It's the Last Day of April

...and when I opened my eyes and looked out the window this morning there was a covering of white on everything and great big, fluffy flakes drifting down from the sky.

God loves me soooooooooooooooooo much!!!!!

How cool is that?! We have had THE BEST winter this year. So many great snow days, great toasty, crackling fires in the fireplace, great fun tubing and building snowmen, great pictures, great memories with the kids... ~aaaaahhhh~ Life is so grand. :-)

It's already stopped snowing, but my computer shows purty little snowflakes for tomorrow and Sunday, too. I love it! I enjoy the nice springtime weather too, but just think of all the months coming up where there will be no snow. How thoughtful of God to send some more for us to enjoy before the warm spell! :-)

The Colorado Trip

...has come and gone already. We had a terrific time! I'll take you on a pictorial tour (since I will be relying mostly on pictures to help me remember what to write!), so here we go!

Okay, so this first picture has nothing to do with the Colorado trip. It was taken the week before. But it was so great I couldn't not post it. :-) Joe decided to part with some of his money (a rare occurrence) at the dollar store. He came away with a new hat and one of those stick-on mustaches from the vending machine. I love those things! Ha!

We left on Saturday (two Saturdays ago, actually) and drove up to Salida taking a different route than usual and seeing parts of Colorado we'd never seen before. We LOVED the La Veta area. Sooooo pretty. We were hoping to take the kids to the Alligator Farm north of Alamosa, but we got there just minutes after they closed for the day. We saw one little gator through the fence, but the boys were so disappointed that we missed out on all the others.

These pictures were taken while heading west from La Veta to Alamosa, then from Alamosa north to Poncha Springs.

I love having a bright blue sky above me, but being able to SEE a rainstorm nearby, especially when there's a rainbow involved.


We ended up with a really nice motel room in Salida for a terrific price and we enjoyed a leisurely evening watching dog shows on Animal Planet. :-) The next morning we loaded up and headed to church. Had a good Sunday School class followed by a good worship service and message. Afterwards we stayed at the building and ordered Pizza Hut for lunch. Angela joined us and Sister Flora showed up just as we were finishing with goodies for the kids. She's so thoughtful that way! James worked on the outside of the building weed eating and spraying the weeds and bugs and Katie and I vacuumed and straightened things up on the inside. Then Sister Flora and I took the kids to the park for about an hour to burn off some energy before coming back for communion and feet washing service.

After service we headed to Colorado Springs to stay with the Hays for a few days. I think we somehow failed to play games that first night. Appalling. Still, we visited until 1:00ish, I think. The next day we sent Brother Dustin off to work, then Sister Jamey led us to the best thrift stores in town (she ought to know--she is the Thrift Queen, I tell you!) in search of some much needed kid clothes. We met Brother Dustin for lunch, then stopped by Mardel before heading back to the house and crashing. Sister Jamey made that terrific cheesy chicken casserole that is so great, followed by a BEAUTIFUL angel food cake and strawberries. Ha! Okay, so it tasted great anyway. ;-) We did play games that night and though I can't remember any of the details, I'm sure it was a blast.

The next day we just hung around the house and took it easy resting and playing games--I Buy and Skip-Bo. It was sooooo nice. Jamey made a terrific lasagna for dinner (I'll be calling one of these days for the recipe since I lost the paper I'd written it on!) with garlic toast and fresh blackberry cobbler for dessert. Wow. I think we're going to have to visit them more often. Ha!

James took the kids outside and played Red Light, Green Light with them for a while, then at bedtime he went down to the basement with the boys and told them scary stories for a while. Actually, I think I heard that the first story was kind of scary. By the end of it Joe was saying, "Uh... Dad... I'm not sure this is a very good idea... I don't think I can handle it..." Ha! So the rest were just fun and crazy stories. :-)

Once the kids were in bed it was game time for the adults again. There were some definite hurdles to overcome, however... Like Sister Jamey having a headache and Brother Dustin's back hurting him so bad he had to stand for most of the night instead of sit. It was a sad sight!
Just as a side note... Please pray for Brother Dustin's back. He's been suffering with lots of severe pain for some time now. He has days that aren't so bad, but it's been quite a while since he's been pain free. And for goodness' sake, it's just pitiful watching your General VLB Coordinator hobble around and moan and groan like he's 80 years old. (Sorry. I really tried to keep it serious--it IS a serious prayer request--but there's just something about that guy that makes it sooooooo hard!) In any case, he is trusting the Lord for divine healing and he really does need it. Sooner rather than later, preferably.

