Thoughts from Stacie

Vacation, Potty Training, Lost Tooth... What should I title this blog?

2012-02-11T23:54:00.001-06:00

This has actually been a relaxing week despite the busy title. Scott went to a tech conference that lasted the whole week. I decided that taking a break from our normal schedule and visiting my parents would be a great way to help the week go by quickly. I called it an early Spring Break.

I mentioned that I would get a picture of the kids with their build-a-bears. I took this one before getting the kids to bed at my parents' cottage.

I got this picture of Joshua on his new skateboard at my Mema's house. He hadn't been able to ride it until Tuesday. So he was extremely happy to have the free time to ride on the good old oil roads of East Texas.

The kids also enjoyed playing with my cousin's children. It's nice being a close knit family. I had the opportunity to explain first cousins, second cousins, and third cousins to my kids. Hannah still thought it was confusing. :-)

Elijah started going "poo poo" in the potty this week. He has surprised us with his understanding of what he is supposed to be doing on the potty. We haven't gotten super serious with his training yet. We are just letting him try going when he wants to. Serious training will commence when we start using real underwear instead of disposable training pants.

Okay, only 6 minutes left to publish this blog this week. :-) Yes, I'm blogging late again. But let me share this picture of Hannah with a missing tooth.

She has been really proud of that tooth this week. I was impressed that she pulled it herself without a lot of squealing. She's growing up so fast.

A Short Summary of this Week

2012-02-04T23:45:00.001-06:00

This week has gone by so fast! I only have one hour to write this blog before I miss posting this week. I only said that my goal this year was to post one blog a week. I didn't say which day. :-)

Monday, I decided to stay home and not go to a homeschool meeting that I could have gone to.

Tuesday, I got up early and took Scott to work so that the kids and I could go to my doctor's appointment that morning. Elisabeth's heart rate was good and the doctor told me that everything looked great on the ultrasound. I was glad to hear everything was fine.

After my doctor's appointment I took the kids to Walmart and bought a few groceries and other items we were needing for the week. Then we had karate class that evening.

Wednesday and Thursday were normal days. Scott, Hannah, and Jonathan will be testing for their next belt level a week from now. Hannah is pretty excited that she will be testing for a green belt which will be matching me, Ruth, and Joshua.

Friday, I took Scott to work again and then came home and after my mornings Bible reading I fell back asleep. It's time for my Glucose screening and I originally planned to get that done on Friday. It doesn't require an appointment since I am only taking the one hour screening. I decided to skip that appointment and after lunch the kids and I went to their Keepers of the Faith meeting. Then we got a tire replaced on the van.

Today, we had a large group of visitors in our karate class. We had a lot of fun. After we left class we went out to eat at our favorite restaurant. The picture above is Elijah enjoying his meal.

Once we finished eating we went to the mall. Scott told the kids that he would let them each buy something for their allowance this month. Ruth got a Build-a-Bear with clothes. Hannah and Jonathangot clothes for their build-a-bears that she had gotten in the mail this week. And Elijah got a build-a-bear puppy. Joshua got a new skateboard. I'll take pictures of them with their new toys tomorrow.

I could write a lot more but I only have about 15 minutes to make my deadline on this post. So I'll try to have a better post tomorrow. :-)

A Surprise Shower!!!

2012-01-27T00:43:00.001-06:00

Today was a normal day. We have a regular routine we go through on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The kids and I try to make sure that we get everything done and get all dressed for karate class.

Then Scott gets home, we share some highlights of our day. Then we all get in the car and head to karate class.

We got there in time for the kids to get most of kids class. I helped Elijah put a floor puzzle together and then our Sense I announced that kids' class was going to end a little early today. I didn't think much about it. But after they did their regular closing ceremony, suddenly cake and punch was brought into the room. I wondered whose birthday it was and then found out it was a baby shower for our baby. :-) I was so surprised.

I took a few pictures and had Scott take a couple of pictures of me holding the little outfits for the baby.

Our Karate Family gave us this cute Pink Gi for Elisabeth.

We didn't get a picture of the cake before it got passed around but I did get pictures of everyone enjoying it. :-)

Hannah was my partner during adult class and I informed her that she had a green mustache from the icing. Oddly enough she didn't seem to mind. :-)

And the other amazing thing was that Scott knew about it for a week or so and didn't even let out a hint about it. That really surprised me! :-)

There was only one sad part, we also found out that a really nice young man was moving. But the reason, I mention this is that our Sensei led our class in prayer for that young man and his family.

I love how family oriented our dojo is and how we all feel like one big family. I also like how our instructor is very open about her faith in Christ and isn't afraid to show it. She even appointed Scott as our dojo chaplain. :-) You don't see that very often in a traditional dojo!

I just want to share one more picture from tonight of Hannah demonstrating a partner stretch that our class did. The partner was to push their backs until they said to stop.

Hannah is pretty proud of how flexible she is. :-) She can do the splits and then lay flat on the floor without any effort.

This was a later blog post this week. I had been trying to decide what subject I wanted to talk about before the week was over. I didn't realize that a subject would spring up on me like this.

Next week there is a lot going on. I won't have to have a surprise to give me something to post about.

(1 Corinthians 10:31) "Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God."

Our Three Day Weekend

2012-01-16T23:50:00.001-06:00

After such a busy week, it was nice to enjoy a fun filled weekend.

Saturday, we started the morning with a really good workout during karate class. Then that evening the girls and I enjoyed going out to a Mother/Daughter tea party with friends in our homeschool group.

The girls enjoyed wearing pretty dresses. We were able to bring our own tea cups and enjoyed having fancy tea.
There was a nice area set up where we could have our pictures taken. One of the mothers brought her camera and took our pictures. Afterward I took a picture of Ruth and Hannah all dressed up in the pretty accessories that were there for the girls to wear.

They were so sweet wanting to take a picture together. One of the older girls present mentioned that during next years tea party they will have a little sister to add to their picture.

After the tea party, I took them to Walmart and bought them some hairbands.

While we girls were gone Scott and our sons made home made pizzas and watched a movie. Scott told me that my brother would be proud that after the movie, Scott showed the boys some YouTube footage of Michael Jordan.

Sunday, we had a good time at church and enjoyed visiting with our members after services.

Today, Scott was off for Martin Luther King Jr. day. We took the kids to a skate park where they could enjoy trying out their new skooters and skateboards. Elijah and I took pictures and videos of Scott and the kids trying out all sorts of half pipes and ramps.

We had a really good day. This week should be a little less busy than last week. Tomorrow, we will be back to the normal routine. It's good to take a break every once in a while and enjoy some time together as a family.

It's ....the moment you've all been waiting for!

2012-01-11T17:19:00.000-06:00

Mommy's Chubby Cheeks

It's been a good day! We went to my ultrasound appointment. I had warned Hannah, last night, that the baby might not be what she wanted. She told me that she was going to pray real hard that God make the baby a girl. I told her that God can't change the gender of the baby over night. She said, "God can!" She was positive. So I had to change my way of explaining it because she is right, God can do whatever he wants. So I tried again.

"God knew when this baby was first conceived in my tummy what he wanted this baby to be. So whether this baby is a boy or a girl, God has already decided and we'll be happy with whatever God wants.

Profile (Daddy's nose?)

Hannah told me, "Well, I'm still going to pray that it's a baby sister."

She said that she likes having Ruth as a big sister but that she wants a little sister too. Ruth isn't any fun to dress up and she's tired of dressing up her brothers who are now too old to dress in girly stuff, at least while their big brother is on guard.

I told her that the best thing to pray for now is that the baby will cooperate for us and let us see whether it is a boy or a girl.

Arms Crossed (I think some kind of karate move.)

We arrived at the doctor's office and checked in. They called me back promptly and the ultrasound was underway. The ultrasound tech said that everything was measuring well. However you see how the arms are crossed in this picture? Well, the legs were equally crossed. After she got all the baby's other measurements, we tried to see if we could get the baby to uncross it's legs.

Well, the baby was very modest and it took me turning over from one side to another about 3 or 4 times to finally get the baby to show the label.

Little Feet

I told Hannah that this baby knew that she wanted to know so badly that it was teasing her.

One thing that I was amazed at is how much jiggling my belly can take. Now here I've been worrying about bumpy roads and not jarring too much when exercising. The ultrasound tech kept jiggling my side and I'm like so that's okay? :-) I guess the baby is pretty well padded.

Anyway, I know that's not what y'all are all waiting to hear. "So get on with it already, Stacie! Was Hannah disappointed? Is she in her room crying right now?"

Hmmm... Maybe I should save the rest of the story for the next blog.

Okay, Okay! God knew that Hannah would be praying for a sister and decided that he would go ahead and give her what she wanted. We are expecting a happy healthy baby girl. We are blessed with children that know to pray for the things that are heavy on their hearts. He didn't have to give her a sister but he was gracious enough to grant her request. In about 20 more weeks we will get to welcome Elisabeth Rose into our home.

On our way home, I passed the kids back some food and Hannah wanted to say the prayer. I told her to go ahead and she thanked God for letting us have a safe trip, for the food that we are going to eat today, and for letting her have her baby sister.

God is so good!

James 1:2-6 My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; (3) Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. (4) But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. (5) If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. (6) But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.

Busy, busy!

2012-01-09T12:17:00.001-06:00

Last week was busy. Scott started back to work and the kids and I got back to our homeschool routine. Between Scott's car breaking down, us hitting a skunk on our way home from karate class, and then a long day on Friday between taking Scott to work, driving to my doctor's appointment, taking the kids to wal-mart and then standing for two hours at Keepers of the Faith, I was worn out by the time I got home.

Scott was such a dear to listen sympathetically to my day's frustrations. I know that all the work that I had on that one day is really nothing compared to the burden he bares daily to provide for me and our children. I am so blessed to have him!

Saturday, we had karate class that morning and afterwards we went to the grocery store and bought some groceries for this week.

Most of the groceries we bought were for the baby shower that I am giving for a church member that is also a friend in our homeschool group. I am hoping that I have a good attendance of the other mothers in our homeschool group as well. I have a tendency to go overboard on preparations and then I wind up very disappointed if no one comes.

This time I am trying to keep an open mind and have a backup plan if no one that was invited comes. I may do like the king in the Bible that calls people from the street to come to the banquet (check out Luke 14:16-24). Okay, maybe I won't go so far as to call strangers to eat with us. Maybe just call our children and husbands to join the party. I must say that is one advantage to having a large family, you always have party participants available.

Wednesday, I have an appointment for an ultrasound, where we hope to find out our baby's gender. The kids are hoping for a girl. Joshua and Ruth said that they wouldn't be disappointed if the baby did turn out to be a boy. Hannah however is determined that this baby has to be a girl. So for her sake, I'm glad that we are finding out early. That way she'll have time to adjust before the baby gets here.

Everyone seems to be curious about the names we've picked. If we have a boy, we plan to name him Joseph Harold. If the baby is a girl, we plan to name her Elisabeth Rose.

We have a pattern to naming our children. For their first names we choose a Bible name, and their middle names are all a family name or a slight variation thereof.

For instance Rose comes from one of Scott's grandmothers whose name was Rosa. The interesting part is that her full name was Rosa Elizabeth.

Even Joseph Harold has extra significance. Harold was not only my husband's grandfather's name, it is also the middle name of my childhood pastor that my father always called his father-in-the- ministry. His first name was Joseph, although he went by Harold.
We would call ours Joseph.

Well, I better quit blogging about my upcoming week and get busy living it. :-) I have a lot to do before I'm finished being ready for the shower. I better get busy.

The Beginning of 2012

2012-01-04T15:58:00.001-06:00

Happy New Year! For my first post this year, I wanted to share some pictures of some of the things we did yesterday.

This first picture is Joshua and Ruth working on their computers. We found out about a really great website www.kahnacademy.org. It's a great resource for learning all sorts of subjects. It's free and the kids love learning with it because the lessons are interesting and they receive points and awards that we can keep track of.

Even though she doesn't look like it in this picture, Hannah really does like working in her workbook. The biggest realization she had with yesterday's lessons was that word-find puzzles really aren't as hard as she thought they were. She finished finding all the words today without any help.

And this is the best picture I could get of Jonathan. He loves to be goofy and make funny faces for the camera. I have a hard time getting a serious picture with him. I guess he makes up for Hannah always making serious faces. Now if I could get them to meet somewhere in the middle for pictures. :-)

And Elijah wouldn't stay still for a picture because of the flash, so I chose this picture of him from Christmas.
He spent most of our lesson time tackling Jonathan. Although Elijah did learn a major lesson yesterday.

I cooked pancakes for us to eat on our drive home from karate class. The kids were wanting to have some but I explained that they just had lunch and that I wanted to save the pancakes for later. Elijah kept asking and I told him a very infatic no. I was distracted for a few seconds typing something into my tablet when I looked up and saw that Elijah had stolen the big bowl of pancakes right from under my nose and was helping himself to them. I knew that I had to teach him real quick that what he did was wrong.

It's hard sometimes as a mother to be firm with your children, when they are young and cute. I don't like seeing my children cry, but I learned quite early on that if you allow wrong behavior when they are little, it only gets harder to teach them what is right when they are older. So to help myself teach my child, I imagine him doing the same crime as a teenager and I nip it in the bud while it is fresh on his mind and while he is still young enough to take me seriously.

He did pucker up and cry real tears of repentance because with his punishment, I explained in simple terms exactly what he did wrong. Then I removed the pancakes from his reach. I held him as he thought, in his young mind, about it. A little later he was showing me something he drew on a magna doodle and I smiled and really bragged on how good of a job he did. I could tell by how he approached me that he was making sure that he had been forgiven and that all was well between us.

Children learn so quickly at such a young age. That is why the Bible tells us to raise them up right while they are young.
This going to be a really good year of growth in our family.

This year will also be good in that we'll be getting to find out whether we are having a girl or a boy this month, the baby is due at the end of May, and my brother and his family will be visiting us while on furlough from France. We're going to finally get to have a family picture with my kids and our brand new baby, his 5 kids (one of whom I hand't met in person yet), and my sister's new baby will be in it.

I am so excited to see all the blessings unfold in 2012!

Proverbs 22:6 "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it."

A Post to Test Adding Pictures

2011-12-31T22:38:00.001-06:00

I'm just testing a new blogger app to see if I can make my posts prettier.
This picture is of the birthday gift that Hannah made for me.

This picture is Elijah climbing on the slide.

This picture is of my children waiting in a chair during my doctor's appointment. Who says 5 kids take up a lot of space?

This one is of my parents, my sister holding my new niece, and my brother-in-law on Christmas eve.

Okay this should be my last post for now. I'm determined to have blogging simplified while still being nice looking. :-) Thanks for baring with me while I experiment.

2011 in Retrospect

2011-12-31T17:10:00.001-06:00

I looked back over the pictures of 2011 and am amazed at how much has happened over this past year. I was not the best at posting especially toward the end of this year. I gave the excuse that I was too busy living my blog to type about it. Now I am taking a break to catch up on 2011 and plan to get a fresh start in 2012 on blogging.

There were sad moments in 2011 as well as happy moments. Let me get the sad moments out of the way so that we can focus on the happy. The two main sad times were the passing of my grandfather James Taylor in January and the passing of my great uncle Trenton Jones in December of this past year. Both of those moments for our family even though we take joy in the knowledge that they are no longer in pain and we will get to see them again one day.

The funeral for my grandfather took place at the beginning of February. It was good to see family face to face and not just on Facebook. I enjoyed getting to visit with my second cousins whom I hadn't seen in a long while.

In March, we celebrated Elijah's first birthday and Hannah's 6th birthday. It's hard to believe that Elijah took his first steps by himself on his birthday. He not only can keep up with the rest of us now, he also can climb just about everything and seems to have no fear of heights. It shocked me one day when we were at the park to see him by himself at the top of a very tall slide smiling down at me.

In April, Hannah was saved. That seems like a long time ago, but she was Baptized in May. She is growing so fast spiritually that I have a hard time fathoming how all this growth can happen in just one year.

In June, I signed the 4 older children up for swimming lessons. That built their confidence in the water. I would like to get more lessons for them this next year as well. Also towards the end of June, Scott and I took a 3 week trip to Thailand where we enjoyed helping a missionary teach English classes in several of the schools there. We met so many wonderful people and got to learn so much from that trip. If you check out my June and July blog posts you'll see a lot of what we experienced on that trip.

Joshua turned 13 in June, and Ruth turned 11 in July. Then at the end of July, we had church camp. I taught the 3rd grade and Scott taught the High School and College aged class at camp. I also enjoyed leading the children's choir during the week.

In August, I threw a baby shower for my sister and her husband, whose first child, a sweet baby girl was born in September. She was my parent's 11th grand baby. Then shortly after her arrival, I called my sister to let her know that I needed my maternity clothes back.

We had to hurry to get the news out to all the family before it was spread across Facebook. Sorry, our family grapevine has precidence over Facebook. Then we announced it to the rest of the world on my blog and Facebook.

In September and October, I taught a recorder class in our local home school co-op. The kids each chose classes to take. Joshua took Creation Science and Teen Drama. Ruth took Stomp and Creation Science. Hannah took Texas History and Home Economics, where she got to do a lot of cooking. Jonathan was in the 4 and 5 year old class and Elijah was in the nursery.

At the beginning of November, we celebrated Jonathan's 4th birthday with a family camping trip with our homeschool group. I also found out that his favorite color is green. He wanted a green cake for his birthday. Oh, and when your 4 your 4 the whole month is your birthday. He has been growing so much and I am often entertained by some of his anecdotes. One time I heard Hannah hollering from the livingroom, "You can't fire me! I'm working!" When I went to find out what the problem was she told me, "Jonathan is pretending that the living room is his yard and I'm his worker but he keeps telling me that I'm fired and I'm still working!" She seemed to feel better about it when I reminded her of their ages.

Another time in the past month Jonathan was singing at the top of his voice while we were driving to the park, "I've got joy in the river, I've got joy in the river." It was to the tune of "I've got peace LIKE a river" but I was smiling so big that I couldn't bring myself to correct him.

One thing I never got around to blogging about was that Scott and I celebrated our 15th anniversary at the end of November. I chose to stay off my computer for that weekend. That was why I never got around to blogging about it. I was also having problems with loading pictures at that time.

Then December blew by somehow! My birthday is in December and fell during Scott's Christmas break from work. For my birthday, we ate cake balls for breakfast that I had made over the weekend. Hannah gave me the sweetest gift that she made herself with a little help from her older siblings. She even declared the gifts value when she told me, "...and that's my last dollar!" I had a brief thought of telling her that she didn't have to give me her last dollar but then I thought of the widow's mite and realized that I needed to let her give me this gift. It would later be returned to her in other ways. God loves a cheerful giver. I then accepted her gift with a hug.

We then left around lunch time to fulfill my birthday wish of having pizza at Cici's on our way to visit my parents for the week. We enjoyed a good variety of pizza. When the kids had eaten their fill of pizza Scott gave them each $2 to play games. I had such a good time just watching them. It was a wonderful birthday. We then arrived that evening at my parents. We did some last minute Christmas shopping with the kids. Scott had each of the kids draw names and we took them in pairs to buy gifts for the name they drew.

My Mom and I had a day of birthday shopping. I think the part I enjoy most about going shopping with my mom is the quality time we get to spend together. I love quality time.

One of the books that I read this year was "The Five Love Languages". I highly recommend this book. In it the author talks about the five basic love languages. I find that my biggest way to show that I love someone is to find a way to spend quality time with them. I try to pay attention to my children and the ways they each show their love as well. Some love hugs, others may like me to do something for them, some feel loved just by a gift that I might give them, and others love having one-on-one time where they can just spend time with me.

My sister and her family also came to visit my parents and we had a fun time reminiscing and laughing over good times. We sorely missed my brother and his family, but we are all looking forward to sitting and having a great time with them when they come on furlough in June. It will be great getting to have another cousins with all the new arrivals in the family. The last picture we got is missing my brother's youngest baby and my sister's new baby and by the time my brother is down in June our new baby will be here. So there will be 3 additions to the cousins picture we take whenever we can.

