June 12, 2008
Go buy a Frosty
Check it out!
June 11, 2008
Vacation Pictures
Probably my favorite picture overall. I love looking at this hunk of a man with my babies!
June 5, 2008
Poor Litttle Blake
Off to the ER we go. Hesitantly. But, we go. After some time the Dr. informed me that our Blaker broke his collar bone. Apparently a pretty common break, but oh no he had to do it right. Most children of his age crack this bone, but Blake had to break it clean through. With this comes a lot of pain. Yeah!
So...we figured he was not in enough pain so we proceeded with his tonsilectomy on Friday. I'll let you guess what I have been doing for a week and a half. All I can say is THANK YOU THAT IT WASN'T GAVIN!!!
May 22, 2008
This breaks my heart
http://www.wbir.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=58368&catid=2
For those of you who do not know Steven Curtis Chapman, please visit his website and pray for their family during this terrible time.
http://www.stevencurtischapman.com/
May 21, 2008
Maybe I will try this again!
To catch up just a little bit here are some very very brief catch ups of the past 6 months:
- My grandparents moved from their home across the street to a new home
- We moved from our 600 sq. foot house to our much larger house
- The house we are living in is being torn apart ( in some areas down to the ground) and remodeled or rebuilt which ever you want to call it
- We finished our 2nd year of homeschooling
- All of my babies had birthdays. Now we have a 3 year old, a five year old, and an 8 year old
- Chris' truck broke three times and now we are buying a new to us truck
- Chris' 18 year old cousin, John, has moved in with us
- Most of all I hope that with six months passing we have moved closer in our relationship with our Lord Jesus and are learning to trust and love him more
August 31, 2007
Speechless
In the midst of doing this work to prepare the land to move my grandparents and move our family I am finding a strange feeling inside myself that is new to me. Actually it is not just new but, quite strange. I am finding myself at a loss for words and sometimes even emotions. For me to be at a loss for words is not something that happens frequently so to be that way on a regular basis is not something I am accustomed to. What do you say when you have nothing to say? What should you feel when you have no emotion inside of you? I think I am living out my weakness. That is quite funny when I hear myself say that because just tonight Grace (7) asked me what my gift is? The fact that my birthday was this week made me answer, "What gift honey?" She immediately reminded me that I have told her time and time again that God blesses each one of us with a gift. In being honest I told her that right now the only gift I could think of that I have is being so weak that I have no other choice but to let God do all of my work for me.
Thus, it leaves me pondering: What is my gift? Is it wrong to admit that you have one? What does it mean if you can't think of anything that you are gifted at? (I'm not saying that I have one or not, but it is a thought).
August 20, 2007
Well Are You? I'm NOT!!
Sounds absolutely wonderful, but….It is not at all where I thought I would be if someone had asked me ten years ago.
I figured that I would still be married in ten years, but I really wasn’t sure that I would be happy. That sound pessimistic, I know, but really I didn’t know many people who had made it to ten years and the ones I did surely were not even close to happy. How did I expect to be different?
I don’t think I ever really thought about having children. I was not one of those women who swore never to have them, I just never thought about it. I have dear friends that cared for baby dolls throughout their childhoods just waiting to become a mommy, but not me. I wanted to be a lawyer. Even when I got married children just didn’t cross my mind; unless of course you count those times I thought I might be pregnant. Then when I began to feel the urge two seemed like plenty. I mean why in the world would someone have more children than they have hands? Then came the working thing. I could not imagine why any woman would finish college and want to stay home with her children when there were “perfectly good child care centers” out there. I just couldn’t imagine not interacting with real people all day long. I would be so….bored!
When I was a child I had an Aunt that homeschooled my two cousins. (Yes, for those of you adding my dear “Aunt C” was our pioneer. She had truancy officers come visit and didn’t have 5000 different kids of curriculum to choose from.) Anyway, I remember thinking that they were just weird. Those poor deprived children. So sad that they couldn’t possibly have friends. Even when Grace was little I never thought I could do the homeschooling thing. Well, in fact I still think that many days.
I guess the only thing that I listed that ten years ago seemed even slightly attainable was that I would fall in love with Jesus. It seemed awfully hard in those days. I was still in that pattern of no commitment and doubt to the point that I couldn’t dig myself out. It was an elusive dream that one day I would be a woman that couldn’t go five minutes without talking to my Lord. I still struggled to remind myself to pray in those days. Now I really understand what it means to pray without ceasing.
Enough about me. Where are You? Are you where you thought that you would be?
August 13, 2007
Giving up Control
And then....reality sat in. The truth was that she would not listen when I read, take 2-hours to do one page of math, constantly need to use the bathroom, and would, oh my goodness, surely not, be a REAL CHILD!
