Kindergarten fun

It's supposed to be fall here (we reached 100 deg today), but the apple party wasn't cancelled thankfully. Mary was asked to bring two different varieties of apples to school.

I bought the apples, and two hours later, I found the apples. What am I going to do with my little rat?

Mary enjoys her teacher and her class, but she is tired and a little bit ferocious for Mary. She snapped at me for the first time EVER last week.  She's normally so mild tempered.  It shocked me, and I had to keep from laughing.

Garrett and I had a park date last week. It has taken me some time to find a helmet big enough for my boy's head.  I started with a 3 year old helmet.  The winner was for....8 year olds. Fit like a glove.

Does this seem fair??  Poor Kate chased Garrett for maybe a mile or two around the park.  

Mary was beyond excited to have a friend "C" come home from school.  It was her first official school play date. The kids were asked to make a cross craft for a fundraiser, and so I thought we could do it together.  Instead of wasting hours on Pinterest looking for ideas, I texted my best buddy...the fastest crafter this side of the Mississippi.  You got it; Beth Ann had an idea in 2.5 seconds FLAT.

I think they turned out great!   I stained wooden crosses from Hobby Lobby,  caulked it, had them mash the beads on to the cross, then went back over with stain.  VERY FUN!

Lightning Bolt

After school on Thursday, a thunderstorm blew in! The rain is so so welcome here, but it was an intense storm with a lot of lightening and loud thunder.  We were almost home and pulling up to a red light, when a tree within yards of us was struck by lightning.  There was a loud loud crash and big flash of light!


Immediately all three kids were screaming.  It truly was startling.  After only a few seconds, Garrett said, "GRILLS (girls) it's just rain!"  


The next day, Allie said that Mary had been filming with my camera when the lightening struck. SURE ENOUGH!  My audio is broken on my phone, but at the very beginning you can see two flashes of light.  What are the chances that Mary would be holding up my phone camera??? 

Ladies and gentleman, I give you the newest Weather Channel Correspondent....Mary.

....if only she wasn't deathly afraid of thunderstorms:)

One year

One year ago today we went to our first meeting with the adoption agency we are using.  We did not know THEN what we are in for, and we do not know NOW what we are in for, but we do know the Lord is with us.

A year ago tomorrow,  hub's best friend of 20 plus years was killed in a car accident. 


One day, filled with excitement for a new child in our family.  The next day, filled with tears and sadness over the loss of a "brother."   Our plans, our futures do not belong to us.  So thankful, so humbled that we belong to Him.

"May your unfailing love be with us, LORD, even as we put our hope in you."  Psalms 33:22

Aggies for a day

Well there is no doubt that title got some folks' attention!  Before I explain, I can't leave off Grandparents Day! I'm so behind on blogging!

Bunny drove down to have lunch with the girls.  This was Mary's first gparent's day luncheon!   

Thanks to Bunny for driving all the way down..means so much to these two cuties!

We have some DEAR friends who asked us to hang with them for a day.  Their only flaw that we've noticed to date is that they are aggies (bless their hearts:).

We toured some of the campus before the game.  It's QUITE large.

I've NEVER been to a football game with neutral clothing. I felt REALLY out of place!

Thanks for a great day PC and Dirk!  You guys are great fun...even if you cheer for the wrong team:)

Admittedly, I've never seen a student section soooo big. That whole section was filled! They have to stand the whole game!  We will see you in a few weeks Aggies...hope you are ready for some RAZORBACKS!!!! WPS!  

More thoughts on adoption

This week we received an update from our agency about CC  complete with pictures.  He looks so much older now that he is walking.  Without trying to explain something that is hard to explain,  we also learned that it is not an absolute that we will not travel this fall.  Hear me say, it is more likely that we will travel next spring, but possible to say that this fall has not been ruled out.


I am filled with so many different emotions.  Today I was really fighting some hard emotions that come up in my heart from time to time.  I am overjoyed for our family to have the privilege to welcome this precious little boy into our family.  He is going to bless us beyond our wildest dreams because we believe the Lord led us down this path of adoption and placed him in our hearts and very soon into our family.  However, I do battle the anxiety almost daily of taking on the responsibility of 4 children.  I struggle with feelings of inadequacy to know how to parent a toddler who has been ripped away from every bit of security he's ever known.  I struggle with feelings of not wanting to do the toddler years one more time! ha.  Some days, like today, through tears even, I confess to my husband that I think the Lord chose the wrong mamma for this baby!  The mamma who is impatient, selfish, and tired! WHO SAYS THAT? WHO SERIOUSLY BELIEVES THAT??   