But we did get to talk to my brother on Skype on Christmas eve. Then Christmas day we enjoyed the services at my Dad's church. Then Christmas night we drove through a light show. The show was pretty and I got all sorts of Christmas songs stuck in my head after that.

The day after Christmas, we visited both my grandmothers. We really enjoyed our visits and decided to go back home Monday night in order to be home to get the trash out to be picked up on Tuesday morning. This week has been spent organizing the house and getting all the rooms cleaned.

Today is the last day of this year and I don't plan to blog again until next year. :-) Although I do plan to blog more in this coming new year.

Have a happy New Year!!!

Christmas Eve

2011-12-27T12:58:00.001-06:00

We enjoyed spending Christmas with my parents. My sister and her family came for a few days and we all decided to open presents a day early. We asked the older children if they minded and of course they loved the idea. :-) So we went ahead and let them open there Christmas Eve pajamas a night early.

My mom, Scott, and I stayed up 'til 3 a.m. wrapping, putting together, and organizing presents. Then we were awakened by our early-bird brother-in-law at around 7 or 8 with great desire to get the show on the road.

We tried to keep things pretty simple for the kids this Christmas. We got the oldest two skateboards, the next two skooters, and the youngest we gave a basketball goal. They all loved their gifts. We let each of the kids draw each others names and we took them to the store earlier in the week to buy gifts for the name they drew. The girls had drawn the boys names and the boys drew the girls names. They all did a good job picking out appropriate gifts for their siblings.

My sister's family gave us a tabletop game that the kids will enjoy.

My parents gave Scott a really huge knife. He says it makes him feel like a kid again. I bet he'll be sawing down a small tree with it before long. They also gave him a salsa mix which he will enjoy. I gave him a giant print preaching Bible, which he loves. He shouldn't have to get so close to his Bible when he is preaching now. I also got him his first bifold wallet which is less bulky than his trifold.

My parents gave me a set of Tupperware plates which will help a lot with serving the kids. They tend to break glass products so I'm really happy with the Tupperware. It also brings me back to childhood and the plates we used to have.
I am looking forward to reading the new books they gave me. I love to read. Then there is the new calendars that both my mom and my sister gave me. I can hardly believe that the year is that close to an end again.

And my sweet husband, after a week of throwing out hints of what he got me, presented me with this new tablet which should remove all my excuses for not blogging as often.

This is my first post from my new blogger app. It may not be pretty yet, but I'll try to get all the bugs worked out. :-)

Merry Christmas!!!

2011-12-25T00:03:00.000-06:00

It's been too long
since I've blogged, my procrastination in blogging can now change. :-) My dear husband has given me a tablet for Christmas!

This picture was taken by me playing around with the camera feature on my new tablet. Elijah was helping me out. And this tablet has bluetooth so I will have it easy getting pictures off my phone. :-) Can you tell that I'm excited?

We are enjoying our visit with my parents. My sister and her husband brought their 3 month old daughter with them. I tried to get her first word to be "aunt", but was only able to get a smile and a few sweet coos from her.

We decided to go ahead and open our Christmas presents this morning so that the kids could have a little more time to play with their toys. Tonight my parents church had a really nice Christmas eve candlelight service. We sang Christmas songs and listened to Bible readings. During the singing, Elijah wanted to sing right along with everyone else. However he did not know all the songs so he picked out the words that he recognized and sang them over and over.

One of the songs he sang as loud as he could, "Baby star! Baby star!"

He did that with some of the other songs as well. He was really cute.

Since Scott and I stayed up late last night wrapping, we don't have anything more to wrap.

We have Sunday School and preaching tomorrow morning. Since I was up so late last night, and was awakened so early this morning, I really need to go to bed.

This will definitely be a handy tool. I know I'll be able to blog a lot more often with my new tablet. I'll show more pictures and tell more about our Christmas tomorrow.

"Every good and every perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the father of lights, with whom is no variableness neither shadow of turning."
James 1:17

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2011-12-24T15:15:00.003-06:00

Well, I'm trying really hard to post a picture from today, but for some reason Blogger isn't cooperating on the upload. Scott got me a really cool tablet for Christmas. So far I've been able to do most things on it. I am hopin

No Pictures!!!

2011-11-12T17:43:00.000-06:00

Okay, I feel as if I owe some sort of an explanation for not blogging nearly enough.   It's not that we don't have enough going on. And it's not that I don't have anymore deep thoughts to put on the computer. No it's actually a sad excuse. I haven't taken the pictures off my camera or phone and put them on my computer yet.

Yes, I know, that is not a good excuse.  I could post without pictures and at least keep people up on everything going on in my mind. But since I've been posting pictures on every blog it kind of feels like I'm missing something when I don't have any pictures to illustrate what I'm talking about.

I will try to find the missing card reader and my missing battery charger for my camera and try to make it where I can get those pictures off my phone and camera easier.

I know that a picture is suppose to be worth a thousand words, but if you think about it, the book is always better than the movie. So maybe a few posts without pictures will make my blog look better when the pictures start returning again. :-)

(Proverbs 25:11) A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.

Not Crazy...Blessed!

2011-09-21T09:34:00.001-05:00

Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.

Joshua (13)

(Psalms 127:3-5)

Every one of my children are a blessing. They each have added so much to our family. When Scott and I first started off on our married journey, we thought we would have 3 children. Then we had Joshua and we still told people that we wanted at least 3. That was 13 years ago!

He has grown so much and become quite a young man. He loves to cook and is becoming more and more responsible each day. He is a great big brother and loves to play around with his younger siblings. I love watching him being followed around by his younger brothers. They look up to him as "the" big brother!

Ruth (11)

Then came my darling princess, Ruth. She was my baby. I used to ask her, "Will you always be my baby?" And she would reply with an enthusiastic, "Yes!" Of course the day finally came that she started telling me that she wasn't a baby but a big girl. And I had to agree. She was growing up.

The kids and I all call her the second mother, since she is so good at helping with her baby siblings. If I am unable to hold one of the kids she is always right there willing to help out.

Hannah (6)

God made us wait for Hannah. I had wanted all our children to be close in age. I prayed and prayed for God to give us another child. He didn't answer that prayer until I gave up and gave Him room to take over my "ideal" family. That was when we were blessed with Hannah. She was our out going "live wire" as I always described her. She never meets a stranger and has tons of energy to show off.

It was during the time I was expecting Hannah that I realized that I was going to leave the rest of our future children in God's hands. I was content. If God only wanted us to have three, I would be happy. If He chose to give us more, then I would be happy.

Jonathan (3)

Then we were soon blessed with Jonathan. I was so glad that God found us worthy for another child. Joshua finally got the brother, he had been asking for. Jonathan was my big baby. He was 11 lb. 4 oz. at birth. I still consider him my little giant. We can all picture him as a security guard or a police officer.

Before Jonathan turned one, we moved to our current home. We celebrated his first birthday here. I have pictures and videos of him crawling and walking in our living room.

Scott and I both agree, we couldn't imagine life without any one of our children. What if we had decided to stop at 3 then we wouldn't have had our Jonathan. Life wouldn't be the same without his smile.

Little did we know, that we would get to be in the same house with another baby. With our first four we had moved to different houses as Scott changed pastorates. We hadn't experienced having more than one baby to watch memories of in the same house.

Elijah (1 1/2)

Then came Elijah. Who could resist his little personality? He is so quick to learn things from his brothers and sisters. He has such big eyes, although you can't see them in this picture. You can see his personality from this picture though. He just loves to show off. He will repeat anything you ask him to repeat. He blows kisses, prefers tomatoes over ice cream. How can you resist such a beautiful personality?

At one time, I had been concerned that my children would begin to be disgruntled about having more siblings. However which each new sibling they start asking for another one. We have no complaints with them.

They are all taught to love and appreciate one another. They all have different personalities. We've had family discussions about how each one of us are different. Understanding our differences helps us to get along better with one another.

I believe our constant prayer and devotionals as a family along with our family discussions around the table is what keeps our children loving each other.

I am so blessed! I am blessed also with a husband that agrees with me that we should have however many children the Lord gives us. It is natural for a mother to want more children as her babies get older and start walking and talking. I have heard many a mother who could no longer have children ask their husband if they could adopt as they see one of my little babies. Why should I have to fight that natural urge for another child?

With that lengthy introduction, I am excited to announce that we are expecting our sixth little blessing in May. It is too early yet to know if we are having a girl or a boy. The majority of our children are rooting for a girl, so that the girls have a sister to dress up in all the princess dresses instead of dressing their little brothers up. As for me I would love a little girl, but I would be just as thrilled with another little boy.

God has been so good to me! I am truly a very happy wife and mother!

Catching up...Back Home

2011-08-09T13:14:00.000-05:00

Our kids piled up around me.

I have a lot of catching up to do. This summer has been so busy that I'm actually crazy enough to think that maybe things will slow down once we get our home school routine back in full force.

Our Kids posing in their "Kung Fu" pajamas

We had one week back from Thailand before we had Church Camp. Then after Church Camp, I got so busy trying to get the house back in order. Now this week, I'm focusing on getting the kids all set on their homeschool curriculum. I hope to get them started on their lessons next week. Of course, we've already gotten back to our karate classes and I've hopefully gotten the kids lined out on their chores for this next year.

The pictures on this blog are all from the day we arrived at my parents house after our trip. They were so excited to see us. They all piled on the couch around me for a picture. I had sure missed all their hugs.

We had a good week at Church camp and I plan to post some of those pictures soon. I just hadn't gotten them on my computer yet. As we start our homeschool routine, I'll start posting pictures of the kids doing some of their activities.

Joshua playing on a Sawlu that we brought back from Thailand.

We really enjoyed our trip to Thailand and would love to go back again if the Lord wants us to. I still need to make that DVD of pictures and videos we took while there. But maybe things will slow down... Okay, I can't keep waiting for things to slow down. I may just have to do like I did with this blog and force a halt to whatever I'm in the middle of and go ahead and fix that DVD.


Elijah playing with a mortar and pestle from Thailand.

I'll even try to put it on my blog for everyone to see. I'm not going to promise when. We plan to visit Mema and Mamaw (my grandmothers) this weekend since it is Scott's last Friday he will be off before the school year goes into full swing. Then we'll be at the mercy of his schedule as to when we get to visit after that. I know he will be off a few days for Thanksgiving.

Jonathan holding his and Elijah's ratan balls used to play Takraw.

The rest of this year should be a productive one. I'm hoping to add Music to my kids curriculum this year.

For Hannah and Jonathan, I plan to use some of the free homeschool resources that I used for Joshua and Ruth when they were the same age. If you have younger children you should check out www.learningpage.com it has some really neat themes you can use for teaching and it covers reading, writing, math, science, and several other areas. You'll just have to check it out for yourself. Joshua and Ruth liked the murals we made under the Theme sheets. Joshua and Ruth are beyond the worksheets now, but it will be perfect for Hannah and Jonathan.

Life is pretty busy around here, but I'll do my best to stop what I'm doing at least once a week to post another blog. I do plan to post some pictures of the kids during homeschool activities. And my next blog will have pictures from Church Camp. So check back often or you can follow my blog and will it update you when I post a new blog. :)

Now to leave you with a verse that has been on my mind for the past couple of days.

Philippians 4:8 "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things."

Thailand (A Summary of our Trip)

2011-07-19T14:05:00.000-05:00

I just thought I would write this blog summarising as best I can our experience in Thailand. Scott and I enjoyed teaching ESL classes and getting to meet new friends. We had days to relax and enjoy some of the sites and area attractions. We even took a trip by ourselves around Chiang Mai looking at different stores and visiting with different teachers and schools.

On Saturday mornings we traveled with Bro. Rusty and Sis. Susan, Carmen, and Pawn to the Karen village where some of Pawn's family live. Scott and I taught the kindergarten class, Carmen and Pawn the Middle Grades, and Bro. Rusty and Susan taught the High School age. After teaching the English classes in the village, Pawn taught a Bible Lesson in the Karen language to the children.

We saw a beautiful Buddhist temple made of colorful mirrors. We took pictures of some of the statues. There were also spirit houses of different sizes that people set up for their ancestors. We saw a lot of these houses with food and drink set in them for the spirits.

Elephants hold a high place in Thailand. There are many statues of elephants and people put wreathes of flowers around their trunks and necks. The elephant pictured here has 4 arms and hands. I'm not sure how many legs since they are covered with all the flowers people bring to the temple.

This Buddha statue was also given food and drink. I'm not sure whether the statue beside the Buddha is his wife, but she also has food set in front of her statue. I also have this picture of a larger statue sitting on the same flower as the woman in the picture of the Buddha. I'm sure there are a lot of stories behind a lot of the pictures and statues we've seen over there.

This last picture was at Antioch Baptist Church in Chiang Mai. Scott was asked to give a devotional in one of the youth classes. He spoke from Galatians 5 focusing on the 9th verse. If we allow a little sin into our lives then it will affect everything in our life. However if we allow the good things of God in our lives then our lives will be filled with His goodness.

Scott also spoke about 1 Corinthians 15:33. We need to be careful of what influences us. We should only be influenced by the things of God and His word. We do not want to be influenced by the bad things of this world, such as bad friends, t.v. shows, etc. We should only be friends with people that we can have a positive influence on not with those that will influence us to do evil.

Galatians 5:9 "A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump."

1 Corinthians 15:33 "Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners."

I like ending a blog with a little food for thought. My next blog will be about our trip back to the States and our homecoming with our children.

Thailand (Part 5)

2011-07-13T13:31:00.000-05:00

At the Baptist Church in Chiang Mai.

I just wanted to pick up where I left off yesterday before I go to bed tonight. Sunday we had good services at the church in Chiang Mai. I would have liked to stayed for the fellowship they had there but we enjoyed the picnic at the Waterfalls with Bro. Rusty, Sis. Susan, Pawn, Carmen, and Gam a girl that goes to their church and attends their English class at home.

Before we went to the waterfall, we had gone to the market to pick out the food we wanted to have at the picnic. Scott saw fried chicken heads and decided to try one. I mainly held it in order have a good picture for the kids. I didn't really want a fried chicken head. It was a little eerie holding it, since it still had eyes in the head. Scott said that it tasted like chicken.

And no, I haven't eaten bugs that I know of on this trip. We saw some interesting bugs but didn't have to eat any. I told our children that I wasn't going to Thailand to eat bugs but if I had to I would. Well, I didn't have to so I didn't. :)

The chicken that lost it's head...

I didn't take very good pictures of the waterfall but Scott did. I'll be posting more pictures of that as I get the pictures from him. The falls were really neat because we were actually able to get in the water and climb up the waterfall. We had taken our shoes off to walk in the water and I happened to step on a rock. I didn't realize I had actually had a small cut in my foot until we got back to the house. It wasn't too bad, and my sweet, always prepared husband happened to bring neosporin and bandaids. So I was able to doctor up my foot pretty well.

After the waterfalls, we all went back to the house and changed into dry clothes in order to go to the Night Market.

At the night market, we had supper at Duke's restaurant. We ate a really good pizza there. After supper, we walked around and looked at several booths and helped Carmen find sun glasses for herself and her brother. Then Scott and I decided to be adventurous and took a tuk-tuk to the Walking Street market. Carmen let us take her phone just in case we were stranded. We didn't get lost and managed to get a tuk tuk ride all the way back to the house without having to walk any. I was glad that he took us home, since my foot was hurting. Scott paid the man a little extra for taking us past where he thought we were going.

Monday, we had a good day of teaching. I enjoy teaching the younger children and the handicapped children the best. We did have one class of kindergarteners that were not very well behaved but that was because their normal teacher had left the room.

Scott and I also taught a class of teachers, that we have really enjoyed.

...or did it lose it's body? Hmm...

We really like the Handicap school. After the teacher class had ended we stood outside and talked with some of the students. By talk I mean pretty much say, "Hello! How are you?" And letting them respond and then asking their names and telling them our names. One little boy asked my name and then he reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a pink q-tip and gave it to me. It may sound strange but I thought it was really sweet. I'm going to bring it back home with me and maybe add it to a scrapbook.

Monday evening, we went to a home of some church members and enjoyed some really good Chinese food. It was delicious! The daughters in the family all speak very good English. Their father enjoys listening to them use their English with us. After we were done eating we visited for quite a while and then Scott pulled out his Saw-lu or whatever it's called. It's a 2 stringed, Thai instrument that is played with a bow. One of their daughters, Mimi, got excited and pulled her Saw-lu out. They took turns playing different songs. Scott said whichever one she played on sounded better. She has had a little more practice.

Tuesday, we had been invited to visit with the pastor and his wife of the local church here in Chiang Mai. They had some homeschooling questions for us, and we had been wanting to visit with them and get to know them better as well. They planned to pick us up at Bro. Rusty's and Sis. Susan's house at 10:30 on Tuesday morning.

Bro. Rusty was a little short handed Tuesday, since Carmen was sick. Scott and I decided to help him out with the two first hour classes. Then after we taught the first hour's classes we would catch a Green truck back to the road they lived on.

Scott made up a line of a country song after that adventure. Two green trucks and two hours later, still walking down the road..." We could probably add a few lines now, about sunburns and heat rash, but we did learn a lesson from it all and Scott bought me an umbrella today. From now on if I even think I'll be in the sun, I'm going to have to either have an umbrella or sunscreen. This young lady doesn't handle the sun like I once could.

After we made it back to the house, I ran upstairs washed my face real quick, and then we got in the truck with the pastor and his 3 year old son. That little boy was really sweet and reminded us so much of Jonathan. Those two would have so much fun, even though they have different personalities, I'm positive they would hit it off perfectly. Their family will be in Texas this fall on deputation and we are looking forward to visiting with them again and letting them meet our children.

A picture I took while standing in the waterfall.

Today, we had to get some money out of the ATM. We have plenty in our bank, but didn't quite bring enough with us. We decided it would be best to pay a few dollars to get a little extra money out. It was kind of hard to decide when and how to get the money. We found out that Sis. Susan would be going into town to run some errands. I had the idea of going with her and if it wasn't out of her way, we could get some money out of the ATM. We did and were able to get a few little items to give the kids while we were at it. Scott also bought me an umbrella, and some lunch.

I wasn't feeling real well today and I think it was mostly because of my sunburn. I kept getting real hot and then feeling real weak. My skin still feels like it is being pricked by real tiny needles. I'm pretty sure it will feel better tomorrow. I felt the worse when I was hot. Whenever I feel like that I know that I need to drink more water. I'm feeling better now that I'm in a cool room and I should feel fine on the plane tomorrow, since it will be air conditioned and hopefully by then my sunburn will be just a tan and not hurting any more.

We are all packed up now, and will help teach two more classes tomorrow, before we get back shower and rush off to the airport in the morning. We should be flying out of Chiang Mai around 2:00 p.m. It will be a long flight tomorrow. I know Jet Lag will be a real problem when we get back home. Hopefully I'll figure the right times to sleep on the plane. We will be arriving at the airport in Texas early Friday Morning.

I was reading in Romans just now and wanted to end this blog with a thought from what I read. I was looking for a passage about walking, since Scott and I have done a lot of it this past week. This is a passage I found.

Romans 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

I've often wonder what draws God's people to do hard things. Why would we want to go somewhere hot, muggy, and be constantly sweating when we could have just as easily decided to take a mission trip somewhere with nicer weather, less work to do, less walking, less pain.

I really think that it has a lot to do with walking "not after the flesh but after the Spirit." I really believe that if you really truly follow Christ, no matter how uncomfortable the situation may be to you, you'll want to do whatever it is God is calling you to do. Maybe it's walking down a hot, sunny road with no shade in order to be an encouragement to a neighbor. Maybe it's simply being nice to a rude person in the check-out line, or forgiving someone that's done you wrong. It may be something hard, but if your walking after the Spirit, you'll want to follow through and do whatever it is God wants from your life.

Well, I'm going to be one tired teacher tomorrow morning, if I don't go on to bed now. I won't be able to post anything while on the plane, but if I am awake enough, I'll try to post something as soon as we get back to my parents' house. Thanks for your prayers!

