A Whole Week???

It's crazy how fast a week passes when you're not blogging!

Of course we'll start with a picture of Charlie--since that's all I seem to take pictures of anymore. Here he is helping Katie with school...



Let's see... Last Wednesday I spent most of the day in preparation for Thanksgiving. I made a cherry pie (it was sooooo good--the first to be devoured) and a pumpkin pie, then realized I had made too much pastry and had enough for one more pie crust. I knew I didn't have anything for another fruit pie and we didn't need another pumpkin pie. I looked down and saw a bowl full of pecans. Ah, yes! We had made the kids fill up a 5 gallon bucket of pecans from Aunt Sue's yard when we were there a few weeks ago. :-) I'd never made a pecan pie before, but I had the stuff so why not?! Do you have any idea how long it takes a woman and three children to shell one cup of pecans? About four hours, give or take. HA! It was ridiculous. I think I only got three unbroken half nuts the whole time. And Katie--good grief. Every time she tried to crack one open it would shatter all over the room. After about three of those I told her to go find some other way to help out! In the end, it turned out pretty good. But I certainly need to allow more time for prep if I ever make another pecan pie!

We needed to go to the library that day (had books overdue and more ready to pick up) and decided to take The Charles with us. I want him to get used to riding in the car so he doesn't freak out over it. We need to have a dog who's able to travel and enjoy it, not shiver and whimper the whole time. He did well and we just went into the library in shifts, two of us playing with Charlie while the other two searched for books.

I mixed up the punch that night and made the cranberry sauce. It's soooooo much better when you make it yourself (and quick and easy,too) than the glop out of the can.

Thursday was a full day of cooking, like it was for everybody else out there. The turkey turned out really, really good--and everything else, too. The Clarksons and Sister Connie got here at about 2:30 and we finished up on the last few things (mashing the potatoes, making gravy--stuff like that) and enjoyed a great Thanksgiving dinner. I'm sooooo glad they came up to my house to join us! Sister Shanda and Sister Connie had made sweet potato casserole and green bean casserole, and also brought a pumpkin pie and some rolls and corn and... something else I'm forgetting. I had them make the gravy, too, since my gravy is unpredictable at best. ;-) Everything was so good and it was great to have dear friends to share it with. They stayed and visited until we were hungry enough (not really) to try some pie. The kids spent their time watching Garfield and The Lone Ranger, then just doing whatever it is that they all do when they get together.

By the time the crowd cleared out sometime after 8:00 I was super tired. Seems like we just vegged out the rest of the night.

Friday was the big decorating day. It was frigid here that day, so Sam and I bundled up in our heavy coats and gloves and went out to the shed to dig out all of the Christmas boxes and bins. We have way too much junk! It always takes me forever to decorate. You empty the boxes out all over the place, then try to figure out what should go where--and it's such a mess you don't even know where to start! In the end I finally had everything up and looking great except for the tree. It was still in the box. The Christmas tree is James' baby. He loves doing the tree and is extremely particular about it. (He got mini-trees for the kids' room that they can decorate themselves because they're not allowed to touch his tree! Ha!) But even without the tree everything else looked great.

That night we decided to have another movie night. We've vegged out a lot since James has been gone. Watched a lot more TV than usual and played a whole lot of games. We're sort of vacationing it, you know?! Anyway, I had checked out The Love Bug from the library to surprise the kids with, so I whipped it out that night. We all enjoyed it a whole lot more than I would have imagined! I know I saw it as a kid, but I remembered little to nothing about it. It's a good one--I wouldn't mind owning it, even. :-) I've always liked Dean Jones. Makes me want to see Snowball Express again--though I remember next to nothing about that one either, I was so young when I saw it.

I had wondered about just waiting until James gets home and letting him do it himself, but... When I got up Saturday morning and everything was done except the tree I decided I'd just go ahead and do that, too. Ha. Last time EVER. Back when my family did the Christmas tree thing (my folks stopped with the heathen tree ;-) when I was a teenager) we always went up and cut our own tree. We never had a fake one. I never knew the reason for that, but after spending two hours building and "fluffing" this stupid tree I've got a whole list of reasons why real trees are better! That's just ridiculous. And your hands and fingers are all sore and scraped up by the time you finish. Dumb. And after all of that it still looks... well, fake! It's a really nice one that James got 80% or 90% off several years ago, but still... I just like real trees. ANYWAY, on the bright side, with James away the kids were actually able to partake in the decorating of the Christmas tree this year! Ha! Joe played with his dart gun the whole time (Christmas bum), but Katie and Sam had a blast helping me decorate. It was such fun!

That night we played Sorry! again. I'm so glad the kids are enjoying it! I think it's already been worth the $10 I paid for it last week. :-)

We had another good service Sunday morning and had two visitors as well. :-) We enjoyed an amazing message by Brother Chris about Leah and Rachel symbolizing the Kingdom and the Church, then the idols that Rachel took with her, how they had to be gotten rid of, how Leah (the Kingdom) brought forth so many children while Rachel (the Church), the favored one, was unable to produce—but in time she did travail and she brought forth the favored sons, two of them (the early church and last days church, perhaps?) and on and on. You would have had to have been there for all of the pieces to fit together and make sense, but it was AMAZING. God either plops deep, inspired revelations from the Word of God right into Brother Chris' lap... or he's just really good at digging them out of the Word--one or the other, because he often preaches things that I've never heard before that just amaze me. Good, good stuff.

After church we came home to find a SLEEPING puppy for the very first time!!! Wa-Hoo!!!!!! We usually come home to a puppy screaming and crying from the bathroom--and we have to let him cry it out for an hour or two before he calms down so we can rescue him. Really, people--is it worth it??? Is this dog actually going to learn to not cry if we keep ignoring him and leaving him in there????? It sure seems to have been a futile effort up to this point, regardless of what the Internet says. And him being asleep when we got home from church Sunday morning was a total fluke. He proved it when we got home from church that night. Ha!