In spite of the physical ailments, it ended up being a terrific game night. Not that you can tell from this picture...

James and Brother Dustin got ahold of the cameras. I'm pretty sure there's a picture on Brother Dustin's camera that looks just like this one...
The night got late and crazy. The kind of crazy that leads to uncontrollable and painful laughter about the stupidest things, as is evidenced by the video that Brother Dustin posted on Sister Jamey's blog. Yes, that's right, BROTHER DUSTIN BLOGGED. He's been maintaining for years that "men don't blog," but he finally caved. He's WANTED to soooooo many times, but has always held out until now. It's strange though... what he blogged is not anything that embarrasses ME (okay, so I didn't look so hot--but I can handle that! Ha!); it SHOULD embarrass HIM--he's the one who wrote it. It wasn't the least bit humorous, I assure you, it was just one of those wee-hour-of-the-morning moments when something dumb strikes you as hysterical and you can't think rationally anymore. Or something like that. :-)

On Wednesday it was finally time to head for the hills! We try once a year (for a whole two years in a row now! Ha!) to get together with the family: Mom & Dad and Jon & Emilee and all the kids for some together time. This year Mom found a GORGEOUS house that was great big and sooooo perfect for us--for an AMAZINGLY cheap price. Wa-Hoo! It was near Florence, Colorado and had gorgeous views all the way around. It was fantastic!

The first night we got there and moved in, then enjoyed some BBQ sandwiches for dinner. There was a hot tub on the back porch and the kids LOVED it. The girls got 15 minutes each night, then the boys. After that, they managed to stay up way too late each night. All of the boys piled into the bedroom on the main floor together while Katie and Abbie slept in the loft area upstairs. Mom & Dad stayed in the master suite up there and Jon & Em and James & I had bedrooms in the basement. It was soooooo nice! Anyway, I'm sure we played games that first night, though I fail to remember what they were...

From here on out I'm going to have to rely on my pictures to keep it all straight--everything flows together in my mind!

The next morning Sam talked Granddad into hiking down to the hunting stand the kids had already discovered down below the house. Before long all of the kids except for Zeke had decided to join in.

