Folding laundry isn't easy around here!

Whenever we have bedsheets to be folded, I usually ask the boys to help. The other day, Mandy wanted to "help" as well. This "help" typically involves entertaining the boys with an opportunity to play with her!

The dry air added an extra dimension of fun for all three of them - Mandy's hair went wild!

Another reason we're homeschooling

The State of California has now banned "Mom and Dad" from the public schools - yet another reason why I'm glad we're homeschooling. It's becoming more and more evident that government schools are, indeed, dangerous places for our children in more ways than one.

How much farther will this country fall before our patient Father says, "enough"? Arnold, God will hold you accountable for this!

"How dry I am....."

This weather is SOOO NICE!!!! I love this weather - low 70's, and DRY! I know not everyone likes it this dry, but I do. Yeah, it's kind of hard on the nasal passages and throat, but I don't mind that so much. A little saline solution and a glass of ice water work wonders.

When we lived in Illinois, we NEVER had weather with humidity in the 20's like this! If it got down to 40%, (which was rare) I was really happy. My allergies seem to behave themselves a whole lot better when there isn't so much moisture. Mold and mildew have a hard time causing problems for me in these conditions!

When the weather is this nice, I usually don't have to kick the kids out of the house; they go out on their own accord. The other day the boys were playing baseball in our back yard. Right up until the ball hit the back door, that is! That's when I sent them to the park that's just up the road from our house.

Today, I felt strong enough to walk to the park with them so Mandy could come along (without having to make Amy go!) They had a great time chasing each other all over the plastic playground equipment, which adds an additional dimension of fun in dry weather like this - STATIC! I should have brought my camera along. Mandy's long hair was soon standing straight up!

All three of them had great fun trying to shock each other. They were laughing so much that I had a hard time not laughing too hard with them. It still hurts to laugh too much.

It also made for a good (if rather brief) science lesson on static electricity. I tried to explain the reasons why they were getting shocked without making it into an all-out science class. They weren't too interested in making it into a school day so I didn't press it too much! Why ruin a perfectly good day off with a science lesson?

Well, I have my own opinions on that one, but I'll let it go this time!

It hurts to laugh!

Now I know where they got the old cliche, "they had me in stitches." Our family does a lot of joking around and laughing, and I can't because it HURTS!!! Gary cracked a joke yesterday that had us both laughing, and it hurt so bad I started crying. I had to have him help me back to bed so my upper abdomen would stop screaming at me. I felt worse at that moment than I did when I first woke up in the recovery room after the surgery.

They started it again at the dinner table tonight, and I had to get up and leave before I started crying. It's downright unfair, too! I don't want to make the kids feel bad that they did something to hurt Mommy, but I also don't want to squelch their fun.

I know it's said that laughter is the best medicine, but in my case, I think I'll have to settle for the pills. At least for a few more days!

My tummy hurts!

How do you explain surgery to a four-year-old? That is, without instilling in her an unnecessary fear of the doctor and hospitals?

I had my gall bladder removed on Friday. It's now Monday evening, and my tummy still hurts. I'm at least up and around, now, and I was able to take a shower yesterday (Sunday afternoon). For the first 24 hours after getting home, I literally couldn't move without intense pain, and that was WITH the pain medication. If I went too long without the meds, I couldn't move at all.

I've tried to stay in bed all weekend and avoid moving around as much as possible. I am so blessed to have my husband to help me with everything I need, and he and my 17-year-old daughter, Amy, have kept the household running. Amy has prepared meals for us and is doing a great job.

I'm also blessed to have so many loving friends and relatives praying for me - thank you to all of you! I know everything went well because of your prayers. Mom, I know you told me not to try to do school this week, but I do have to keep Tim up with his reading...and I made Collin keep up with his science lessons...but that's ALL! :) I'm not doing anything else - I PROMISE!

My little one, Mandy, keeps wanting to see my tummy and wants to get me new band-aids for it. She's so tender and compassionate when she sees someone who isn't feeling well. I don't know what I'd do without my sweet girl! It's hard to explain to her about why I'm in so much pain, but I think she's content to be allowed to help out whenever she can. Yesterday she "helped" me get up and walk to the bathroom, just like she saw her daddy doing.