Sunday night was Sister Galaviz's CPMA service, so it was good, of course. She taught on spiritual perfection, individually and as a body. It was interesting to see how the things necessary to achieve individual perfection would naturally enact cooperate perfection. It's obvious that that would happen, yes, but still so striking when you see it spelled out in front of you.

After service that night we went with the Clarksons to the Crusty Chili. Without James!!! The lady who took our order even asked about him. Ha! That's pretty sad. ;-)

Back to Charlie. I have done a bad thing with that dog. James doesn’t allow a dog to sleep with us. Well, in theory anyway. Hershey had his ways. ;-) But when I was trying to make Charlie sleep in his box he would wake up several times a night and I’d take him outside to do his thing (and he would), but what he really wanted was to BE with people. He could only stay all alone in that box for so long, even if it was right next to the bed, you know?! Well, I love sleeping with a puppy... And James is gone right now, so... :-) I haven’t let him sleep with me in bed, but I’ve been crashing on the couch with him most nights. Since I started doing that he began sleeping pretty much through the whole night without needing to go outside. So a couple of nights ago (after he’d started sleeping through the night) I thought I’d try to get him to sleep with Katie—since that’s the goal eventually anyway. (He can’t sleep with her until he’s house trained or can at least wait it out through the night though because Katie sleeps like a rock and won’t wake up to let him out if he needs to go. I know because when I put him in bed with her he went and curled up ON HER HEAD and she never budged.) Anyway, he curled up with her for a couple of minutes, but then I heard his jingle bells. He was at the edge of the bed, preparing to leap to his death on the tile floor below. (He’s still too little to be able to dismount the furniture without sufficient padding down there.) He just wouldn’t stay with her. He wanted to sleep with me. It doesn’t help matters that it’s what I want, too. Ha! So Sunday night I came up with a new plan. Katie and I will sleep with him TOGETHER in the big bed. Smart, right?! Okay, so it’s one more insane thing we’re doing for the sake of a dog—whatever. I’m thinking that maybe if he gets used to sleeping with both of us there I can start sneaking out and he’ll stay with her. Right??? Either way, I’ve got to figure out something before James gets home. I think we’ve got about a week and a half to go. The three of us gave it a shot Sunday night, but most of the night he was cuddled up next to me or on me. I moved him over toward Katie several times, but it's tough to make him stay there. Hopefully we can make some sufficient progress in his desire to cuddle with Katie at night over the next few days! Ha!

Then there was Monday--yesterday. Laundry, ironing, house cleaning day, though I didn’t finish the laundry, I ironed nothing, and I didn’t get the floors cleaned. Hhmmm. I had no idea I’d been such a failure until I started writing it all down! I'll have to make up for some of that tomorrow, I guess. :-)

Last night all of the kids camped out in the living room by the fire again. I decided to join them in another attempt to get the dog to sleep with somebody other than myself. I claimed the couch and Charlie seemed perfectly content to stay on the floor with the kids. Okay, so he was only really and truly content when he was plopped smack dab in the middle of Katie's pillow, but still--this is progress, right?!



This morning we had devotions, cleaned up the house, then headed into town to drop Charlie off for his very first haircut. That meant we had several hours to blow in town, so I figured it would be the perfect day to shop for a Christmas present for James. HA. I hate shopping for that man!!! It's impossible. He already has everything he wants, you know?! The only thing in the world I can think of that he needs and doesn't already have is a house in Alabama. But what can I do about that? Give him a coupon promising that I'll pray over the situation an extra hour a day or something?! Ha! Anyway, we looked all over the place but found nothing--not even anything to spark an idea. ~sigh~ I'm open to suggestions. ;-)

Although I failed to find anything for James, I was able to replace the glass chimney (to a lantern) Sam had broken last week (and had been working all week at odd jobs to earn the money to pay us back for it!), so that's good. Bought two strings of Christmas lights to replace the ones that had burnt out. Now I can weave them through the greenery that is to frame the front door and the boys' bedroom door and I'll be totally DONE with the Christmas decorating. We also did a little grocery shopping. James seemed surprised when I told him tonight that I'd spent $50 on groceries--he shopped for us before he left town, why would we need to go again?! Ha! I explained to him that we were OUT of some things and just needed more. Things like milk, lunch meat, eggs, cereal, ramen... jell-o, cinnamon rolls, Totino's, Kool-Aid, Christmas candy--you know, necessities. Okay, so I probably only told James about the first part of the list. He'll read the rest of it here. :-)

We picked up Charlie and... well, it's just sad. I love him dearly, but he just looks absurd! I ALWAYS feel that way when I pick up my poodle from the groomers--it's just such a sad, sad thing to be a poodle! Ha! They gave him a normal puppy clip, except I asked that they go ahead and start letting him grow out a bit of a mustache. A puppy clip means that the only thing they clip super short is his face and his paws, only slightly trimming the rest of his body. Well, after being bathed and fluffed it looks like he has MORE hair now than when we took him! Ha! And he just looks sooooo different. The kids were heartbroken. We all agree he looked so much better before his haircut (!), but it had to be done. His hair was getting so long and mangy it was getting dirt and leaves and sap matted in it when he'd go outside. Anyway, here's what poor Charles looks like now.



Here's a clip of him playing last night, just for fun. :-)



Pizza! I forgot we had pizza again today! Not Totino's though, so it's okay. ;-) I used the kids' Book It! coupons and we ate at Pizza Hut. They each got a free personal pan, then I ordered a kids meal for myself (personal pan and a drink) and drinks for the three of them. When the lady brought the pizzas out she said they ran out of the regular personal pan crusts, so they gave us all the larger size. Crazy! We didn't even finish two of the four pizzas, meaning we had plenty for dinner (though I allowed the two weird children to have cereal for dinner instead)--all for $5.93! :-) I love spending money when it turns out like that!