Thailand (Part 4)

2011-07-12T11:46:00.000-05:00

A Thai Band playing the Marines' Hymn.

We have been doing so much during our stay here in Thailand. It almost seems like we've been here longer but yet it has gone by so quickly.

Last Friday there was a band at one of the schools. We watched them for a little while but then went to another area of the school to visit with some other people. When suddenly the band started marching around the field playing an American song. It was the Marines' hymn,"From the Halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli."

I was so impressed by this band that I walked out and took pictures and videos of the band playing. I made it around to where the band director was and told him that he had very good students. He told me that it was their first year. I asked him if when they made it back around from their march if I could get a picture of him with his band.

A Buddhist temple decorated in colorful mirrors.

He didn't quite know what I meant by band and I'm not sure if he understood much of any of what I said, but I could tell he knew I liked their playing. After I showed him my camera and asked again if I could take a picture of him with his students, he understood and when they arrived back he had them all turn and face the camera. Not only did they pose for a great camera shot and video they also started playing the song for me again. I don't think they would have stopped playing it either. Scott finally made it over to where I was and told me that it was time to go. I thanked the teacher and then waved good-bye to the band. They were probably relieved that I left so they could take a break from playing.

Saturday we went to the Karen village again. Scott and I taught the 4 and 5 year olds for about 45 minutes. Then we sat in Bro. Rusty and Sis. Susan's class of teenagers.

This Karen village is a Christian village, so we were able to actually talk about God and Jesus. Pawn gave a Bible lesson and after the lesson she asked Scott to give his testimony which Pawn translated.

After we got back from the village we drove to another village where there was a Buddhist temple.

The artwork was amazing. It had to take a lot of work to put each piece of colored mirror all over the statues and the building itself. It was beautiful but sad at the same time. It's sad to see what a lot of people are basing their hopes on.

Scott giving his testimony in a Karen village.

Saturday, Scott and I were able to visit with the youth group of the local church in Chiang Mai. We had a fun time. They started the time off with each of the youth asking me and Scott any question they wanted. Everyone had to ask us a question and they couldn't reask a question that was already asked. The first question we were asked by one teenager was, "What time is it?" Scott answered, "In which time zone?" But then he told them what time it was in both Thailand and America.

Then we played a charade game. We had to teams. Each team formed a line. The person on the end couldn't look back until it was his turn to guess what the action is. At the end the first person did their action and the last person did the action that they thought it was. I was laughing so hard. They were taking videos and pictures but I hadn't got a copy of it yet. They said the one of Scott washing clothes was hilarious. It was suppose to be something about cooking but somehow by the time Scott got the actions it turned into washing clothes.

My team was funny as well. The first person was trying to do actions to show something about a bicycle. I was the last person in my group and by the time it got to me, it looked like, "Driving a car I saw 3 key rings." The point of the game was that we should not just believe something that we interpret ourselves but that we should find it out from the Source. It's very easy to misinterpret what others say or do, but if we read our Bibles we have a direct connection to the Answers to all of life's problems.

Making Rotties...Yummy and easy to make.

After the game we divided up into two classes and Scott led a Bible study with the younger group where he talked about Galatians 5:9 "A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump." He talked about how allowing even a little sin into our lives can ruin your life. But allowing good things into our lives can cause us to grow. He talked about friends and how that we should only have friends that we influence for good but stay away from friends if they influence us to do evil.

After the Bible study, we were taught how to make Rotties. They were delicious and easy to make.

Tomorrow will be our last full day in Thailand. We will be flying out on Thursday. I'll try to post a few more pictures about our the rest of our time here tomorrow night before I go to bed. We'll be needing to get some good packing done before then. Thanks for the continued prayers.

Thailand (Part 3)

2011-07-08T10:02:00.000-05:00

Scott playing a time game in one of the ESL classes

We have a picture of Scott eating this same dessert last year.

We made it through the city without getting lost. I was a little afraid we might get lost in the mall but we didn't have too much trouble. The driver that took us to each of the places on our list didn't speak English and we weren't completely sure if he knew where one or two of our stops were, but he managed to find it and despite our communication barrier we were able to find our way and our driver didn't lose track of us.
We visited a store that looked a lot like Wal-mart to me. It was called Big C. We arrived there a few minutes before 9 which was the time the store open so we walked around and looked at some of the signs on the building. Then the store soon opened and we looked around and bought a few odds and ends we needed. We spent an hour looking around the store then went downstairs to the bank. The main bank didn't open until 11. We weren't sure what to do since we needed to change some of our American money into Bahts. We really didn't want to have to wait an hour for the bank to open. So while we were thinking about it, we walked around the downstairs section. Then we saw another smaller bank area which opened at 10. It was only a couple of minutes until 10 so we went ahead and had our money changed there. We were the first in line.

These elephants could even paint!

Before the show all the elephants had baths.

The mall was a nice place and we found several things there. Scott found a Thai Saw, which is not exactly what you imagine when you think of a saw. It's a 2 stringed instrument that is played with a bow. I'll have to post a picture of it once we get one. It was only about $12. I was glad we were able to get him a traditional Thai instrument.

We also got a few things for our children. I think we've gotten all the souvenirs we had in mind for our family and friends.

After all our running around we returned to a school where Scott and I have been able to teach a class of teachers wanting to work on their English. We've been teaching that class everyday from 4 - 5 p.m. We worked on recipes today and how to give directions in English. We also taught them how to give and understand directions if someone is lost or needs to know how to get somewhere in English. We have been given a ride back to the house by some of the Teacher students each evening after the class is over and the teacher that took us back today was practicing her directions while she was driving.

Saturday morning we will return to the Karen village that we visited last weekend. Then tomorrow evening Scott was asked to speak at a Youth group's Bible study. It should be another full day tomorrow.

We are having fun. Even though the time seems to be going by pretty fast, we've been going so many places and seeing so many things that it almost seems like more than one day has passed in a 24 hour period. I wouldn't want it any other way though. It's nice to be able to serve and encourage those around us. Thanks for your prayers. We really appreciate them.

Thailand Part 2

2011-07-07T10:52:00.000-05:00

Teaching in a Keren village.

We've been in Thailand a little over a week now and I wanted to post a few pictures and tell a little of what we have been doing.

Last Saturday we visited a Keren village and where Scott and I taught a class of 4 year olds. It has been fun helping Bro. Rusty teach this week. It's gotten to where it feels pretty normal to enter a classroom and say "Hello, class!" And to hear them say, "Good morning, Teacher!" or "Good afternoon, Teacher!" Bro. Rusty has really been doing a good job with the children and built some good friendships with the teachers.

Then on Sunday, we visited the Baptist Church in Chiang Mai where Bro. Brent Rosendal pastors. We really enjoyed the services there.

After the services we went to the Maesa Elephant Camp where we got to see an amazing elephant show. The elephants were well trained. They could paint, play basketball, soccer, and were even well trained at begging. In these two pictures we posed with a few of the elephants who put hats on our head and were also well trained to beg. :) But we didn't have any bananas but we were nice enough to give them a few dollars.


I told Scott we should bottle up some of that shampoo that elephant was putting in my hair. :)

After the elephant show, we road the elephants. Scott had taken those pictures on his camera. I'll try to post them later. This week has been really busy and I plan to blog more as time allows.

Tomorrow Scott and I are going to be spending a day in Chiang Mai on our own with a hired driver. I don't imagine the driver will know much English, but we will have written directions of all the places we want to visit. Keep us in your prayers!

Thailand

2011-07-02T11:47:00.000-05:00

In the airplane.

June was such a busy month, that I spent my time living my blog instead of writing about it. Now it is July and my husband and I are in Thailand and I hadn't even taken the time to tell everyone through my blog of our plans to go.

We left on the evening of June 27, which was Joshua's 13 birthday. It's hard to believe that we are now parents of a teenager.

Last year about this same time Scott went to Thailand to help the Missionaries here with an ESL and Basketball camp. They had a very productive trip last summer and Scott wanted to bring me back to see the country this summer.

I have been really confused as to what days everything has taken place on. I know we left on Monday night, June 27. However I was a little confused as to which day we actually arrived on since we gained 12 hours, I believe. We arrived in Thailand on Wednesday, June 29, Thailand time. Whereas back home it would be Tuesday, June 28.

We had a little problem with Jet lag but it really wasn't as bad as I anticipated. I think because I slept on the plane I was able to stay awake the rest of the day until bedtime.

The very next morning we went with Bro. Rusty, the missionary here in Thailand, to observe some of his ESL classes. We didn't realize that we would be teaching on our first full day in Thailand, but that turned out to be good since I didn't have enough time to get nervous.

Posing with a Lady dressed in a Peacock costume.

Scott and I taught 2 classes on Thursday. That school asked us to come back each day next week to give the teachers an opportunity to practice their English with us. This will be a great opportunity to get to know the teachers and not just the children.

Then on Friday, I believe we only taught one class that day. We have really enjoyed the students of each of the schools. They are very responsive and eager to learn.

Today we visited a Keren village outside of Chiang Mai. It was really neat to see the difference in country life as compared to city life. It was a beautiful village. Scott and I got to teach a class of 5 year olds in the village and after the time we taught them was up, we enjoyed sitting in on Bro. Rusty's class and seeing how he taught the High School aged students. Following the classes we watched as Pawn the Missionaries' helper gave a Bible lesson in the Keren language to the children of this village which was her hometown.

The evenings had been full of activity as well. Wednesday evening, we observed Bro. Rusty and his wife as they taught some children that came to their home for English lessons.

Thursday evening, after their English class, they took us to a restaurant where we ate in traditional Thai style at a table while sitting on the floor. We enjoyed watching the live entertainment of traditional Thai performers. The above picture was taken at that restaurant with one of the performers. She was dressed as a peacock.

Friday evening, we went to an evening market and did some shopping for things to bring back with us to friends and family back home.

Tonight after the time we enjoyed with the Keren people we visited a fresh produce market where there were all sorts of interesting fruits, some of which I had never seen before. We also went to another market where we bought a few more souvenirs and ate a Waffle topped with ice cream. The food here has actually been very good. I hadn't been faced with eating a bug yet. That doesn't mean that it won't happen, but it just isn't the first thing that people put on your plate. We have enjoyed some very good meals of different types of chicken, rice, fish. I guess the only funny incident with food was at the mall, I ordered a Vegetable Pizza and it turned out being more like a hashbrown with vegetables cooked into it. It was really delicious though.

Teaching ESL at one of the Schools in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

Right now it is night here and we will be getting up for Church in the morning. I have really enjoyed this first week here. It has been really busy and flown by very quickly. I have more pictures that I will post in another blog.

Keep us in prayer as we continue work here for another week and a half. And keep the Missionaries here in prayer as they continue to serve the Lord in this location even as we go back home.

Romans 10:14-15 "How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!"

Adventures of Motherhood

2011-06-06T14:02:00.002-05:00

When I was a kid, I used to think my life was rather boring. I wanted to be a writer but never saw anything that happened to me as very interesting. I always thought my day to day activities were ordinary and mundane. What I should have done was had a nice long talk with my mother and asked her about any of the crazy moments she had raising me and my brother and sister. I'm sure her life would have sounded like an adventure for sure. As kids we don't see those things that happen as very interesting but when you see it through your mother's eyes, you realize how funny and interesting your life really is.

Now I have y'all all set up for a good story, and you won't be disappointed, as long as you have a good sense of adventure. :)

It all begins with five children in a van with one lone mother, me. My husband gets off work too late to get his car registered and he had asked me one day last week, if I would mind going into town to pay the registration fee for his car that went out in May. I told him that I would be happy to take care of it for him.

I took the registration paper in hand managed to get all the kids loaded into the van and off to the tax office we went.

We had to park in a parallel parking spot on a one way street that required us to cross a lane of possible traffic. Elijah was asleep in his car seat and I decided to keep him in his car seat and just carry him in. I got him out of the drivers side of the van and ran around the other side to make sure the other children didn't get hit by cars as they got out. I then sent them in pairs across the road making sure they were safe and finally I made it across.

We then had to go up a lot of steps to the main entrance of the Court House where the tax office was located. I didn't count the steps but Hannah and Ruth did. I don't remember how many they said their was, maybe 14 or 15. We entered the office and went down the hallway to a steep flight of stairs. I quickly carried Elijah in his car seat down the stairs and as I reached the bottom step, Hannah panicked. She has a fear of heights. I turned around and saw Hannah at the top of the steps hollering, "Aaaaaa!!!" I knew this was not a good thing because when she starts to panic, Jonathan reciprocates. Ruth went up and held Hannah's hand the rest of the way down the steps.

Jonathan just sat right down on the step where he was at when she started panicking and started hollering. I had to set Elijah's car seat down and go up the steps to get Jonathan and carry him down. As I was doing this I informed the children that perhaps we should go back up on the elevator when we were ready to leave. The older 3 liked that idea, but Jonathan then started hollering, "I don't want to go on an elevator!" I decided that I would cross that bridge when we came to it. We then went into the tax office, after I reassured Jonathan that the tax office was not an elevator.

I had all the kids sit down on the chairs that were by the door. I turned around looked at the empty lines and then declared, "I forgot our insurance card!" I was picturing having to take all the kids back out to the car by way of all the steps and elevators. The lady behind the window where I had originally imagined a long line told me that she wasn't going to do that to me. She let me get the car registered without seeing our insurance card. Isn't it wonderful when the Lord blesses you with other sympathetic moms at just the right moment.

I paid the taxes and had to get the kids all back outside and back in the van. As we stepped out of the door Jonathan started his repetitive crying, "I don't want to go in an elevator! I don't want to go in an elevator!" I set Elijah with the older 3 children in the elevator and told them that I would meet them on the next floor by the elevator. I then picked Jonathan up and carried him up the flight of steps and then stood by the elevator waiting for it to catch up with me. In that brief wait, I imagined the kids going to the wrong floor, or the elevator breaking with 4 of my children in there without me. But thankfully I didn't have to worry for long because the door soon opened.

Of course Jonathan was still thinking that I was going to take him in it and was still upset. I finally calmed him down and informed him that we were now up the stairs and there was nothing more for him to worry about. We then went outside and managed to all get in the van without any more incidence.

After that adventure, we went to Wal-mart where I always find it funny how people start counting us. I know they arer counting my children by the way their heads start bobbing as we walk by, and then they whisper to the person they're with, "Wow, five kids! Or was it six?" Which of course results in them having to recount to make sure they didn't get the wrong number. :)

Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain. (1 Corinthians 9:24)

Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us (Hebrews 12:1)

Tomato vs. Ice Cream

2011-06-05T00:07:00.000-05:00

I gave our youngest son Elijah a plate with ice cream on it this evening. All of our other kids were happily enjoying their ice cream but Elijah did not like the coldness. He immdediately started hollering like the ice cream had bit him or something. I tried to wipe his hand and give him some in a spoon but he had already decided that he did not like ice cream. I knew he loved tomatoes so in order to make him feel better, I asked him if he wanted a tomato instead. Well, he calmed down and enjoyed his tomato. Of course the rest of us were finding this hilarious. So I had to take a video of it.

Every time I offered him a bite of ice cream he got upset and hollered. But as soon as I gave him a choice between the ice cream and a tomato he immediately grabbed the tomato and quickly devoured it.

Out of all five of our children Elijah is still a unique individual with his own personality. None of our other children ever turned their noses up to Ice Cream. Isn't it wonderful how the Lord blesses us with so much diversity?

I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well. (Psalms 139:14)

Hannah's Baptism

2011-05-21T14:59:00.001-05:00

I'm very behind in my blogging. The month is already half over and I hadn't even blogged about any of the things that has happened this month. I'll try to make up for it by writing several catch up blogs.

The first Sunday of this month, May 1, Hannah was baptized. It was the most giggly baptism I've ever witnessed. Usually Baptisms are a serious occasion but leave it to Hannah to giggle the whole time. When Scott helped her into the baptistry she grabbed ahold of his arm and giggled because the water was cold. She was a little short to be able to see over the edge so Scott held her up so that everyone could see her. Then he gave the explanation that Baptism is a picture of Christ's death, burial, and resurrection and that it shows that Hannah is now following Him.

There was one moment I could have hid under the pew. As Scott helped her up the steps out of the baptistry she announced loud enough that everyone could hear, "I feel like a wet dog!" Okay, that part made me want to hide, everyone else thought that it was cute. But that's our Hannah. She is our "life of the party" child, the outgoing one that likes being the center of attention.

She told everyone she met about the day she was saved. It didn't matter who the person was, even complete strangers she would tell, "I'm saved now!" Then when we set the date for her baptism, she told everyone that she was going to be baptized. She was more excited about the Sunday she was to be baptized than she was of Easter Sunday. It is great seeing your child have the joy of God's salvation.

Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation. (Habakkuk 3:18)
Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit. (Psalms 51:12)
Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation. (Isaiah 12:3)

A Busy April...

2011-04-27T14:02:00.000-05:00

Joshua and I at the concert.

This has been an extremely busy month and I haven't blogged nearly enough during it. I'm using this post as another catch up blog.

Our Church's Youth Group

We started the month with belt testing on the first Saturday of the month in karate class. Scott earned his blue belt and I earned an orange belt. We take more pictures of our kids than we do of ourselves.

That same evening Joshua and I joined 3 other sets of mothers and sons from our homeschool group for a Mother/Son date night. We took our sons out to eat at a Mexican Restaurant and then went to a Inspirational All Gospel Concert. It was a really great show and everyone had a good time.

Every year on Easter Sunday we take a picture of the kids in our church. Normally I try to get the picture after the morning service but everyone had scattered so I got this picture after our evening service. Our youth group has sure grown in numbers and in size these past 3 Easters that we've been here. They grow up so fast. Makes the pictures each year fun to look at as they get bigger.

Ruth in home economics at co-op.

Another new activity we were involved in this month was a Homeschool Co-op. For those who do not know what a Homeschool Co-op is it is where a group of homeschool families get together and each parent volunteers to either teach or help out in a class. This was our groups first time to have a co-op and the kids enjoyed it a lot.

Hannah making a bead necklace in her 4-6 year old class.

We had seven classes in this co-op. They were science, home economics, art, music, and a unit study on horses, a 4-6 year old class, and a 0-3 year old "class". Technically the 0-3 year old were more in a nursery setting but we called it a class. I taught the music class and other mothers taught the other classes or helped in the classes. The kids really liked the classes they took and are looking forward to doing co-op again in the fall.

Joshua doing a science experiment at co-op.

Also this month we started a garden. Which has been growing. We have already been enjoying some of the herbs out of our herb garden and are looking forward to getting some fruit from our bigger garden.

Last week, Scott and I got our shots in preparation for our trip this summer to Thailand. We also bought our tickets this week. It has been amazing to watch as God helped us have the money for the tickets as well as taking care of issues that we felt completely helpless on. We have a very small view on our lives. It's nice to know that God can see what will happen tomorrow. When things may look bleak to us, He knows what's around the corner and that everything will be okay.

Jonathan and Elijah in their 0-3 year old "class" at co-op.

This has been an incredibly busy month and it's not over yet. We still have a family reunion to attend this week.

I don't know what all God has in store for us in May. I'm sure it won't be boring. I'm just glad He is here with us each step of the way. Through the easy times and the hard times it's good to know that God is here to help us.

It's a blessing to be able to look back over the month and despite the hard points in the month, we can still look back at it and say, "This has been a really good month!"

Romans 8:28 "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose."

Long Hair, Gum, Peanut Butter...

2011-04-18T16:56:00.000-05:00

If the first thought you had when reading the title of my blog is that it sounds like a mess, you would be right.

Hannah had gotten some gum today at our Homeschool Co-op class. I'm not sure how she got the whole thing in her hair. I think she had accidently got her hair in her mouth and then got a little bit of gum in her hair and then she started chewing on it to try to get it out of her hair which in turn got the whole piece of gum in her hair.

I reread that last sentence and couldn't think of a better way to word it than that. I still don't know where she decided that chewing the gum in her hair would get it out, but I have found that peanut butter, although greasy and messy in its own way, at least saves a young lady from having her hair cut up to her ears. So with a lot of peanut butter and a little silent prayer, we managed to get the gum out of her hair. I'm sure if she had thought about it she might would have eaten the peanut butter out of her hair but I sent her to go wash her hair instead.