Abbie turned back nearly immediately and I decided to take her place. The weather was GORGEOUS and it just felt like a great day for a walk with Dad and all the kids. :-)
Unfortunately, the kids who had already made the trek down the hill and knew the best way ran off ahead of us and we were left to find our own way. The route we chose ended up leading us through this stuff! Ha! Nathan (the only kid who stayed with us) and I crawled under, but Dad had a better plan...
Just bust the dead limbs off and clear 'em out of the way. :-)
By the time we got there the kids were already having a blast in, on, and around the hunting stand.
Dad went to check it out and was trying to figure out why the owner had a bottle of strawberry jam in there... with nothing to go with it!
Here is a picture of the house from down near the stand.
And zoomed wa-a-a-a-a-a-ay in. There's Mom on the deck.
The walk back up the hill took considerably longer than the walk down. We had several pauses like this along the way, though Dad would deny they were pauses. There was a very valid reason for each stop, I assure you. ;-) At this point I think he was explaining to me the necessity of scanning the adjoining mountain for signs of one thing or another. He was also clarifying that he was not using that stick as a cane... he was simply hauling firewood back to the house. Ha!
From our resting spot we could barely see Nathan and Katie who had decided to climb the next mountain over and walk the ridge to get back to the house. Just up and to the left of center is a little blue speck. That's Nathan's shirt. The white speck is Katie's.
And zoomed in. (Cameras are so amazing!)
Caleb must've come back down to check on Granddad... the kids had been back at the house so long they probably got worried about him. ;-)
We finally made it this far and took another big break before climbing the stairs up to the deck. Ha!
And here's the Granddaddy, who came in the door JOGGING after all that. Ha! I can't remember all he had to say about the climb back up the hill, but in true Smithesque fashion it was quite creative and amusing. :-)
Still trying to recover from the climb...
Here's the adult crowd just relaxing, reading, and working on a puzzle. ~sigh~ Doesn't get much better than that, does it?!
And, of course, Dad had gone shopping immediately upon arriving in Colorado so he would have a sufficient "Mother Lode" for all the kids. Two or three times a day he breaks out the candy and the kids start swarming. It's nuts. My kids live on adrenaline, practically no sleep, and (thanks to Granddad) SUGAR the whole time we're together. Then they come home sick and CRASH for a few days when it's all over with! Ah, yes. That's what it's all about, right?!
Abbie took this picture of the 1,000 piece puzzle we put together. It's a fun one where the scene is created out of small objects of all kinds. (The columns are rolled up map segments, the orange couch is a pair of gloves, the flowers are pistachio nuts, stuff like that.)
I don't know how this happened, but somehow the game of choice for the kids seemed to be chess. How crazy is that?! Dad & Jon played several times and that was no surprise. But the Smith kids took it upon themselves to teach Katie & Joe how to play. They laugh and giggle as if it's FUN or something. Weird. It was the thing to do (peer pressure is NEVER a good thing! Ha!) so it seems there were kids sitting at the chess board anytime Jon and Dad didn't have it.
Here's a pile watching Looney Toons...
And Jon being the Chef for some Dr. Suess game. It was fun to watch, but would have been REALLY fun if we would have gotten the guys (Dad and James and Jon, that is) to play it! It just never seemed to work out. Maybe next time. ;-)
A couple of onlookers from the loft. Cool ceiling, hu?
According to my pictures (not my memory) we played Pictionary that night. It is sooooo funny to play with Dad! He's artistry leaves a little to be desired (ha!), but even his GUESSES are hilarious. One of the other guys was drawing and you can hear Dad guess, "Cow?... Sun?... Radiator?" Ha! It must be maddening to be on the same team as him--at least for James. Jon draws about like Dad does but James is actually quite good. In any case, it's great fun to play. :-)

Notice the game board. The girls' marker is past the half-way mark and the guys are still on the first square. That's not so surprising--it usually goes that way. They finally got going and were about half-way through the board when we made it to the finish square. The most amazing thing of all is that we couldn't WIN! We sat on that square and just couldn't pull it off. The guys came from wa-a-a-a-ay back there and reached the finish square and BEAT us!!! Astonishing!

We also played a game called Blink that Mom was terrific at. At least she was terrifically LOUD while playing it. I think the guys called it a night after Pictionary, but it seems like some of us stayed up and played I Buy or something.

The next day Dad and Jon took Nathan, Caleb, Luke and Joe fishing while James took Joe to town to do some running around. That left just us girls and Zeke at the house. So we ate Chex Mix to our hearts' content and watched a girl movie. It was great!

Here are some of the boys playing their own game later that day...

Jon and Em weren't a whole lot of help with the 1,000 piece puzzle, but Emilee conquered this one that the little girls had started and Jon was able to finish up the 24-piecer. Ha!
That night before bed we had a concert. Nathan emceed it and introduced the performers (Joe on the guitar; Caleb and Katie as vocalists) and each song. Here's the crowd enjoying the show...