And that's about all of our news. I'll try real hard to not let another whole week go by without blogging--it makes my already way too long posts even longer. ;-)

Happy Thanksgiving

In a few hours it will be time to switch over to Christmas mode, so I wanted to make sure I had an appropriate template waiting for me. :-)

Thanksgiving dinner here will take place (in theory) at 2:00. The Clarkson family and Sister Connie will be coming to the house to join us. I'm so excited!!! I'll try to remember to take some pictures. As of last night we've got a pumpkin pie, a pecan pie, a cherry pie, pea salad, deviled eggs, homemade cranberry sauce, and... whatever I'm forgetting. The rest of it will come together in the next few hours. Gotta go!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

Three Pizza Parties Down

Saturday was a good day. I think. The only thing I remember about it was that we started making turkeys out of paper plates. We spent a great deal of time painting, letting paint dry, then painting again. After all of that, we never did put them together--all of the pieces are still sitting in a pile. They weren't exactly a hit. Ha!

Sunday was good, as always. Brother Chris preached a great message, as always. Several things really blessed me and I felt thankful for so many things that I have been taking for granted--and my faith was encouraged as well. I just love serving God. He is so good and knows just what we need, when we need it. :-)

After service we stopped by Petsmart because... well, because our dog has severe separation anxiety and I'm getting desperate for a solution! Ha! When we leave the house, we lock him in the bathroom with his bed and lots of toys and everything that he'll need. When we come home, he is screaming and crying and panicking. Has he been doing it the entire time we've been away??? It's terrible, but everything I've read (and I KEEP looking things up because it's killing me! Ha!) is to LET HIM CRY IT OUT--whatever you do, DON'T RESCUE HIM until he quits or you'll teach him to scream and cry for the rest of his life to get what he wants, and he'll learn that if he does it long enough it will eventually work. ~sigh~ So we get home and I sit in the bedroom (instead of the other end of the house where I can't hear him) and read or dink around on the computer until he finally wears himself out. Truth be known, he's never actually worn himself completely out yet. I keep thinking he'll finally just collapse and fall asleep. But it's usually about an hour and a half after we get home when he finally wears out enough to quit pitching a fit and winds down to just a low, pitiful whimper. If he can hold out for a full 30 seconds without going back into "fit" mode I hurry up and "reward" him by going to rescue him. Then he starts throwing fits all over again, but these are fits of joy and relief and "I love you so much--don't ever leave me again--you have no idea how horrible it was--thank you so much for coming back..." Stuff like that. The other day he whimpered for 30 minutes after being rescued! And don't even think about putting him down--he needs some serious lap time. Ha!

ANYWAY... I kept reading about how to help your puppy adjust to being alone and a ton of people say to get him a Kong. It's a little rubber toy that you can put treats inside. The dog has to play and wrestle with it to finally get the treat out. Sounds cruel to me (ha!), but they say most dogs LOVE the challenge of it and it will keep them occupied and make "alone" time a happy, rewarding time. So I went to PetsMart to buy a Kong. How crazy! Ha!

We got home and I let Charlie cry it out (an hour and a half again), then got into my PetsMart bag and realized that in all of the different things I'd picked up and looked at I somehow managed to buy two bag of Kong treats and no toy Kong! Ha! Things like this make James so proud of me. :-) We left a few minutes early for church that night and I took the 5 minutes to run into PetsMart and exchange one bag of treats for the toy, so now we're all set. Riiiiiiiight.

It was Sister Yolanda's first VLB service and she did a good job. It was short, of course, but very good for her first time. :-) It is such a blessing to have "the Juans" here. :-) I hung around and visited with the Clarksons for a while after service, then came home and let the dog cry it out again for a while (a little less than an hour, maybe?) before rescuing him. This part of having a puppy is no fun at all! Ha!

I had stopped and picked up Toy Story 3 on the way home, so the kids and I had a pizza party and watched it that night. I liked it a lot. :-)

Yesterday was a big house cleaning day. I got the sheets stripped and washed, the bathrooms scrubbed down, and the laundry done. Katie and Joe did some dusting while Sam "babysat" Charlie. (A puppy being house trained has to have someone watching like a hawk every moment, you know.) In the afternoon we loaded up and went to Edgewood to do some grocery shopping. I got everything I needed--and was thrilled to even find canned cherries! I greatly prefer frozen cherries, but they're next to impossible to find. The canned ones are hard to find too (sweet cherries are easy, but not tart), so I quickly grabbed up three cans so I can make a cherry pie for Thanksgiving. Got home and realized that I had two cans of tart cherries and one sweet. Ggggrrrrrrrr. James stands astonished and amazed when I tell him things like that. "Bec, you've been to two stores since I've been gone and both times you bought the wrong thing. Next time, read the labels carefully and..." I keep telling him to RELAX. It's not a big deal--I can remedy the situation! And besides, I haven't done any shopping in YEARS (he does it all) and it's been sooooooo long since I've had to pay attention to anything (why bother--he's on top of it all)... I told him that this is GOOD for me. Nagging me about it isn't going to be what helps me do better next time; no, EXPERIENCE will do the trick. If I have to take enough things back to the store I'll eventually start paying better attention! But then, who can skip a wide open opportunity to nag? Not James. HA! ;-)

Before I forget about it, here's a picture of Katie with The Charles. He loves a great many things, one of which is chewing on Katie's hair. There are so many other things in the house that he's not allowed to chew on I figured I'd just let that one go. Ha! He laid on her like this for the longest time the other day, just chewing away. Crazy dog. Crazy girl.

We had just a dusting of snow yesterday, so the kids insisted on donning their snow gear and going out to play. After a while there was a knock at the front door. This is what I found when I opened it...
I think they've been reading too much Calvin & Hobbes. Ha! There was barely any snow at all--they probably had to scrape the whole front yard to make this one little head!