She keeps checking on me every now and then and asking if my tummy still hurts. I'll get better really soon with this kind of care!

Sometimes our Fold is more like a zoo...

We have some other members of our family who have not yet been introduced. They're a rather exclusive group of individuals who, until recently, seemed to live a very active life. They used to go everywhere we went. One, in particular, went with Collin to every piano lesson for a year. When one of them was lost, we grieved. When a new member arrived, we rejoiced. They were included in nearly every aspect of our lives.

These family members were very instrumental in helping us teach our children about how we should treat one another, and even the social graces. Lessons in setting the table and etiquette were included.

Thankfully, they don't run up much of a bill at the restaurants.

Yes, they're what we call, "The Monkey Club." These were my boys' absolutely favorite toys for several years. They have always had lots of other "boy stuff" to play with, but these monkeys were their all-time favorites.

Just after we moved to Texas, they found a box of my old Barbie clothes and furniture. Most of the clothes were made by my grandmother when I was about 8 years old. You can tell that some of the fabrics and fashions look rather dated - I think there's still a pair of bell-bottom pants in that box. Anyway, the boys found these clothes and the doll furniture, and went to work. It kept them occupied for literally hours!

They have done lots of little scenes like this over the years. Once, they made instruments out of legos and set up a little band, complete with drum set. They never went anywhere without at least one of the small monkeys in their pockets. When one of them got lost at the airport, it was a horribly sad day. It was several weeks before I found another one at the local thrift store.

The boys are good about letting their little sister in on the fun, too, as long as she doesn't destroy their hard work, that is. And that's not easy for a toddler to avoid sometimes. After all, she has her own ideas about how to set things up. She's a "keeper-at-home-in-training" and has to learn these things.

Since I'm no longer too crazy about Barbie (she just can't seem to keep her clothes on), I think the Monkey Club will do nicely.

Cicada Wars

Collin and Tim LOVE cicadas. Every fall, they go searching for the empty shells that were shed by the the noisy things. In Illinois, they found hundreds of them and kept them in an old lunch box.

One day, I found Collin (then about 10 years old) out in our driveway with all his army men, cowboys and Indians lined up in ranks. They were all on the same side, marching to defend Planet Earth against rows and rows of hollow cicadas. I wish I had taken a picture of that scene.

I remember collecting them when I was a kid, too. I think I must have taken every cicada shell in that tree - I remember my Dad on the ground with a big jar, and I climbed higher and higher, dropping the shells to my Daddy. Maybe that's why it didn't surprise me too much to find an old lunch box packed with cicada shells when we moved last December. They couldn't come with us to Texas, though - they didn't pass inspection. Many of them were missing some legs, and more than a few were crushed. I didn't think they could take the rigors of being deployed, so they were given an honorable discharge...and surreptitiously disposed of, along with their lunch box.

The boys were delighted to find cicada shells here in Texas, too, and they're a little bigger than the ones in Illinois. I was surprised they didn't go to war this year. I guess there weren't enough cicadas to be considered a threat to Planet Earth. Good thing, too - I don't think all of the human troops were transferred to Texas, either.

Signs of Life

One of our favorite songs is "Signs of Life" by Steven Curtis Chapman. The lyrics of the third verse talk about the "signs of life" left all over the house and yard by the artist's children.

Our house and yard are definitely filled with signs of life - as I got ready for bed tonight, I emptied my pockets. Their contents weren't mine.

I have a small box (okay, it's an empty baby wipes tub) that I use for holding "pocket prizes" each night. One night a while back, my prizes included two cars, three legos and a bean. Signs of life.

Tonight's prizes were acorns - three little souvenirs that Mandy brought back from the Gonzales field trip a couple of weeks ago.

We were having lunch that day in the courtyard of the jail and courthouse in historic Gonzales. It was awfully hard for Mandy to sit still and finish her lunch because there were millions of acorns with her name on them just waiting to be picked up. The little pocket on her shirt got rather stretched out. It just wasn't big enough - every time she bent over to pick up another acorn, two or three would fall out of her pocket (much to everyone's amusement). She began to get rather frustrated, and then kind Mr. Warren came to her rescue with a ziploc bag!

