why, are there wheat thins dropping from your drawers?

John and I were in the kitchen, cooking dinner together.

I saw a little flash darting out of the pantry door, running toward his bedroom.

"Twain", I called. "Come here".

"What mommy?" he asked, sounding guilty.


"Twain, did you sneak a cracker?"(Twain had been sneaking crackers recently!)

"No mommy", he said, eyes wide with innocence.


Just then a lone wheat thin falls out of the pant leg of his green shorts.


And falls to the floor by his feet. Exposing his crime.


And, there is no way to cover it up.


"Twain", I said sternly, "Mommy just wants you to tell the truth. Mommy is not upset about the cracker...but that Twainy told a lie"

Twain looked solemnly at the ground. "Sorry mama."


And it struck me at that moment, how I'm not too different from Twain. There are so many times the Holy Spirit nudges me and I say, "No God, I'm not doing anything wrong. Everything is just fine here! No sins tonight!"

And he looks straight through to my heart and sees little wheat thins dropping out of my drawers too.

God just wants us to be truthful with Him. He knows all and sees all. We can't hide anything from Him.


Yet so many times I think we conceal little corners of our heart so He can't get in. Or sidle up next to our "pet" sins and get comfy cozy with them.


Your secret sin might have NOTHING to do with lying.
Or cheating.
Or stealing.

But.

We all have sin. And if we think we don't, we are lying...deceiving ourselves.

If we say we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us- 1 John 1:8

This week in our Precepts study(Kay Arthur), we are doing a little section that our leader is calling "desert discipline". I'm a little scared. I'm 11 pages in and already getting WORKED. But it will be good for me.

It's basically 43 pages, asking all these nosy questions. It leaves NO STONE UNTURNED. "Why bother?", you might wonder: To have peace with God and man so He can use us in His service.

[Do you have confidence that comes from knowing you have carefully dealt with sin?
Do you have that peaceful quietness in your inner self because as much as you know, you are right with others?

Sin destroys and devastates your relationship with God and man. 

To admit our sin and then to confess sin is not easy. It's easier TO COVER IT UP, EXPLAIN IT, EXCUSE IT. However, to shrink back from calling your sin destructive is to live in denial of TRUTH.]

Precept Upon Precept,  1 John, Kay Arthur

In church yesterday we learned about how an "expert in the law" tried to justify himself before Jesus. In fact, I tried to justify myself just yesterday as well. "Well, so-and-so did this, so therefore it's ok if I think this."

False. 

It's better to just fall on our face before God and confess that we can't keep his law and that we need Jesus to help us. Then our story would have a much happier ending.

I know you are super jealous and want desert discipline too. Fine. Here is a little sampling of the questions.

Is your body God's temple?
Are you eating nutritiously or in a way that will harm your health?
Are you pushing yourself our putting yourself under stress which is not from God?
Are you casting all your cares upon God?
Are you getting the rest and exercise you feel God would have you to get?

Are you feeling convicted yet? I am. I bit off WAY more than I could chew in October and paid the price dearly in stress, getting run down and sick. I was too busy to even do one jumping jack or pushup. So lame.

But oh, we just started.

Here are just a few more.

How do you dress? Are your clothes designed to make you look sexy?
Are you depriving your mate?
Are you guilty of the lustful look, of hanging around to flirt with a man or woman who is not your mate? Do you give passing glances?
Do you know of anyone who has something against you? Have you sought reconciliation? If the other person won't reconcile, then you have done all that you can.
Do you criticize your brothers and sisters in Christ?
Do you judge? Do you make evaluations prematurely? Do you have all the facts right?
Do you have "bittery jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart" (James 3:14)
Do you love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you?
How fast do you drive? Do you obey the laws of the land? Do you text and drive?--my question:)
Do you seek to draw attention to yourself?
Do you have to have recognition for the things you do?
Do you want Jesus to increase while you decrease?(John 3:30) Or do you want to be the Christian superstar?
Do you think more highly of yourself than you ought to think(Romans 12:3)?
Are you proud?
Do you have to make sure others know of your accomplishments related to your service to God?