I had been planning on buying Sorry! (the board game) for the kids so we'd have a new game to have fun with while James was away. I found it at Wal-Mart in Edgewood, so we were all set last night! I built a nice, cozy fire while the kids went to put on their footed pajamas and we sat on the rug and I taught them how to play. I used to love that game when I was a kid. My kids seem pretty fond of it, too. I love that. :-)

I told them they could get their sleeping bags and camp out in the living room last night, so that's what they did. It was great fun for us all. :-) Here's Sam with Charlie--who keeps getting bigger and bigger by the day!

And here are all of the kids in their camped out positions, pretending to be asleep.
This is Katie after she really and truly fell asleep. With her sleeping buddy. :-)
And Joe. HA! He would be mortified if he knew I posted this. Not because of his insane sleeping predicament, but because of his jammies. ;-) He thinks blanket sleepers are for babies (probably a sentiment shared by most boys his age) though I assure him they are not--I wish I had some! I had to MAKE him wear these. James' mother bought each kid a two-pack of blanket sleepers for Christmas last year but they were HUGE at the time. It was so cold here last night (and I knew they'd be camping out on the tile floor), so I dug the sleepers out and made them wear them. And I'm so glad. Just for the sake of this picture. :-)
Today we got up and cleaned the house up, locked Charlie up with his treat stuffed Kong, and headed into town to have the kids' picture taken. The photo place was sooooo busy (we waited too long to get down there this year), so it wasn't nearly as speedy an endeavor as it was last year. But in the end, we got some decent pictures. And cheap and fast. Though not as fast as they were supposed to be. They said to pick the pictures up in one hour. So I went and filled the tank up with gas, then went to get one more can of TART cherries (got it under control, James! ;-) Ha!), stopped by the Christian bookstore to look for Christmas cards (nah-da), then grabbed lunch for the crowd at Taco Bell. Got back in exactly one hour... and they told me that the computer crashed while printed our order. Ha! They had our $9 picture package, but not the Christmas cards. I had to wait until they had an open computer, then tell them again what I wanted and which pictures to use, then wait another 30 minutes for them to print them. We were supposed to get 9 free Christmas cards with our package deal, and I had ordered 15 more. Because of the trouble, the lady said she'd throw in 15 on top of that. That made me very happy. Until I got home and discovered that they had printed the 15 I ordered and 15 extra ones, but failed to give me the 9 free ones! Ha! Oh well, it still ends up being 6 free cards.

Came home and listened to Charlie cry it out for another hour or so (so much for the Kong being the cure-all. Wasted $6 on that thing... Ha!), then sort of crashed the rest of the day. Joe did some school just because he wanted to (whoa!), but mostly we all just vegged. Toy Story 3 is due back tomorrow, so we had another pizza party tonight and watched it again. That means we've had a pizza party every other night (three parties total) since James has been gone. That's crazy! It's about to change though because two days from now it will be Thanksgiving. And as much as I love Totino's, it's just wrong to eat them on Thanksgiving. ;-) Besides, I'm actually getting tired of them. (WHOA!!!) We'd better take a break from them or I'll end up not liking them anymore. That would be truly tragic. ;-)

So that's about it from here. Tomorrow begins the cooking for Thanksgiving. I'm excited about it. :-) I love Thanksgiving. And then I'll LOVE being in Christmas gear--so much more than the people who've been indulging in it ahead of time. ;-)

Home Alone

...But it doesn't really FEEL "alone" when you have three kids and a puppy. Either way, James left at about 8:00 this morning for Alabama. He'll be gone for three weeks and will be able to visit 8 different churches down there. That's the plan anyway. I'm so excited!!!! I've been riddled with guilt over the fact that James is the overseer of Alabama, but we're not there yet. It's been such a difficult situation, the whole way around. Even though this is just a trip to Alabama instead of something more permanent, at least he'll BE THERE for a little while! I know we'll miss him, especially toward the end, but I'm so excited that he's actually going to be where he's supposed to be and he'll be able to do what he's supposed to be doing. It makes me soooooo happy.

So the kids and I need to go do some shopping. Right now we've only got six Totino's in the freezer (enough for two pizza parties) and that will just never do. ;-) I want to go pick up some junk that we don't usually have around (like those fantastical Pillsbury cinnamon rolls with icing--yum!) so we can party for three weeks straight. We'll watch some kid movies (after Thanksgiving we'll dive into the Christmas shows) and play lots and lots of games. We've got plenty of firewood and hot chocolate, so we're well equipped to have a great time. Or we will be once we stock up on pizzas and other junk. ;-)

I'm just realizing I haven't written anything since Sunday. It's been a pretty good week around here, usually directly related on how much sleep I got each night. Ha! Charlie is sleeping better at night (most of the time) and doing really well with the house training thing for such a young little guy. It's easy to see that he is very smart and catches on to things easily... but I'm also seeing that he definitely has a mind of his own! We've all agreed that he has pretty much doubled in size since we first got him, as well as learned to romp and play and bark. He's sooooo much fun! He likes to "stalk" your hand, then hop and bark and pounce on it. He also loves to bite the heads off of dead dandelions, then sneeze out all of the white fluffies. Charlie seems to like all three kids for different reasons. He likes to cuddle with Katie and follows her around frequently. He likes to play with Joe and barks at him lot. And he likes to chase Sam (when Sam's on his hands and knees) and chew on him. :-) Here's a video from a few days ago. It was the first day we started teaching him to sit, the second session. He's doing great for a little guy--and much better now than when we filmed him.