Two Birthdays!!!

2011-04-04T00:10:00.000-05:00

Hannah, our daughter that just turned 6 a week ago, can now claim to have two birthdays. She was saved tonight. She can now claim to be born again (See John 3).

She has been asking us questions about how to be saved for quite a while now. When she asked the questions before she never seemed to care to go any further with it. We don't believe in pressuring our children to be saved but we don't hide the good news from them either. We make sure that they realize that they are sinners and that sin is the bad things we do. We tell them that one day when they feel bad for those bad things they do, that God wants to forgive them.

In the earlier years when Hannah would ask about being saved, it was just something she wanted to do to be like her older siblings that were saved. In her mind it was a club she wanted to join. The thing she was lacking was the conviction of her sins. She knew she did bad things but she didn't feel any guilt about it. At that time, I told her that God knew that she wanted to be saved and would protect her until the day that she understood.

Well, today was that day. In Sunday School she asked me about being saved. I explained the same thing I had explained to her before. I told her that she first had to realize that she was a sinner, and that she did bad things, such as lying, disobeying parents, etc. She agreed. I told her that it wasn't enough just to realize that but you have to feel bad for those things that you do wrong and realize that God isn't happy with those bad things. I asked her if she ever felt bad when she did something wrong. She told me that she did.

Then I told her that what she needed to do was tell God that she was sorry and really mean it. She said that she didn't want to pray with other people in the room. She said that it would be embarrasing. I told her that she could pray anywhere. Then she was confused as to when she wanted to pray to be saved. She told me that she wanted to be saved next Saturday before karate class. Then she changed it to Monday.

I told her that she could be saved anytime and any place. I told her that God could hear her anywhere. I then read her 2 Corinthians 6:2 (For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.)

I then asked her when was a good time to be saved. She said, "Saturday?" I decided she needed to hear the verse again. Then she said, "Oh, NOW! I guess since the Bible says it, I should be saved today then!"

I then asked her if she wanted me to show her some of the verses that tell about being saved. She agreed and I started with Romans 3:23. She then said, "Oh, is this what Daddy did when he talked to the other girl about how to be saved." I told her it was, and I asked her if she would like Daddy to show her the verses about being saved. She said an excited yes. And we went on with our lesson about Jesus telling his disciples to let the little children come to him. It was a fitting lesson.

Then tonight after we prayed our bedtime prayers as a family, I asked Hannah if she wanted to talk to Daddy and she said that she did. So Scott took her into the other room and shared with her a few verses. He said that she understood it all completely. In fact she told him how to be saved! He told her about how we can't get to heaven by the things we do and and she told him, "Yes, I know that Jesus died for my sins and that the only way we can go to heaven is by asking Him, and He sees me! I don't know how He sees me but He sees everything! and He was with you when you were in Paraguay and when you were in Thailand and He was with us here!"

Then she wanted to be alone while she prayed. So Scott stepped out of the room and told me about their conversation. Then she came skipping out of our room and said, "I did it!" We asked her if she asked Jesus to save her and she said that she did. She was going to skip right off to bed but we stopped her for a hug. She is now a new creature. Now we will get to enjoy watching her grow as a new child in Christ. What a wonderful thing that is. After a child is saved they have a new purpose in life and it's an exciting adventure to watch. I love my children and I'll be praying for Jonathan who I'm sure will be ready in about 3 years. It seems that is the age in our family that our children start really understanding how to be saved. I will be praying for Jonathan and Elijah that they will be saved at an early age as well. I couldn't ask for a better blessing than to see my children follow Him. God is so good!

Two Birthdays in One Week

2011-03-27T00:13:00.000-05:00

Elijah's first birthday was last Saturday. Today is Hannah's birthday and maybe I'll manage to get all the pictures from her birthday posted by next weekend.

Last week Scott took the older kids on a hiking trip with my father. It was Hannah's first real hike. They had a wonderful time and from what I understand their favorite part was getting to eat their snacks along the trail.

While they were hiking, I took Jonathan and Elijah to the park I used to play at when I was a child. It's nice to still see some of the old toys that I remember still there.

It was great getting to spend time with our younger two children by themselves. They grow up so fast these days. I wanted to just enjoy the day and let them have fun at their own pace. Normally they spend their park time keeping up with their older siblings. This time I just slowed down and let them lead the way for the most part.

After the park we enjoyed a good visit with my paternal grandmother. We got to see her flowers and had a nice long visit.

Then we returned to my maternal grandmother, Memaw's house. My sister and her husband came and my parents were there. Since we wouldn't be able to come back for Hannah's birthday, we went ahead and had a joint birthday party for both Hannah and Elijah. Elijah got to eat his first chocolate cake. We have a tradition of not letting any of our babies have chocolate cake until their first birthday.

Hannah got a bicycle from Papa and Nana and Elijah got a walk behind/ ride-on toy. They both got birthday money from Mema as well. The exciting part of the night was when Elijah took two steps all by himself. He figured out he could walk while walking behind the toy that my parents gave him and then he stood by himself and clapped his hands wanting all of us to clap with him. Then he took two steps to Ruth who was sitting near him. We were all so excited and he thought it was a wonderful game that made us all cheer for him.

Then we had a cook out at our house last Sunday afternoon and invited some friends over for that. Over all it was a really good weekend last weekend. We had a good busy week this week too. After having a week off for Spring Break, I put the kids back to work this week. We added gardening to our homeschool activities. It's been really great! We have a bigger garden this year than we've ever had before. I've started the kids writing Gardening Journals where they can draw pictures and take notes about the garden and some of the things they notice as they go out to water and weed the plants.

It's been such a busy week and we had a really great day today for Hannah's birthday. I'll try to post more pictures and tell about what we did today before the week is over. :)

The Best Husband

2011-03-07T22:19:00.000-06:00

My husband fixed my washing machine tonight. He not only fixed it but he took the opportunity to teach the kids all about washing machines and how they work. He didn't even mind Hannah and Jonathan being his cheerleaders at the top of their voices. They kept cheering, "You can do it! You can do it!"

It was just a few days ago that I realized the washer had a problem. I told Scott about it and he immediately started doing the research to figure out what could be the problem with the washer. Then this evening after he got off work he took the time out of his evening to bale the water out of the tub and took it apart and found the problem. A sock had fallen between the tub and the plastic part and got sucked up into the hose that drains the tub. The sock got stuck in some part and wasn't allowing the water to escape. That is why it made the horrible noise it was making and the water wasn't draining.

He fixed it, cleaned it up, and put it all back together. Then to top it all off, he even washed a load of clothes while I got the kids ready for bed. Isn't he wonderful!!! :)

I did pray for him at one point when there were some clips that looked impossible to put back on.

He did a little bit more research and found the solution. I really like it when the Lord answers my prayers and gives my husband a hand when something looks almost impossible. I highly recommend wives to pray for your husbands. God does answer those prayers.

I only had to wash a few clothes this weekend by hand and that was enough to help me really appreciate my washing machine. It's amazing how many things we take for granted. I'm so glad to be able to do laundry now. :)

Elijah's Song

2011-03-01T15:48:00.001-06:00

Elijah was singing today and this was just too cute of a video not to share. In this video he is singing while plucking Hannah's violin. :) Enjoy!

Tie Tying Lesson

2011-02-23T14:43:00.000-06:00

My brother-in-law gave us a bag of ties. Some of them were a little small for Scott and those he picked out to give to Joshua. Now that Joshua has a set of "real" ties, that means that someone has to tie them. The time had come for Joshua to learn how to tie his new ties.

Sunday afternoon the lessons commenced. Of course, Joshua isn't the only one that benefited from this lesson. Scott got out ties for each of the older four children to try tying.

The first try wasn't necessarily the prettiest job, but these are the pictures I took of each of them with their ties. I thought they did pretty good. Joshua kept on practicing and was finally starting to get a handle on the length.

Jonathan, I just thought was too cute. He tied his tie himself. Scott showed them all step by step and well, this was Jonathan's final result. I think he did pretty good with his modifications. :)

Now you may wonder why a girl would need to learn to tie a tie. I told them that it might come in handy for them to one day. They may decide to get married and have a dream that they have to tie their husbands tie before church.

Yes, that happened to me once. I learned to tie a tie from my Dad a long time ago. One day after I was married to Scott we were driving to a preaching appointment and I fell asleep in the car. Scott usually waited until he got to the church before tying his tie but for some reason I had a dream that we were late and he needed his tie tied. I immediately woke up and started tying his tie. He thought it was rather strange but he was sweet and wore it anyway. Even though I didn't tie it quite as pretty as he would have.

Hannah never did tie one. I think she was determined that it was too hard. And I guess at almost 6, I would have thought it too hard as well. So Scott tied one for her but the whole point of tying a tie in her mind is so that you can pull it apart. So I didn't get a picture of her with her tie.

Instead I thought I would put this picture of Hannah and Ruth matching. They asked me to take this picture of them. They both had a pink shirt and blue skirt and red shoes. They love to dress alike when they get a chance.

And I don't want to leave Elijah out so I wanted to show this picture of Elijah riding behind Jonathan on a bull dozer toy at our church. He is growing up fast. He now has 6 teeth and knows how to use them.

The challenge I am now having with Elijah is weaning. Scott was fixing sandwiches in the car after karate class the other day and Elijah stopped nursing and wanted the sandwich. I take that as a sign that we're on the right track.

I never did get a video of Hannah and Jonathan singing. Maybe I'll be able to catch a really cute video soon. Hope you don't mind these pictures instead. :)

Tea Party

2011-02-17T15:49:00.001-06:00

Ruth and Hannah had a friend over for a tea party last Saturday. I pulled out our fancy tea set and baked a strawberry cake. The girls chose Blueberry tea. I also made some pudding for the party.

While Jonathan and I prepared the tea and cake in the kitchen the girls painted their fingernails. Then they watched a Princess movie.

After the movie was over we gathered around the table and had tea. This was Amelia's first tea party. We have had tea parties before but this was our first time to entertain a guest for tea.

We discussed the fact that the girls were princesses. And I mentioned that Jonathan could be a Prince. He exclaimed, "No! I'm a boy!"

I tried to explain that a princess was a girl and that a prince was a boy. He was still emphatically declaring himself just a boy. So I told the girls, "Okay, y'all can be princesses and we'll let Jonathan be just a boy for our tea party."

The the evening ended with a grand ball. The girls and Jonathan went into the hallway and entered into the livingroom with their names announced.

Then they sat in chairs and then got up and danced to Baroque music.

They danced all the way to the time Amelia's parents came to pick her up and drop off Joshua who was visiting with Amelia's brother.

Over all they had a wonderful time.

We'll need to do that again sometime.

Saturday morning, Joshua and Ruth earned their orange belts and Hannah has earned her yellow belt in karate class.

Scott and I will be testing in two months. I enjoy participating in karate as a family. It's really neat to help each other reach our goals.

This coming Saturday will be the belt ceremony when the kids will actually receive their belts. I'll try to post pictures of that when the time comes.

Tuesday, we enjoyed karate class and ordered the kids sparring gear. They have now reached a level where they are able to spar.

Wednesday, we had our Wednesday night Bible Study at our house. I baked a loaf of raisin bread in our bread machine and we pulled out our tea set again. This time we had Mixed Berry Zinger tea.

Elijah hasn't been feeling very well. I'm pretty sure it's because of his teeth again. He now has 6 teeth and working on his 7th tooth. He's been real drooly and running a slight fever. It's never fun when their teething. He wanted to be held all day yesterday. He seems to be feeling a little bit better now.

It's nice when you get a break between teething spells. Elijah has sure been growing quick.

Jonathan and Hannah have been working on a special for Sunday this week. I tried to get a video of them but Jonathan quit singing as soon as I got the camera. We'll be practicing it again tomorrow and maybe I'll have my camera out and ready a lot sooner. He was really getting into the song he was singing. He even had his eyes squinting like he was really concentrating on the song.

That catches me up for this week. We enjoyed visiting my parents last week, while Scott was at a Tech Conference. It is nice to be home again though and back into a routine. Hopefully I'll be able to post a video of them singing in my next blog. If not I'll pull out one of my other cute random videos of the kids. :)

Mema and Daddy Jim: A Legacy of Commitment

2011-02-07T12:24:00.000-06:00

I have learned so many lessons over the years and the one thing that I have truly learned from my grandparents is that " 'til death do us part" is a standing commitment.

My Grandfather came home on furlough 64 years ago and asked if there were any girls left and I am so thankful that his friends mentioned my grandmother, Charlcye Taylor.

After they were married, my grandfather started going to church with my grandmother and gave his life to Christ soon accepting the call to the ministry. My grandmother followed him with their three daughters to whatever church the Lord called them to. She stayed with him and loved him "for richer or poorer..."

I know they must have had some pretty hard times. Who doesn't have the difficult days to go through. I'm sure they even had rocky moments, what marriage doesn't? But they stayed together through "good times and bad..."

They were committed in their marriage. Then my grandmother had health problems. She had to retire from her job at Texas Baptist Institute. Then after a time of being in and out of the hospital she was able to be home to care for Daddy Jim, who also began having major health problems. They were committed to each other "in sickness and in health."

Have you noticed that they are still holding hands in these pictures? Even when Daddy Jim was in the hospital bed they are still together. Mema would stay with him in the hospital. I know it wasn't comfortable for her to be there but she wanted to be there. That's true commitment.

Then came the day, a little over a week ago, that Daddy Jim went home to be with the Lord. And they kept their commitment for "as long as we both shall live."

This last picture is Mema and Daddy Jim's hands held over an open Bible. Just like you would see in a wedding picture.

I actually requested this picture to be taken a few years ago. Because as a writer, I wanted a perfect illustration of marriage and how it's suppose to be.

This is how marriage should look. I love my Mema and Daddy Jim. Thanks for the legacy of commitment.

For my Mom.

2011-01-27T22:41:00.000-06:00

It's been too long since I've blogged last and my dear mom checks my blog every day. So I'm just going to post a couple of pictures of the kids here. I have a lot to tell about that we've done this past month and I need to tell about what we plan to do this year. But that will be in another blog. I know I'm short changing y'all tonight but this blog is for my Mom.

This first picture of the kids in between Big Kids and Adult Karate class. We have an hour to spend waiting for the Adult class and we sometimes go into what the kids and I call the padded room to wait.

This second picture is of the kids all piled in the chair. They called out, "Hey, Mom come take a picture of us!" So here it is.

Well, that is all I'm going to write for now. I'm going to go spend some quality time with my husband. I'll write more about the month in my next blog.

I love you, Mom!

Happy New Year

2011-01-04T12:06:00.000-06:00

Elijah's First Christmas

2010 was a very good year and I'm anticipating an even better 2011 with God right by our side as he was last year.

We enjoyed Christmas with my parents. We started off Christmas morning with Joshua reading Luke 2 and Ruth reading Matthew 2.

Then we passed out and opened presents. The kids had fun playing some of their new games with their Papa and Nana.

Elijah enjoyed playing with the wrapping and boxes more than anything I believe.
We headed home Christmas night to be back in time for Sunday's services.

New Year's Eve Game Night

Then Friday, New Year's Eve, we had game night at the church. The kids (including some Big Kids) had fun shooting Nerf guns at each other for at least an hour. Several of us ladies started a game of Uno. While Scott started a game of Chess with another father after the Nerf gun fight ended.

The kids' all picked out different games to play as well. It was a really good night. As midnight rolled around we cleaned up and before we came home we gathered together and discussed some of our Memories of the Old Year and our hopes and goals for our church and ourselves for the year we're entering. Then we had prayer and everyone headed home. We managed to get our kids' to bed and get a few hours sleep before we headed to our karate class that morning.

Elijah Helping Daddy Kick.

Every year on New Year's day our Karate class gets together at 10:00 a.m. to bring in the New Year with a thousand kicks.

I asked our Sensei if the kicks we did while holding the Baby made up for any we might have missed. For a part of the time Scott and I took turns holding Elijah while kicking.

After the class, we enjoyed good food and fellowship with the other students in our karate class. I really like the Christian atmosphere of our class. You don't find very many karate instructors that will use the Bible as they teach karate.

I've been trying to work on some of my goals for this year. Some of the things I've planned for this year are harder than others but I'm working at it. Hopefully by the end of the year, I can look back and see how much I've grown. God is so good!

I remember in my younger years worrying over the future. I used to worry that I would say or do something embarrassing. I would worry about what bad things might happen. It was a miserable state to be in, not knowing what was going to happen and worrying about it all.

It's wonderful being able to start this New Year knowing that God is with us and no matter what we face this year it will still be good, because of Him. I'm sure there will be hard times, and disappointing times ahead but I know that God will see us through it all. I'm not worried a bit.

Matthew 6:25-34 "Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? (26) Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? (27) Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? (28) And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: (29) And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. (30) Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? (31) Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (32) (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. (33) But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. (34) Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."

I pray that you have a happy, worry free New Year as well!

Birthday Cake for Jesus

2010-12-24T00:04:00.000-06:00

A Birthday Cake for Jesus

I mentioned in my previous post about the Birthday cake for Jesus that I made and presented. I thought I would share with you how I make this special cake.

It is a four layer cake. I make the bottom layer chocolate (I use a Devils food cake). The layer on top of the chocolate is Red (I use a Red Velvet
cake mix). The layer above that is green (I mix green food coloring in a yellow cake mix.) Then the top layer is yellow (I use the other have of the yellow cake mix for the top layer.) It is iced with white icing and has a star of David on the top. With a red candle on top of that.

The children at church are waiting patiently for me to
cut the cake.

I start off by asking the children if they can tell what is inside the cake by the outside. The answer is no. We can't see what's inside because of the icing. Only God knows what is inside our hearts. Then I go into what each color represents.

The Bottom layer represents our sins and how filthy we are on the inside. On our own we cannot get ourselves clean enough to be worthy of God's mercy. The second layer from the bottom represents how that Christ died on the cross for our sins. It is only through Jesus sacrifice that we are able to be forgiven of our sins. Then once we are saved, we are covered by Christ's blood and we are washed white as snow (the icing). After we are saved we are able to grow in grace and the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Elijah enjoying a small piece of yellow cake.

Then one day when Christ calls us home we will be able to live eternally with Him in Heaven which is represented by the yellow layer. The light on the top of the cake represents the fact that Jesus is the light of the world.

It was a good cake and we had a good number of people present. The skit had gone well and we were able to share the gospel which each one that visited.

It's been a good week. I will try to post more as the week progresses.

Have a Merry Christmas!

A Happy Birthday

2010-12-22T00:50:00.000-06:00

Scott and I eating out for our 14th anniversary
at the Olive Garden.

We had such a busy weekend. Friday night, we went Christmas Caroling. Saturday morning, we had karate class. Saturday afternoon, we sang at two nursing homes followed by dress rehearsal for the skit our youth were putting on for our church.
Then Saturday night I stayed up late baking and decorating a birthday cake for Jesus.

Sunday everything went well. The kids did well with their skit. Scott presented a short sermon after skit and then I presented the Birthday cake for Jesus.

Monday was my birthday and I had scheduled to take Elijah to his Doctor's appointment and we planned to leave straight from his Doctor's appointment to go visit my parents. It was so busy and it's easy to have my birthday forgotten. Scott had taken the van into town that morning to fill it with gas and to get the van registered.

My Birthday Cake shows a true Texas Snow.
All it needs is some brown leaves mixed in with the snow.

He never told me, "Happy Birthday." I thought maybe he just forgot and would remember later on. He finally got back home barely in time for me to load Elijah in the van and get to his Doctor's appointment. He told me to go on and that he and the kids would finish packing and we could leave sometime after I got back with Elijah. Elijah appointment went well. I had to hold him while they drew a little blood to check his iron. He did very well and the nurse seemed to be impressed that he did as well as he did.

I then called Scott to let him know I was coming home. He still never mentioned my birthday and sounded like he was in the middle of getting things together. I felt a little sad driving home and thought how easy it would be to just forget my birthday myself. I had tried to pass it off thinking how I'm a grown up and don't have to do anything special but I thought it would be nice to at least be noticed on my birthday.