And Caleb declaring that he is NOT going to sing... something or another. I can't remember exactly what song he didn't want to sing.
Afterwards the rest of the grandbrats (as Dad calls them) minus Sam (just couldn't make himself do it) all came up and sang a couple of songs. It was great. :-)
This must be the Lord's Army song. Zeke is a little out of sync, but when you're that cute it just doesn't matter. ;-)
And here he is, putting on his very own concert.
That night after the kids went to bed Jon and Emilee and Mom and I tried a game we found in the basement called Apples to Apples. It was great fun, mostly because of Emilee's creative debating abilities. I can't remember any details except for something about "lots of little puffies of smoke," but I know that we laughed a whole lot and had an awful lot of fun. A great game for the right crowd. :-)

Here's a picture of the Granddad with all the grandkids. It makes me very happy. :-)

We left on Saturday and headed to Pueblo for lunch together at Pizza Hut. Afterward Jon & Em headed back to Denver and Mom & Dad followed us to the Lewis house to pray for the cripple. Brother Keven had fallen off a ladder and broken is ankle the day before. I feel sooooo bad for him! He's still in a lot of pain. The Hays and Wantuloks were at the house when we got there and we had a nice visit with everybody (and some good laughs), then had a good prayer for Brother Keven before Mom & Dad had to hit the road.

Everybody cleared out of the house (kids, too) so that Brother Keven and Sister Michele could catch up on some of the sleep they'd lost the night before. The rest of us went over to Brother Daniel and Sister Cathy's house for dinner. Brother Daniel grilled burgers and hotdogs and chicken while Sister Cathy made an angel food cake that was slightly prettier than Sister Jamey's had been. ;-) Genesis and Morgan worked on chocolate covered strawberries. YUM! Good friends, good food, good fellowship. All of the adults played Pictionary (girls against guys--the guys won AGAIN!), then the Hays left and James and I put the kids to bed, then played I Buy with the Wantuloks and just visited for a while. It was so nice--we seldom get to spend time with them like that.

Sunday we got up and had a leisurely morning complete with a homemade breakfast of biscuits and gravy, eggs, and bacon. Wow! We enjoyed the service in Pueblo (the 'Springs folks had come down for the "joint" service), even though the pastor and his wife were unable to attend due to that nasty fall the other day. :-( Afterwards we went to a buffet for Sister Dodie's goodbye dinner (she's moving to Virginia) before hitting the road and heading south.

We made it home at about midnight, I think. It was a long trip, but a good one. We felt the way we always feel: we lo-o-o-o-o-ove to go; then we lo-o-o-o-o-ove to come home. :-)

Since we got home we've been doing the usual post trip chores: unpacking and getting caught up on laundry and stuff like that. All of the kids came home sort of puny (coughing and congested and worn out and cranky) and James and I have been feeling pretty wiped out, too. I think we'll probably have our feet back under us again by tomorrow though. I'm sure hoping so!

~whew~ I don't blog often, but when I do I sure make up for it. I'll try to blog sooner and shorter next time. ;-)

Bad Things, Man. Bad Things.

That was the memorable line in a really terrific commercial when I was a kid in the late 80's or early 90's. I think it was for Nike. Can't remember anything specific about it except that line and somehow it still seems appropriate to use after all these years.

Like when I'm trying to be more faithful to blogging and I'm just about to embark on a 10 day trip where I will be with PEOPLE.
You know what that means for the blog, right?
Bad things, man. Bad things. ;-)

So I thought I should at least post something before we go. Though I don't know what to say. I can't seem to recall anything remarkable about the past four days since I last blogged. Same ole', same ole.' School and housework. But it feels good, really. I'm all packed for the trip, both bathrooms are thoroughly scrubbed, the carpets vacuumed, the tile swept, the wood floor swiffered, the dishes done and kitchen clean. Except for the pile of STUFF I'm surrounded by the house is in GREAT shape. I love being able to go on a trip and then come home to a really clean house. :-) The only reason I'm still surrounded by STUFF is because I can't load the van tonight. Two reasons for that. 1 -- It's raining and I just don't want to deal with me and all the stuff getting wet and muddy. 2 -- James hasn't packed anything yet. He likes to do this thing where he waits until the very last minute (literally--he'll pack tomorrow morning) before packing his clothes. I have left space for him in the big suitcase and in the little suitcase (for the one-night stop that we have first), but the way our van is situated I really can't load anything up until those suitcases go in. Some of you may ask why I don't just go be a good wife and pack FOR him. You are the people who don't know my husband. :-) I AM being a good wife by NOT packing for him. It's better for our marriage this way. He doesn't exactly trust me to remember things (Can't imagine why. Just because he had to go buy underwear for our boys at Youth Convention two weeks ago because I'd failed to pack any for them...) and he would question me about every single item. "Did you get plenty of socks for me? What about pj's? I like the fuzzy fleece pants--is that what you packed? Where's my belt? Are my dress shoes in the right bag? What did you do with my shaving kit?" And so on until he is satisfied that I've not forgotten anything (I'm not sure we've ever reached that point) and I'm ready to scream. So see, it's better for our marriage for me to sit in a pile of STUFF and not load the van because James isn't packed than to pack for him and thus hurl us toward marital conflict.
I think it's called prudence. :-)

