Friday, July 04, 2008

happy 4th

Waiting for the children's parade to start. They were as patient as possible. Someone threw a box of Nerd candies into the wagon onto Sommer's lap as we were walking the parade route. She chewed it open and was pretty excited when she found the candies inside. She enjoys being in the wagon more than a stroller. Next year I think we'll skip this part and just watch the parade. The boys were more excited about finding candy than looking at the crowd waving and cheering as we went by and Laine decided that she was done with her scooter halfway through and just left it in the road so I had to put it in the wagon.
The most exciting part of the parade for the boys -- a troop of Star Wars characters. These guys have the best costumes, they look like they are from the films. And the guy in the Vader suit was huge, perfect character.
My favorite part of the parade was Waconia HS marching band from Minnesota (link is to a youtube of the same routine that we saw today). They did such a fabulous job, lots of cool formations, great music. At one point 4 drummers lined up right in front of us, that was exciting. Sommer didn't know what to think of that. She clung to my arm and was doing that funny blink with every loud beat.
Instead of going to the fireworks we did our own in the yard, just those confetti poppers. The kids were happy enough.
Laine wasn't interested in doing the popping, she collected almost all the confetti streamers and called them her "friendlies."
I forgot about sunscreen so Sommer got sunburned, not a terrible one thankfully. She was wearing her sunhat but as you can see, it only covered her face to the bridge of her nose. She was already bathed but then she found a peppermint candy on the grass, still in the plastic and kind of crushed, but she got that out and happily made a sticky mess of herself.

We ended the evening with watching a movie on the lawn while eating popcorn and candy bars. We missed having Eric here. He is in California for a few days helping with the fixing-up of my grandma's old house. Kent and Nellie are going to live there after they get married and it still needs a lot of work so we loaned out Mr. Fixit for the weekend.

I have to share the best part of my day. After walking the children's parade route we still had to find somewhere to sit to see the regular parade. I prayed that I would be able to find a seat but then as we were walking up this big hill, I prayed in my heart that we would please find somewhere to sit and that someone would be nice to us. Well, after walking up a big hill and not finding any space to sit, we started back down the hill back to an open patch of sidewalk that I spotted earlier. It was only two squares of sidewalk and I was going to have the boys sit on the curb while I sat on the blanket behind them with the girls. There were two older women in lawn chairs on one side of the space and when she saw that I was making our way into the space beside her she moved over and then said, "I just live right here, how about a chair to sit on for you mom?" And she went into the house and brought out two low sitting lawn chairs. She was so kind. And get this, her daughter recently moved to Claremont.

"God does notice us, and he watches over us. But it is usually through another person that he meets our needs. . . So often, our acts of service consist of simple encouragement or of giving mundane help with mundane tasks, but what glorious consequences can flow from mundane acts and from small but deliberate deeds!"…President Spencer W. Kimball

God loves you. He knows you're there, just like he knew where I needed help today.

9 comments:

Tricia said...

You are so brave to take all the kids out like that. Kudos to you!

Thanks for sharing your story. God does pay attention to moms in need.

Anonymous said...

I love that story Paige and hearing about your fourth. You are one amazing woman. I love to read everything you write...it is always wise, insightful and enlightening. I'm so lucky to know you.

curly girl said...

That's one of my all-time favorite quotes, but I've never heard that last bit! Love it! And, I love that you recognize the tender mercies of the Lord in your life. I know that you often bless others in similar ways. You are awesome!

Sally said...

Kent and Nellie are getting married? Oh happy day! I was wondering how that would all turn out. When is the blessed event?

Lark said...

Did you know that Laine and Afton have the same cupcake Target shirt? Its a cute one. We also had Star Wars characters in our parade but my kids were pretty clueless.
I'm glad you had a good day even with Eric gone. That was a great story about the seat at the parade...God does answer our prayers in simple and sweet ways.

Torrie said...

your testimony brought tears to my eyes this morning about this day. it's just what i needed to hear i think.
that parade looks fun! i quick put a scrapbook together for the 4th and made a parade page and then didn't know about a parade for the kids, so i guess that page will be blank till next year, maybe we'l go to the edmonds parade for the free candy too!
i love that you do such fun things with your kids, you inspire me to do more. hence the mondays with mom for the summer time.

Audrey said...

Thanks for your testimony today. My mom's line was always "look what happens when we pay our tithing!". It's those little blessings that help me through too.
The parades are fun! We did the Bothell one and Isaac was frustrated that we and to go so slow. But he got tons of candy. Daniel sat in the wagon and just stared at people.

Paige said...

Kent and Nellie are getting married on August 9th! We're all so happy for them. She is quite a classy girl and is planning a French Country themed reception, it sounds like it will be just lovely. All the little girls are going to wear white summer dresses, they'll be so cute. Nellie is the youngest of 10 children so it is going to be such a celebration! My only problem is finding the shopping time to find something to wear. At least with that many people no one will be looking at me.

Thanks for all the nice comments everyone. I feel blessed to have such sweet friends.

K. Laura said...

Thanks for the inspiring post. A good reminder to pray even for the small things because God cares about those too.