I arrived home and saw Jonathan's face looking through the window. As soon as I opened my car door he was yelling, "Hi, Mommy!" I went up to the window and spoke with him and Hannah through the closed window. Then I got Elijah and walked up the steps to our front door. I opened the door and suddenly the kids and Scott hollerd, "SURPRISE!" They had a Birthday cake and presents on my clean desk. (My desk is rarely clean.) They had cleaned up the kitchen and the livingroom while I was gone. I was speechless. All I could say was, "Ah! How sweet!"

Scott said, "I bet you thought I forgot." And he was right, I did. I think this was the biggest time I've been surprised on my Birthday. Anyone with a late December birthday can probably relate to how easy it is to get so busy that your Birthday gets hidden in the holiday rush. I had resigned myself to another uneventful birthday, only to find it to be one of the best. The kids all made cards for me. I'll post pictures of those cards at a later time.

God has truly blessed me with a sweet, loving family.

My Best Friend

2010-12-10T08:42:00.000-06:00

My Husband, Scott, holding Elijah

It's been almost a month since I've posted. So much happend in November that I just never took time to post. But one of the biggest things my dear husband, Scott and I celebrated this Thanksgiving was our 14th anniversary.

We were married Thanksgiving day November 28, 1996.  He has been one of the best gifts God has given me.

He is a wonderful, kind, patient, loving, and supportive husband and father.  He loves our children. He is an excellent teacher and pastor. He's a hard worker. He's my best friend!

I am so blessed to have him.

So many people mention to me how that every time they see me, I'm always smiling. That's because I have so much to smile about. I am very happy.

But you know what? I don't have to be the only happy person out there. You can be happy, too. It does take a little work, but it is well worth the effort.

Here is a passage from the best marriage manual available:

Eph 5:22-33 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. (23) For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. (24) Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. (25) Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; (26) That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, (27) That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. (28) So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. (29) For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: (30) For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. (31) For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. (32) This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church. (33) Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.

We need to be willing to give up our way of doing things and do it God's way. It really does work.

Catching Up, Again

2010-11-16T11:50:00.001-06:00

It's been a week since I've blogged. Which means I have a lot of catching up to do. I've been needing to post this picture of Jonathan with his "pup cakes" he had for his birthday at the beginning of this month.

One of these days, I will have to make cupcakes that look like pups.

The last time I blogged I posted pictures of an 18 wheeler accident. It took two or three days for it to be cleaned up and there is still an orange plastic border around the area. I have no idea how long they will leave that up.

The same day that happened, I took the kids to the park for our homeschool group's park day. Elijah liked going down the slide. He also wanted to eat the slide but I didn't quite let him go that far.

Speaking of which, he now has his third tooth. We're now getting a little break from teething until that fourth tooth starts making it's appearance. He isn't fussy right now but he sure wants to chew on everything.

This last picture was of Elijah crawling at our church. He doesn't go very far yet but he will crawl a few steps for something he wants. He does get a little upset with us expecting him to crawl when we're sitting right there able to hand it to him. But I'm sure once he realizes the joys of mobility he'll thank us for it.

Well...at least maybe he'll think to thank me when he's in his thirties. (Thanks, Mom, for encouraging me to crawl when I was a baby! Love, Stacie)

An Accident

2010-11-09T07:58:00.000-06:00

This morning I had a dream that a bomb exploded at our neighbors. It turned out that the bomb was actually an 18 wheeler that had an accident in front of our home.

Scott was cooking oatmeal this morning when he heard the explosions. The man that was driving the truck had to climb out through the window. Scott said he seemed okay but very shaken. After calling 911 Scott came in to tell me about it then headed for work.

I have no clue how it happened, but it looks pretty bad. I'm amazed that the church sign wasn't hit. He may have run off the road and tried to dodge the church sign. I'm just thankful no one was hurt.

This is why I don't let the kids play in the ditch in front of our yard.

I'm also thankful that it wasn't my husband driving his school bus full of kids..

The Big Three

2010-11-04T15:53:00.000-05:00

Today is Jonathan's birthday! He is three years old today. I took this picture of him practicing holding up three fingers. Of course he says he's five. Five is easier to say than three and it's easier to hold five fingers up than three fingers. So this has me wondering, why can't a child turn five before three. In a couple more years it will be a lot easier to say three.

I know, I know, I'm a very deep thinker.

We'll be having cake and ice cream and opening presents when Scott gets home. I'll be taking more pictures. So check back soon. :)

Building Memories

2010-11-01T14:33:00.000-05:00

Joshua, Ruth, and Hannah were invited to play over at their friends' house yesterday after church. Scott and I decided that we would use that opportunity to take Elijah and Jonathan to the store. We let Jonathan ride a bicycle around the toy section. He was doing fairly well with it. Then we let him try several toys.  We bought him a small school bus that he liked rolling on the floor. He likes school buses because they are "just like what Daddy drives!"

Then we let him pick the ice cream and we went home to make milk shakes.

Jonathan is getting so big. He will be turning three on Thursday. Time goes by fast.  I don't want Jonathan and Elijah to feel like they are living in the shadows of their elder siblings. So we use any opportunity we can to build happy memories for all of our children.

This week will be another busy week full of memory building opportunities. We will be doing a lot of fall cleaning in preparation for some furniture we will be receiving from my sister and her husband. We have a field trip this week with some other families in our homeschool group. I'll try to remember my camera and post some pictures. We will be voting tomorrow. Then there will be Jonathan's birthday on Thursday. And our karate class will be meeting in a new location.

I should be able to find time to blog though. Be watching for updates and pictures.

E-mail

2010-10-29T22:54:00.000-05:00

My older children have been having fun with their new e-mail addresses which their Papa (my dad) gave them. Joshua has been sending me e-mails every day.

I highly recommend every parent find some way to communicate privately with your children. I've been amazed at some of the thoughts and my children have shown in just a few sentences they have typed to me. If you are afraid of your children having e'mail, I would recommend setting up an in home mail box. Where your children can write you a letter each day and maybe let each of them have their own mail boxes where you put their answered letters. I may do that with my younger children where they can draw pictures for me.

With my older children I used to have them write me letters in cursive. It was a practice in reading and writing in cursive. I would write them a letter to read in cursive and they were to write me back. Now they are getting practice in typing while writing letters to me and their Papa. Scott even plans to join in on the e'mails during his lunch break.

Hannah and Jonathan do not have complete understand of letter writing. So I'll probably start working with them on mailing real letters and starting off with an in home mail box where they can "write" me and Daddy.

It's amazing how many subjects we have been adding to our homeschool without the kids even realizing it. Who says work can't be fun?

High Speed!!!

2010-10-25T12:04:00.000-05:00

We are sure moving up in the world. We now have high speed internet. This is a video of Elijah that I've loaded on here as a test. I'm hoping that seeing this on my blog will make it seem more real. I had a hard time finding a video because I'm usually more concerned about finding good pictures for my blog. Now I am able to not only view videos but upload videos as well.

High speed internet isn't the only improvement we made this week. I also signed us up to recieve garbage service. This was the first time I had heard of trash pick up called "garbage service". I was glad that I found out what it was called. I would have felt funny asking the lady on the phone, "Is this the place that collects trash?" Instead I saw in the phone book that another company called it garbage service. So I was able to be far more professional about it. We will now have our garbage picked up once a week. I'm very happy about that. It was getting to be a problem trying to find a good time to take the garbage to the dump. Scott went to work too early and got off too late to take it for me. I used to burn the trash but there has been a burn ban and no sign of it being lifted any time soon. Then I tried to get all the trash loaded in the van with the kids and go out of our way to take it to the dump before we had to be at our karate class. Finally I just made up my mind that I had to do something. After several phone calls I finally got to the right place and we can have our trash picked up for only $20 a month. That is well worth it to me.

The high speed internet is definitely going to be a benefit not only to my own ability to blog and keep in touch with family and friends, but it will help me with homeschooling the kids as well. We will be able to view more educational videos and not have to wait for everything to download before I'm able to use it. Now I can just say, "Hey, let's look it up!" and find the answer to many of our homeschool questions. This also means I will be able to Skype my brother and his family in France.

And for everyone else, this means y'all will get to see a few more videos on my blog. I'll try to take some good ones. :-)

Another Busy Week

2010-10-22T14:42:00.000-05:00

Jonathan, Hannah, and Elijah watching Leap Frog Phonics video.

This has been another busy week and it's not over yet. Monday, Elijah's second tooth came in right beside the first one. Tuesday we had our usual karate class that evening.

Wednesday, was a big day. Scott was off Wednesday so we went to Houston and took the kids to see the Holocaust Museum. It was a good learning experience for the kids to see some of the things that we've only talked about and shown them documentaries on before. Hannah and Jonathan didn't really get a lot out of it, they were a little too young to understand it all, but Joshua and Ruth were old enough to benefit from the lesson.

We also visited a Thai Market that has a restaurant in it. We ate lunch there and bought a few things from the store. We finished up our trip with a visit to an accordion store to get a few accessories for Scott's accordion.

Thursday, was back to work for all of us. I only had to clean up the fragments of a coffee pot, before taking the kids to karate class. I had asked before if anyone knew of an unbreakable crockpot, now I am wondering about coffemakers. Better yet maybe I should replace all my dishes and cookware with unbreakable items. Oh well, my children come by it honestly. I told them that accidents happen and I'm sure that won't be the last dish broken. (Unless I find a full line of unbreakable kitchenware.)

Today, the kids have their normal school work. I've been looking into garbage services. I'm hoping to start having our trash picked up at least once a week. Trash has really been a problem for me, since there has been a burn ban. I'm hoping to hear back from the garbage service today and have that solved.

Tomorrow, we have belt ceremony and cookout with our karate class. Scott will be receiving a green belt. Ruth and Joshua will be receiving yellow belts. Hannah will be receiving her white/yellow belt.

Then, I will be preparing my Sunday School lesson for Sunday. That is pretty much this week in a nutshell. I'll try to remember to post pictures of the belt ceremony tomorrow.

First Tooth!!!

2010-10-17T21:41:00.000-05:00

Elijah eating sweet peas with his first tooth.

Today, I felt Elijah's first tooth as he was chewing on my hand. I quickly checked his mouth and then showed Scott. Sure enough his first tooth has come in. It is just about the same timing as Jonathan's first tooth. You can check out my post for May 27, 2008 to see what Jonathan looked like back then.

I fed Elijah sweet peas today, which he seemed to enjoy. Towards the end of the jar he started playing with it and sputtering sweet peas at me. It reminds me of my dad every time I get sweet peas sputtered at me. My dad always tells the story of my spitting sweet peas at him. He tells me that one day when he is in the nursing home and I feed him sweet peas that he will spit them at me. So now whenever I feed my children sweet peas I think of him.

Well it's been a good weekend now to begin a new week. We'll be starting a new health class this week in our homeschool day. I'll post more about how that goes later.

Living and Reliving Memories

2010-10-15T11:17:00.000-05:00

Elijah has been growing so fast and it's hard to get enough pictures posted. Wednesday, he had his first bath sitting in the bath tub instead of laying in a baby bath. He really liked splashing the water with his feet. He also liked chewing on bath toys and his brush and comb.

The neat thing for me with Elijah is we are still living in the same house as when Jonathan was a baby. It's like going through some of the same memories. I'm sure I have this same picture of Jonathan using the same bathring. Before long I will take a picture of Elijah sitting in the same high chair as well. It's hard to believe that when we first came here Jonathan wasn't walking yet.

These repeat memories are kind of neat. They may seem simple to some who have lived in the same house for most of their children's childhood, but as a Preacher's family we've moved around a lot. The longest we have stayed at one church was five years and even then we moved into three different homes. Now you may see why these repeat memories are exciting for me.

The older three children and Scott passed their belt tests Tuesday. Everyone there talked about how they can see Hannah being a Sinsei one day. Jonathan has been enjoying the little kids class. I've been enjoying helping in the class as well. For a couple of weeks I wasn't able to participate in all the classes, Scott's car wasn't running and we had to take turns between the classes. We were very glad when Monday, Scott fixed the car. It turned out being the starter that had gone out. He fixed it at a very good time, since Tuesday we had park day with our homeschool group and karate class following. Then Wednesday we had Elijah's doctor's appointment. Then karate on Thursday. Today, we finally stay home. Tomorrow, there will be a visiting Sensei from another dojo. Our Sensei invited the big kids class to participate with the adult class that day. I will also be working on my Sunday School lesson tomorrow.

And right now Hannah has brought me her book and is ready for her reading lesson. We are working on the letter E today. This should be a good weekend. I'll try to post more soon.

NASA Homeschool Day

2010-10-07T13:14:00.001-05:00

Yesterday, we went to visit the NASA spacecenter for their homeschool day. I was so glad that Scott was able to take part of the day off to go with us. The kids got a whole lot more out of it with his being there to point things out to them. And I enjoyed being able to follow along and enjoy watching them soak in the information.

When we first arrived we thought we would be able to get the tickets for a discouted rate at the window. However they informed us that had to be done online or we pay full price at the window. I was glad I was able to call my parents who happened to be home to get their help with ordering the tickets online. All we needed was a confirmation number.

I was talking on the phone with my dad a lady came to us saying that their group had one unclaimed adult ticket and they wanted to give it to us.We thanked them and I told my dad make that one less adult ticket. Then right before I gave Dad our debit card information Scott waved tickets at me and I found out somebody gave us two unclaimed children's tickets from their group. I then had Dad redo the whole order and we only had to order two adult tickets. We went there expecting to spend $60 to $70 and wound up only having to pay $30. Our Lord is rich in blessings.

There were a lot of interesting things to see and do. There were some amazing Lego models of castles, knights, and even a dragon. Then we saw all the Rocket displays and lunar modules. We also watched a movie about the life of an astronaut. There were some scales that show your weight on different planets. I won't tell you my weight on Earth much less Jupiter. I think one of my favorite displays was of the inside of one of the space shuttles. It showed all the things they used to live on the shuttle.

We also got to go inside a small dome star display. It was kind of like a miniature planetarium. I think NASA should have a larger planetarium for people to see the stars. Scott and I weren't as impressed with the star presentation, since we had seen the bigger ones before.

We only lost Jonathan twice during the day. The first time he wondered off while we were looking at something he ran back to us scared and crying. I comforted him and told him he needed to stay with us. The second time he got lost Scott ran back to where we last saw him and found him smiling about it. I'm not sure whether I prefer him being scared of being lost or finding it funny. I guess I prefer him not getting lost to begin with.

We ended the trip allowing the kids to play in the play area. Then it was time to get Scott back to the school where he drives a school bus. Walking back to the car, I asked Jonathan which part he liked best, and he said, "I like the karate." I'm not sure which part he considers the karate part, but that was his opinion. I think the Movie might have been the rest of the kids favorite part. They listed several favorites.

Scott's and my favorite part was finding Jonathan and our least favorite was losing Jonathan. Although we both enjoyed seeing the displays. Next time we want to get back and take the Tram tour of NASA if we are able to go again.

Our week isn't over yet and that was just one of the many activities planned. I actually found out this morning by a church member who stopped by that there is one more activity on Saturday we would normally want to go to. Our local association meeting is Saturday, but again that is just one more thing we can't do at the same time as all of our other activities that are planned at the same time. I think things need to be planned in a more spread out manner but I guess we are the only ones involved with all these particular extracurricular activities.

I'll try to post more pictures tomorrow. If I don't get to then watch for them by Monday when I'll hopefully get to slow down.

2010-10-04T17:32:00.000-05:00

Picture taken this morning of Elijah playing.

Last week was busy, but this week will be even busier. I don't know why activities seem to all fall on the busiest weeks. We are actually not going to be able to do it all. There are just too many conflicting activities. Thankfully I was able to reschedule Elijah's Dr's appointment this week. His original appt. was the same day we have a homeschool field trip. Then Saturday there are three separate activities taking place in three different directions. I had to choose which one we go to. Scott is a wonderful husband. He knew exactly which of the activities I really wanted to do and just simply said, "We're going there and the rest can wait. The kids will be okay." He is right. The kids though disappointed that they aren't able to do it all are still happy to be able to do the things we have planned. I would list the whole itinerary but Scott doesn't like everything published beforehand to the world so I'll just tell about it as it happens. I'll be posting pictures so keep checking back.

Big smile for mommy.

Elijah is still growing. He prefers being upright to laying down sometimes. I took these two pictures this morning while he was playing on the floor. I think he likes sitting better because he knows he's not being laid down to sleep and it's easier to see what's going on around him. He is coming closer to crawling, which will probably be his next milestone. Now to get his older siblings to quit picking him up as much and handing him everything.

A New Comment

2010-09-23T14:59:00.000-05:00

Four of my children in my Sunday School Class.

I took this picture during Sunday School a few weeks back. Elijah was actually in the room as well but he wasn't sitting at the table. Whenever the teacher for Hannah's and Jonathan's class is out they come to my class.

A few blogs back, I mentioned Jonathan making his usual comment during one of Scott's sermons. His normal comment was "Jesus died on cwoss?"

Last night during our Bible study he made a new comment. Scott asked if we had any comments, which of course is Jonathan's cue. Jonathan spoke up, "Jesus," then after a short pause, ":Jesus lay on the floor?"

Scott quoted the verse "(Matthew 8:20) 'And Jesus saith unto him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.' So yes, Jesus probably did have to sleep on the floor a few times."

It's interesting what kids come up with. Although, we were informed by Hannah that a kid is an animal. So I guess I should have said, "children".

Can't Forget Hannah

2010-09-21T14:08:00.000-05:00

The first blog I posted this week was about Elijah and Jonathan. Then yesterday I blogged about Joshua and Ruth. So today I'm going to talk about Hannah.

I took this picture today while Hannah was being a swimmer named Leum. And, yes, Leum is a boy. Hannah stuffed the dress she is wearing as a shirt into her blue pants which are rolled above the knees. The belts wrapped around her arms are "floaties". And the blue shoestring tied around her finger is a bandage because her finger got bit by a shark.

Last night as we gathered for devotional, Hannah was chewing on her hair. Scott told her to stop chewing on her hair and asked her if she liked eating her hair. She told him, "No, I was just getting the toothpaste taste off my hair."

Hannah is still our little fireball of emotions. She is either very happy or very upset. There is rarely an in between with her. One night she came to our room hollering and screaming that something was behind her ear. Scott looked behind her ear and removed the little piece of dried fingernail polish. It was the day I painted her fingernails. She must have scratched behind her ear before the nail polish dried. But from the sound of her hollering you would think she had a giant ant still attached to her ear. She has given us quite a few scares that turned out being nothing. I often wonder if some of her reflux cries as a baby were a little over reacted as most of her cries are today. At the time though, I thought she was really suffering. So much so that she got to sleep beside me on my firm pillow each night to keep her from having tummy troubles.

One thing really wonderful about Hannah is that she is a "people person". She never meets a stranger and will talk to just about anybody. Hannah is always saying or doing something that makes us laugh. Sometimes it may be that she is being completely serious but we can't help getting tickled.

Whatever Hannah puts her mind to do she does whole heartedly. When we started the karate classes she was so determined to learn all the katas at once. I had to insist that Hannah learn only one at a time. She was getting so many in her head that she wound up inventing her own kata which changed from day to day.

That's our Hannah! Now, if I could just bottle up even some of that energy we could sell it.

Shhhh...(Don't tell them it's work.)

2010-09-20T16:39:00.000-05:00

Joshua Ironing

I remember my Mom teaching me how to iron when I was a kid. It was such an honor to be entrusted with a basketful of my Dad's work shirts. Well I'm not quite ready to trust my children with Scott's shirts just yet. Instead I started them on the living room curtains.

The curtains came out of the dryer wrinkled. I sighed because ironing curtains wasn't one of the chores I had planned to do today. But then I had a bright idea, a home economics lesson for Joshua and Ruth! They were excited. They both got to iron two curtains each from the living room.

Ruth ironing curtains.