The only news I can think of that I keep failing to report is that I QUIT. Doing dishes, that is. I've always tried to have the kids help with chores around the house and clear their own dishes and clean up after themselves and stuff like that. But it seems like recently they have totally lost all grasp of that. The milk would be left out every single morning after they'd had cereal for breakfast. Boxes of cereal, too. Sometimes one of their bowls would still be on the table. The chips would be left out after lunch. I don't know how they got so LAZY about it, but I was nagging them ALL THE TIME about it. "Put the milk away! Who didn't clear their dishes? Why are the hot dogs still out???" About a month ago we had a pot luck at church. We had a TON of food, then split it up and everybody took home a little of everything at the end. James and I were still stuffed and didn't eat again that night, but the kids were hungry. I told them to get the left-overs out of the fridge, fix their plates and be sure to put everything away when they were done. About an hour later James walked through the kitchen and asked why all the food was still sitting out. I was not just real happy and told the kids to go take care of it. I KNOW they went in there, but apparently they got distracted with something because when I walked through the kitchen on my way to bed at nearly midnight, most of the food was STILL sitting out! It was one of those defining moments in the history of our family. "The night Mom snapped," I think is what the kids call it. I was soooooooooooooo close to dragging the three of them out of bed and making them come take care of it RIGHT THEN. I still wonder if maybe I should have (!), but I didn't want a one-time fix--I wanted them to LEARN to take care of things! So the next morning I sat them down and happily told them that I QUIT. I'm done cleaning up after them and I am especially done nagging them about the mess in the kitchen all the time. It is now THEIR JOB. All of it. I told them that they will be clearing the table EVERY time, they will be doing ALL the dishes, and they will be putting ALL of the food away. If they make a sandwich, they have to put the bread, peanut butter, and jelly AWAY before they're even allowed to sit down and eat it. And so on. :-) So I spent the next day or two simply hovering over them after each meal, instructing them and making sure they had everything taken care of just right. It's been GREAT!!! I didn't wash a single thing for probably a week or more. I do the cooking, they do the cleaning. It's a fantastic arrangement. (They help cook on occasion, too.) I've helped out with the dishes a few times when we've had company, but for the most part it's theirs. :-) I've actually done dishes a few times in the past week just because I WANTED to, if that's not strange. It just felt good to get my hands in some nice, hot, soapy water and wash some dishes! Who knew?! The kids have adjusted really well to the new arrangement. Well, some of them have. Katie has done GREAT and seems like a better kid all the way around--I'm sure it's because she feels useful and like a little lady. Sam does well most of the time and has a pretty good attitude about it. Joe is the one who's struggling to accept the change! He's usually none too happy about having to do the dishes and his attitude has even earned him the privilege of doing everything all by himself a few times. :-)

That's about it. We'll be leaving for Colorado in the morning. We'll be in a hotel in Salida tomorrow night (no people--maybe I'll blog!), then to the Hays house for a few days, then we're meeting Mom & Dad and Jon & Em and their crowd up at a cabin somewhere for our not-so-annual Family Vacation! Wa-Hoo!!!! We'll be visiting the Salida church this Sunday and the Pueblo church next Sunday. Looks to be a good, full, FUN trip! I'M SOOOOOOOOOOOOO EXCITED!!!!!!!

