Goulash

Here are some random items from the past few days:

#1: We had some of the boys friends come over for a night hike on Friday evening. Tons of fun. The weather was perfect, the moon was out, and the sandwiches and brownies tasted delicious. Something like "hunger is the best sauce"....

#2: Some background for this one - Jacob has/had a habit of eating everything. He's done this since the time he could coordinate his arms and hands enough to get things to his mouth. When I say eats everything I am talking wood (including his bunk bed), any plastic toy, cups (all the plastic ones have been completely gnawed around the rims), shirts (he sometimes would come home from school with little holes gnawed from the collar to the belly button - and soaking wet), pants (a brand new pair of church slacks had a 1/2 inch hole chewed through the knee in the first hour of wearing them), all the buttons off his shirts, snaps off his jackets, I think you get the picture. For a time I viewed clothing as disposable - a one use item, if you will. We accepted hand-me-downs from as many sources as were offered, and he probably ate his way through 30 t-shirts, 3 pairs of church pants, and probably 4 different button down shirts were always sitting on top of my mending pile. Luckily he seems to have by in large curbed this habit. (Unfortunately his fingernails now bear the brunt of the incessant chewing. We offer carrots constantly as a substitute - but, whatever... hopefully he'll grow out of it.)

SO... Anyway, as we were driving to our night hike I overhear this exchange between Jake and Simon:

(Simon is an accomplished whistler - I am not exaggerating...and he's 8 years old. He had been whistling and I think Jake was feeling some pressure to show off some of his stuff as well.)
Jake: "There are a lot of things I can do too, that you probably don't even know about."

Simon: "Can you chew through a telephone wire?" (In a challenging voice)

Jake: "Well, yeah, probably. I mean - it might get a little shocky as I got to the electricity, but I could do it."

Simon: (you could hear him shaking his head) "Dude, you're a hamster."


#3: Andrew woke up with a fever early Sunday morning. As the day wore on, his stomach ached. At one point he bounded down the stairs and said, "Mom! I said a prayer to God to not let me throw up, because it hurts my throat so much, and now I don't have to throw up anymore!!" So darling. He even told Jacob last night about his experience and told Jacob that "he could pray when he was sick and Heavenly Father would help [him] too."
Fast forward to this morning. He wakes up feeling worse. He tells me he has said "three..what comes after three? (I answer) Four prayers this morning and i still feel yucky. Then a few minutes later, as he is puking____ "God"....barf..."didn't"...barf..."listen to"....barf..."my prayers!"...sobbing.
Oh my goodness. What do you say? It broke my heart, and I told him that maybe Heavenly Father knew there was stuff inside that needed to come out. Poor, sweet, Andy Roo.