Precept Upon Precept, I John, Kay Arthur

In the words of the prophet Isaiah, "Woe is me,  I am ruined!"-Isaiah 6:5

However,

But if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just, to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" 1John 1:9

The point is, nobody is perfect and I'd just like to encourage you to look at your hearts honestly and see what little wheat thins{sins} are falling to the floor that you are trying to hide.

It's so worth it. According to Kay Arthur..."Whatever it takes, do it! You will never regret it! Weights will fall from your shoulders. You'll be able to look men in the eye, for you'll have confidence with God. Your guilt will be gone"

from the desk of

yours truly.

this is where i sit to write all of my letters and cards. it's one of my favorite places to park my bum.

especially since i have some new fancy pants cards, designed just for me, by the amazing miss katygirl!


she knows i love feathers and indian stuff, so she personalized it for me.


it even has a cute little feather on its tush back! so cute!

i absolutely love these cards and get so excited when i get to mail one off.

these cards makes the perfect birthday gift or christmas gift, or 'hey i'm thinking about you' gift.

i guarantee that your recipient will love getting a pack of personalized notecards and feel so special upon getting them. it's really the best gift idea and i can't believe i didn't think of it myself;) ha.

so thank you thank you, katygirl, for going out of your way to make my birthday EXTRA special. it really meant so much to me!

i got the BEST letter the other day from my namesake, paige davi. she's 9 and was born within a week of finn. LOVE this girl.

she writes, "i have been bored a long time. but now i can talk to you". LOL. and i got a big laugh when she wrote how "cursive" is great...yet prints that word out. kids are the best.

paige has 3 brothers and no sisters.  so i kinda cracked up upon reading the following.

she writes, "you might be bored with all boys? well i am. GAMES GAMES GAMES. ALL day long". hahahaha. she's killin me.

and now, if you'll excuse me, i have an extremely important letter to write to little miss Paige Davi.

you should be scared.

[ninja]-covert agent specialized in unorthodox warfare.


4 ninjago brothers: zane, jay, kai and cole.




Ollie's favorite ninjago character is Zane. Zane is a little different than his brothers.

Later in the Ninjago movie series, we learn the reason Zane is different: he is actually a robot. Or Nindroid, as his brother Jay called him.

I kinda wet my pants a little when Ollie decided Zane was his fav...just a little too funny in my books.


Twain likes Jay, as do I. Jay is the funny mischievous one.


Well, remember when Libby drew Twain a ninja kitty?


Welp, that explains this phenomenon:

What is better than a ninja and a kitty? A ninja kitty of course. Combines best of both worlds. All Twain's idea to add the ears to his costume.

The morning after trick-or-treating at our beach camping trip, I lay in bed, dead to the world. Twain comes bounding in with his kitty ears on and first thing he asks is "tan i eat some tandy?"[can i eat some candy]

"Oh have mercy" I thought and turned over in my bed. Hate Halloween.

 There is a reason this face is so sweet. HE SNEAKS CANDY.

I awoke to find a wrapped chocolate bar, with deep teeth marks, and a big bite taken out of it.

Later in the day, Ollie tattled on Twain for taking off the wrapper of his sucker and licking it without permission. I threw the sucker in the trash and Twain collapsed into my lap, sobbing for dear life, a complete puddle of misery over his misfortune.

Twain is so unlike his brothers.

Finn and Calvin have this tradition where they sell their Halloween candy to John. This year, Calvin only kept like three pieces of candy and sold John 100 pieces.

I dislike the massive amounts of Halloween candy accumulated, but only 3 measly pieces of candy seemed a bit extreme, even to me.

I convinced his to keep 6 pieces. Just doing my job.


As for Finn-boy.


Daddy let him use this pocket knife to whittle a wooden arrow on the camping trip. Mama was NOT a happy camper.