Before I go (and to make up for all of the blogging that I most likely WON'T be doing for the next week or two), I'll leave you with a few videos. The first one was taken at the Children's Museum a couple of weeks ago. We did one with James, one with Brother Dustin, and one with Sister Jamey... but somehow this one turned out the best...



And then there's Sam. I'm not sure when I recorded these clips. I couldn't pick a favorite so I posted all three. I just don't remember jumping-jacks being so difficult...

Gotta Get Back in the Groove!

I've become SUCH a bad blogger. For the past week and a half a whole lot of my free time / blog time has been consumed with BOOKS. Not reading them; selling them on eBay! God opened a fantastic door for us and soooooo blessed us... but more about that later. I am so, so, so far behind on all of the happenings around here that I've forgotten most of them entirely! So I'll rely on the pictures I've taken... and that's been almost as sporadic as my blogging. ;-)

Let's see, the first thing we have is Josiah doing school...

He was wearing is spy gear night goggles under there. It's the guy way of doing school, I guess.
We had our Youth Convention down in Hatch again this year and it was wonderful. The theme was The Potter's Vessel, to match the General VLB theme for the year and all of the messages were very good. I especially enjoyed hearing our new ministers, the "kids," preach. They had so many good thoughts--good things to share. I only ended up with a couple of pictures this time, for some reason. Nathan and Caleb being baptized...

Unfortunately, after all this time (!) I can't remember a whole lot of other details about the Convention. Except the food, of course. We were in Hatch, so it was fantastical and we were sick and miserable by the last day from eating way, way too much.

The Convention ended late on Saturday night, so a whole bunch of us stayed at the motel again that night. The next morning we all went to Denny's for breakfast together before going our separate ways. Afterward, we drove home with the Hays hot on our tail. :-) We had some Family Camp business to attend to that warranted them coming to stay a couple of nights with us on their way home. So, of course, Brother Dustin got busy playing soda jerk...

I really think he's gotten more use out of the soda fountain than we have. Ha! It's GREAT.

We had a really great Sunday evening service that night, then we all went to McDonalds with the Clarkson clan and had a fun--however chaotic--visit while the kids ran wild in the play place.

I don't know how it happened, but we never got to play games with the Hays that night; we just talked about Camp stuff. What's that all about?!

The next day we got up and headed two and a half hours over to take a look at the campground we'll be using for Camp this year. Brother Dustin wanted to take a real good look at the facilities and see what all was available up there so he'll know how to best plan and prepare. We spent about an hour there, then drove back home. We split up into a girl van and a guy van for the trip home and I so enjoyed being able to visit with Sister Jamey. Wish we could have more times like that!

I had cooked a pork roast before we left for Convention so we'd have something to eat on one of the days when there would be no time to cook. So we had barbeque sandwiches for a fast, easy dinner. Bathed the children, put them to bed, finished up on our Camp stuff, then got down to the real business at hand: GAMES. I honestly can't remember a whole lot about the night, but I'm certain we had a great time. :-)

Ah, yes... I almost forgot, but for the pictures. :-) One of the HAYS KIDS (ha!) did a dastardly deed while at our house. YESSSSSSS!!! I think that means I'm two points ahead. Not that anybody is counting, of course. ;-) James has been planning on getting the pond all set up, cleaned out, and filled up here for a few weeks. He's been concerned that the liner might have gotten torn or punctured during the winter and has given the kids express directions to stay away from the pond and--whatever they do--DON'T throw rocks into it because it would further increase the chances of the liner being destroyed. Yeah, you guessed it. That sweet little girl did her best to fill that little pond up with rocks! Ha! Of course, since it wasn't one of our own children who knew better, James wasn't the least bit upset. Brother Dustin was thoroughly appalled, however, which is what it's all about. :-) He marched Aleah down to the pond so she could confess to James and apologize. Here she is explaining how she "accidentally" dropped a few rocks into the pond... HA! Of course, her Dad didn't go for that and made her adjust her approach.

