Good and Bad News

The good news is Anna can walk! Yay! She started last Thursday night. It is so cute. She is very pleased with herself or maybe she is just pleased with our reaction. Either way it is adorable. The bad news is the kids have been sick. Sam woke up early early early Sunday morning throwing up and then Anna started on Tuesday. When I woke up yesterday morning I felt like it was going to be my day which would have been a huge bummer. Chris stayed home from work Tuesday to help with the kids and he wouldn’t have been able to take another day off. But we had prayer and the Lord touched me. I don’t think I’ve ever been immediately healed like that before. What a blessing, God is so good. Today we are going to help my Mom get a new/used van. After her wreck she has decided that bigger is better. Her neck and back still hurt and she still has a headache. Please pray that God will heal her. In other news, Chris and I have been looking for a house. Our landlord raised the rent and we might as well be in a house for what we are paying. We will probably wait until after the assembly to get in to one. That is our chief financial concern right now. Well that is about all that we’ve been up to.

Sam???

That is what I wondered around the house saying in the middle of the night. Sam came into our room at some point crying and wanting to get into bed with us. We sent him back to his own bed but apparently he didn't like that option. A little while latter (I have no idea how long) Anna woke up. I went in to check on her and noticed Sam was not in his bed. So I decided it would probably be good to find Sam before I picked Anna up. Sometimes he relocates to one of the couches in the living room. He wasn't there. So I went back to the kid's room to see if I just overlooked him. I didn't, he wasn't under his bed or on the rocking chair or in the closet. So I checked our room. I thought maybe he had snuck in after all, maybe on Chris' side. No he wasn't there or on our floor. So I checked the locks on the front door just in case he made a break for it. He can unlock both locks but they were still locked, so I headed to the kitchen. He wasn't there either so I decided to check the basement. He wasn't in the laundry room or in the play room or in Chris' office on the couch. So I went back upstairs and checked the tub, mainly because it was the only place I hadn't checked. Then I checked our room again (he still wasn't there) and then went to check the kids room again. Anna was still crying and as she caught my attention I thought maybe just maybe my crazy little boy had climbed into his sister's crib. Sure enough there he was sound asleep and cuddled up in a little ball. I guess I should have gotten Anna before I went looking for Sam it would have saved a lot of time and stumbling around in the dark. So I picked him up, put him in his bed and finally took care of poor Anna. I guess he was cold and just needed someone to cuddle with.

Baptismal

We had a baptismal today. It was a really great blessing. God is so good to us.

Nathan Smith got baptised as well but I figured that Emilee might want to post those since he is the first one of her kiddos to get baptised.

My Mom

July 16th is my Mom's birthdayd so I put together some pictures for her. Please pray for my Mom. While we were in Wyoming this weekend she got into a car accident. Someone ran a red light and T-boned her. She is okay but I would appreciate your prayers. The other driver was going about 45 miles per hour and it is by God's mercy and grace that my Mom didn't get seriously injured. Times like these make people think about death. Thank you for your prayers she needs salvation.

Wyoming

We went to Wyoming this weekend for a visit with Chris' folks. It was really nice. It was a short trip though this time so we could make it back for the baptismal this afternoon. We left Saturday morning and got back in time for church at 2:00. But even though it was Short it was very nice. My niece Mikaela (Mike's daughter) was there too. Sam found the doggie door and kept going outside. Anna thought it was pretty great too.

Mr. Potato Head Extreme Makeover

Sam just likes to put whatever wherever when building Mr. Potato/Mrs. Potato head. This particular version had no arms or feet but it did have several mouths, noses, eyes, and one ear. Oh and a construction helmet so no one would mash him for being so freakishly ugly.

Anna is getting so big. One of these days she is going to walk. Maybe. She really likes to tease me and pretend like she is going to take more than one step.

Well, I'm off to bed. We are going to visit Chris' parents tomorrow and that means we are driving to Wyoming. Bye for now.

More Convention Pictures

Some Convention Pictures

Children's Chruch

How could I forget? Emilee and I were in charge of Children's Church one night. We did two puppet shows a cool craft and gave the kids light sticks before heading out on a candle hunt. There are no pictures of the craft because it was a little crazy in there. All in all we had lots of fun and the kids did too.

Hello Again

Okay, okay, I'll post. I don't have a good excuse for my sabbatical. I'm just a slacker. :) Well on to my report. The Saturday night before camp my traveling buddies Persephanie and Kristin came over and stayed the night. Sunday morning at 5:30 we were stuffed, literally, in the car and ready to go. We headed over to Jon and Em's and then followed them down to camp, kinda. Somewhere in NM we stopped for a bit and then they stopped for a bit, we kept missing each other but we finally caught up about an hour from camp.

