That's A Lot of Toys

A new friend and her kiddos came over to play this week. I gave her a tour of our home, and upon seeing the playroom, she said, "That's a lot of toys." This new friend doesn't read my blog, at least not yet, but just in case she starts, I want to be clear that she did not offend me. More and more, I appreciate people who [nicely] speak their mind. I'd rather know what you think than wonder.

Her comment has caused some good evaluation on my part. For those of you who know me well, you know that I have been on a simplifying kick this past year. I have given away and sold countless possessions from my closet, my kitchen and my bookshelf. And my kids have probably given away or sold about half of their toys. And still we have a lot.

So, have I failed in my simplifying efforts? I don't think so. First of all, I am still in process as is the rest of our family. We have made a lot of progress this year. And secondly, I can encourage my children to live with less stuff, but I can't force them to do it. I can put systems in place to help them to clean things out, sure, but ultimately, they have to decide for themselves how to manage their stuff. We have a good dialogue going about possessions right now, I think, and I am hoping that we'll all grow as a result. My children often hear, "Well, if you are tired of cleaning it up, you are welcome to give it away." And sometimes they opt to do that.

Amelia finally parted with four toys that she outgrew a while ago. The trick for her was meeting some kids to pass them along to. She's very relational and found joy in giving to new friends.

The bottom line, though, is that something is still bugging me, and I haven't resolved it yet. My new friend is a sincere Christian (as I am), and her surprise at the quantity of our possessions was. . .convicting? Is that what I am feeling?

I know that I don't have to please her, but is God using my sister in Christ to bring to light an issue on which I need to work? Even though I/we have made significant progress in reducing the number of possessions we have, are we called to do more? Are we living in excess?

Let the wrestling begin.

Happenings and Challenges

Baby: On October 22, our dear friends, Andrew and Virginia, had their baby. We are so glad that we are living in Fort Collins and that we got to meet Corinne on her birthday. She is beautiful. It's been great to have our long-time friends here as we adjust to life in a new place, and we are delighted to share life with them.

Church-shopping: We have visited 5 churches in Fort Collins so far. It's been a challenging experience for all of us, and we are learning a lot. We still have a couple more churches that we want to check out. All-in-all, we haven't had any bad experiences in our church shopping, but we have noticed the need for good Bible teaching and for the gospel to be proclaimed in this city.

Meeting new people: We're thankful for new friends we have met so far in Fort Collins. We have met a few families through a local homeschool group and homeschool events. We have also met a cool church-planting family through Twitter, and we are so glad that we have connected with them. We also met another Ft. Collins family on a hike in Rocky Mountain National Park. We are definitely in a stage of our lives where we have to be "out there". We are introducing ourselves to strangers fairly often and hoping to make connections. Amelia had an interesting birthday party this year. We invited all the people we have met to meet us at the park for playtime and brownies (her cake choice). On her birthday, we had been here just shy of a month, and we were blessed to have lots of new friends for her to play with and celebrate the day.

Injuries: On the Friday prior to Halloween, Maitlyn broke her wrist falling from the monkey bars at City Park. At first, we didn't know that it was broken and weren't quite sure if we should just wait and see or seek treatment. A new friend here has past experience as an EMT, and he advised us to go to Urgent Care. Sure enough, she came away with a splint and got a neon green, waterproof cast the following Monday.

Last night, Elspeth got into the injury game. She was getting ready to cut out a Thanksgiving paper doll while waiting for our family devotion time. She [apparently] forgot her scissor safety skills and had the scissors pointing up while she was climbing onto a bench at our school table. Next thing we knew, Elspeth was screaming, "I'm bleeding!" with her hand to her head. I didn't know about the scissors yet, and thought she had hit her head on the bench, but in a few moments Brett picked up a pair of bent scissors with one handle completely broken off and about 1 inch of blood on the blade tip. The cut was on the right side of her head, near her temple. We rushed to Urgent Care first, and they decided to send us to the ER so that we could get a CAT scan if needed. Elspeth did get a CAT scan, which was normal, and a couple of stitches. We are so thankful that God spared Elspeth from serious injury.

Fun Stuff: We haven't spent all our time at Urgent Care and the ER. We have really enjoyed some cool homeschool field trips and other fun things in our new home. In fact, Elspeth informed me that she liked field trip school the best. Here are some of the cool things we've been doing: hike in Horsetooth Mountain Parks, trip to Science Toy Magic (an educational toy store run by a former science professor who may be Willy Wonka's brother), trip to the Fort Collins Museum and Discovery Science Center, trip to Denver Children's Museum, and a trip to Swetsville Zoo. We've also taken many trips to our new libraries and parks. This Friday, Lord-willing, we are looking forward to a field trip to Walker Mowers to see how their revolutionary mowers are assembled.

So that's our overdue update.