When she really got into confessing mode she just fell apart. She was sobbing so hard she could hardly speak! Poor thing!!!
And of course, our children were not happy at all with now unfair it is to see their Dad's reaction to some other kid being sooooooo different than if one of them had thrown rocks in the pond. Ha!
The Hays didn't have to head home early the next morning, so we decided to go to the children's museum with them. I took a plethora of pictures, so here they are...

Everybody was pretty fascinated with how the water shot in such cool little streams at the fountain.

Ah, yes. Some time ago Sam saw this policeman hat at Wal-Mart and just fell in love with it. Unfortunately it cost $4 and he only had $1. But a week or two later his brother came into some money. After paying his tithes, he slipped $4 to his Dad and asked him to pick the hat up to surprise Sam with. What a guy! Sam LOVES it and wore it non-stop for the first week. I love his bendy-down ears when he wears it! HA!
Playing with water currents
Uuuuuhhh... I think this was another something about water currents...
Enjoying the trains
At this station you're supposed to cut little paper cups into different shapes to learn about how the different designs affect how the airflow will carry it. (The large cylinder blows air straight up.) Some of them will hover in the same spot indefinitely. So cool.
It's Sam's favorite spot in the whole museum. :-)
And here are the guys playing with more air currents, making the balls hover in the air or blow back and forth.
Joe found a spot to be cute. Though I'm sure that wasn't what he had in mind.
Learning about the construction of an arch...
Lifting it into place, oh-so-carefully...
And... success!
The "Electrician Extraordinaire" doing what he does best ~ahem~... playing with electricity.
I'm surprised there weren't three or four unnecessary holes in the table when he left. And the lights in the building weren't even flickering disco style when somebody would flip a switch. ;-)

Ha! This was great. Both guys are staring into a mirror, but according to how you adjust the lighting on each side you can see your own face MIXED with the features of the other guy's face. How cool is that?! Or scary...
Jamey couldn't help but laugh seeing her own face mixed with James'. Ha!
Speaking of that scary face...
I never did go see what this was all about, but Katie and Isaac sat and talked to each other for a long, long time.
Brother Dustin rode the highwire bike and was scared to death. He was shaking and fidgety and almost threw up twice. It took a good hour for him to calm down. Okay, so all of that is a lie--he didn't act the least bit bothered by it. But what kind of a story is THAT?! Boring...
One of the highlights of the museum is always the construction site out on the roof. Here is Katie by the house she built, sitting the chair she built.
Several worked together to built a nice little house for Aleah. She looks pleased.
Sam built this one for himself. Gotta love the pose. Ha!
Okay, that's all of the pictures I have for a while...

It was that weekend when we started working on the eBay stuff. A really special lady around here :-) felt led to get rid of all of her Christian fiction books. She mentioned donating them to the library, but I told her we'd be happy to help her out if she wanted to try to sell them instead and use the money to help people go to Camp. She prayed about it and felt like we should do that, then donate whatever didn't sell. So we went to her house to pick up the books one day. I don't know what we were thinking (we'd seen her bookshelves before!), but we somehow expected to go pick up a few stacks of books and that would be that. When we got to her house, she had ELEVEN BOXES of books all packed up! Ha! WOW!!! We worked off and on for three days at taking and editing pictures and writing up descriptions and getting everything listed on eBay.

Easter Sunday was nice. We had good services and three visitors, then enjoyed having Sister Galaviz come spend the afternoon with us and share our Easter dinner--which was way too much food. It was sooooooooo nice to have her--we don't see her nearly as often as we'd like to outside of church. She's such a fun, crazy old lady. (I had to say that because she reads my blog sometimes...) And I think she told me she's 78 years old this year... ;-)

I struggled to get a good picture of Katie (she has serious issues with being able to open her eyes if the sun is shining!), but I LOVE the dress Mom made for her this year! I'm usually not so crazy about the Daisy Kingdom thing, but I think this is just soooooooooo adorable.