Camp itself was so fun! I had the girls and my kids in my cabin with the added bonus of Sister Marcia. Our bathroom adjoined to the single girls. Yikes, what a combo. One night I scared Anita to death when I went around their side of the bathroom to tell them to quite down at about 2:30 a.m. or so. Another night Sister Marcia and I giggled into the late hours about our torture chambers (camp beds.) Sam managed to fall out of the bed a few times. One of the times Sister Sara was there and said that he sleepily told her no when she asked him if he wanted help. She said he wasn't even awake and he told her no. Ha! He must dream of saying no. Crazy kid.

So some other highlights from camp were Persephanie and Kristin getting saved, sanctified, and filled with the Holy Ghost! Yay! I can't tell you how happy that makes me. Also I had lots of fun with the girls this year. :) However I'm not the fan of Sequence I use to be. Fruit Basket Upset is not a game to be played if you are over the age of twenty and wearing sandals. I don't know what I was thinking. Hmm what else??? I know there was lots more great stuff that happened at camp but lets move on to convention.









Convention is when I really started to miss Chris. Part of me wanted to go home and skip it. But, I'm glad I persevered because God was there and I love being in His presence even if I have to make several trips to the hallway with my children. For convention Persephanie and Kristin stayed with their Great Grandparents and I stayed with Sister Karen, Sister Dodie, and Sister Charlene. I was a little worried about the kids keeping them up but they did really well. I think Sister Karen fell in love with Sam. One morning he wandered over to her side of the bed and said please with his arms wide open signaling he wanted to be held. Could you die?

The Sunday night after convention I stayed with Sister Marcia and company and left early the next morning. The drive home was long. Did I mention I don't have air conditioning in my car? Yuck. But we got back and it is good to be home. It was so great seeing everyone and fellow shipping. It was really nice seeing Kathy and Angie who I haven't seen in years. I think we should have winter retreat. What do you think?

Finally

Sorry I didn’t mean to leave you in suspense for so long. I got busy packing for camp and didn’t have time to blog like I intended. The only picture that really needed explaining was the one of Sam driving. Chris let him sit on his lap and steer. Sam loved it so much! I was six the first time I got to steer. Sam is a lucky kid to start so early. Well, camp and convention were so good! I won’t promise to post about it more latter because I would hate to throw you all into suspense once more. I want you all to know I finally updated my devotion and praise blog!!! It’s about time. I’ve been working on this witnessing thing forever either directly or indirectly gathering information. But it is finally done so if you are interested in witnessing you can check out the packet that Tammy helped me with at devotionandpraise.blogspot.com

I'll Explain Later

Sale

Well it’s 11:19 should I go to bed or stay up and blog? Hmm, blog. I have spent the week getting ready for a yard/garage sale tomorrow. It won’t all fit in the garage so it is spilling onto the lawn. So I guess it is a gard sale or maybe a yarage sale??? Anyway, there are lots of toys, a Christmas tree, a toaster oven, some fake foliage, tee shirts, an old lap top, and lots of other great junk I hope people buy. It is hard for me to price things. I think I have a tendency to price things too high. I guess we will find out. Chris used the sale as an excuse to buy a label maker. I like it. It’s not a lot faster but it is fun and it does look better than my hand writing. Emilee is going to come over at 8:00 and stay for a few hours. I am so glad. Chris is working and I was a little nervous about having the sale all by myself. The turnout should be good. There is a church a few doors down from us that is having a basketball competition and last week there were about fifty cars parked on the block. I hope as many show up this week. Not too much else is going on. I have been cat sitting for a friend and on Wednesday I went to story time and then over to Emilee’s at Nathan and Caleb’s request. We lost to them at Mario Kart again but we came in second instead of 6th. One of these days we are going to squash them! I know, I know they are not even ten yet, but somehow it is still nice to beat them. Ha ha. Well good night everybody, Anna just woke up and she is not happy.

Happy Father’s Day!

Somehow I mixed up my days and thought today was Father’s Day so I went to the store this morning and got Chris all the great things he would want for breakfast that we didn’t have. Then I made it all up while he ran to his job site to unlock the doors for the scientist that were going to be there and finished just as he got home. I had the kids seated at the table and a card in front of his spot and then just after he sat down I left. That’s right I went to Village Inn to meet Emilee for breakfast. Now why would I do such a thing when I really thought it was Father’s Day? Well Chris has been working really long days like sixty two hours this week and I have been stuck at home with the children and going a bit crazy. Today was Ladies’ Bible study so I called Em last night and asked if she could meet me early and go to breakfast. And look at the bright side I am all practiced up and ready to make Father’s Day really great next Sunday and I’m not really bad because I didn’t really ditch my husband on Father’s Day I only thought I did. What a relief. Well breakfast was lots of fun even though we didn’t have room for pie. We laughed and laughed about all sorts of things and then we went to our Bible study and Emilee shared a really great devotion about giving to others and God giving back to us to overflowing proportions. Then we played Sequence. Which is a great game, especially when Emilee doesn’t win. I didn’t win either. Sister V beat us both. After Bible study Emilee and I headed to the thrift store and laughed and laughed some more. They have some of the greatest ugly skirts and shirts ever. After that I headed home and hung out until church. After church us Thompsons were planning on taking Brother Randy out to dinner but we all got a better offer to go to the Smiths for a Bar-B-Q. Mmm it was so good and I got to play on the Wii again. Emille beat me soudly once more but I did manage to beat her at Phase Ten Dice. We left about nine and then I dropped off my family so I could head to the airport to pick up my friend's Mom. Now I am finally home and very tired but after getting a pep talk from the NARR president I decided to blog about my great day while it was fresh in my mind and my many distractions are all asleep. Goodnight everybody.

