I Have Pictures!

They're not of anything amazingly exciting, but it's been so long since I've had pictures of anything it seemed exciting. :-)

First of all, here is the little "Grandma Vicki" that Katie whipped up last week. It was sponsored by the Washburns from Bessemer. Ha! For clarification, Sister Tammy, did your husband want to PURCHASE it, or simply see the finished product--thus the donation? Anyway, here she is--crooked smile and all.

I keep telling Katie to WASH HER HANDS before she switches to another color, but she's too impatient and doesn't want to stop and do that each time. Sorry about all those extra "moles," Mom. Ha!

Let's see... Last time I blogged was Tuesday. Wednesday... I think I wrote in my diary on Wednesday. Sounds thrilling, hu?! Ha! You have no idea! You only THINK I've gotten bad about blogging. The last entry in my diary was from December 2008. The one before that was December 2006. Before that was March of that year. Pitiful. Anyway, I thought I'd give it a try again. Maybe I'll still grow into a good journal keeper one day.

School has been going better with Joe, for the most part. On EVERY "page" he asks me before he opens up the "show problems" window, "Did I read everything???" in that worried, uncertain, about-to-freak-out tone of his. I always just say YES!!!!! I'm the teacher and I'm making the decision that he has read everything that he needs to read (for the sake of my sanity, it's WHATEVER he may have read or not read! Ha!) and say YES every time. Ha! He's doing great with his work, so that tells me he's reading plenty to get the idea. And he loves quizzes.

Katie gets up early, gets dressed, puts her pj's away and makes her bed, then dives head first into school before we even have a chance to sit down for devotions. She's usually done with it before Joe gets his day going! She's doing great and loving it, as always. I've been amazed at how much that girl has grown up in the past few months. She's just suddenly so much more mature and SUCH a help around the house--and so willingly most of the time. It's wonderful. :-) She made brownies all by herself a few days ago. Nearly every morning (before she starts into school) she empties the dishwasher, just because. She's been much more kind to her brothers (for the most part) and is just happier in general these days. She's a keeper. :-)

Then there's Sam. How many times have I reported that Sam is finally beginning to read?! Ha! We're there again. :-) I've been working with him in his Hooked on Phonics books and he's doing sooooo good. It's crazy because Katie and Joe just started READING. It's like one day they opened up a book and took off and were really READING *snap* just like that. Sam is having to WORK at it little by little, but he's advanced beyond where he's ever been before and is able to read easy sentences (I think he's up to Book 7 of the series) and actually understand them instead of working so hard on each word that he's forgotten the others and isn't able to put them together. It's exciting and rewarding to see him learn. I've never had to WORK to teach a kid to read before--it's a challenge, but sooooo fun when things finally start clicking.

Yesterday we realized that if we were to get a call saying somebody wanted to see the house we'd be in big trouble--it had just sort of fallen apart piece by piece! Ha! I felt like the Lord really helped me in prayer yesterday morning and I was feeling very encouraged and like my faith had been strengthened. Along with that I was feeling the need to be READY to sell the house when the time comes, so we all worked together and got it cleaned up nice and purty again. That feels good. I'm EXPECTING God to work everything out and am praying hard for Him to give us guidance and direct our steps, and I feel like I was able to surrender my anxieties again and find REST in Him. ~Aaaaaahhh~ It's nice. :-) It would be nice if that one prayer would last me the whole way through. Ha! When you're doing the limbo thing (how low can you go???) it seems like you have to keep going back and surrendering all over again and finding new grace each time. I feel like God has really been working in my heart and in James' the past couple of days and getting us more to a place of willingness and being totally yielded to whatever He may have in mind for getting us to Alabama. It feels good to just GIVE UP, you know?! ONLY in reference to surrendering to the Lord, of course. ;-) Anyway, we're praying and trusting and feeling peaceful and excited about the future. Lord, get us to Alabama as soon as possible! On that note...