And a clip of him playing with Joe. :-)



In other Charlie news (I feel like such a nerd--all I have to write about anymore is this dog!!!), we took him to town for his 8 week shot on Wednesday. I made James take him into the clinic to do the dirty work. Afterwards we had to go into Hobby Lobby, then a restaurant. I put his box (crate) and bed and a training pad in the back of the van. I was SURE the stow-and-go hole back there was deep enough he couldn't get out. When we came out of Hobby Lobby I fully expected him to be screaming and crying from the back of the van, but as we neared the vehicle we heard nothing. The kids opened the side door and there he was, sitting on the back seat! I was amazed that he made it out of the "hole" in the back, but it totally blew me away that he made it up onto the seat! Then when we came out of the restaurant he was sitting in the middle seat--the one with Sam's booster seat in it! How in the world??? His little legs are only 3" long! I'm thinking we should have named him Houdini. Although he's proving to be an adept escape artist, the good news is that he was a good boy in the van, did nothing bad, tore nothing up, and was HAPPY and not crying when we returned. He wasn't crying when we came home from church last night either. We had left some talk radio on for him so he wouldn't feel so alone and scared. I don't know if that's what helped or not, but I'm sooooo glad he wasn't crying. We NEED for him to learn to be content when left alone!

There. My puppy news of the week. :-) The kids are doing great and still loving having the pup around. Everybody is doing good in school right now. Sam just finished up the second Hooked on Phonics series. That's all we have. We got both sets for $5 at a yard sale a few years ago. The other kids never really used them, but they've been perfect for Sam. He has to work so much harder at reading, but he's doing great. I'm very proud of him. :-) Katie and Joe are both loving their computer school, but they seem to get finished way too quickly! I need to come up with some extra work for them. ;-)

I started his post this morning and have sort of added to it throughout the day. I helped the kids make some turkeys out of paper plates this afternoon. Actually, the paint is still drying so we'll have to actually put them together tomorrow. A great deal of the afternoon was spent in pursuit of Mrs. Cottontail. That's what the kids have named the rabbit that lives under James' office. She is the biggest, fattest rabbit--and Joe is determined to "hunt" her. He comes up with a new weapon just about every day, usually made out of sticks and rubber bands. And he always carries a bag with him in hopes of "bagging a rabbit." Ha! Today they set up Cottontail Headquarters out back, complete with maps of where in the yard they have searched for the poor bunny. I think I heard something about a path of celery leading to the back door, too.

Tonight we had our first pizza party. :-) We just finished watching Meet the Robinsons. It's one we picked up at the library the other day--it's a fun one. Now I'm going to sign off and play games with the kids for a while before devotion time. Day 1 without James: happy and successful. Let's hope the next 20 go as well. :-)

Before I go, however, here are two more pictures of Charlie. Just because I can't help myself. :-) Here he is sleeping with his duck in his box...



And in his favorite place: my lap. Coincidentally, it's my favorite place for him to be, too. ;-)

Yesterday was a great day. :-) Jason had scheduled an Open House from 11:00-2:00, so we spent Friday night and Saturday morning getting the house all spic-and-span. That always feels so good--to have both bathrooms and the kitchen all sparkly and all of the floors vacuumed and mopped, things dusted and all of the clutter put away... Nice. I have a hard time getting the whole house clean at the same time except when I have proper motivation. So far the only things I've found that motivate me sufficiently are knowing that company is coming or that we're going to have a showing/Open House. Does that mean I'm more concerned with how clean other people THINK my house is than I am with how we actually live??? That could preach, if only I was a preacher. ;-)

Jason came and we left. Ran to town and stopped by K-Mart for a few things we hadn't been able to find anywhere else. We were in search of leggings for Katie. That girl's legs are beaten and bruised and bloody all the time. She doesn't exactly waft gracefully through life, you know. She more stumbles, bumbles, trips and splats her way through. ;-) Anyway, her legs are looking sooooo bad right now. She's started picked at the perpetual scabs, too, so we were hoping that perhaps if her legs were shielded by leggings (instead of her usual baggy bloomers) perhaps they'd be protected a little better and have a chance to heal. We'll see. I found a pair of leggings for myself, too, since it's COLD in this house nowadays! I prefer it that way, but the leggings will be nice. :-)

We took Charlie with us because we couldn't leave him at the house with Jason (I guess we could have... Ha!), and I made a little nook for him in the back of the van. He was sleepy when we got to K-Mart and was still curled up sleeping when we came back out. Good, Charlie! :-)

From there we went to the Clarkson's house (a.k.a. the Sandia Courtyard Hotel--are you praying they'll get into a house soon???) and let all the kids play in the grass with Charlie for a while. Then we went to eat together at Boston Market. We were there for a good, long while and then we were successful in talking the Clarksons into coming up to the house for a little while. :-) The kids played on the trampoline, the boys played cowboys and cops (with their official police dog--poor Charlie!) and all sorts of things, the girls sculpted with clay and had a tea party and all manner of girliness, and the adults sat in the living room next to a crackling fire (it was COLD outside) and visited. And we all enjoyed some of James' fantastical homemade hot chocolate. What a great afternoon/evening!

I don't remember what time the Clarksons left. I'm sure it was still pretty early in the evening (7:30ish?), but I was soooooo tired! Puppy care has been robbing me of my usual amount of sleep, you know. ;-) The boys had their showers and we all had left-overs for dinner. I went to bed sometime between 10:00 and 11:00 (that is quite early for me!) and Charlie slept solid until 3:00am. Good Charlie. :-) He went outside for a little while, then was playful--just like babies who wake up in the night! ~sigh~ I got a couple more hours of sleep before starting the day.

We had a good service this morning, but I felt distracted and had a hard time concentrating. Brother Clarkson preached such a cool message about the Good Samaritan--in a way I'd never heard it before--the Samaritan symbolizing Jesus, his beast being the Holy Ghost, the inn being The Church of God, the two pence being the price Jesus paid... So many interesting things I never would have considered. I love to hear Brother Chris preach--he's one of my all-time favorites. He has such a way of digging out deep things from the Word of God and the Holy Ghost helps him to deliver them with such power and anointing. Good stuff.

