Fun Day

We recently overhauled our family budget. Again. After an expensive Fall due to medical issues(hospital birth, meningitis), we recognized that our monthly budget was going to have to be crimped in order to pay all the bills. I spent a few days carrying a major how am I going to stick to it??? burden before Eric set me straight, reminding me that God will do it. He always provides. Then I spent a few days carrying a major self-pity burden that we could not even afford swimming lessons for the girls. As if swimming lessons are the measure of a good life, or something. Really, how privileged and sick in the head am I? I have walked, talked, and lived among truly poor people around the world, and still I feel that my children are entitled to swimming lessons, of all things??? After a few days of that pity party, God mercifully broke in and let me put my sin aside and move on.

It wasn't long before He gave me tangible evidence that He will provide for all of our needs, and our wants. Over the last few months, I've been having a blast discovering all sorts of free enrichment activities to do with the girls. We have tours lined up at a wacky bookstore and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts with our preschool co-op. We've been attending weekly story time at our local library and preschool time at the science museum. We plan on visiting nature centers, farms, and the Zoo, all for free.

The best freebie to date has been the Children's Museum. Our children's museum is awesome, but it is expensive! At our library story time last week, we were able to sign up for four visits to the Children's Museum, all made possible by a community non-profit who's mission is to support children and their caregivers. We had such a fun day at the museum yesterday, and there are three more to come! I feel as though God is showing me in a very real way that A)we don't need swimming lessons in our lives right now, B)that He knows how to provide for us, and C)He is kind enough to give us more than we need!

A few highlights from our fun day out-

Hope says that her favorite part of the museum was the Dinosaurs Exhibit. Hope LOVES dinosaurs, and these were very lifelike and just scary enough to be fun. There were some that moved and made noises, but there were others that were just for climbing on. The exhibit is great because it is like a kid-sized, simplified science museum exhibit. Eva's favorite part was the Our World Exhibit. This exhibit is designed to be like a little kid-sized town, where kids get to try out all the things adults do most of the time. Eva especially liked working in the Chinese restaurant and using the cash register to ring up my bill. Hope spent most of her time riding the city bus or pushing a grocery cart overloaded with grocery staples.

In this picture, Hope was telling me that she was pouring syrup on her pancakes. Or laundry detergent on her Parmesan cheese... it's up to the imagination!
Firefighter Eva to the rescue!
Finally this girl is making herself useful! ;)
Hope checks the mail after Eva delivered a few postcards.
There is so much to do and see at the Children's Museum that normally we end up rushing the kids from one area to the next. But yesterday, since I knew we would be coming back again soon, I let them play as long as they wanted in each exhibit. We didn't even see half of the museum, but that's OK. We can't wait to go back and explore more!

We ended the day with some face painting, giggling, and dancing. It appears as though nothing but abstract art will ever emerge from this household. Eva has a thing for symmetry. Every one of her art projects at preschool has arrived home with great attention shown to symmetry. One look at her face tells me that this will be a distinguishable "Eva" trademark. Each color is matched with it's equal on the opposite side of her face. I'm going to have to google this and find out what kind of psychological analysis I might be offered...
Here is a sampling of our impressive dance moves...I even gave myself a few red squiggles. I was afraid this might scare Esther, but on the contrary, she found our painted faces to be side-splittingly funny. I took at least 20 pictures of her belly laughing at the mere sight of us.If it weren't for the ridiculous "apple green" background, I would probably mat and frame a series of these happy shots. Ahhhh, it is just occurring to me that I will have to photo shop these black and white.

love, peace, and fluorescent green strollers to you all!