Well this year my expectations were less, but nevertheless they were way too high considering that we are trying to prepare land to move my grandparent (who have saved everything they have ever owned in their 78 years), do a major remodel to a house, and move. So, as of this past weekend I decided that it was okay if we did not study the human body and Western Civilzation in 2nd grade. We are going to go back to the three R's and then learn about some real life. I have been assured that she will benefit greatly from learning how to hammer, paint, cut up trees, pour concrete, hang drywall, and other such things.
I think the hardest thing for me is to let go of what "traditional" school should look like. I want her to know everything there is to know about everything. Such silliness! This too is God stretching me and teaching me to realize that many times things don't work the way we think they should, but He is always in control! To God be all the glory and Praise!
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Phillippians 4:6-7
August 9, 2007
I can see the light....
Well, we have lived here for 9 years. When we first moved in we thought it was small, then came baby #1 and it was doable, but tight. Then baby #2 came and we just were not sure how it was going to work. Then baby #3 came and oh I cried, because I could just see Chris and I moving into the living room on a pull out couch. Well, as we had said many times before, "We live in a rubber house and it just stretches." Now, however the stretching has ceased.
We are in the process of moving my grandparents into a mobile home across the street from their current house, remodeling the house that live in now, and then....then....then....
July 30, 2007
Go! Fight! Win!
This year they had a huge group of girls and they took a picture for our local newspaper. Those of you who are our neighbors keep an eye out in the paper.
July 20, 2007
Are you kidding me?
Her son was learning a bible verse for bible school and she asked him to say it slowly so that she could learn it along with him. He looked at her and said, "Mommy don't you know that one?" When she replied no, he said, "I thought you knew all the verses in the bible!"
This led me to ask Grace how many bible verses that she thought I knew and then she replied, "All of them." I told her she was crazy! ; ) I only started really to learn the bible about six years ago and even then I only know a tiny tiny portion.
It is amazing at the pedestal she has me on when she is given evidence every minute of my sin!
July 19, 2007
A New Toy
It is a Kenmore Elite, Stainless Steel, French door, with a bottom freezer
July 12, 2007
My Absence
Before I left for NC, Chris and I had a random conversation about loaning our crib to a friend that was going to have twins. I had already offered it to her, but also knew that she would not need it for some time. When we talked about taking the crib down I said, "You're going to have to do it sometime when I am not here because I just can't stand to take him out of it."
Apparently Chris took me a little too seriously. When my children called me in NC, Blake said, "I seep big boy bed." I immediately asked for Chris!
Why you may ask is this such a big deal? HE IS MY BABY, HELLO!!!! I planned on him sleeping in that crib until he at least went to middle school. You know nurse until he is 5, diapers until 7 or 8, and crib until 11! How else can I keep him my baby?
One way to remember that he is still a baby is multiple times a night we find him like this:
Sound asleep with his giggy, I mean blanket. I think I need another infant in this house! Just don't tell Chris!
Now that my grieving is finished I will try to begin catching you up on our summer: bible school, swimming, cheerleading camp, OUR 10 YEAR ANNIVERSARY (WOOHOO), and all the other fun stuff. Hold me accountable, b/c you know that this blog is my only responsibility in life!
June 11, 2007
WARNING! VENTING IN PROGRESS!
This conversation should not be a big deal. Gavin is very normal in so many ways that sometimes Chris and I even forget that there is anything wrong. But, when you are trying to explain Pervasive Developmental Disorder - Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS) to someone you might as well be speaking in a language from Mars. So, I have reverted to saying that he is on the Autism Spectrum, but that he is Very high functioning. I usually go on to say that he is perfectly normal until he is not, meaning that most of the time he acts like a rowdy 4-year-old boy.
The problem is that when people hear Autism they see Rain Man. All they hear is the word and then they stop listening. Back to THE CONVERSATION. The lady wanted to know if he was verbal, and I assured her that he was. I also assured her that I would not bring him unless he could function well there. I really do want success for him and he can be successful at this. In fact he can be more successful at this than a lot of children that I see at Walmart that have no diagnosis!
Now, for all of you positive peeps I know that this is an attack of the enemy on me, b/c I have been struggling with my sweet Gavin. So, here I am sitting and I am going to pray that I will go and hang out with him tonight, and not be spiteful, enjoy the extra time with just him, and pray that the fruit of the Spirit will be evident in me.
Just remember that we all know you can't judge a book by it's cover and you can't always judge a child by his or her diagnosis! Love You All!
June 9, 2007
"Stolen Kisses"
Like I said you all can celebrate this V-I-C-T-O-R-Y with me and continue to pray with me that one day he just might kiss me, but until then I'm going to enjoy my "stolen kisses."