My daughters obsession with McDonald's

Well, it seems as though, no matter how hard you try to help your kids not LEARN to love McDonald's. . . it must be born into them.  I thought we were doing pretty good and we could even drive past a McDonald's sign without them screaming for french fries for too long after we passed the sign.  However, I think my daughter, Ava, thinks everything GREAT starts with Mc in front of it.  Here are a few examples:

She can actually say the right words, but when she is really excited, this is what she says in their place:

Balloons - McBoons
Guitar - McTar
Piano - McPliano
Surprise - McPrize
Ice-Cream - Ice-Mccream

and the list goes on.  We have worked with her on this, but I have come to the conclusion, that things are this way because in her little over active mind, she associates "Mc" to be in front of anything good.  So when she is excited, she throws a "Mc" in front of it.  I think it is cute for now, and Micah and I are even tempted to use it sometimes, but I do hope she doesn't continue to use this over her older years.  She may be thought to be a bit odd.  :)

If you have money, the bible says. . ..

We have been doing daily devotions with our children in the evening, as part of their routine before going to bed.  Christian may be a little young yet, for he seems to be disinterested and easily distracted, but Ava is soaking it all in.  The devotions only end up being about a paragraph long and then a short prayer, but she interrupts us about 10 times throughout the paragraph, trying to make sense and give us examples that she thinks may apply.  It is pretty cute and we love seeing her mind turning and working the way it is.

So the other night, the devotional was about giving to the Lord and being happy about it.  It says, 'some Bible people had a lot of money, they had more than they needed.  Other Bible people didn't have enough money to buy food and clothes.  The people who had more than they needed, shared their money.'
So after this, we discussed with her about how it is to tithe too and how God says we should share the things he gave us with others.

The next night, my mom came over to stay.  She was letting Ava go through her purse.  Ava found some change, in her change purse and she said, "Nana, the BIBLE says when you have money you should give it to people who Need money.  You have lots of money here and we need money for Disney, so can we have this?"  I think she missed the point, don't you??  We may still have a little more work to do on that lesson.  At least my mom found it funny.  :)

Bumbaugh Family Easter 2010

When we have Easter with my husbands' side of the family, we have a ton of fun.  One of the favorite parts for me is when My in-laws have a feet washing service in their "upper room" and then we all take communion together.  It is a neat tradition and it teaches our kids young, about Easter and the background they need to know.  Here are a few pictures of this.

Ava washing her Cousin Renee's feet. .. I think she was more interested in washing her legs. :)

Micah washing little Man's feet.  Christian looks so serious.  I love capturing these moments.

Daddy and his two babes. . .Easter Morning before Church.

Mommy with her two babies. . .I love them.

Ava Bean in her Easter dress she picked out on her own.  She was so proud.

Ava and Grandma, listening to the reading of the Easter Story by Pappy Bumbaugh

The Bumbaugh Grandchildren. . . . . after they sang in concert at Airhill Church on Easter Sunday.

My Grandparents. . . came to visit from Missouri over Easter Holiday, so we got a picture of most of the great Grand kids that centered in PA.  This was not an easy picture to get. 

My dad, Pappy Sweetheart, was helping the kids find their eggs.  Christian was staring right at an egg that obviously didn't belong in the bed of green plants, and you could see it from far away.  My dad went over to point it out to him and he still couldn't see it.  It was strange.  Finally dad had to take Christian's hand and help him touch it.  Then Christian exclaimed, "Easter Egg!!"  Wonder if he is color blind.  He did enjoy the numerous Easter Egg hunts we got to go to this year though.  So did his sister.  They loved the candy too. 

Sorry these pics are so random, but I had to throw some pics in of different things that we did over our Easter Break.  I Love Easter, my absolute favorite holiday.  Thank you Jesus for dying on the cross so we could go to Heaven!!!

National Take Your Kid to Work Day

Well, I found out that yesterday was the National day for taking your child to work with you.  I had no idea, but yesterday morning, I got this bright idea to pack the kids up and travel an hour to eat lunch with my hubby (their daddy) while he was at work.  I later was told what the actual day was celebrating.  Such a strange coincidence. :)

So, we were getting ready to go.  Ava picked out her FAVORITE purple dress AND even let me comb her hair without too much of a fuss.  :)  Christian got a quick bath and then let me style his hair and he wanted to wear "daddy's cologne" so he smelled pretty.  The trip is a long trip, and so we listened to the radio and sang songs.  We talked and told stories and of course, Ava got Car sick.  We were about 15 minutes away from our destination, and Ava claimed, "mommy, we are NOT doing this ever again, this ride makes me too sick.  Daddy doesn't need us to come here again."  She seemed to be miraculously healed of her car sickness the moment we saw the building daddy worked in.

Here they are with their handsome daddy, at his work setting.  They even decided to take a walk with one of his patients, as they were strolling along in their walker.  The kids were so excited. 

Daddy took us all to Wendy's as per request.  It was nice getting to see him at work and spending a little time with him.  Thanks Daddy for working so hard for our family.

A Weekend of Punishment. . .Did it work??

Just about every weekend, we take our family of four to Mercersburg to visit my parents.  It is only a small drive but we use it as a small get a way and we stay for a the whole weekend or at least Friday into Saturday. The kids enjoy it and the grandparents enjoy it. .. and mommy and daddy enjoy the little break in pace.  :) 
So Friday night, my parents were going to babysit our two children, so my awesome husband could take me on a nice date.  Needless to say, we were all very excited.  It was a win win for everyone.  So, the kids woke up on Friday morning way too early.  I figured this was fine, we would just try and take a nap.  :)  That didn't actually happen, but what did happen was a lot of bickering and fighting between my two toddlers.  I tried all sorts of different techniques to get them to listen and obey, but by three o'clock that afternoon, they were so grouchy and I thought the day had no END in site.  I started threatening that they wouldn't get to go to Nana's house, if they didn't start listening, and finally, after many more attempts and threats, I had to follow through.  We had some very upset children and even more upset parents. 

Ava kept saying that she was worried that I was mad at her.  "Everyone's mad at me!! . . ."  We had to adjust our attitudes so we were not so disappointed ourselves.  Not easy.  But, the funny thing was at one point they were both asking for (whining) for Chocolate Milk.  I looked at my husband and asked if he thought we had demanding children.  He agreed that we did and then Ava looked at us and said, "well, you could just give us both away. . . then you wouldn't have to be sad at us."  I asked her where we would send them and she said, "well, to Nana's."   hahhha, She was still trying. 

The acting out continued until Saturday, thus continuing to lose privileges.  Finally, by Sunday, we all needed out so we went to the YMCA fun Healthy Day and then to Nana's.  The evening went a lot better, just getting out of the house. What a long weekend.  Let's hope they learned their lesson.  OR, maybe mommy and daddy learned to take other things away and not things that also punish us.  :)