sweet mara

My sweet niece, Mara, called yesterday and told me she is home from school again still fighting a fever. She was feeling very discouraged and disappointed because today her entire 5th grade is going on a field trip to go down hill skiing. And she's going to miss it because she's sick.

I'd like to pause right here and put on my old aunt hat for a moment. When I was a kid we took field trips to thrilling places like the county courthouse. Down hill skiing?!! My oh my, how things have changed. It was Mara's own mother who had to be picked up from her field trip at the Pickle Factory because the fumes made her puke.

Back to Mara. I just love this girl to pieces. And being that she is home in bed today, feeling sad to be missing out, I thought I'd leave her a little blog love.

Mara was born when I was a student at the seminary and she lived just 20 minutes away from me. Now there is something very, very special that happens when your sister has a baby. Because of the closeness of sisters, that first baby born between the two of you is basically your shared child. Of course your older sister doesn't quite see it this way, but the younger sister absolutely does. I loved Mara like my own and spent every minute I could with her. When she was one year old, Rory and I drove with her and her folks in a big moving truck out to Montana where she lived for five years. And I missed her so much that we decided to move out there for a while too.

Now she lives just an hour away and I still soak up every single minute with her. She is a very bright and intelligent girl. And she loves to write! She will send us her stories and it is such a joy to read all that is in her imagination. Writing has been such a gift for me, such a fun outlet for my thoughts and feelings, and I'm so pleased that she processes life this way too.

She is amazing with my kids and loves to hold and feed Hattie. She enjoys running and has become quite the soccer player. And she ice skates. And she does gymnastics. And she has a lovely singing voice. She's quite impressive all around. I love this girl with my whole heart and have enjoyed every age, watching her use all the gifts God has given to her.

We love you Mara! We will be praying for you to feel better very soon!

(Late last night I got a text that Mara has Pnemonia. So keep her in your prayers. Her cough sounds awful and even with a day of antibiotics she still has a high fever. She sent me texts from the doctor's office keeping me in the loop, and I sent her pictures of my living room that we are painting Girard Red. I loved it in that house and Rory was the one who picked it for this one. It's going to be awesome. Off to paint coat #2!)

a cheerful giver

Last night, after the hot chocolate stand I overheard Rory talking to Ivar. He asked Ivar to give a bit of his earnings to Elsie, since she was helpful in sitting with him the whole hour. And then Ivar came over to me and Elsie and said, "Elsie, this is five dollars for helping me." He was a little hesitant to do it, but I complimented him for doing something because it was simply the right thing to do.

Later on Rory talked to Ivar about tithing and giving a portion of his hot chocolate money back to God. Rory read from the Bible, "Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly, for God loves a cheerful giver" and explained to Ivar that he should give whatever amount he wanted, back to God. He shared how God loves when we honor him with our gifts because God is the giver of all good gifts and loves to give to his children. He told Ivar about God's floodgates, ready to burst open and pour out blessing when we give to God. God says in the Bible, "Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this and see if I will not throw open the floodgate of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it."

There was a part of me that thought this was all a bit too complex for Ivar to wrap his head around. These are some big kingdom themes for a five-year-old. But Ivar was taking it very seriously, thinking really hard about how much he wanted to give back to God. And I started to see the importance of having him wrestle with this "giving back to God" concept at a young age...because it doesn't get any easier when we get older to begin. But the blessing is there and waiting for all who give, and once you experience this truth, it actually does get easier. I want him to know this early on. It's the greatest foundational truth of money management: tithing, first fruits, cheerful giving. I could see his conflict in his head; wanting to keep it all, but also wanting to test God's promise.

I was upstairs when he landed on his number. He had earned 26 dollars, given five to Elsie and came to tell me with great joy, "I'm going to give God SIX of my dollars! And God's gonna open the floodgates!" He had come to that number on his own and was pleased and happy about his decision.

Rory got him an envelope and they put six dollars in it for the offering on Sunday. And Ivar remained joyful and excited the whole time.

