upon load of laundry, but just try to force me to put clean clothes into a drawer. No way! That's why my current laundry system of folding clean clothes into each kid's laundry basket in the laundry room is working so well for me! Laundry is not nearly the chore that it used to be!

I find myself humming a lot of the kids' music that they've been singing in choir. It's so fun to hear them singing the songs that they've been learning, too. One of my favorite's lately has been a song by Chris Rice that Keri Lynn sang on choir tour. Here are the lyrics:

Cry out to Jesus
Chris Rice

Weak and wounded sinner
Lost and left to die
O, raise your head, for Love is passing by
Come to Jesus
Come to Jesus
Come to Jesus and live!

Now your burden's lifted
And carried far away
And precious blood has washed away the stain...so
Sing to Jesus
Sing to Jesus
Sing to Jesus and live!

And like a newborn baby
Don't be afraid to crawl
And remember when you walk, sometimes we fall...so
Fall on Jesus
Fall on Jesus
Fall on Jesus and live!

Sometimes the way is lonely
And steep and filled with pain
So if your sky is dark and pours the rain...then
Cry to Jesus
Cry to Jesus
Cry to Jesus and live!

O, and when the love spills over
And music fills the night
And when you can't contain your joy inside...then
Dance for Jesus
Dance for Jesus
Dance for Jesus and live!

And with your final heartbeat
Kiss the world goodbye
Then go in peace, and laugh on glory's side...and
Fly to Jesus
Fly to Jesus
Fly to Jesus and live!