WHAT a prize she had then! We came home with a whole quart of acorns that day. I told her before we got home that the entire bag would not be allowed in the house, or there would have been acorns all over the place! I let her take five acorns inside with her, and the rest had to go to the back yard. When we got home, her big brother helped her count out five acorns, and she obediently took her bag of treasure out the back door and placed it against the brick wall of the house.

Now, two weeks later, she had to say "goodbye" to the bag of acorns. Thankfully, she wasn't too upset about it, though I did it while she wasn't looking. They were badly moldy from being in that bag too long, and I didn't want her playing with them and ingesting that stuff. So, the precious acorns are gone. But before I banished them to the landfill, I buried a couple of handfuls in the mulch out back. And, I put three of them in my pocket in hopes of one day planting them in containers for future transplanting.

Maybe I should write Mandy's name on them.

A long time ago, I did this...

Here are the Christmas card illustrations I mentioned in my first post. I wanted to just post them so that you can click on each thumbnail and see a larger image, but I haven't figured that out yet. So, they're in slideshow format and you can see larger images on the Picasa album where they're stored.

Tickle Me Mandy

Our youngest child is Mandy, a precocious four-year-old who LOVES to be tickled! A few months back, she came up to me out of the blue and said, "I want you to call Grandpa and tell him to come to my house and tickle my tummy."

So, I did!

Unfortunately, Grandpa couldn't come right away (they live in Tulsa, about 12 hours' drive from here), so I was asked to take care of Mandy's request in Grandpa's place until further notice.

I've never seen a child who actually ASKS to be tickled - I think her daily tickling must be like vitamins to her. She just can't get through the whole day without a good dose of it. She'll come up to me and show me her bare tummy, and won't leave me alone until I give her my full attention! I keep tickling until she can't breathe, and then I ask, "Had enough?"

With a mischievous grin, she answers, "No!"

More tickling...face turns blue..."Had enough?"

"No!"

...and so it goes on. Finally I just have to say, "Okay, that's enough for now." I don't want her to overdose, because when Grandpa comes for his next visit, tickling Mandy will be first on his list of things to do!

The In-Laws are moving in!

We've always been blessed to live only an hour away from Gary's parents, and the kids have enjoyed seeing their Opa and Oma once a month or so. So, that made it really hard when we moved last winter. Now, that's about to change - Gary's folks have bought a nice little house only half a mile from us! It will be really nice to have them close enough that we can get together more often than we did when we lived in Illinois! And, they'll be able to get passes to the pool that we can see from our house, but can't use - I hope they're allowed to bring guests swimming, too. They're hoping to be able to move in before Christmas, so now we just have to pray that all goes well with their packing and preparations and that their current home sells quickly. I think it will - two and a half acres of wooded land with river frontage won't be on the market for long!

Once we get them moved and settled, our next project will be to get MY parents down here, too! They live in Tulsa and are caring for my grandmother who has Alzheimer's disease, so it might not be so easy for them right now. But we can pray about that, too! It will be really wonderful to have our whole family together at last.

Our family is blessed to have such good relationships between both sets of parents and us. I know that's very rare - we are so richly blessed.

Welcome to the Fold!

I've been reading several of my friends' blogs, and they're all such a blessing that I think I'll join in! So, here's my very first "blog".

I chose "The Fehrenbach Fold" for the title because that's what our home is - the sheepfold for the lambs whom God has so graciously chosen to entrust to us. Our greatest prayer is that He'll continue to enable us to bring them up according to His perfect will, and prepare them for lives of unwavering service in His Kingdom.

Back in my pre-parenthood days, I did some freelance greeting card illustration. The picture at the top of the main page is an illustration I did in 1994. It's titled, "The Shepherd" and it was one of four in a series of Christmas card illustrations. That was the last time I've actually done any serious artwork, as I've been a little busy with other things... :)

I'll try and figure out how to post the entire series -- I'm just figuring out how to use this website so it might not be today. My husband really likes to get his socks and underwear out of the dresser drawer rather than the laundry basket, so I think I'd better get some folding done!