Picture of the Day

So, today's story is we had a pine tree taken down right outside our house. A VERY LARGE TREE. The crane came. The men chopped, the crane picked up

the chopped part of the tree off of the stump and put it down VERY CAREFULLY. After putting said tree down on the ground some men marked parts of the tree for saving for various reasons. They marked it with neon orange spray paint. As you can see from the picture, James found the paint and decided he should mark himself. He actually got his head, his jacket, his shoes, Jonathon's jacket, and the two slides on the lawn, but I didn't feel the need to put all of that here. The head pretty much says it all. Of course, after I get the paint out of his stuff, then I can work on all the pine tree sap on his pants...isn't life with boys fun!?! Never dull...that's for sure.

P.S. I place no blame in this particular situation. I did not know the paint was there, James found the paint just outside our house and it was therefore fair game, and the men were just doing their job, so we just chalked this one up to a "wonderful" accident.

P.S.S. The paint did come off his head, so I'm sorry to disappoint any of you who where hoping to catch him with the orange still on weeks from now....nail polish remover.

Thankful fors....

Here is a list of ten slightly generic, but nonetheless important things to be thankful for today:

1. A great family that loves me.
2. God has richly supplied our needs.
3. My children are happy and learning to love Jesus.
4. Plenty of humor to go around with friends.
5. I am not in the hospital.
6. I have lots of friends that I regularly feel loved by and overwhelmed with their generosity.
7. We live at a wonderful place and are enjoying raising our children there.
8. Godly parents and in-laws who support our desires for living godly lives and encourage us along the way.
9. Jesus' love for me.
10. Heaven is a day closer!

And now...10 things that might not normally show up on a list, but I am still very thankful for:

1. Dental floss.
2. Cordless telephones.
3. The ability to whistle very loudly.
4. Poached eggs on toast, and steak for breakfast.
5. Socks.
6. Indoor plumbing, especially in the winter.
7. Strawberries and whipped cream.
8. Liquid naps. (Coffee in the afternoon)
9. Toilet brushes.
10. Latex foam rubber form pillows. (They are the best in the world!)

Hope your thanksgiving is equally filled with both large and small things to be thankful for.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

So Far So Good

Ok, this is a very uninspired post- one that is being written primarily so that I can alleviate tha guilty feelings in the back of my mind.

First off, I am feeling much better since my hospital visit last week. I had three days in the hospital with a blocked kidney. The doctor said that it was due to soft muscles and the lack of them functioning properly thanks to pregnancy hormones and possibly aggrivated by the baby "sitting" on top of my organs. This means I had plenty going into my right kidney, but nothing coming out. Anyway, thanks to many prayers and, mainly a direct answer from the Lord, the pain is completely gone. I am so thankful- especially since the doctor said the remedy was to manage the pain with drugs until the baby is born -and that is still three and a half months away! If you wonder why I thought this was unreasonable, for pain comparison (according to Carol Burnett) you should take your bottom lip and pull it over your forhead. Yeah! Doesn't that feel great! So, bottom line- no more pain...this is good. And I am recovering from the hospital visit as well and regaining my strength.

Second, we had a great familly reunion on Saturday. This is my mother's side of the family and quite a few of her cousins are true Southerners. In fact, some of you would probaby want to have a translator present. There was plenty of good food, lots of laughing, and when I didn't have the energy to chase kids anymore, there were plenty of willing hands to pitch in and help with the work. The younger people rode 4-wheelers all across the property and some people engaged in games on the lawn. My brothers brought Bocce and there were also a few games of horseshoes and disc golf.

The children had a good time as well. There was a nice little slide and swing set, a trampoline, a little play house, and the highlight for Jeff: the swimming pool. The pool still had water in it and he was caught at one point standing on the edge, throwing all manner of objects into it. Somehow during the day his socks and shoes got wet. I never found out how, but that might be a good thing.