They did a good job and the curtains weren't even singed. I've been trying to teach Joshua and Ruth how to take on a little more responsibility around the house. They are also learning how to teach Jonathan and Hannah to help out.

If we all work together chores should be a lot easier and quicker to get done in a day. Hopefully that will mean I can get to bed at a better time and still have all the days dishes done. The more the children are able to willingly help with household chores the more time I have to teach them other exciting lessons.

(Proverbs 22:6) "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it."

Firsts

2010-09-19T23:36:00.000-05:00

Elijah enjoying his first bites of rice cereal.

Elijah had his first meal of rice cereal on Friday. He gave me a lot of trouble going to sleep. Scott and I both agreed that it Elijah was good and ready for rice cereal. Friday evening as the other children were eating Sandwiches, Joshua grabbed the camera and took this picture of Elijah having his first bites.

Of course I had to hold his arms down and keep him in order to keep him from grabbing the spoon and bowl. He had several bites and learned to drink water from a sippy cup. He did very well.

After he started acting full, I told his siblings that they could have the rest of the rice cereal. We didn't get a picture of the look on his face as they started eating his cereal in front of him. I don't know which would have been a better picture his disturbed look as they were eating in front of him or Jonathan's surprised face as he realized there isn't any flavor to rice cereal. Elijah slept much better Friday night.

Jonathan participating in karate class

Also this week, I started Jonathan in the little kids' karate class. A week ago last Thursday, Jonathan joined me and Scott in the adult class. He was having some troubles in the play area so I let him stay beside me while we were working on some kicks and punches. He started doing everything I did. He talked about that all weekend. Tuesday, I asked the teacher if we could be in the little kids' class together. Technically he's not old enough yet, but she agreed and he started Tuesday. He has done really well.

We had a special karate class on Saturday in honor of Sensei John who was retiring from teaching at our Dojo. He passed the class on to Sensei Patty who has been teaching the classes on the weekdays and weekends that he couldn't be with us. Sensei Patty was also awarded her black belt on Saturday. It was a great day.The big kids and little kids classes were invited to join the adult class that day. This picture of Jonathan was taken during the class Saturday. I was surprised at how well he behaved during the hour and a half class.

Saturday evening we visited a Mission Rally at a church in our local association. Each of the churches present were asked to bring a history of how their church began. It was interesting to hear how the Lord worked in the beginning of all those churches. Scott presented a brief history of how our church was started back in 1931.

We had a busy week this past week and I'm looking forward to seeing what all this week holds.

Nenodupe

2010-09-13T12:30:00.000-05:00

A few months ago, Jonathan named his puppy Nenodupe and the name stuck. It amazes me actually, since he is only two and yet he came up with a name he remembers. Most of the names the kids would come up with at that age were long forgotten before they even had the toy a week. Jonathan's puppy has kept its name several months. We no longer even call it puppy it is Nenodupe. He is getting so big and talking so much.

We have devotionals at our home and after the devotion is over, Scott asks if anyone has any comments. Jonathan's comment is usually, "Jesus died on the Cwoss." Sunday, the air conditioner was out in the auditorium, so we had our services in the fellowship hall. Jonathan must have thought that the short pause during his daddy's sermon was a spot for comments. So he announced very loudly, "Jesus died on the cwoss." No one seemed to mind and Scott just said, "Yes, Jesus died on the cross," and went on with his sermon.

Children grow up so fast. It won't be long and I'll be telling of the things Elijah will say.

1,000 Strikes

2010-08-28T22:16:00.000-05:00

"I feel like I've done a thousand strikes today," is the phrase Scott and I keep repeating. The strike-a-thon went very well today. We had this picture taken of our family right after the class was over. Later we may get some good pictures of our class performing the 1,000 strikes.

Jonathan is not in old enough yet to be in the class but we let him wear his gi and I told him that he could participate today if he wanted to. I think he mostly played in the back of the room.

A mom of one of the kids participating watched Elijah for us so we worked on the strikes. She is one of those wonderful fearless moms that can comfort a fussy baby.

Speakimg of a fussy baby... I better get him ready for bed. I'll try to post more tomorrow. Wow, my arms are soar.

Strike-a-thon for the American Cancer Society

2010-08-23T20:09:00.000-05:00

My family and I will be participating in a strike-a-thon on Saturday, August 28. We will be performing 1,000 strikes against cancer. All donations will be going to support the American Cancer Society. All those participating will be wearing the names of family and friends that have been affected by cancer.

If you would like to help us support the American Cancer Society please e-mail me at asmile76@gmail.com . If you have a loved one that you would like us to honor by wearing their name please include their name in your e-mail.

I plan to bring my camera and have someone take a picture of us as we make our strikes against cancer. I'll post a picture of my family wearing the bands with the names of those we are honoring through this.

The man mentioned in the poster to the right is a friend of our Sensei. Our family has several friends and family who have personally been affected by cancer. We wish to honor them through this Strike-a-thon.

Even if you cannot make a donation toward the cause, please support us with prayers for the families who are still fighting the fight against cancer, and for those families who have lost a loved one to cancer. Thank you.

All Work and No Play?

2010-08-16T15:32:00.000-05:00

I'm letting the kids take a break today. We went to the park this morning for a homeschool meeting. When we got home I fed my children lunch and told them they could play in the water after they washed our van.

The van is nice and clean and the kids are outside splashing around in a kiddy pool. It was hard getting a good picture with them moving around so much.

Elijah is growing. My mom and I bought a play mat (pictured) for him about a month ago. At that time he had a harder time reaching both the hanging toys and the kicking ball. Now he is able to reach both at the same time.. He loves to play with this toy. The only time he gets upset with it is when he wants to chew on the toys and they don't pull off. But he has sweet siblings who will help him out and give him toys to chew.

Believe it or not, letting the kids take a break and play today has given me a little reprieve. I decided to blog and then I hope to get my lesson plans organized for the month. It's good to stop every once in a while and take a break. Tomorrow we'll be getting back to work.

Math Problems

2010-08-06T17:49:00.000-05:00

IJoshua waiting to see if he got the answer correct.

Yesterday, I was grading Joshua's and Ruth's math work. I saw that despite all the drilling on division, Joshua was still not understanding long division. I had given him many examples on the board. I even began to wonder if someone else could explain it better than I can. That is a dangerous worry that goes through many homeschooling moms' heads when faced with what feels like a road block in their child's education.

I always have to stop myself, and realize that if my child were in a classroom setting he would have the same difficulty. I imagine the teacher would just give him homework and then either he would get behind and fail or bring the work home where I would have to teach it to him anyway. So as all homeschooling Moms must do, I think of the best way to solve the problem. (Pun intended.)

I knew that what Joshua needed was to do several problems himself. I told him that division was a very systematic thing. What you do to one number you do to the other numbers. I had him go to the board and I gave him a problem to write down. He wrote it on the board. I then told him okay solve the problem.

He started tensing up and getting all worried about it. I asked him what he was to do first. He got that part right and then froze. I asked him, "Okay, Now what do you do?"

He then made a mistake and I very animatedly had the number he messed up complain, "No! Don't push that big number into me. It won't fit!!!" He at first wasn't sure if I was making fun of him or just making math fun. I was helping him with the numbers talking, he started figuring out what he was doing wrong, and getting tickled at the animated numbers on the board. At one point he accidently put a number that was suppose to go on top of the line under the numbers, that poor number hollered, "Aaahhh!!! I fell off the table! Help!"

Finally, after a few rounds of division he was making less mistakes and the numbers quit talking to him. He started getting every problem right and he announced the very rewarding words, "Wow! Math is fun! Are there any more problems?"

Those words right there do a homeschooling mom's heart good. I smiled and said, "See. I knew you could do it."

Roll Over

2010-08-03T22:54:00.000-05:00

Elijah is now rolling over to his tummy. One morning I went to get him out of his bed and he was on his tummy looking around his bed. Later the same day after I changed his diaper he rolled over onto his tummy again. That time he was on my bed. It won't be long and he'll be crawling.

Church camp was great. We all discussed before bedtime prayers what our favorite parts of camp was. The kids agreed that they enjoyed different sermons several of the pastors preached. It's always a joy to hear your children retell sermons. There were a few sermons I had to miss because I had to step outside with Elijah, but Friday evening my kids filled me in on all those sermons plus the sermons I didn't miss.

Of course, the sermons weren't the only part of camp my children enjoyed. Joshua also enjoyed buying lots of Sodas. He brought his own money with him so instead of just having the drinks and snacks we bought him, he enjoyed the freedom of buying as much as he wanted. Then he said he also enjoyed swimming.

The girls enjoyed swimming also. Hannah enjoyed having grandparents at camp. Where her Daddy and I might not give her everything she wants, grandparents love to buy their grandchildren things. The funny part is that even after camp was over she says now she wants a balloon from the gift shop. All I can do is shake my head.

It reminds me of a scene from Veggietales. Bob the Tomato asks Larry the Cucumber, "How much stuff do you need to be happy?"

Larry replies, "I don't know. How much stuff is there?"

Hopefully she will figure that lesson out as she gets older and we continue to teach her.

Ruth enjoyed the swimming and enjoyed hearing people tell the story of when they were saved. She also liked singing a special Friday morning before her daddy's devotional. She sang a song she had written a few years ago entitled, "I Love You, Jesus."

Jonathan said that he enjoyed Wal-mart. We can only assume he meant the gift shop. I think favorite is a difficult concept for a two year old. But I'm pretty sure he enjoyed all the time he got to spend with his Daddy this week. Scott also mentioned that Jonathan enjoyed watching the boys that dived off the diving board durng swimming. For Jonathan watching them splash was like getting to watch fireworks.

Scott enjoyed teaching the High School/ College class. He also enjoyed spending a lot of time with Jonathan.

I enjoyed teaching the third grade class again this year. I found I had quite a few of the same kids I had last year. Several of the kids were 10 years old this year which is the age I was when I was saved. I shared with them my testimony. At the end of class on Wednesday, I told the students that if they wanted to talk to me they could stay after class was over. One of the girls from my dorm stayed. I shared with her the same verses we talked about in class. She then prayed her own prayer asking God to forgive her of her sins. During testimony time that day, she gave her testimony and I believe from her testimony that she understood what I had shared with her.

Over all we had a great camp. The only problem I had at camp was getting stung by a bee. I had stepped outside with Elijah during one of the services. I went to sit down in a chair and my arm went down right on a bee. I'm just glad it was me and not my baby that got stung.

God's Provisions

2010-07-23T21:17:00.000-05:00

Scott made it home safe and sound. The kids surprised me and were fairly easy to get up. I however only got an hour of sleep that night. But I managed to get up and get the kids out the door. The kids were all pretty excited. Hannah kept telling Scott about the bugs we bought for him to eat. Of course, he didn't really understand what she was talking about until we got home and offered him some gummy bugs that they found at the store. We didn't want him to miss Thailand too much.

The picture above is Scott holding Elijah wrapped in a cloth Scott had given me. When I nurse Elijah in public I needed a good breathable cloth to cover with. Scott found a cloth for me. The people there have multiple uses for it. Elijah enjoyed being swaddled in it.

The rest of the pictures are of Scott and the kids eating the gummy bugs we bought for him. The kids are all gathered around on a blanket pretending to be in Thailand. After seeing all the pictures of the people there sitting on mats on the ground they wanted to pretend to be there. So they are coloring in the coloring books Scott bought them from Thailand and sitting on a makeshift mat. They were using their new Thai pillows for desks.

Scott said that these gummy bugs tasted much better than real bugs. We all had fun watching his pictures and videos. I'm glad that he went and that the team he went with were so good with the people there. I hope that their will be much fruit for their labor there. It was good to know that the missionaries there now have an open invitation to return.

Scott is finally starting to get over his jet lag. At noon he has been wanting to sleep and at midnight he wanted lunch. But today he decided to go out and get some coffee at a local cafe. He also drove to the post office to check our mail. He returned late in the morning all hot and sweaty. He had to walk home from the post office. The ignition switch in our van wasn't working. He first walked to the Dollar store to get some WD-40, but that didn't work so he walked home. About halfway home someone that knew him offered him a ride. He then did some calling around for the price of ignition switches. He decided he would go try it again. He went out to walk the 3 or 4 miles to the post office again. Thankfully he was able to get it to crank and drove it home. He thinks it will be okay for a while but he wants to get a new ignition switch soon. I told Scott at least all the things we have to replace on our vehicles are still better than a car payment. Let's see this month we've had to buy 3 windshield wipers, a new tire, a new brace for the back door of the van, and now we will be getting a new ignition switch.

Tomorrow we will be going to visit my sister and her husband. We will be looking at buying a car to replace the one that had to be scrapped after an accident Scott had the week before he left. We should be able to have the car paid for in full in just a few weeks. We prefer to buy good running older cars for less and spend the money that would have been car payments on fixing them up. It seems to work for us anyway and so far God has blessed us with being able to find good prices on parts most of the time.

I know that is the question a lot of people have is how can we afford five kids. It's only by God's grace that we do. We depend on Him for our needs. So far with each new addition we've made to our family God has provided in many ways that is hard to explain. We try not to live over our means and find good prices whenever possible. It's amazing how many times God has provided for our needs and even some of our wants. He is truly awesome!

Php 4:19-20 But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. (20) Now unto God and our Father be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

Early In the Morning...

2010-07-20T23:22:00.000-05:00

This is probably my favorite picture of Jonathan from our trip. I took this picture of him at the Kalamazoo Air-zoo. He loved being inside a real cockpit with real buttons and switches to push.

Real early tomorrow morning we will picking Scott up from the airport. I will have to awaken the kids and at lunch today, I described to them how I imagine tomorrow morning will be.

Joshua, I'll only have to tell twice and he'll be up and at 'em. He'll probably even help get the others up.

Ruth will be a challenge since she usually sleeps so soundly. I anticipate having to tell her loudly severral times and then shake her shoulder, or threaten to tickle her feet to finally get her up and moving.

Hannah, I will come into the room and quietly and sweetly as possible tell her to wake up. There are two possible reactions I expect from her. She'll either grumble and turn over covering her head with her pillow and then cry as I insist she get up, or she'll jump out of bed and squeal excitedly because we're going to get Daddy. .

Jonathan, I'll probably have to carry out after trying to wake him up enough to at least go potty first.

Then Elijah should be the simplest to just feed and put in his car seat. But I wouldn't be surprised if he chose that time to have the dirtiest diaper of the week. Watch them all surprise me and give totally different reactions than I am anticipating. We shall see. I'll try to post again tomorrow if I get a chance.

One funny thing that from my confusion of Scott's arrival was I had rescheduled Elijah's 4 month check-up for Wednesday, thinking that we might be too tired from picking Scott up on Tuesday. Oh well maybe I'll leave the kids at home to watch a movie or something while Scott rests. It will be different taking only Elijah to the doctor.

This eveniung, I took the kids with me to the store to get some much needed groceries. I found Hebrew National Beef Hot Dogs on sale for 75 cents a package. That was 6.5 cents per ounce! It was just about cheaper than the cheap stuff. I bought just about every package they had. I told the cashier that with a family our size you don't pass up a good deal like that.

Now I need to wash some dishes and then get some sleep. Scott's flight will take him about 2 and a half to 3 hours to get all the way from Los Angeles to Houston. It will take me a little over half that just to drive to the airport. Kind of funny isn't it?

I'll try to post an update sometime tomorrow about Scott's arrival. Thanks for all your prayers.

"Can I Tell You Something?"

2010-07-19T14:11:00.000-05:00

I've probably heard this question a billions of times (using another of Hannah's favorite phrases). Everything seems to be a billion with that girl. I don't know exactly how to break her of the habit of asking, "Can I tell you something?" before everything she wants to say. And if anyone says, "No." She'll stop and look at you like, "what do I do now?" Usually the person that tells her no gives in and lets her tell them.

Here are some more pictures from our trip. I wanted to post the pictures I have from our fishing trip.

Jonathan caught his first fish with the help of Grandpa Art. Jonathan was a little nervous of touching the fish, he wouldn't even hold the string the fish is on for the picture. But the position his hand was in makes it look like he was holding it.

Joshua caught two or three fish. He was the official fish carrier. He would carry the fish that were keepers to the bucket and release the ones that were too small back into the bucket. After we got back Grandpa Art taught him how to clean the fish.

This is the only picture I could get of Hannah. She was freaking out over the fish on her line and was demanding in a very shrieky voice that someone get that fish off her hook. If you hadn't guessed already she is our drama queen.

Ruth was the last to start catching fish. She was getting disturbed by the fact and I told her that the fish probably knew that she wasn't baiting her own hook. She didn't like touching the worms so we kept having to put the worm on for her. I was a little tired of having to stop what I was doing to put a worm on her hook, so I told her that the first step in catching fish was to put the worm on your own hook. She then got her nerve up and started baiting her own hook and sure enough she started catching fish. In fact she probably caught the most.

I don't know how well my fishing advice will go for anyone else but it seemed to work for her. I think technically it was because she was able to get her hook in the water faster because she wasn't having to wait on someone else to bait it for her.

I normally wouldn't put a picture of myself on my blog but Scott e'mailed me to tell me he was catching up on my blogs. I know that he would want to see a picture of me too. So this picture is more for him than anything. But everyone else might like seeing Jonathan. He was a bit nervous at first whenever Art would drive the boat around the lake. So he wanted to be held the whole time. He'll say, "Hold you!" I'm finally starting to get him to say, "Hold me please." But it's still a work in progress.

Speaking of Scott, I realized today as I was looking at his e-ticket that I had the wrong day to pick him up. I thought I was going to be picking him up tomorrow morning at 5:25 a.m. but it turns out being Wednesday morning at that time. I'm glad I looked. It was disappointing to see that it was going to be a day later, but it would have been worse to find out at the airport that I had the wrong day.

It won't be long and we'll all be together again. I told the kids that it just gives us one more day to get the house in order before Daddy gets home.

Ruth's Birthday

2010-07-18T00:55:00.000-05:00

Today was Ruth's 10th Birthday. She had asked me as we were driving back to Texas from Michigan that we not have to drive on her birthday. I told her that it all depended on how many times they asked to stop. I did have to tease her yesterday once we arrived that on her birthday after she opened her presents we could all get in the van again and ride around town just for fun. But she didn't seem to like that idea.

They were encouraged by me telling them how many hours were left along the way. If we had driven straight through without any stops we could have made it to my parents house in 20 hours or so. They were all excited that it could be that quick and all started agreeing that they would not ask to go to the restroom the whole trip. I smiled and told them that we would see how long that lasted.

It didn't last super long but they did pretty well. Hannah would say, "Mom, can I tell you something? I won't ask to stop anymore but I need to go to the bathroom just this once." When we got back to the car I would check the GPS and tell them the new arrival time if we didn't stop. They were pretty excited when we only had 4 hours to go. If Scott had been here we probably would have opted to drive on through Thursday night while the kids were asleep. But without the extra help driving I decided to stop Thursday night at a hotel.

The worst part of the trip was probably trying to find a hotel when we arrived in Texarkana on Thursday night. I could have stopped at a hotel on the Arkansas side but I had wanted to get on into Texas that night. I didn't realize how bad the construction on the streets were there. It was a mess and my GPS wasn't any help. I hate driving in construction at night. I had planned on driving into Texarkana at 9:30 p.m. finding a hotel and then ordering a Pizza to be delivered on our last night in a hotel. But I couldn't find the hotel in my price range that I wanted. It felt like I was driving in circles I was so turned around. So after the headache of trying to figure out the mess I was in, I decided to drive out of town before finding a hotel. Thankfully getting back on the main road wasn't too hard and we drove to New Boston. We arrived at a hotel about 10:30 that night and after getting everything inside the hotel, I tried calling Pizza Hut only to find that they had already closed. I then decided to load the kids back into the car and go see if we could find a restaurant open. Everything but the gas stations were closed. So I bought a box of doughnuts and some peanut butter crackers for Supper.

I finally had the kids in bed by 12:30 a.m. I was then able to check the internet and see if there was any news from Scott and took my shower and went to bed about 2:30 a.m. I opted for sleeping late over free breakfast that morning. We checked out of the hotel at 11 a.m. and only had 3 1/2 hours left to go. Of course it turned into about 5 after stopping once or twice for restroom breaks and then stopping for feeding the baby and refueling the car. We finally arrived safe and sound at my parents house.

