Should I start charging?

"Hi, we're Mark and Valerie. We're your neighbors. The ones with four small kids already. Yes, we'd love a couple more, but, no, we do not want yours." 

We've struggled with this issue at different times over the past year or two {sort of natural when there are almost ten kids the same ages as ours within 300 yards of where we live}, but nothing like it's been the past few days.We're not quite sure how to handle it. We're both introverts and despise conflict, but it's getting slightly out of control. We feel like maybe we should say something, but when you live across the street from the people and see them 400 times a day, it's awkward. And on the other side of this, these kids...this family...are a big mission field.

The household is made up of a set of grandparents, their daughter, her five kids, and her {18 year old} daughter's three year old son and her boyfriend {not the little boy's dad}.  The "adults" are in and out of their driveway several {or 50} times a day. There are also 4ish dogs and at least 10 birds living in the house/garage. The youngest of the five kids is the same age as Ethan and Karis. She and the three year old have taken to coming down to our house at every opportunity possible. If we step out of the house, they're in our yard in a matter of minutes. I think she rang our doorbell three or four times yesterday...one of them was after 8:30pm. Another time the little boy was playing in our yard for a while...it was dinner time for us, so I wanted to send him home, but no one was out at their house...no vehicles in the driveway. I had no idea if anyone was even home.  As I was walking him home {and my family's dinner was getting cold} a couple of rough looking guys pulled up at another neighbor's house to do some landscaping. No one came out to meet the little boy, but he said his mom was inside...I asked him to go inside to make sure she knew he was back, but he didn't go in. I couldn't in my right mind just leave him there, with these guys I didn't know right next door watching the situation. I waited a couple of minutes and thankfully Grandma came driving up the road.   

I don't mind them stopping by to play for an hour or two a couple days a week, even if the "favor" isn't really returned {I wouldn't really be comfortable even if it was}. But several hours everyday. Inviting themselves to eat lunch here and go on outings with us to the Nature Center. Seems a bit much to me. Natalie {our extrovert} enjoys playing with them and so do Levi and Karis sometimes. But this other little girl can be very bossy and rough, and that makes me uncomfortable...especially since Natalie just does whatever she says. 

I'm tired of making up excuses for them to go home or hesitating to go play in our front yard. Last night I dreamt that they were standing on our front porch looking in our windows, waiting for someone to let them in.

My memories of how often we played with our neighborhood friends as kids have faded. But I definitely remember that things were reciprocated...some days we played at our house, some days we played at someone else's {and I'm pretty sure my parents were comfortable with that}. It's one of the reasons that I wanted to live in the "burbs" for this season of our life. Mark grew up in the country, miles from anyone else his age. He's a huge fan of privacy. If he gets his way, we'll be on 20 acres sometime in the next five to ten years.

All that said, the opportunity we have here is not lost to us, but where do we draw the line? What is the boundary between being a good neighbor/ministering and being taken advantage of? Can we charge a boarding fee { :o) }? 

Reading for a Purpose

One of the many things we've been working on these past few days is a little service project/fundraiser to help raise support of my sister, who will be heading to the Philippines next year (Lord willing) as a missionary.
Last Friday we started our local library’s summer reading program like we do every year now. As part of the program the kids get a reading log to track every 15 minutes of reading. They get five logs…one for each week of the program. Well, by day two of week one, and Ethan had already filled two and a half logs and Karis was half way through her second one. Needless to say, they’ll probably be able to turn in most, if not all, of their logs by the end of their first week in the program. We were trying to think of a reward they could earn here at home (even though they don't really need the extra incentive) once they’d collected their prizes for the logs they turn in at the library. We threw out ideas about earning 25¢ for each log or maybe 10¢ per book. It got us thinking that maybe this would be a way they could do some fundraising.

Our plan combines two lessons that we’d love for our kids to remember: First, reading is fun and rewarding. Second, if we are unable (or not called) to go to the foreign mission field, then God calls us to support those who are.

We'd love it if you would pray about sponsoring Ethan and Karis on their reading adventures this summer. This will be a combined effort, because the Lord knows there is already enough competition between the two of them. You can pledge per book (they will mostly be either chapter books or longer non-fiction books) or per reading log (each one equals 105 minutes of reading). We’ll keep track of both through the end of July and your donations can be made in August so that they will be matched by One Mission Society.

You can make a pledge by filling out this form. You can read more about Lauren's ministry plans here.

They are my Sunshine

(Cookie puzzle treat from the neighbor lady!)

Our Little Athletes, Part II

Ethan's first baseball game...here is one of his three doubles.

Karis' gymnastics recital.

Our Little Athletes

Here are some highlights of the older two in their recent athletic endeavors...

Karis perfecting her back handspring.  She has landed it, without help, a couple times at home.

Ethan kicking the game winning goal in the last 3 seconds of the game against his teams big "rival". 

Last week we ran in our church's Hustle for Haiti 5k.  We had every intent of getting some training in beforehand, but that didn't pan out with our crazy schedule and rainy weather.  We ran once the week before...at which point Karis decided she no longer wanted to do the full 5k.  The morning of the race, though, she changed her mind, so I pushed Natalie and Levi in the double jogger and ran with her. I was proud of her for running more than she walked and we came in in right around 37 minutes. Over 200 people participated and we were in the top 90!  Ethan took off after the first half mile and we cheered him on when we saw him around the half way point.  He finished in just over 28 minutes, for third place in the 12 and under age group!  

I have two more videos I want to upload, but I think I'm overloading this post.  If you care...look for Part II in the near future.

I might be back...

So...when I take breaks from blogging...I always have this internal debate about whether I should even start back up...which ends up making my break even longer.  I'm having a hard time figuring out if I really miss reading the blogs that I do, and writing mine, enough to "come back". 

Life has been busy for the past month and a half...and isn't showing signs of letting up yet.  We've done soccer, baseball, gymnastics, strep throat, wedding showers, babysitting an infant for a few days, graduation parties, picnics, yardwork, couponing and more.  I've had about 25 students finish their American History course in the past several weeks, which equals many emails, phone calls, and much grading. 

Amongst all of this, I can't pinpoint the value of reading other people's blogs...but when I write mine, I get sucked into reading other peoples'. And that causes too much distraction in my brain, and I lose focus on what I should really be spending time doing.  I have the same problem with Facebook...hence my break from there, as well.

I still want to record our life's tidbits, treasures, and toils. Yes. I do. I just felt like I needed to explain my hiatus a bit...to you...and to me.  So...yah...get ready for some updates :O)