Sunday we went to church at ODC and enjoyed seeing the Georgia crowd again. Afterwards we caught some McDonald's for lunch and had a little down time during the afternoon. Then for dinner we headed to Bryan and Sarah's. That was quite a riot with 4 parents and 7 children 5 and under. They had a good time and we had a good family visit.

Monday- that would be today- my SIL and good friend Kate and little Rachel went for a shopping trip and had great success. We had a few things we were specifically looking for and prayed before we went that we would be successful. And we were! I cam home with a bag full of maternity wear and I am really looking forward to enjoying some new things. The blessings of God and the generosity of others are two things that I have been overwhelmed with lately, thus I am greatly blessed and feel very loved.

Funny thing of the week so far: Yesterday I told James to stop doing something and he looked at me with a gleam in his eye and replied: NO! You backstabbing murderer!

Excuse me! I am your MOTHER! Ok, well I didn't really say it like that, but his Daddy did remind him quite clearly that he needed to be more respectful in his responses to me.

Ok, I need to sign off for tonight and go to bed. Hope all is well in your neck of the woods.

PS: You know you're in the South when:
You get out of the car at the store and the lady in the car next to you says: "I hope ya'll brought a strolla, cause if you ain't, you gon haf ta lug her aroun'. They ain't got no buggies in thar."

Harrumph!

Ok...so I haven't forgotten all my readers out there...really...I just can't seem to work in the whole computer time on the schedule these days. You needn't feel ignored. I actually neglect to check my email some days too- much less do anything else on the computer. INSTEAD...I've been:

- teaching school to the kids
- being on duty with Fairwood
- reorganizing our entire family schedule to work in training times for the kids on chores
- going to a Bible study
- being pregnant
- dealing with blood sugar issues and various other ailments
- teaching Sunday School- which doesn't take up much time during the week except some key computer time
- and the one day I tried to post last week, I couldn't get a single page to load on the screen, thus I was forced to come up with an alternate activity- more scheduling efforts

On the side I have been cleaning up after our resident monkey (Jeff) who just this week got himself stuck on the bookshelf halfway up the wall in the living room, climbed a book case in his closet and discovered all my sewing supplies and threw them all over the room (think mass of tangled thread and stick pins everywhere), and emptied the almost full vaporizer onto the bedroom floor. He also is obsessed with a puzzle lately of shapes. Unfortunately the morons who made the puzzle didn't make the circle an actual circle and neither is the square a "true" square, and the triangle actually only fits one way into its slot. Thus I am force to frequently unstick his puzzle pieces because rather than turn them around until they go in smoothly, he insists on pounding them in, jumping on them, or anything to make them smash into the slot the way he wants and then he cries because he can't get them out. Arg! We should burn that puzzle...except he really does like it.

Rachel has taken to the tearing up books stage and that has left me with the repair job. She also loves to dump out toys and pick them up again, but she always seems to tire of the routine on the dumped out part and not on the picked up part. Hmmm....WHY???

James is intense as ever- especially when telling stories. Here's a good example:

This is James imitating the frozen fish in "Ice Age". For those of you who are not familiar with this famous pose, he is quite similar to the real thing. The funniest part about this pic is that when he was telling the story, he actually made this face for about 30 seconds straight and remained totally oblivious to all the hysterical laughter round about him.

Jonathon is doing well. Schooling is going good too. He has learned to sound out words and is flying through his reading, feeling successful and for the most part enjoying it. He goes back and forth between being very creative (attaching a jump rope to his box of chalk and saying that is his electricity box and he is going to go wire things), to ridiculous (hide his shoes and socks in the leaf pile..or was it the dirt pile...or maybe the sand court...he can't remember- but we do have to find them!) to sweet ("I'm being as good as a flower...and a tree!). Anyway, he's interesting these days and I'm having a good time teaching him all sorts of things.

Brandon and I are doing well and gearing up for a Thanksgiving trip South. Yayah! We are planning to be gone for about a week and hopefully see plenty of family and friends while there. So...with that in mind..once again I have LOADS to do and I should be off doing them and not involved in such frivolities as blogging...although it does keep you in touch and there IS value in that...ok...see ya.