We had arranged to swap out kids today, so the Clarksons have all of the boys this afternoon and we have Katie, Naomi, Sadie and Karen. We took the girls to McDonalds for lunch, then came home. We had a very distraught puppy in the tub when we got here. ~sigh~ The girls all sculpted and painted for a while, then headed out to the trampoline. Katie made sodas for all of them and right now the four of them are piled up on the couch, crunching on popcorn and watching the Sweetpea Beauty Veggie Tales. Charlie is sleeping in my lap right now, storing up his energy so he'll be able to cry the whole time we're gone to church tonight. Ha! Crazy dog. We have a lot of work to do with the contentment thing with this pup, but I've been amazed at how well he's doing with the house training--and that's the MOST important thing to us around here! I know you'll think I'm crazy, but he seems to be "doing his thing" on command nearly every time we go outside! Whoa! What a good, good puppy! :-) We're a long way from being DONE with the training (even though he goes outside, I don't think he knows he SHOULDN'T do it inside--I just never give him a chance to! Ha!), but he's sure been easy to work with these first few days.

Tonight is ABM service, then tomorrow is back to the same old grind: laundry, ironing, all that stuff. We're still hoping and praying for God to do whatever it takes for us to find His favor and land ourselves in Alabama where we belong very, very soon. It is soooooo my heart's desire to be there! I find myself struggling to really enjoy things here. It's weird... The other day I was standing in my little log cabin up in the mountains, next to a crackling fire in the fireplace, and watching snow flakes flit through the air outside... and I couldn't even feel excited about it! I should be bouncing off the walls with giddiness, right?! But I'm supposed to be in Alabama, wishing I could have a fire and snow and mountains and all that! Ha! It's a strange feeling. I am supposed to be in Alabama, yet there's nothing that I personally can do to change the situation, so surely God wants me to be content right where I am for as long as I'm stuck here... but it feels wrong to try to be content here when deep down I want and need to be there. It's confusing. I just keep praying for God to work whatever miracles He needs to work (in hearts, minds, lives, circumstances--WHATEVER) to get us to Alabama. I honestly don't know how to pray anymore, but the Holy Ghost knows how to pray for us when we don't know what to pray AND we're assured that God knows what are needs are before we even ask. Good thing, 'cuz I'm at a loss at this point. ;-)

It's 'bout time to head back to church. I need to round up the girls and get them looking decent, then go put poor Charlie back into his bathtub prison for a few more hours. Sundays are going to be long, hard, lonely days for that pup. He'll survive though--and maybe wear himself out so he'll sleep even better tonight than he did last night! Nah, probably not. ;-)

Sometimes It's Hard to Know What to Blog

Like right now. There are so many big things going on in my heart and mind right now, but nothing really to discuss. I will say that God has been good to me and I love feeling Him guiding, directing, and challenging me. I want to walk worthy of the vocation wherewith I am called... and a thousand other scriptures that have spoken to me this past week! Like, "REST in the Lord; WAIT PATIENTLY for him..." Waiting is so hard. And I keep reminding myself that God does not need my assistance to bring His will to pass. Sometimes we just need to wait and pray and trust. It's so much easier to DO something than to wait and trust! Ha! But God is helping me and I'm so thankful.

So aside from those sorts of things, the only other really NEW thing happening around here is Charlie. That's the name the puppy ended up with. I still think it would have been fun to name him Oh Henry and we could have called him Hank, but all three kids were in agreement about Charlie, so Charlie it is.

I knew a puppy would be a LOT of work... but I just don't remember Hershey being this much work! Ha! I am fully convinced that I got more sleep after having a new baby than I'm getting right now. In house training this pup, I watch him like a hawk all... day... long. Don't want to miss any signals, you know?! And due to my diligence and/or a puppy who is either very smart or just prefers to do that sort of thing out of doors naturally, we haven't had ANY accidents in the house since we got him home three days ago! Wa-Hoo!!! I say we didn't have any. There was one little puddle in the bathroom the first night after he'd been locked in there for several hours. Can hardly blame him for that one.

Ah, yes. Nighttime. Nighttime has not been fun around here! This is where the big difference comes in -- between Charlie and Hershey, that is. When James brought Hershey home we determined that he would spend his nights in the bathroom, bed in one corner, training mat in the other, until he was house trained. I remember telling James that first night, "He's going to whine and whimper and scream and cry and be soooooo pitiful--prepare yourself." And so on. I put Hershey to bed that first night, shut the door... and we never heard a peep out of him. Ever!!! Hershey, for all the ways he was very BAD (like running away--like the wind!), just NEVER cried. He was soooooo content and quiet. Well, Charlie isn't exactly like that. Ha! He was asleep in his bed that first night when I carried it into the bathroom at about 11:00. At midnight he woke up and started crying. And crying. And crying and crying and crying. Ha! James gave up after about 20 minutes and went to the den to try to sleep. (Are you imagining this?! When you think about it, it is CRAZY what people go through for the sake of a dog!) I lasted a bit longer and finally went to get my computer. I checked my e-mail and dinked around for a while, but Charlie was still going strong. Finally, at 2:00 in the morning I'm Googling, "my puppy cries all night" to see what should be done! Ha! The biggest thing I found was DON'T go get him! The last thing you want to do is reward his persistence. Ooooooookay. So???

I read all sorts of advice, but no need to share it all here. Let's just say I was rummaging through the shed at 3:00 in the morning in search of our port-a-crib! HA! Crazy. I found it, got it set up by my bed (this is getting more embarrassing all the time) and when the dog FINALLY stopped crying and had been quiet for several minutes, I went and got him out of the bathroom. Took him outside, then put his bed and pillow on one end of the crib and the pad on the other end. I think that was about 3:30. He was still extremely restless (first night away from mom has got to be tough) and woke up every 20 or 30 minutes until we got up at 7:00.

Last night he did MUCH better being next to our bed, but still woke up often during the night. I reached down and reassured him that he's not alone (this is so pitiful--I'm convincing Emilee that she will NEVER get a dog, I'm sure! Ha!) and he would settle down and go back to sleep--though I did take him outside twice when he was especially restless. Both outside ventures proved to be necessary.

