Loved by Lois

Charity Campbell (0:06)

Hi, friends, and welcome to my treehouse. My name is Ms. Adventure, and I'm so glad you're here with me today. You can grab a hold of the rope ladder and climb on up to join me. Watch your step and grab a cushion to sit on. Here at Ms. Adventure's Treehouse, we love having fun, being silly, sharing stories, making new friends, and in the process, learning what makes Jesus so special, what makes us so special to him. Well, would you look at that? I had a sandwich for lunch in the treehouse yesterday, and I kind of forgot to clean up my mess.

Look what happened. My cheese, it got holes nibbled in it. It looks like Swiss cheese, except it's just regular old cheddar. I think that could mean only one thing. You came up here last night and ate my cheese. Oh, it wasn't you?

Well, who do you think might have nibbled holes in my cheese?

Did you see that? Mystery solved. There's a mouse in my treehouse.

I guess I'll have to run to the store and grab a mousetrap. But before I do, would you like to hear a story? Great. How about we move this story outdoors to the picnic table? That way we don't get scared by any more little mice.

That's better. I've had a lot of help on today's story. Thank you, Ms. Rebecca, Ms. Emily, Adélie, Caleb, and Amelia for playing very important roles in this one. And thank you for sending me your beautiful pictures. Ariana, Ayla, Raelyn, Emerson, Eze, Noel, Eden, Willow, Endeavor, Adélie, Sampson, and Jocelyn. You are all fantastic artists. If you'd like to send artwork or a note my way, you can email it to me or send it through our Facebook group, and you can find a link to both of those in the show notes. Okay, let's jump into our story. It's a special one written for my friends Vlada, Dasha, Lois and Johan. I hope you like it. It's called Loved by Lois. Let's go.

SPEAKER_2 (2:33)

That's how the mouse, how the mouse, how the mouse gets the cheese. Lois, Johan, shake your tails.

Charity Campbell (2:42)

Vlada and Dasha, Johan and Lois' older sisters, sat in unison as all four mice finished their song and dance practice.

SPEAKER_2 (2:52)

Good job, you two. Just a couple more times through and we'll be ready for tonight.

Charity Campbell (2:58)

Vlada, Dasha, Lois and Johan were indeed ready. They were born ready for the stage and for any new business endeavor they could dream up. In fact, this wasn't their first song and dance, nor their first rodeo. They'd done both of those before. Granted, it wasn't your typical rodeo. Mice are far too small to ride atop real horses. Instead, they settled for mouse-sized stick horses their dad had built for them.

Somehow, in some way, the four mouse children always convinced their dad to help them make their business dreams come true.

Once, he built a stand to sell lemonade from a discarded shoebox. Another time, he built easels from used popsicle sticks, so the children could paint masterpieces to auction off. And there was even a time he built a miniature greenhouse garden for the kids to try their hand at selling peas and cherry tomatoes. I draw the line at a chicken coop, dad said.

SPEAKER_3 (3:58)

Chickens are at least ten times our size. Who be taking care of whom?

Charity Campbell (4:03)

He winked at them, barely able to resist their charm and struggling to say no to their latest idea. If the four couldn't convince dad to join in, which was rare, they knew they had to pivot and ask mom. It didn't work for the chicken and egg business, but it was successful in starting an itty bitty hat knitting enterprise and a mouse costume franchise, specializing in insect size mouse ears and long spindly tails.

Each of the kids' attempts to start a business went surprisingly well, or at least each started off well, until a couple of menaces would stick their whiskers in the mix. You see, the Mouse family, dad, mom, Vlada, Dasha, Lois and the youngest, Johan, lived in the bedroom of a sweet little girl named Cynthia on the third floor of a giant house.

A sweet girl that just so happened to have two very round, fluffy, whiskered pets. Cheddar, cheese, where are you? Cynthia called.

SPEAKER_2 (5:07)

Oh no, here come the cats.

Charity Campbell (5:09)

We better get back inside. Vlada and Dasha grabbed Lois and Johan by their tails and tugged them off the fluffy bedroom carpet back into their safe, but little less spacious hole in the wall. I guess we'll have to finish our practice as best we can inside our house, huh?