I DO. I do believe that on the days where I don't hand over my fears to the Lord.  I have shared this time and time again with a wise dear friend...and today she gave me the best advice.  She said don't hand over the next year to the Lord...hand over TODAY to the Lord.  It's ironic that we try to control things that are out of our control, and when we feel like we've lost control over controlling these things, then we say, fine Lord I'll give them to you...even though they were never ours to control in the first place!


 I received an email this afternoon from our church's adoption support group.  If you have made it this far, and and want to have a peak into what some adoptive families face, please read this blog post.  I NEEDED to hear this today.  I needed to be reminded ... ""Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; He will never leave you nor forsake you" (Deut. 31:6). 




The link is http://jenhatmaker.com/blog/2011/09/06/after-the-airport


I just looked at her speaking calendar, and she's going to be fairly close to our town in early 2012. Think I'm going to have to go see that.  Anyone want a ride??

Little Stinker

Garrett was so excited to go back to "school" this week! 

He looks just a little bit like big sister.  That's all I see!

He just could barely be still.  Notice the foggy background.  This week has been crazy with all the smoke in town from the wildfires. The fires are about 5-10 miles out of town, but when the wind was just right, there was quite a bit of smoke.

Ready to go mom!

This was a perfectly clear morning from a weather standpoint, but it looked like a thunderstorm was moving in.

Signing his name for his teacher...he won't stay teacher's pet long, do not worry.

He was so excited to go to school, and I anticipated he would do fine when I picked him up.  I guess he was so busy that he forgot to run to the potty.  Yep, he pooped in his pants on the first day...... and the second day. UGGH!

My oh so thoughtful friend, Amy could not resist picking up this book for him as a little first day souvenir.  It was actually a big hit if you are potty training!  Day 3, he was poop free. SHEW, mamma was stressed out!

Number 400

I just noticed that when I hit the "new post" button, that THIS is POST #400. (insert admiration and applause).  

Good grief, I'm just kiddin'.  Sometimes, I ask myself, "why do I blog anyway????"  No one reads this silly ole thing, and how long will Blogger store all this information anyway???? Well, I'd like to be done with this whole blog thing, and I keep saying that, but it PULLS ME IN....


It pulls me in to going to bed later than I intended because it's the only time there is to blog.   It's just nice to be able to click, click, click and read over the things that have happened the last several years.  I would forget so many of the "little" things, but this is the ONLY place where much of it is written...so I keep typing.  I am no writer, but I sure consider myself a "documenter."

It is quite sad that my 400th post is quite lame, however, I have to blog about things for which I am proud.  This weekend was LABOR day.  Therefore, I labored. 


The kids were jumping in the bounce house because the weather FINALLY cooled off.  Mary was doing nothing crazy, and RIP!!!  A BIG HOLE appeared.


There were tears. There was finger pointing. There was a loud whistling sound of air escaping.  There was a little boy sitting in the middle of a heap of primary colors....screaming because the bounce house had been gravely injured.

This was NO small hole. It was about 18 inches total.  I stared at the cloth and not wanting to show my alarm to the kids, I put on my super mom cape and told the kids, I'd BE BACK!!!!!

They were less than enamored when I reappeared with my sewing machine.  The tear was a clean one, so I thought this was the most logical solution.  I bunched up that bounce house right under that needle and thread and went to TOWN..oh yeah.  

CHECK IT OUT!  Can you tell how proud I was??!!!

This was a total "husband" problem, but I rose to the occasion!

My mom was in town, and she suggested adding silicone caulk to seal off any leaks and then duct taping it together. See where I get my geniousness....well now you know.

The kids bounced all morning.  And that is the story of how the bounce house was spared.  Thank you...Thank you.

Several friends have texted to see if we are ok among the wild fires. Our area has not seen rain in so very long, and there are fires all around our community.  There are none "in town", but several major fires right outside of town causing several evacuations.  We are praying for the victims, fire fighters, and for RAIN.  

This week

School is in full swing...for the girls anyway.  Bunny and Pappy stopped in for a few days this week, and Allie pounced on the opportunity to play Monopoly after school.

We've told her more than once that she's not quite ready (or maybe we were not quite ready to play with her), so she thought she'd give Bunny a whirl...and it WORKED.

Mary likes the game "Head Bandz"  Mary told me, "I will have to remember that Bunny likes games.  She's REALLY good!"

Garrett was too busy playing Bunny's phone to cooperate.

Sweet Mary made a card at school for them to take home...not realizing they had already left.  She burst into tears and I said, "We can save it for them. They will be back."  She replied, "BUT YOU THROW EVERYTHING AWAY!"  Yikes. Kindergarten will take it out of a person.

Garrett FINALLY starts pre-school on Tuesday.  Ms. Shiela has had both girls....but NOT my Gman. She's in for a REAL treat this time!

He is OBSESSED with the "Signing Time" videos that we've had for years.  Here is the result of the "ABC" signs disc.