So today I've been sooooooo tired. I took a little nap with Charlie on the couch this afternoon, but only for a few minutes. I intend to go to bed as soon as Charlie does tonight! Ha! And get this... my goal for tonight was to keep him awake for several hours before bed so he'd sleep longer tonight--just like people do with their babies! Ha! He was sooooo tired a little while ago and you can only torment him for so long, you know? So I decided to give him a bath to keep him awake--just like people do with babies, right?! Ha! It was quite traumatic for Charlie, I assure you. He wasn't happy with it at all, but when I turned the sprayer on to rinse him off (forgetting that the first water to come out would be very cold) he started screaming and flailing and never did quit. It was sad, but still funny. And I think he's going to be like Rusty, Mom. He holds a grudge. Ha! Hershey was happy ALWAYS, but Rusty held a grudge and could somehow even give you dirty looks. I think Charlie will be more like Rusty! He didn't handle the blow drier and brushing very well either. It's a rough life, being a dog. ;-)

He was cranky and cold for about 30 minutes after his bath, but then he was right back to being sooooo tired he couldn't keep his eyes open. ~sigh~ I finally decided to let him sleep for about 30 minutes, then I'll wake him up again. It's almost time. Then I've just got to keep him up until 10:00 and hope for the best! ~sigh~ This is soooooooo crazy.

Anyway, for all the trouble Charlie is, he's awfully cute. :-)

The whole family spends LOTS of time with him, but especially Katie. She spends most of her day either holding him or chasing him.
Here's Joe just after we brought him home on Wednesday. I love how HAPPY he looks here. When we went to look at the puppy Joe was almost depressed. He didn't want to look at any more dogs--"We're not going to GET one anyway." When we were at the lady's house and James whipped out his checkbook I asked the kids if they knew what their dad was doing. When I said he was writing the lady a check they all just stared at me in disbelieve for a few seconds, then they ALL started crying! They were sooooooooooo happy and excited! :-)
The kids fight over who gets to have the dog all the time. We sometimes set the timer and give them 10 minutes apiece. Ha! It was Sam's turn during school this morning.
Though he insists the dog doesn't belong to him ("I got him for you and the kids") and tries to act like he doesn't care about the dog at all and never will ("He's okay, I guess"), James is already suckered by him. He watches him and smiles a lot, and laughs at his puppy antics. I think James was shocked to discover how much he ended up liking Hershey and figures he'll probably end up feeling the same way about this dog.
And HOW COULD YOU NOT LOVE THIS GUY??? Even if he does keep you up all night. ;-) And here are a couple of pictures of bath time...

How sad. A whole post about a dog. I'll do better next time, I hope. Unfortunately, the dog has been pretty much consuming my life and is all I really have to talk about right now!

Oh, yeah! Here's some good news. I got my glasses today! Wa-Hoo! What a relief! We'd been home from our Alabama trip a few days when I noticed that I couldn't find my glasses anywhere and couldn't remember the last time I'd had them. Long story short, the Baymont Inn in Longview, Texas is very accommodating. :-) I thanked them soooooo much that they were so helpful and willing to assist an idiot who left her glasses in a room there. The lady assured me that they have a great Idiot Recovery Program. I was a little offended that she agreed with the idiot thing so easily (ha!), but so thankful! The glasses finally arrived today and I didn't even have to pay for them--they paid for the shipping and all. Nice. :-)

Okay, that's it. A long post about a DOG--who just woke up! Wa-Hoo! Time to take him outside and then keep him awake for a couple more hours. Wish me luck. I really need some sleep! Pitiful. ;-)

Don't Got No Ice Cream

That's right, folks:

Don't got no ice cream, no cookies, no strudel,
Don't got no ice cream, no cookies, no strudel,
But I'm yodel-aye-yodel-aye-yodel-aye-happy-hoo...


JUST HERE WITH MY POODLE!!!

That's right, WE'RE NUTS! But crazy people are often happy. :-)

This is the newest member of our family. No name yet. Right now the most votes are for either Hank (since I'll never be able to name a son Hank--ha!) or Charlie. We'll discuss some other options, I'm sure, before settling on a name. For now I'm spending my time scouring the Internet in search of what in the world you're supposed to do with a puppy!!! It's been several years since I've done this and I have no clue. It's kind of like somebody dumped a baby on my doorstep and I have no idea how to take care of it! Ha! Part of me keeps saying this is really, really bad timing. But then I think of when James brought Hershey home to me. I had two kids in diapers, I was pregnant with #3, AND we were about to move. So in comparison, this should be a cake walk, right??? I think Hershey was about 8 weeks old when we got him--the same age this little guy is. We can handle this, right??? He is sooooooooo cute! Even James keeps looking at him and smiling or giggling. :-) He's what they call dark apricot and has a little tuft of white on his chest. Our biggest problem is keeping three children from fighting over him. I guess I'll just have to keep him in my lap all the time to keep him safe. ;-)

The Weekend

There's a thrilling title. About as thrilling as our weekend, probably. :-)

After we put the kids to bed on Friday night I met up with Mandie for a 9:00 game night. Of course, she's in Montana and I'm in New Mexico, so that makes it a bit tricky. ;-) We played Rummikub online and it was great!!! We met up with very little problem, but I forgot to "lock" the game and after a while Lam Lam from Hong Kong (seriously--I didn't make that up) joined us. Nothing against Lam Lam, but we were wanting to play with... well, just us, you know?! So then ensued a great deal of confusion and a serious game of hide and seek all through the Rummikub game rooms until we met up again. At which point Caleb joined us. He was away on business, I understand, and so had nothing better to do than crash his wife's online game night. Ha! It was fun playing with the two of them. Except that Caleb is a creep and keeps slobbing up the board. Mandie and I are both very particular about what belongs where (I LOVE playing with her!) and he would jumble it all up just for the fun of it. He's not invited next time. ;-)