Tomorrow we will go to my parents Church and hear my Dad preach. Then Sunday afternoon, we will be heading out to visit my sister and then visit their church to hear her husband preach Sunday night. Then from there we will head home and hopefully get things unpacked on Monday and get ready for Scott's arrival early Tuesday morning.

I'm so glad that it's that close to time for Scott to be back. Three weeks is too long to be apart. But I heard from him again today. He called and said that they were dropping off two of the team members at the airport and then he would be heading back to visit the church in Chang Mai. He told me that he wasn't feeling too good. He had eaten something that didn't set well with his stomache. Please keep him in your prayers. He told me that this was a really productive trip. He was really impressed with the response of the people in the village they visited. I'll post more pictures from our trips over the next few days.

I want to post a couple of videos tonight in case I do not have a chance to blog tomorrow. After tomorrow I'll be back on dial-up and can only post pictures. The first video is of Scott's Aunt Shelby who was showing Jonathan how to blow bubbles at my Mother-in-law's house. In the second video my Dad was playing with Elijah.

Only two days and two nights left until I get to see Scott again! Thanks for all your prayers.

On the Road Again

2010-07-15T00:26:00.000-05:00

We arrived in Michigan Friday evening. We had a good visit with the family. There was a lot of Construction in Illinois and in Michigan. We arrived and unpacked most of our things. I had Jonathan and Elijah sleep in the room with me while Joshua, Ruth, and Hannah slept in the livingroom. The older two slept on cots, and Hannah slept on the couch.

Saturday, we went fishing on a pontoon that belonged to Scott's, mother's, husband's, brother. I guess that would be Scott's mother's brother-in-law. Anyway, we went on the boat and everyone caught a fish. Even Jonathan caught a fish.

Saturday night, I asked Scott's mom, Judy, if there was a church that she would like to visit. Normally we always go to the church Scott was saved and grew up in. This time we went to the church she went to when she was a girl. It was a cute little church building in the country. I was amazed at how many people went to that little church. They had a lot of cute little children as well. There were several people there that were friends with Judy's family. Some she remembered from when she was a girl. I even saw Scott's uncle Howard there. He is very nice. I found out that he has been helping the Amish in their part of Michigan. I think that is pretty neat.

Monday, we went to a Museum called the Kalamazoo Air Zoo. There were a lot of rides there. One section had air planes and another building had an outerspace exhibit. It was pretty neat and the kids were able to ride a lot of neat rides. I'll have to post more about that when I have more time.

Then Tuesday we stayed at Judy's home and enjoyed visits from several of Scott's family. His Aunt Vicky and Cousin Nancy came that morning and then around lunch time we enjoyed a visit from his Aunt Beverly and Aunt Shelby. Joshua enjoyed playing with Aunt Shelby's grandson Joey.

Then today, we loaded up the van and headed out around Noon. If we were able to drive the whole way without any stops we could have been back by 5 a.m. or so. The kids were real excited about that, and even said they wouldn't ask to go to the bathroom for the whole trip if we could get back to Texas in one day. But I knew that wouldn't last long. Right now we are in Illinois and will probably make it through to Arkansas tomorrow.

Ruth's birthday is Saturday and she is really not wanting to be on the road on her birthday. So I'm going to try to make good time tomorrow and hopefully stop around 9 p.m. tomorrow night. I'm tired and will need to get some good sleep tonight.

Scott called me today and he told me that this has been a really productive trip. He is amazed at all the ministry he has been able to help with on this trip and the response of the people to their team. I have not had internet the whole time I was in Michigan and had been wondering about how he was doing. It was so good to hear his voice.

Friday, I am hoping to make it to my parents by Friday. On Saturday, we will celebrate Ruth's birthday, and then Sunday I am looking forward to hearing my Dad preach again, and then Sunday or Monday I hope to head home and get the house in order for Scott's arrival on Tuesday.

The above pictures were taken as we were headed toward Michigan. The one of me was taken by Hannah. The other two pictures were taken at Boomland which is one of our favorite stops on our way to Michigan. We had stopped for a restroom break and I let Jonathan and Hannah ride one of the kiddy rides.

I'm so glad to be able to be online again. Tomorrow, I will try to post some more pictures from our trip.

From a Hotel Again...Night 2

2010-07-09T02:06:00.000-05:00

I am so tired right now but I wanted to blog that we made it to our hotel around 11:00 tonight. It took an hour to get everything in and the kids to bed. I should be in bed right now myself but really wanted to go online since there was free access and see how things were going for Scott. I hadn't heard from him today but I saw some posts by others on the Mission team. I also got to see some new pictures. It sounds like everything is going well there. I pray every night that God will help them as they awake. And every morning I pray that they are able to sleep well.

I decided to drive later tonight than I did last night. We had stopped at Boomland in Missouri for a restroom break and to let the kids stretch their legs. It was about 8 p.m. when we stopped there and I decided I was feeling pretty well, that I could drive a little further tonight while Elijah and Jonathan were asleep. I figured that would leave us with only 6 hours to drive tomorrow. Check out time is 11 a.m. tomorrow so I hope that we are able to make good time in the morning. Even if we left at check out time, we could drive 3 hours and stop for a break or lunch and drive another 3 hours and make it to Michigan before it got dark. That's if we can manage to keep our stops short. We tend to take a long time getting back in the car after we stop. Having to change two dirty diapers in one stop doesn't help any. But I think we will be able to do it tomorrow. Especially if I go to bed and get some sleep here in a minute.

Last night we stopped at a hotel and the three older children wanted to sleep in one bed and I let Jonathan sleep in my bed. It's amazing how much wriggling a two year old can do in his sleep. I had fallen asleep or was about to and suddenly I was kicked hard in the back. I turned around and found Jonathan was laying sideways in the bed. So I repositioned him correctly on his pillow. Then I tried to fall asleep again when suddenly I was hit in the face by his hand. Then I was afraid he might fall out of the bed with all his moving around. At one point he even put his head toward the foot of the bed trying to get comfortable. It was crazy. I moved him back the right direction again. If he does it again tonight he might wind up sleeping on the floor. But so far he seems to be staying still over there. He must be too tired to care which position he falls asleep in.

I had a slight emotional moment while driving tonight. My shoulder was sore from being too tense while driving. I have a problem tensing my muscles when I drive at night. I was all tense when I thought about how Scott would rub my shoulders. It made me sad a little and in the dark I allowed a tear or two to fall. I also thought about how I've never seen this much of the country before. Usually Scott and I take turns driving and sometimes while he drives, I fall asleep. This time I have been awake the whole trip. I reckon that is a good thing. But I miss him terribly.

I'll end with a picture Hannah took today. I was trying to get pictures of everyone in the van. The only one I couldn't get a picture of from my driver's seat was Elijah so I gave the camera to Hannah. Here is the picture she proudly took. I have four copies of this picture in my camera. It must have been the first picture I've ever let her take with my camera since she was so proud of it. I did have Ruth take another picture and Ruth actually got his face in it.

Well, I had better get some sleep now. From some of the messages I've read on Facebook, I'm hearing that God is doing some amazing things in Thailand. He's been taking care of them and He's been taking care of me and the kids as well.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow. I better get some sleep though. I don't guess the Prov. 31 woman didn't let her candle go out by night because she was blogging.

A Billion Eyes...

2010-07-07T23:50:00.000-05:00

"Is God helping Daddy in Thailand?" Hannah asked me today as we were driving down the road. I assured her that He was. Then she asked, "Is God here with us too?" Again I told her that He was. I was afraid she was going to start asking me deeper and harder questions, but instead she exclaimed, "Wow! God must have a billion eyes! He can see everybody everywhere!"

We are staying in a hotel in Arkansas right now. We didn't quite make it to Little Rock, but I hope that we will make a little better time tomorrow. We left from my parents house later than I had wanted to, but we made pretty good time only stopping twice. Once to feed everyone, including Elijah. The second was to let everyone use the restroom. It's now 11:40 p.m. and I have all the kids in bed listening to the Bible. As soon as I'm done blogging I will be going to bed too.

I did a first this evening. This was my first time to get a hotel room all by myself. I know that doesn't sound like much to the braver sort, but for me that was a pretty big deal. I didn't even act like it was my first time. I just went in asked how much the room would be. He told me the price after asking how many children I had. I decided the price was worth the free breakfast we would get in the morning. So I gave him the informnation he needed and paid him. Hopefully tomorrow will go just as easily.

If the hotel we stop at tomorrow has free internet, I'll try to blog again about tomorrow's adventures.

Two More Weeks

2010-07-06T15:01:00.000-05:00

I love this picture of Scott in Thailand. It was taken in Thailand and posted on the Mission's facebook page. Scott is holding his e-reader and I'm sure he is showing the gentleman some of the pictures he has of our family.

I received an e'mail from him and they are doing well. They are in the village teaching about 600 children. There is a computer lab in the school where he is able to send me brief e'mails as time permits. It sounds like they have been keeping pretty busy.

I let the kids play with water guns yesterday. Ruth did not have a water gun so we let her use the water hose. That did not seem fair to Joshua at first but after I explained it to him, he agreed and had a great time.

This is a video of Elijah. He is almost rolling over. He can roll to his side but hasn't quite gotten all the way over to his stomache yet. I try to let him have some floor time each day. It's hard with the kids running by, but no one has gotten hurt yet. You can see that he likes having a little freedom to stretch out and roll around.

I imagine by the time Scott gets back, Elijah will be rolling all the way over. A baby can learn a lot in 3 weeks. I was hoping to have him saying "Dada" by then but he's not acting too interested in repeating specific words. He likes to make his own sounds.

Tomorrow the kids and I will be heading out toward Michigan. We should be all packed tonight and have the windshield wipers replaced before we leave out tomorrow. I don't know how far we will get the first day. We will probably stop at a hotel along the route. Stopping at a hotel to get a room will be a first for me. Scott has always been the one to talk to the receptionists.

I'm not sure whether I will be stopping at a hotel with internet access or not. If I do I will try to post another blog then. Thanks for all the prayers for both Scott and our family. I am looking forward to two weeks from today when we shall be back together as a family again.

Independence Day

2010-07-04T14:42:00.005-05:00

I took this picture of Elijah this afternoon. We had great services today at my parents church. I always enjoy hearing my Dad preach. He preached a really good Independence Day message. He preached on 1 Samuel 8:1-22. He talked about how people give up their God given freedoms so quickly. It was very good and very pertinent to our world today.

Friday night, I took this second picture of the older four children sleeping at Memaw and Daddy Jim's house. I had a hard time getting Jonathan to settle down, but when he did this is how they turned out.

We went to the Canton Trade Days on Saturday. There was a lady there that was a blessing to me. All five of my kids and I had gone a separate path from my parents. I was buying toys for the kids when Elijah started crying in his stroller. I knew he was hungry, and was trying to hurry the others along so that I could take care of him.

It was at this point that a lady in another booth came over and asked him what was wrong. I explained to her that he was hungry and I was about to feed him as soon as the kids were done. She left for a second and then asked me if I breastfeed. Then she offered a chair she had behind her booth where I could feed him beside a fan. I gave the kids each a dollar and she offered to take them over to a booth where they could buy themselves something to drink. When she came back she told me she had been one of five children herself and knew how nice it was to have someone offer help. I was very impressed and silently prayed that God would bless her.

"And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." Matthew 25:40

Why?

2010-07-02T00:23:00.003-05:00

Why did Scott agree to go to Thailand? And why am I driving 5 children to Michigan? These are two questions I will attempt to answer in this blog post. I am not only answering these questions for anyone who may express concern, I must answer them for myself as well.

If God ever did call our family to a foreign field in a long term capacity, we would have the same good questions to answer. How else would we know if it is God's will or not?

Thailand isn't a great vacation spot this time of year. It is hot and there won't be air conditioning in the village where he will be helping, and he may be served foods that we in America may not consider palatable. He may even wind up sleeping on a pallet on the ground. Why would he want to go? There was a need, and Scott was willing to help. God provided the money. Yes, it was our own personal money. We did not ask for financial help and no one sent any money to help him with this trip. I realize that we might could have used our money for a lot of other things. But we both felt that God wanted him to go help in Thailand. It is one thing to pray that someone else will go help when there is a need. And another to say, "Here am I, Lord, send me." We both knew it was God's will for him to go.

Our church where Scott is pastoring is small and there isn't anyone there that will mind us being gone a few weeks. They all know we will be back. The community we live in is so small that I doubt anyone will miss us much besides on Sunday. I've wondered in the past if the church members would have a problem with Scott being away 3 weeks this year. But since they do not have to pay him while he is gone, no one has voiced any opposition. In my mind this is one way our church is able to tithe to Missions, by allowing their pastor to go on a short term mission trip. He may not be preaching from a pulpit while there but he will be a witness to about 600 children and their teachers who may have never heard the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Wouldn't it be wonderful if even a few were saved?

I miss him when he is gone, but the joy we will have in hearing what God has done when he returns will make up for the loneliness now. I can't fully explain it. In my mind I have often wondered in our nearly 14 years of marriage, why God had never called him to a foreign mission field on a long term basis. We are both willing to go, but I leave it up to God to do the calling. I feel God must call my husband to a field first and then my children and I would follow. But since that has not happened yet and may never in the future, maybe it is God's plan that we just go and help others. Mostly it will be Scott going, and maybe occassionally I will go, and maybe even our children as they get old enough to serve.

While Scott is gone, I may seem crazy for taking the kids, (one of whom is being potty trained, and another who I must stop and feed every couple of hours) all the way to Michigan, without Scott here to help. I must admit I do have a little bit of nervous anticipation about it. I am going to be leaving my comfort zone behind, but I think this is for the good of Scott's family. I have several reasons to believe God would have me do this. I have always felt that Scott's mother needs us to visit at least once a year. There have been times that we have missed a year. But we try to see them each year when it is possible. And maybe my own spritual growth will benefit from my forcing myself to leave my comfort zone occassionally.

Some of my reasons for going are: (1.) Scott's mother has never met Elijah, (2.) I want Scott's family to see that even when Scott's away, I still see our relationship as important. (3.) I want them to see that our family is committed to each other even when he is away.

I would really like to be with him right now to help in Thailand, but I also realize that Scott needs me here to help take care of our family. I would really like to go on a Mission trip as a family, but that would cost a lot more for a family of 7 to go than for one or two to go.

I also realize that maybe what seems clear to us, may not seem clear to everyone else. I value the insights of others, both for and against what God may or may not be doing in our lives. But I also know that God would want us to do what He wants not necessarily what we want. It may not even be comfortable for us to do what God has in store for us, but sometimes He still wants us to leave those comfort zones and do what he wants us to do anyway. Even if we meet some opposition along the way. Ultimately He will bless our efforts if not in this world then in the next.

I pray for Scott every night as he is waking up that God will help him during his day. Then in the morning I pray that God helps him sleep in whatever hot and humid condition he may find himself. Then I pray that God will help the days go by quickly, when He will bring us all back together as a family once more.

Isaiah 55
1Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.

2Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.

3Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David.

4Behold, I have given him for a witness to the people, a leader and commander to the people.

5Behold, thou shalt call a nation that thou knowest not, and nations that knew not thee shall run unto thee because of the LORD thy God, and for the Holy One of Israel; for he hath glorified thee.

6Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near:

7Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

8For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.

9For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

10For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater:

11So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.

12For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

13Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree: and it shall be to the LORD for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.

Growing up...

2010-07-01T01:17:00.003-05:00

I got an e'mail from Scott saying that he arrived in Taipei, China. If I have the times figured that means he should be arriving in Bangkok right about the time I'm writing this. It would be really nice if he could e'mail me from there.

The kids and I finally arrived at my parents house this evening. It took us far longer than I had planned to get everything packed. I was hoping to get to visit my sister today but we left so late that I decided to go straight to my parents and visit my sister and her husband on another day.

Tomorrow we will be going to visit my grandparents in Henderson. I think we're planning to possibly visit Canton on Saturday on our way home from Henderson. I have never been to Canton for their trade days. I've always heard really neat things about it, and seen things people have bought from Canton but I've never experienced it personally. I'm looking forward to that. I think the kids will have fun with there as well.

Joshua's birthday was Sunday. Joshua wanted a chocolate cake with strawberry icing. But he didn't want it to look girly so I tried to decorate it so that it didn't look too pink. He was quite pleased with how it turned out. We had a party for him and another boy in our church whose birthday is 3 days after Joshua's. They both turned 12 this year.

After church Sunday we had hot dogs, chips, cake, and ice cream for anyone that would stay and celebrate the boys birthdays. They both had their own cake and candles. Then after eating we passed out water guns to all the children that came. There were 10 children present at church that day. A few of the children stayed and played with the water guns outside. He told us that evening that his birthday turned out a lot better than he thought it would. I'm glad he had fun. It's hard to believe he's already 12. It won't be long and he'll be driving.

Then to think that when Elijah turns 12, Joshua will be turning 24. I'm not even going to think about how old I'll be when Joshua turns 24.

I plan to cherish these years while my children are young. They grow up so fast.

"The Best Picture"

2010-06-29T23:08:00.003-05:00

I printed this picture for Hannah this evening after we dropped Scott off at the airport. She had told me that she was worried about forgetting her Daddy's face. After I printed this picture for each of the children, Joshua announced that this was the best picture ever. I think because we all look like ourselves. I mean I just grabbed a cloth and through it over our bookshelf for a background, and then we set the camera on the desk. I was in a hurry for a picture that day and barely got everyone together I didn't even worry about what everyone was wearing or how our hair looked. So this is a picture of our family. The last professional picture we took did not have Elijah in it and Scott had a beard. This one has our complete family in it.

Scott will be flying for Thailand tonight. I miss him already. In fact as soon as I drove out of the airport I felt sad. I had hoped we would get to go inside with him but we wound up having to drop him off at the door. We let the kids out of the car to give him a hug before he went in. Then we went and parked in a free parking area at the airport. I had hoped Scott would be through all the lines by the time I was finished feeding Elijah but when I called him he was in a long line and had bad cell phone reception. I couldn't hear much of what he said but I knew he would call me if he had problems. I decided to go ahead and go. Scott did finally call me and told me that there were no problems. He made it through all the baggage checks and was sitting at his gate. It will be a long flight for him and I know he will be extremely tired from the jet lag.

So why is he going to Thailand? That is the question I know is on a lot of minds. In February or March I had seen that there was a team being formed of volunteers to go on a Short Term mission trip to Thailand to help the Missionaries there work in a village school teaching ESL and basketball. At the time I mentioned it to Scott but he had somehow dismissed it and wasn't considering going. I guess it was because he had just gotten back from a Mission trip to Paraguay and maybe he thought it was too soon for another trip. I'm not really sure.

Instead we planned to go to the ABA meeting which was held in West Virginia this summer and afterward we thought we would take the kids to see Washington D.C. and then take them to visit Scott's family in Michigan. Then in May the missionaries in Thailand sent out a plea for an Emergency back up team since the original team was considering backing out due to the political troubles in one of the major cities in Thailand. As soon as I saw the message about the need for another team, I felt like if I could go I would. I knew Scott was good at that kind of ministry and so as soon as I saw it, I approached Scott with the possibility of him going. He said he would have to pray about it. I think he was waiting to see if the other team really backed out or not. We thought he would have a week to decide. Then another plea came out after a few days telling that the team did back out and that this would be a major disappointment to the village. The missionary and his wife were still going to have something over there even if no one else came. I went to Scott and had him read the message. He wanted to go but couldn't see how we would have the money that soon.

We weren't expecting any money in until June and that would be too late. I asked Scott if he had checked the bank lately. He said he hadn't in a few days. I told him, "I'll call the bank and if the money is there maybe you are suppose to go." I called the bank and sure enough the money from our Tax refund had come in early. There was enough to pay for his airfare. I handed him the phone so he could hear the amount in the bank. He looked surprised and said, "Well, I guess I'm going to Thailand." I wasn't too surprised because God had done that kind of thing in our lives before. I remember early in our married life and in Scott's ministry we used to wish God would just show us a neon sign, when he wanted us to do something. But now I known he has always shown us His will. We just have to keep our eyes open to see it.