He's now the coolest thing on the planet. Obviously. I blame Grandpa Billy entirely for giving Finn this knife.


Violence and all, I absolutely LOVE being a mama to boys.



Besides. I get to see them at night when they are all snuggled up to their mama. Or flopping all over each other like sweet puppy dogs. 

lost

I kneeled down in the dirt to be eye-level with my three year old.

He was trudging his feet at the pumpkin patch and kicking up as much dirt as his little converse could kick up.

"Twain", I said sternly, "You need to stop kicking dirt". 

"Yes mama", he said nodding his head up and down. But not meaning a word of what he said.

This child is giving me a run for my money these days. I finally know what it's like to have a kid that 'gets into things'. He wrote on my wallpaper wall. He colored with ballpoint all over my couches. He's always climbing high onto furniture and jumping off of everything. 

When I stood back up, my eyes quickly scanned the pumpkin patch for my 5 year old. In the few seconds it took to reprimand Twain, Ollie was...gone. Just like that. Lost.

"Ollie...OL-LIE!", I called. My eyes quickly scanning the hay bales and tractors for Ollie's rust-colored shirt.

I refused to let my mind panic. After all, it had just been a few seconds. How far could he get, right?

I grabbed Twain's hand, so I didn't lose him too. "Ollie...Ollie!"

No sight of him anywhere.

By now, I am running around every nook and corner of the pumpkin patch.

I'm sure my eyes look wild as they are darting too and fro...

I think of the child with the disorder who is gone without a trace.

And now I am shouting "OLLIE!!!!!!"

I am starting to feel that frantic feeling of panic rising. But really. My child was just there a minute ago. I just couldn't believe he could be gone that fast. Still I felt half-crazed as I watched random people lounging around casually chatting with friends.

Finally I spot his rust-colored baseball tee across the entire patch. Playing happily amongst a bunch of pumpkins. I let out an enormous sigh of relief. Thank you Lord! When I get to him, he's like "what?"





Never so happy to see that little face. Now that I've recovered from my fright over losing Ollie, I realize how insanely in love I am with this boy!

"Oliver John! You must stay right next to mama! You were lost!" We had a good long chat about not running away from mama.

"Ok mama", he said happily as he skipped obliviously right into the dirt parking lot.

"Ollie get back here!" I am now shouting. I literally drag my boys to the van, shaking, and strapped them into their seats as fast as I could.

It had been a loooong morning at the pumpkin patch.

It started off chipper enough. We went with Ollie's preschool, which included dear friends {and neighbors} Patty and her sons.




We had a bit of trouble getting through the corn maze. "Keep right, keep right", they instructed.







But right after right after right...and circling over half an hour, it started to feel like we were the Isrealites wandering in the desert.








Finally, when we could take the claustrophobia no more, Patty hacked her way out through the sides of the corn stalks to daylight. And we followed, not too close behind. Phew!





After the corn maze the preschoolers are allowed to pick a pumpkin.


But Twain is cranking out and throwing a fit about his raisins--apparently the ratio of raisins to nuts was not high enough. Ridiculous. He was screaming so inconsolably, that the owner of the patch started to twitch, and told me "Give him a little pumpkin. It's on the house".

The tiny pumpkin just made him scream louder. Stinker.
It was snack time, and one of the mom's from the preschool started handing out cookies.

Twain stood there with his hand clutching a chocolate cookie, and crying with his mouth open. You know you are DONE when your kid has a cookie in his hand and he's still crying.

Normally I like to go back to the patch with the whole family, but I think I'm good this year. That was exhausting.

Besides. I just can't do it all. We just got back from our church beach camping trip and I am buried alive in laundry. Just wanted to pop my head out from the piles to say boo.

and the winner of the bow goes to Mallory Crain of The Crain's Nest! Congratulations!
contact me at davirebecca{at}gmail{dot}.com

introducing,

the world's smallest felt bow...

for the world's sweetest kitty.


