Here’s what Mia found.

Stay tuned for the cute, easy craft we did.

You’ll note that a lot of the samples require you to enter an email address.  That’s where another one of my favorite sites comes in–Mailinator.  Mailinator allows you to create a legitimate email address on-the-spot without any registration.  Just enter <anythingyouwant>@mailinator.com in the email field.  If the form requires validation, you can hop over to Mailinatorwhere they hold emails to your account for a couple hours.  Then you can forget about the account and not compromise the security and spam-proofness of your normal email.  Just remember that Mailinator accounts are not secure so don’t use it if you think private information will be sent to the email.  Confused? Check out their FAQs.

I have a confession.  I haven’t let my kids out in the backyard in over a month.  First it was because the snow was too deep and we couldn’t even get our back door open (legit excuse I promise).  Then it was because I was too lazy to dress them for snow play or go out myself (less legit).  Now that most of the snow is gone, it’s because of the mud.  We have our dream, flat, backyard which also means it will probably be muddy until June. 

Today as I was driving along with the windows wide open and wearing flip flops. I came to the sudden realization that we almost completely missed five days of gorgeous weather because of my attitude about mud and how much extra work it is and how much it messes (literally) with my white carpets.  I also remembered that I actually believe in sending my kids out to play in any weather because I believe it’s good for them, I don’t actually have white carpets anymore, and I have enough Zout to tackle the mess. 

Thankfully I think tomorrow’s supposed to be equally gorgeous so I can redeem myself. 

So, bring on the mud!

Shocking…we decided to explore PJ’s answer. 

I love what he said next.  “We serve Him to praise Him and to show we love Him.” 

The next jump in logic was finding out how to serve God.

Matthew 25:40  makes it pretty clear–”whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.”

So serving others is also serving and praising God.  That’s reason enough for me.

I was going to elaborate on how we are attempting (with lots of leaning on God) to raise children with servant hearts, but the kids are up and I’m out of time.  So it will have to be a different post.

PJ:  No you’re not.  There are lots of people who are better than you.

MIA: Yes I am!

PJ:  No you’re not.  Jesus is better than you.  He’s the best at everything…except sinning.

 Aren’t Amer-asians the cutest?

Today I was reading Ty a book.  Hooray! Ty’s sitting through books. Oops. Sorry. Where was I? Anyway, I was reading Ty a book and I loved the illustrations, the way he could act it out, and the simplicity and repetitiveness of it.  It’s called I Am a Backhoe by Anna Hines.  We found ours at our local library but you can also pick it up at Amazon (or anywhere else I’m sure).

If I would’ve know how bloggable our morning errands would be, I would’ve taken my camera.

Why stop at fish? I thought.  We moved onto small mammals, reptiles, and birds.  We even got to witness the cleaning of a chinchilla cage.  Who needs Keeper Encounters (or whatever they’re called at your local zoo).  By the end of our visit, we knew that chinchilla’s like to live in same-sex pairs, eat Timothy hay, grow to be 10-12″ (not including the tail), and enjoy bi-weekly dust baths. 

Have you ever run an errand that turned into a field trip?

I work in the field of engineering education and even I was impressed by the variety and number of activities for school-aged children that used everyday materials and taught an engineering concept. 

We came home with lots of projects and ideas. 

Too bad we didn’t have all those ideas during the blizzards a couple weeks ago. 

With all the festivities, we didn’t even get to explore past the atrium.  Guess we’ll have to go back.  Seeing as admission is free, it even fits within the limits of the spending freeze.