I'm Back

So as you may have read on Emilee’s blog, she beat me soundly on the Wii Wednesday. But, it was great. Oh and we beat the boys soundly (one out of six times and just barely) playing Mario Cart. On Thursday the kids and I drove out to Parker and got Sam a couple of plastic Little Tykes cars. They were only $10 dollars a piece and Sam is very happy. I’ve been trying to get a yard sale together to get a little extra money and get rid of some of my junk. I have a decent pile I was going to sell today but Chris told me last night he might have some stuff to add if I wait until next weekend. So I’m going to wait so I will have more stuff. Wahoo. In other news, I’m trying to sell my car to buy a van with air conditioning before we get to the hottest part of the summer. I hope it works out. We need more room and I really want a Dodge Caravan.

Now for some sad news, my Grandfather passed away a couple of weeks ago. He died in his sleep. We had the viewing last Saturday and sometime this month we are going to try to all get together to spread his ashes somewhere. None of my family was very comfortable with cremation but unfortunately my Grandfather didn’t have life insurance and the cost of a funeral is very high. Thank you again for all of your prayers for him these last six months. To my knowledge he did not get saved before he died unless it was in his final moments but I know that God was faithful and provided him the opportunity.

God bless you

Spoons

Has anybody played spoons? It is a wonderful fast paced game filled with excitement and danger.

So here’s how it works… You set however many people you want to play around a sturdy table and put that many spoons in the middle minus one. Then you deal out four cards to everyone. The object of the game is to get a four of a kind. Whoever gets there four of a kind first grabs a spoon and then so does everyone else but one. That one gets a letter. When they loose enough to spell out the word spoon they are out of the game. So to start the game… Once the dealer has passed out the cards they start going though the pile one at a time and passing the cards to the person at there left and then they pass to the left and so on. So as the cards go around you look for ones that match and trade them out, always keeping four cards in your hand.

So where is the danger and excitement you might ask. Well when you have a competitive family and people who try to steal other people’s spoons right out of their hands things get pretty lively.

This last weekend Chris and I went to his brother’s house in Pueblo and on Sunday night his two sisters and one brother in law came over and we all played spoons. I ended up breaking the tops of one of the chairs and Chris broke the table in all of the excitement. There was biting, wrestling, nails lost, blood drawn, children pulled across the table, and grown men belly flopping on it, there was screaming, and yelling, and lots and lots of laughter. I am so happy that large portions were recorded for later viewing pleasure.

I don’t have any video but here are some pictures.

Barilla

So little Anna broke out in a rash a couple days ago but it is almost gone now and she is much happier. Poor kid first her top two teeth come in and now this. It has been a rough couple weeks. We went to a kids store today and sold them a few of the things we have never used. I got Sam a little plastic gas pump and a hat with some of the money. I wanted to trade all of my stuff for this little black truck that is missing a door and a bumper but the woman is delusion and thinks it is worth $20. So even though Sam likes it for now he is just going to have to gas up his bike instead of the broken truck. We had a lot of rain for a couple hours today. When we left it was sprinkling and by the time we got there it was pouring. I had fun getting me the kids and the stuff inside. But now we are home and it is down to a sprinkle again. In other news I have been trying to clean out the basement. I’m hoping to have a yard sale sometime soon. That’s about all. Oh yes there was also my fun shopping trip with Emilee and Herbie the bear. We were looking at clothes for Zeke and there was Herbie and only half price. What a deal. So Emilee and I have a new shopping buddy. He rode in the front of our cart and we strapped him in the backseat of the car when we left. He is a bear or maybe a gorilla. We’re not sure. Please tell me what you think he is, even those of you who don’t usually comment. You can comment anonymously just tell me bear or gorilla. Right now we call him a barilla. Bear or gorilla... you decide.

Isn't he a sweet brother?
Sam is silly. He likes to put on my shoes when he goes outside. Got to love the winter hat too.