And, I'd like you too officially meet our newest family members:

Moo is our big boy and Lucy Blue is our lil princess. Funny. I always wanted to adopt a boy-girl sibling set.

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess what some of you are thinking: "Davi has gone mad! Making itty bitty felt bows and taking pictures of kitties! She needs a baby!"

And while I do not have baby fever, I will gladly accept any baby delivered to my doorstep, or under my deck. Same diff.




Moo was so excited about Blue's bow, that he chewed it off! Thanks Moo. After all that effort to attach the silly bow in the first place. I had quite the initiation into the world of bows. You should have seen me googling how to attach the bow to hair.

And um...no lie, but I initially tried to attach the bow to kitty with KY because that is what all the websites said to do for babies...but I learned that does not work on a wild kitty, mkay? I glued it on with elmers. Hahaha.

At first I made a standard sized hair bow. Compared to Blue's tiny bow.

The bows only took a few minutes to make last night. It was just supposed to be a joke to make a small bow for Blue, but then she looked so cute in it...I'm literally giving away the top yellow felt bow because it's too large for my cat-child. It's a true story. If you want it, just mention it in the comments below.

And here goes the birth story of Moo and Blue. Just kidding. But here is how it all went down.

>>>>>>><<<<<<<

After discovering the 4 kitties under our deck, they became our constant source of outdoor entertainment. The boys lived for these "kitty sightings" when the kitties would tentatively emerge from under the deck and come prancing and rolling out onto the deck.

They were very playful with each other, but were very shy and skittish when we tried to touch them.

All except for the one "Si-ma-mese", as the 2 youngers called her. She let the kids hold her.

Then one morning I awoke to find that Ollie and Twain had smuggled the "Si-ma-mese" into the house. Yup, as I was blinking the sleep from my eyes, I saw the two boys toting kitty around under their arms like she was a purse.

And I was uh-mazed at how tolerant this kitty was of my little boys!


Not too mention she sat very still and lady-like every time I tried to take her picture.


Seriously, I just placed her here and said "smile and say cheeeeeeese".

I really should send her to model in Hollywood to raise money to get her stray mama spayed...

All day long, little kitty patiently complys with every whim of her lil captors.


Snuggling up with Ollie for a cat nap.


He is in kitty heaven.




I just could NOT believe she fell asleep on him.


"Please sleep here kitty", I said. And of course, she did.


Ok, I'm gonna let you in on a little secret here. Don't judge. Buuuuuut, Ollie has recently become a hoarder.  His clutter pains my eyes.

Later in the day, I was looking around trying to find the Siamese kitty and I couldn't find her anywhere.

"Ollie. What did you do with the kitty?".

And lo and behold, I pulled back his pillow...And to my shock, I discovered that he tried to stash her with all of his hoarded possessions.

And she just sat there. Fast asleep.

WHAT KITTY DOES THIS??????!!!!!!!

No kitty on earth. No way did Peach ever tolerate this. Never.

We HAD TO keep this kitty.

Besides, by the end of the day, the boys had grown hopelessly in love with her. The thought of parting with this kitty was becoming very painful.

By the next day, the boys were so head over heels for this kitty, that I felt like we needed to make a decision about the other kitties, and fast.

My neighbors wanted a Siamese too, and I felt guilty hogging the nice kitty, but my neighbor GRACIOUSLY offered to take the other Siamese kitty, along with the black kitty to help socialize and make the transition easier. Praises.

>>>>>>><<<<<<<

Next day: Operation catch the kitties. Because there were still 3 {scared}kitties left hiding under the deck.

This job....easier said than done.

For the first hour, Libby and I flopped and floundered, as little kitties clawed, hissed and scratched their way out of our clutches.

We tried every plan and contraption we could think of--big box set up with food inside, to coax them, but to no avail. Brother Tate came over to help us.

I even heated some tuna to try to entice them, and it exploded all over my microwave.