The week after Easter was spent doing the regular things (at least according to the pictures that I took... or didn't take!) and in watching the eBay auctions and praying and praying and praying for God to bless and multiply them. And that he did! The last one ended on Friday night and the final tally was a whopping $923.03!!!!! Can you believe that?!?!? The eBay fees have gotten a little outrageous, but after they (and PayPal) take out their part it's still over $700 profit. Amazing! I have just been sooooo blessed through all of this. Not because of the MONEY, but because of how good God is; because of how He led this lady to donate these books at this time for this cause, and how He blessed abundantly because of her obedience. (Since that time things have happened with her job that are a GREAT blessing to her--things she's been praying for for a long time.) And I've been so blessed to see how God blessed and multiplied the amount raised through our fervent prayers for His favor. He is sooooooooo good and we are sooooooooooo blessed.

That's one of the real reasons (or excuses) I have for not blogging much. We have been sorting, separating, and preparing packages of books to be mailed. James has handled all of the invoices and payments and helped me with getting things ready to ship. He did the dirty work; I did the fun stuff. :-) I like filling orders and I like wrapping things in brown paper and making them look nice and neat. In the end, I think we've mailed nearly 50 packages in the past few days. Two more to go and we're all done.

The kids taped strips of construction paper onto their cheeks for "war paint" one day and headed out to play cowboys and indians one day. Yes, this is posed. (As if there was any doubt! Ha!)

Here is the pile of packages from the first night the auctions ended. Some people actually pay IMMEDIATELY upon the auction ended. And anybody who knows James knows that their orders were filled and taken care of IMMEDIATELY! He's a great eBayer.
Our pastor and his family were ministering at a Convention in Mexico this weekend, so James was in charge of the service here yesterday morning. Before I forget, Brother Chris called during the service Saturday night because he just couldn't wait to tell us all about it and how God had blessed and directed and how the people had responded. I can't wait to get the whole story on the rest of the Convention!

Due to circumstances beyond our control ;-) we were unable to have church at our building on Sunday, so we arranged to meet in a member's home and just join our morning and evening service into one. Josh David had shown up in time for dinner (elk stew--YUM!) on Saturday night, we stayed up visiting and playing I Buy until about 1:00am, I think, then he went with us to church Sunday morning before heading to Texas. We had good Sunday School, good worship, then James preached a mini-sermon and introduced the theme for our upcoming Regional Convention: The Sound of Abundance of Rain. The Lord really blessed. Then we went straight into my ABM service. I felt good about what I had prepared (the seven "gifts" listed in Romans 12: prophecy, serving, teaching, exhorting, giving, ruling, and mercy), but I really wondered if anybody was WITH me through it! I was shocked when several people told me afterward how much they enjoyed it. Who knew?! I have biblical examples for each gift, then posted pictures of some modern day people in the Church who demonstrate the different attributes. THAT was my favorite part--seeing how God has created different people with different personalities, temperaments and callings in order to meet the different needs in The Church of God. Oh, how we need each other!

After service we went to Jack in the Box with Josh before he left, then our family decided to just dink around town a bit before heading home. I'm not sure what all we did, but I know we were at Sam's Club and a few other places, most notably Krispy Kreme. (I had FOUR doughnuts today, two for breakfast and two after lunch--that's sooooooo bad!) We also stopped by Albertson's to pick up a few buckets of Blue Bell--it was on sale again. :-) Moo-llennium Crunch is way, way, way too good. I'm holding back and not letting myself have any tonight after those four doughnuts earlier. Ha!

The only other real excitement (that I can think of at the moment) is that James bought and installed a screen door today. I love it! It's just a plain, simple, wooden door that's mostly "open" and it was a lot trickier than it should have been to install (isn't that always the way it is?!), but I LOVE it. It's just soooooo nice to be able to leave the door open and hear the wind outside and feel the nice, fresh air. I seldom step foot outside, so if I'm going to get fresh air it has to come to me. Ha! Anyway, I LOVE IT.

Way, way, way too long of a post, but that's because it's been way, way, way too long since I've blogged. I'll try to do better. We'll see!