I'm glad that our church hasn't given Scott any problems with going on short term mission trips. I think it is good for him to go and use some of the talents he has for the Lord's work, that he is unable to use as much at home. Scott loves learning new languages. I have often wondered why he would want to learn a language that he may never use. He worked on Russian and Ukranian for our short term trip to Ukraine. He speaks Spanish well and was able to use it a lot in Paraguay. He has also been working on Chinese and Japanese lately. Then when he started preparing for going to Thailand, he started working on Thai as well. (He has admitted that Thai sometimes gave him a headache to learn.)

We went to some of the Asian markets in Houston where he got to practice a little of what he has learned. We've even eaten out at a couple of Thai restaraunts. He talked to several of the owners about his trip and asked them questions about which part they are from.

I have come to see that most people are proud to talk about their homeland and are excited to hear someone try to speak their native tongue. Scott isn't afraid to speak at all. I have more of a tendency to worry about what they might think if I mess up. Someday I'll try to work on a language but right now, I'm undecided which one I need to focus on. I'm not good at doing like he does and learning several languages at one time.

I definitely am missing him. This month I have quite a few plans for the kids and I while Scott is away. We will be visiting my family here in Texas for one week and Scott's family in Michigan for the next week. I know Scott will miss getting to see his family. But we would not have been able to go see them at any other time this year. So I decided that Scott's mother needed to see the kids. Especially since she has not yet met Elijah.

I will be continuing to blog as much as possible during the time we are traveling. I do not expect to hear very often from Scott, but as I find out how he is doing I will post that as well.

Please pray for Scott as he is helping out in Thailand. And pray for me as I travel across America with our 5 children. It's going to be hard to travel without Scott beside me to help me with decisions that I'm sure I will have to make. But I know God can help me make it through these next few weeks.

"I thank God, whom I serve from my forefathers with pure conscience, that without ceasing I have remembrance of thee in my prayers night and day; Greatly desiring to see thee, being mindful of thy tears that I may be filled with joy, When I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee..."

2 Timothy 1:4-5

Mastitis

2010-06-01T12:47:00.003-05:00

I wasn't feeling well yesterday. I knew I should have stayed home, when my symptoms started getting worse. It hurt when I nursed Elijah on my left side, I had a headache most of the day, and by night I was running a fever of 101.7 degrees.

We were invited to a home of some homeschooling friends that have started attending our church. I knew I should have told Scott and gone on home but I suffered silently hoping it would just go away. It didn't and last night I had a splitting headache. Poor Scott tried to figure out why I was crying. I told him that I just wasn't feeling good. I think he thought I was upset with someone. I wasn't, I just had a headache my body ached and to have to admit I was sick was upsetting.

I'm feeling some better today. I don't feel feverish, and my headache went down to just a slight ache, and I started nursing Elijah every hour instead of 2 hours in order to keep from becoming engorged and to clear the infected milk duct. So I'm feeling quite a bit better. I just don't want to feel like I did yesterday again.

Today, Joshua was asking me what my favorite part of yesterday was. I explained that I wasn't feeling very well yesterday so there really wasn't a favorite part. He said, "Oh, I thought your favorite part was watching The Wiggles" I found that funny.

I told him, "If watching The Wiggles was my favorite part, that doesn't say much for the rest of the day." I think he must like them more than I do.

There was a panic this afternoon as I heard a loud crash in the kitchen. I had asked Joshua to take out the scraps. He was going to empty the crockpot and it slipped out of his hands and fell. I was on the phone with Scott (who had called to check on me) and I told Joshua it would be okay just make sure no one hurt themselves. Joshua was worried that he was going to have to pay for it. I told him that he wouldn't and that it was okay. Accidents happen. Scott thinks we should get a cast iron Crockpot. Is there such a thing? :)

Today I plan to take the kids to karate class as long as I'm continuing to feel better. This is Scott's last week to drive the school bus. The kids and I are looking forward to spending extra time with him this summer.

This is going to be a busy summer. Scott will be going to Thailand to help the missionaries there. While he is there I am planning to visit my parents and also take the kids to Michigan to visit Scott's family there. Then we'll only be back a week before Church camp begins.

I'll be posting more about our Summer activities as the time draws closer. The picture above is what might be going on while I'm blogging. Right now I'm blogging with Elijah sleeping in my arms. I've gotten pretty good at typing one handed.

Time Flies...

2010-05-25T14:46:00.003-05:00

Time sure goes by fast. It either zooms past while you're on the computer. (You mean I've been looking at GPS's for over an hour?)

Days go by fast. (Didn't I just take the kids to Karate class?)

The weeks go by fast. (Yep it's been at least 2 weeks since I've blogged!!!)

Months go by fast. (Elijah is 2 1/2 months old already?)

And then the years go by fast. (Joshua is about to turn 12!)

It all happens so fast.

I remember when I was younger (that wasn't so long ago). I used to say, "Ah it's not going by that fast." Of course that was when Joshua was a baby and I thought the days were a lot longer. But now with 5 kids, the busier life has gotten and the faster the time seems to go.

Sometimes I look at the time going by so fast and think about all the things I have left to get done in the day or in the year. It can be overwhelming sometimes but that is when I have to prioritize and use my time as best I can. Getting organized with my office space helped a lot. I'm always surrounded by distractions but at least I can keep an eye on them all.

The picture is one I took a few months ago. Joshua and Jonathan are wearing some of their Daddy's clothes. It won't be long and they will be able to wear them by themselves.

I have to remember as I try to keep up with everything to cherish each of these moments. I even need to cherish potty training, even though I wondered about it this morning as I cleaned up yet another pair of dirty pants. But at least progress was made yesterday even though he seemed to forgotten it all today. Maybe we'll leap two steps forward tomorrow.

When I was a child my best friend and I would visit at each other's houses. One day her mother told us that my parents would be coming to pick me up in about 10 minutes. I remember we wanted to play but we knew the time would go by too fast when we are having fun. So instead we stared at the clock, to make time go by slower.

I could do that I guess. Not plan any fun activities just plan to stay home and do the same thing over and over in order to keep time from going by too fast. But I would rather enjoy life and the time God has given me hear on earth to do things for Him. I enjoy watching my children grow up and learn. Time may go by too fast but at least we are working for a purpose.

One day God will be calling me home and I will look back and say, "Wow! That was quick!" I don't want to look back over the years with any regrets when it's my time to go.

I need to cherish every moment God has given me and use them for His glory. Then when time flies by and I look back on my life I can say, "I've redeemed the time."

Ephesians 5:15-16 "See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil."

Colosians 4:5 "Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time."

James 4:14 "Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth even for a little time, and then vanisheth away."

7 Hours, Potty time, You Name It...

2010-05-12T13:17:00.003-05:00

I can't decide the best title for this blog since so much is going on. Elijah is now sleeping 7 hours straight at night. He has even slept 8 on a couple of nights. So I've been able to get a little caught up on sleep. I do have to make myself go to bed sometimes, instead of doing all the hundred odd jobs I can't do with a baby in tow. But I'm very happy that he is now sleeping at nights.

The second title I could give this blog was Potty Time. We have now officially started potty training Jonathan. I told the kids that we want to make going to the potty a positive experience. So we are not commanding him to go right now we make it exciting to get to go. We have started by setting the timer for every hour. When the bell rings we all excitedly exclaim, "It's Potty time!!!" Jonathan then gets all excited and runs to the bathroom and sits down on his potty. So far he has been keeping himself dry. I'm not sure yet what will happen when he needs to have a bowel movement. Yesterday he dirty himself during Karate class. I had the potty there and after I changed his dirty pull-up I had him use his potty in the bathroom. He did go and stayed dry the rest of the time. So I hope that it was a case of not getting him to the bathroom soon enough and that he will go in the potty when he needs to next time.

But we have only one pull up left. I decided to go ahead and save that one so we have put him in big kid undies as I call them. They are actually cloth training pants. I also have plastic training pants to put over them in case he has an "accident". I'm hoping that accidents will be few and far between. I would hope he would never have one but I don't want to get my hopes up to high.

So I have one child trained to sleep through the night and another in the process of learning to use the bathroom. My husband was teasing me when the bell went off and Jonathan hollered, "Potty Time" that he may one day be a heavy weight boxer or something and when the bell rings he suddenly has to use the bathroom. Oh well, at least he'll know that he's suppose to go in the potty. Right?

Well, it's only day 3 of potty training and I'm not going to vouch for this method just yet. I'll keep everyone posted as to how it goes. I will say that not every method works for every child. They all have their own individual personalities and what works for one may not work for another. So I guess that's my little caveat (I need to ask my brother if I spelled that right. He's probably looking at that word saying a what?!? Hmm.. Maybe I should have googled it.) Anyway, you know the small print at the end to keep you from getting in trouble.

Well, I have a new computer and so far it hasn't shut off completely in the middle of this blog. So that should mean I'll be able to blog more than I have been. My other laptop was having some real issues. The top didn't stay up and the battery wouldn't stay charged, then it would just shutdown for no reason in the middle of my working on something. I then went to using my husbands mini-laptop and I think he wanted it back. So he bought me a new one. So all that to say keep checking back I'll try to post more often now that I'm back in business.

Until next time... "Ding!" Was that the bell? "It's potty time!!!"

I love being a mom!

Too Long...

2010-04-30T22:56:00.003-05:00

It's been too long since, I've blogged last. It's actually hard to believe that a whole month has passed. My mom has been checking my blog every day for a month to see if I've updated it. Has anyone else been wondering about me?

One of my problems in blogging lately was that our dial-up wasn't working. I finally called the tech support for our internet and they gave me three other access numbers for our area. They pretty much told me that if one didn't work try another one. I mentioned the fact that it was running a lot slower than normal and they told me that depended on my phone line and how good the connection was. So it's a good day when I get online at 48 kbps. It's a slow day on the internet if I get on at 28 kbps. And an impossible time on the internet when it connects at 8 kbps. I'm looking forward to Hi-speed internet getting to our area. I may have to wait awhile though.

A lot has actually been happening this month. Elijah is now a month and a half old. He has definitely grown a lot since he was born. He has just started sleeping longer through the nights. Two nights in a row he has gone 6 hours between feedings. I feed him around 9 p.m. and he doesn't wake up until 3 a.m. for his next feeding. I've been remembering to lay him down at nights instead of sleeping with him in my arms. I'm hoping to get a little better sleep. Now my only problem is getting myself not to do all the work I didn't get done while the kids were awake. One of those nights I stayed up two hours doing dishes and clothes. But the next night I was so tired I decided to go on to bed and skip the chores.

Another thing to add to my sleep deprivation was a house full of sick children. I felt like I was cleaning up after everyone while they were sick. Trying to find foods they could eat that wouldn't hurt their throat. Also fixing hot tea for them and making the older two who had soar throats gargle salt water. Even Scott went through a spell with it. We were afraid it was strep throat. We took the kids to the Doctor for a test and the results came out negative for strep. So she said they were going to be okay, and that since they were already feeling quite a bit better they wouldn't need any medication. They were especially glad that they wouldn't need shots.

This weekend Scott and Joshua are attending an "All the King's Men" retreat. It is a retreat that they try to attend each year. Scott was attending the annual retreat just himself and the past 3 or so years he has taken Joshua with him. They really have a good time of fellowship and encouragement during the two day retreat.

The rest of the kids and I decided we would go visit Memaw and Daddy Jim, where we would also see Papa and Nana. For those who don't know, Memaw and Daddy Jim are my Mother's parents and Papa and Nana are my parents.

So much more has happened this past month. I would try to blog about it all now but I guess I will save some for later. I will try to get my internet working quicker soon and hopefully I'll be able to post more pictures of the kids. I especially need to post some pictures of the kids at their karate class. Ruth just got her white with yellow stripe belt. Joshua will be testing for his in June. Hannah is even endeavoring to gain that belt instead of just going for the little kids stripes which is a different system from the big kids and adults.

Please don't give up on me with my blog. I am really hoping to get my computer cooperating for me and connecting faster to the internet. I'll try to post more pictures soon.

Hannah's 5th Birthday Cake

2010-03-31T14:23:00.004-05:00

Elijah was finally born and so Hannah finally got to have her birthday. Her birthday was last Friday. She seemed to think that her birthday was connected with the birth of her brother. The longer it took him to come the longer she thought she had to wait for her birthday. He was due the 10th and born on the 19th. Her birthday was the 26th. She only had to wait one week after he was born to finally get to enjoy her birthday.

I let the kids pick their birthday cakes each year. The cakes were usually fairly simple Chocolate, Strawberry, etc. I think last year Hannah wanted a Banana cake. But even that turned out fairly simple. This year she wanted a Vanilla, Chocolate, Vanilla cake. That wasn't the hard part though. I had two round cake pans and so I was able to make the 3 layers out of two cake mixes. The chocolate one being rather thick, since she only wanted one layer of the chocolate and I didn't want to waist the batter. She originally wanted "up-down, up-downs" on it. Those being zig zags but when we went to buy the specific cake mixes she saw the candy decorations and wanted the pink letters and the soccer balls instead. The hardest part of the cake was that she also wanted the icing to be vanilla, chocolate, vanilla. Most people I have described this cake to at this point are picturing a mess. But as you can see in the picture I was able to pull it off and she said the cake was, "Perfect!"

So score one for mom with that cake. Of course now the kids have the idea that they can come up with just about anything. They did decide that 3 layers were way to thick. So they decided to be satisfied with two layers at this point. I just don't know how difficult some of their cakes are going to get. I think I'm going to have to practice making cheese cakes, because I've already had one of the older kids talk about wanting a two layer cheese cake for their birthday. At least I have until June and July for those cakes.

The pictures above are from Hannah's birthday party. It was just our family but we had fun. Hannah wasn't feeling 100% herself that day and even ended her evening with a slight fever. The fever broke during the night and she was all better by morning. I did feel bad for her having a fever on her birthday. I think she had just worn herself out. We have all been suffering from sniffles and coughs this week. I think it is because of the pollen that has come out. It's been pretty thick outside. I also need to do some spring cleaning and will be washing all our curtains to get the dust out of the house. I hope that helps.

We are looking forward to visiting my parents on Friday. We don't have much time to see my brother's family before they go back to France. So we want to take advantage of Scott having this Friday off. I'm glad that the kids got to spend a week with their cousins at my parents while we were waiting for Elijah to be born.

I know everyone is looking forward to getting to see him. We need to plan a visit with my grandparents as well. At least my grandparents are a little closer and we just need to pick a Saturday to visit them.

This will be a pretty busy weekend so keep checking back I plan to post more pictures this weekend.

Elijah

2010-03-20T19:40:00.003-05:00

I just wanted to post this quick blog to let everyone know that Elijah has finally arrived safe and sound. He was born yesterday at 1:09 p.m. He weighed 9 lb. 3 oz. and was 21 inches long. He has a full head of dark hair.

It was probably the hardest labor I have been through. I hope to never have to be induced again but I was able to make it through even though it was hard. I'm just glad that the Lord helped me when I thought I wouldn't make it. My husband was a real blessing. He watched my contractions on the monitor and held my hand and told me when they were about to go down. He could see them lower before I felt the pain lessen. It was a big help to me to have him say, "It's about to go down now."

I actually found that the contractions didn't seem to last long but they were very intense and fast. Also since I was on Oxytocin the contractions were coming faster than I had ever felt them before. I felt a bit out of control of my normal pain management. It made for a very tough time, but my doctor was very good and arrived as soon as I hollered, "I need the Doctor now!" She was running in the door.

But the real blessing is that after such an intense moment it was an even greater relief when it was all over and they handed Elijah immediately to me. They even let me hold him while they cleaned him. I was even allowed to feed him before they took him to the nursery and moved me to another room. I was so happy to hold him. It made the whole experience worthwhile.

My parents and the kids came today to see Elijah. My parents went home and Scott took the kids to the house. They will be picking me and Elijah up sometime tomorrow afternoon or evening. I am looking forward to our all being home and getting back into a routine again. This time with our newest family member.

I feel so blessed to have such a wonderful, beautiful family.

Psalm 127:3 Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward.

Not Yet...

2010-03-17T13:05:00.005-05:00

This has been the start phrase of all my phone calls to my Dad. He warned me whenever I call someone that they are going to think I'm in labor. He recommended that I start my phone calls with, "Not yet."

I actually have been saying that a lot lately. Everytime I get a phone call, I answer and of course their first question is, "Is the baby here?"

And I respond, "No, not yet."

I had a Doctor's appointment Monday and she separated my membranes hoping that would start me into labor "naturally". I'm not actually sure how natural that was but it did start contractions. After my appointment Scott took me shopping and then around 8 p.m. we decided to go to the hospital again since my contractions were steady. I arrived there and after about 3 hours of monitoring they told me I wasn't in labor yet and again they sent me home. I never blogged that I had false contractions last Friday as well.

My parents were sweet and came as soon as I called Friday with contractions. After it turned out to be a false alarm they offered to take the kids home with them, so that I wouldn't have to worry about who will watch them. So my other 4 children are at my parents along with their 4 cousins and my brother and sister-in-law. I know things have to be hectic around there. It's too quiet around here. But Scott has been off this week for Spring Break and so we've been trying to get as much done around the house as we can before the baby comes.

My Doctor told me that she does not want me to go beyond 41 weeks and so we've agreed to go in Friday morning to induce labor. I'm not very excited about being induced but I am glad to know that I'll definitely have the baby this week. Waiting can be so hard. I will probably be pretty nervous Thursday night in anticipation of Friday. But maybe my nervousness will bring labor on by itself and I won't have to be induced.

Pray for me and baby Elijah this week. I just want everything to go smoothly and to soon deliver a happy, healthy baby.

I know our other children are anxious to see him too. They will be coming to see us either Friday afternoon or Saturday. I have a 9 month picture of me but it's on my camera which is still in my bag in the car. I was not wanting to forget to bring it to the hospital. So I'll have to post that picture later.

In the mean time I'll do like my Dad and post a random picture. The above pictures are of Joshua and Jonathan wrestling. Jonathan loves to wrestle with his big brother. Joshua will be 12 in June and Jonathan turned 2 in November. It won't be long and Joshua will have a second little brother climbing all over him too.

I love to watch him wrestle with his two year old brother because he's so careful not to hurt him. They just have fun. I worry more about Jonathan hurting Joshua. Just because 2 year olds don't know how to be as careful. But Joshua is good and manages not to get hurt while keeping his brother from getting hurt as well. You know his two younger brothers are really going to look up to their BIG brother. He's a good big brother too.

I may not post again until the baby comes, but I will definitely post as soon as he does. And I'll post more pictures soon too.

Ultrasound Picture

2010-03-03T23:25:00.003-06:00

I had an ultrasound done today. My Doctor ordered it since my fourth child, Jonathan, was a big baby at birth. When Jonathan was born he weighed 11 lb. 4 oz. I asked my Doctor if there was any way we could know the size of Elijah. She asked me again how big my last one was and when I told her 11 lb. she decided to order me an ultrasound just to see.

This is the picture with some of the measurements the ultrasound machine took. The technician told me that it wasn't 100% accurate on getting the exact weight. This picture is the best we were able to get. You can see his nose squished up against the placenta. The other pictures we got, we can barely make out his face at all. The technician also assured me that he was very much a boy. I'm glad because it would be incredibly confusing for our children if there had been a mistake and we had a girl instead.

Now according to this ultrasound, my due date would be March 13. But I'm still considering it March 10. Of course all of my babies have been late so I wouldn't be too surprised if he was born a few days late. It also set his estimated weight at 7 lb. 4 oz. I kind of think he may be a touch heavier than that. I'm guessing he'll weigh around 9 lb. at birth. He doesn't feel quite as big to me as Jonathan did.

I felt good about the measurements they took. I have my twinges of nervousness about the approaching due date. But then I'm excited that I will finally get to see my baby and not just feel him kicking. Only a week or so left to go!