After a long while, we finally caught the black kitty...and then the other Siamese. One by one, we threw them in the big bike trailer and carted them off to Libby's house...laughing hysterically the whole time.

I think I might have turned into a giddy 10-year-old that evening. Wish I had a picture.

Last. But not least. We had to catch Moo. We didn't want to leave the poor thing outside by itself, all alone.

This kitty. OhMyWord. Never seen anything like it. So fasssssst, it took forever to catch him. Poor thing was FREAKED OUT.

We finally caught Moo and threw him inside our house. He was so panicked, that he starting running into my furniture and walls like a wild mashugana. He was so determined to escape, that he was literally crashing into the glass french door to get out. Seriously, he was a maniac, freak of nature.

He hid behind my green leather chair and would not stop crying.

All while his sister lay there, stretched out on the floor like a persian princess.

I brought her over to console her distraught brother, and if you could believe it, she HISSED at him. Little stinker! She had been in my house ONE day and she thought she owned the place.

That was a looooong night. Moo hid under our oven and cried all.night.long. "meow, meow, MEOW"

He kept us up almost the whole night and I had a headache the next morning. I know what some of you are thinking...Serves me right, huh.

Day by day, Moo started to slowly come out of his shell.
Started to play with his sissy.
Wouldn't let us touch him, but would come out from under the oven or the bed, or whatever hiding place.

One night, as I was giving Ollie and Twain a bath, Moo started to cry from the doorway of the boys' room. He would not stop crying til I came to see him. He ran under the bed but was very happy that I came to sit by him.

Whenever, I left the room, he would cry for me to come back. As tiring as his little game was, I was charmed.

The next day, Ollie walked into my room carrying Moo in his arms.


Moo just lay in Ollie's arms, super chill. I was surprised that Moo let Ollie hold him. They developed this sweet little bond.


Every day, Twain would walk around carrying the Si-ma-mese, and Ollie would hold Moo.

The two kitties kept my little boys entertained all day long. It was basically purrrfect.

But there was this one little problem: my husband. The supposed kitty lover. Whatevs to that.

John only wants ONE cat and ONE dog. I mean, he could have mentioned this in premarital counseling.

Well, he married me. And nothing is ever that simple with me.

I wanted ZERO cats and ZERO dogs--it took John 16 years to convince me to get Peach.

And now we had 3 kitties. Made perfect sense to me.

But John was not on board. That night at dinner, he said we could only keep one new kitty. And I thought of how much my boys LOVED Moo AND Si-ma-mese. And I was so miserable I just sat there and cried. No joke. Big crocodile tears were streaming from my eyes.

And I kinda had a thing for this crazy-faced kitty. Uh, my face looks kinda crazy here too.


Moo loves to hang out on our gigantic kitty tower. When he's up there, he's king of the world and does all kind of snuggling action--he nuzzles his head into you.

He has become so affectionate. Much more so than Si-ma-mese.

After a few days of agonizing, and begging daddy, he finally said "YES". We could keep them both!

There were a few conditions:
1. no more kitties allowed. I mean, obviously.
2. get rid of mama kitty(she's going to my mom's house)
3. John wanted to make sure he was still allowed to get a dog.

We shook on it. I literally forced John to shake on our deal.

And I kid you not, the next day he offered Moo to our dear friend up the street.

"JOHNNNNNNN! We shook on it!" I practically shouted.

Not to worry. Moo is still at our house. Along with Si-ma-mese, who I named Lucy Blue. But we call her Blue. I really wanted to name her Peeta, but my boys shouted with a resounding "NOOOOOO!"

So Moo and Blue it is. And we could not be happier!

And for reals, if you want this {bigger}bow, just write "want bow" in the comments section and I'll randomly pick someone Friday. It has never touched the kitty. World's smallest giveaway. Not so much a giveaway as a takemyleftovers. But hey, it could look cute on headband, hairclip, on a baby boy onesie or as a little boy bow tie.