Today we called my dad to tell him how the hot chocolate stand went and Ivar told him, "I gave five dollars to Elsie and gave God six dollars for a floodgate!" When I took the phone back I explained to my dad what we were trying to instill in Ivar's heart. Dad told me that when he and my mom were first married he made $3200 that entire year, working at a church. He said, "we tithed on every paycheck and somehow managed not only to pay every bill that came in, but we had money in savings at the end of the year! Try to explain that!" We talked about the mystery of tithing, how it goes against our mortal minds, but somehow this is truly how money works in the kingdom. God loves to give back to cheerful givers.

Then I told Dad how this morning I heard Ivar and Elsie talking in the bathroom, "Elsie, do you want to give your money to God too? Then you'll get your own floodgate!"

hot chocolate stand

This summer, after hosting the lemonade stand, we talked about how fun it would be to have a hot chocolate stand in the wintertime. So since the first snow Ivar has been asking when we could have it. Earlier this week Rory saw the warm forecast and declared Sunday would be the day.

We sent out an email to our neighbors and made little invites for our church friends to come too. We got home from church and I baked the cookies while the kids worked on the sign. Rory turned his attention to tree tapping, as it seems this may be the week to tap the maple trees. And Harriet slept, bless her heart!

By the time 4:00 rolled around it was clear that our kids were going to crumble. Similar to a highly anticipated birthday party, they had used up all of their energy by being excited all day. It meant that once it was time to sell the hot chocolate we had a little boy who was sad about everything. He and his dad had to have a talk and, thankfully, he did pull it together and was able to sell his heart out when more neighbors were there. It's hard being a kid. And it's hard being a parent. :)

Elsie only spilled her hot chocolate two times on the table cloth and likely ate a dozen cookies. (I think I'm kidding, but actually I have no idea...) But all in all it was another sweet time of seeing our neighbors, introducing our friends to each other and celebrating community in the middle of winter.

grovesisms

First of all, how sweet is this girl? I can't get enough. And that quilt! I love it so much.

I kept a piece of paper with me this week and wrote down vocabulary that I believe may be unique to our family. It started when I heard my kids talking about A Mall of Themerica. And I realized this has been going on for some time and I just can't correct it. I'm even proud of them for saying it this way! A Mall of Themerica. It's just so awesome.

Then I thought about how we team up into two groups: The Peanut Butter Boys and The Jelly Girls. This was started almost a year ago and used all the time. Yesterday Rory and Ivar went to get haircuts. When Elsie wanted to know if she was going I said, "Nope, the Jelly Girls are staying home and reading books. Just the Peanut Butter Boys are going." It's very helpful and makes any division of the genders sound more fun.

I can't remember if I've written about this one yet, but when Rory was up at North House Folk School, I told the kids at lunch, "I love Grand Marais (pronounced Ma Ray) so much." And Ivar said, "I love this sandwich so much." And I said, "Maybe we should call that sandwich a Grand Marais." And wouldn't know you, it stuck. So anytime he asks for a Grand Marais, I whip up a ham and deli cheese sandwich with mayonnaise and mustard, If we're out of ham it's called a Cheesy Marais (very healthy!) We've also had Salami Marais.

And Dark Dark Mountain is the coat closet in our kitchen. I'm not sure when it got that name, but I believe it was given by Ivar during some sort of pretend play. This has also completely stuck so that if Elsie can't find her shoes I'll ask, "have you looked in dark, dark mountain yet?!!"

I'm not sure how a family bonds, but I love our lingo and think it makes us stronger. When I was little we used to call the tall pine trees on the way up to Duluth, "Giraffe Trees" because they looked like long necks with only the actual branches up near the top. For years that was used in our family and I loved that it was only the Harrington clan that knew what on earth a Giraffe Tree was...

an awesome big brother

I probably could have asked him to stop squeezing her cheeks, but I ran for the camera instead...

Today I gave the kids salami for lunch and Ivar was thrilled. I wrote down his quote immediately so I wouldn't forget one word. He said, "Thank you God that there are birthdays in the world! Because this salami is so great and I'm so glad a pig got older so he could be salami!"

Pretty sure that boy won't ever become a vegetarian.