Can I be brutally honest??? It's my blog--of course I can. ;-) When we first got the news that we'd most likely be moving to Alabama, we felt peace about it... but I cried soooooo many tears about leaving the west and all of my friends. I pictured it being SUCH a struggle--and it was, ahead of time--and that I would have to really, really, really pray for God to work miracles in my heart for me to actually be able to be content living in a place like Alabama and not spend the rest of my life crying over Colorado or something. I wondered how long (weeks? months??? longer?????) it would take for me to be able to make Alabama my home, really and truly. I would think about spending the rest of my life down there (you never know!) and it would just break my heart--what a terrible, miserable possibility to consider!!! I even had one day where I was sick over the idea of raising my kids around a bunch of hicks! Ha! Not necessarily our Church folks there, just... well, it's ALABAMA! (Sister Tammy, I think you're the only Alabamian to read my blog--don't tattle on me! Ha!) I was ashamed of feeling things like that, but still had to wonder how I would cope with such a drastic change. And suddenly... I look at my heart these past few days and realize that God has totally transformed it and all of it's desires. How did He DO that?! I find myself soooooooo anxious to get down there (to Alabama!!!! Could you die?!) and I feel like I already have such a heart for the people there, such a burden for the work, and I just CAN'T WAIT to get there. I found myself praying yesterday, "God, help us to get out of this place and down where we belong." What?! The words surprised me, but I was more surprised when I stopped to really think about it and discovered that I really and truly meant them. I love the west and I know that I will certainly miss lots of things about it (should I list you all by name?! Ha!), but I already feel like we don't belong here anymore--I feel like we're out of place and we've just got to get where we belong. In Alabama! Ha! I'm dying over this--how in the world could such a change take place in someone's way of thinking?! ~sigh~ Only God. He is sooooo amazing. So here I am, having gone from worrying about trying to convince Alabama (and my own self) that I'm not going to be miserable for the rest of my life, pining over Colorado... to being worried that my western friends surely must think, "How rude!!! How could you be so happy to be leaving--don't you even care?!" CRAZY. All I can say is, I LOVE YOU'S ALL! ;-) But like Mom always reminds me: with the appointing comes the anointing. God has placed Alabama in our hearts. Already! I'm so thankful. Now that He's worked that enormous miracle in the heart of a western girl, we're expecting Him to work the much smaller miracle of selling our house and guiding us to the one he has for us "down yonder." :-)

Don't know where all that came from--didn't plan on sharing it. It just sort of spilled out!

When I was cleaning out the craft cabinet a few nights ago I came across the tie-dye kit that we've had sitting around for years. It almost made it to the garage sale pile, but then I picked up the directions and read through them. Looked easy enough--and I've always wanted a tie-dyed shirt! So last night after church we swung by Hobby Lobby and picked up t-shirst (50% off = $1.50 each) for the kids and me. This morning we set to work on them. I have NO IDEA how they're going to turn out (I think I got a little dye happy and there's way too much in my shirt--it might be soaking all of the colors into a giant murky blob right now! Ha!), but it was fun anyway! And I thought to take a PICTURE. First time I've taken a picture since we got home from our trip--except for a sunset picture I took last week.


Yes, Sam is "shooting" Joe with his shirt. ;-) They didn't have white shirts in the kids' sizes, so used a pink one for Katie and yellow for the boys. I'm anxious to see how they turned out! We'll know tomorrow morning. :-)

James has spent a great deal of his life on the phone this past week--something he's not used to doing--and has been carrying some pretty heavy burdens. Just a lot going on right now. Today he felt like he had some break throughs and God really helped with some things. I could tell that he just FELT like a load had been lifted and was "lighter" than he's been in several days. He came in this afternoon and said he wanted to just head to town for some family time, just wanted to relax and hang out tonight. We really haven't seen much of him lately. I thought about scheduling an appointment so I could visit him out in the office and we could catch up a little bit. Ha! Anyway, we went into town and had Cece's (is that how it's spelled?!) for dinner, then went and played miniature golf. We've lived here for two and a half years and it's the first time we ever made it down to the ONE putt-putt place in town. I was amazed that there were hardly any people there on a Friday night. Wa-Hoo! It was so much fun. I haven't played in YEARS. I think I was pregnant with Sam when James and I went on a vacation to Pagosa Springs--that's the last time I remember playing. Crazy. The kids had a really good time. Except Katie. She's not a natural at golf and she is NOT a very good loser. It all came together for her though on the very last hole when she managed a hole-in-one when it really counted and won herself a free taco or something from Taco Bueno. :-) Anyway, here are a few pictures.

Sam never does anything half-way. I was afraid I was going to lose a knee cap a few times tonight. Ha!



This is MY first hole in one. I had two tonight. :-) That lonely little blue ball out there on the green is James', still looking longingly at the hole... Ha!


Though I BEAT him, James finally managed a hole-in-one on the very last hole, just like Katie did. Here they are showing off their coupons and candy. :-)



It was so nice to just RELAX and enjoy some time with the family tonight. We had such a great time.

Now we're home and James is back out in the office. :-) The kids are all asleep and I'm going to TRY to get to bed at a decent hour myself tonight. We'll see.

Oh, here's the picture of the sunset I mentioned earlier.



Update on the Clarksons, before I forget: Wilma passed away yesterday afternoon. Brother Chris will be conducting the funeral up there this coming Tuesday, so please keep him and all of the family in your prayers. Sister Shanda and Sister Connie were taking it pretty hard, of course.