I'm ashamed to admit that we were playing Rummikub (and searching for each other so we COULD play) way, way, way too late. It was great fun and a very rare occurrence so I don't feel guilty about it--but I sure was feeling the lack of sleep the next day! We got up and got the house all cleaned up and show worthy (~sigh~) and headed into town at about 9:00 Saturday morning. James was wanting to hit some of the sales he'd seen advertised. I really think it's just his excuse to hear Christmas music. I won't let him play it here at the house until after Thanksgiving, but he knows that all of the stores are playing it so... ;-)

We headed up to the Cottonwood mall at the far end of town. It's so much nicer and everything you could possibly dream of is in that mall and the surrounding shopping areas. Like Krispy Kreme. :-) We started our day with a scrumptious doughnut hot off the rack and just through the wondrous waterfall of icing. Mmmmmmmm. From there we headed to the mall. James found a few shirts and a pair of shoes at Penney's, enabling him to redeem the 20% off coupon he was determined to get good use out of. I think he found a shirt for Sam there, too. It's strange to me. It's been a very long time since I've shopped at any REAL stores. I mean, I've looked here and there, but not actually SHOPPED at places like that because the thrift store had been supplying nearly all of our clothing needs for so long. But now that they're charging crazy prices we're back at the real stores again and it feels weird! Anyway... Sam's tennis shoes were falling apart so we went into Payless to look for a replacement pair. We left with a pair for him and a pair for Joe. Total: $10.11. Gotta love that. :-) We also stocked up on hand soap from Bath & Body works. We were down to our last bottle and they were running a really good sale. Perfect.

When we left the mall I ran into Sam's club to grab new school books for Sam since he's on the brink of completing his current book. Afterwards we were driving down some road that we rarely drive down (I can't even remember which one) and James decided to stop by a dog shelter we'd never been to before. We'd all but given up looking at dogs a few months ago--figured it would just be best to wait until we get moved and settled before considering that sort of thing. But somehow yesterday turned into a thinking-about-getting-a-dog day! Crazy. They had a white poodle there named Luther or something like that. We talked with the people who ran the shelter for a while and really, really liked the way they do things. They are set up sooooo much better than the city shelter, take really good care of their dogs, and have extremely reasonable fees to adopt them. After a while they finally talked us into "visiting" Luther and locked us all into a little cubical with him. We knew ahead of time that we really weren't going to actually adopt him (it would have to be the PERFECT dog for us to actually take one home with us at this point in time), but the shelter people said it's good for the dogs anyway to have some time to interact with people that way. So we just hung out with him for a while to give him some people time... and to give me some dog time. :-) He was a sweet fellow and very lovable, but didn't have as much personality as what we're used to. I'm sure he won't have any trouble finding a good home though. That makes me happy.

From there we actually drove down to the south side of town where the main branch of this dog shelter was located. Looked through all of their dogs and almost asked to see a couple of little terriers. They were obviously brothers and they were the happiest, most hyper (a little too hyper) little fellows in the world--with the fastest tongues west of the Mississippi. But as we were petting them through the cage Joe started to cry and just couldn't stop. I finally got down to the root. He soooooo wants us to get a dog, but he couldn't bare the thought of us (or anyone) adopting one of those dogs and leaving the other one there all alone. The idea of separating the two of them was just killing him. "If Sam and I were in a slave camp and somebody came and bought Sam..." and then he just shakes his head and starts crying. Sweet, sensitive Joe. He thinks and feels a lot like his Mom, I'm afraid. I had already decided that if we did get one of those dogs we would simply have to take both. Ha! Not sure how that would go over with James. ;-) It didn't feel like the right day or the right dogs, so we came on home.

It was about 5:00 by the time we got home last night and I was sooooo tired. The late night games with Mandie and the long day in town had done me in! I made myself stay up until a reasonable hour for bed because I knew a nap at 5:00 or 6:00 would be bad news. I was so excited about the time change last night! Perfect timing. :-) We pulled out a video called The Pineapple Story and watched it as part of our devotions before putting the kids to bed. It's the testimony of a man who was a missionary to a bunch of thieving natives somewhere off the coast of Australia for many years. It's really the story of learning to give your rights and possessions to God. It's so, so good. I feel like God speaks to be about something different each time I see it--once every two or three years. :-)

This morning we had a good Sunday School class on covetousness, though nobody in our church can pronounce it. Ha! I think we had three or four different variations--it was great. :-) After church we all went over to the motel where the Clarksons are staying (they are still houseless--please pray for God to open doors for them to find a home!!!) and Brother Chris baptized Karen in the pool there. :-) Afterward, we went and had lunch at The Crusty Chili. It's a little burger joint that has really cheap food (burgers, hot dogs and--what we go for--tortilla burgers) and is known for it's chili, red and green. It's actually called Burgers & More, but Sister Shanda hates it and thinks it's nasty and has dubbed it The Crusty Chili. Ha! We all really like it. James loves the chili, though I'm not sure he should be allowed to have it. Their green chili is super, super hot. James ate way too much of it today and his mouth was on fire and his tongue was totally numb... That was his excuse, anyway, when he took a drink of soda and then drooled all over himself! Ha! He insists that it's worth it, but after seeing that little display I'm not so sure. ;-)

We came home this afternoon and I took a nap (the extra hour of sleep last night just wasn't enough, apparently!) and I think I've finally recovered from my late night games with Mandie. ;-) Went back into town for Sister Bailey's WMB service, then ran to Radio Shack to pick up a cable James needed. The kids thought it was terrific in there--so many cool remote controlled cars and other nifty toys. Another stop or two just for fun, then it was home at last.

The end. :-)

Behind Again

Story of my life, right? My blog is named so appropriately. ;-)

Lucky for you, I've been taking notes all week. Wait... perhaps it's unlucky for you. Ha!

Monday night Haley called and talked my ear off for over two hours!!! Can you imagine?! Okay, so I did some of the talking, too, and it was one of those conversations I really, really needed. I've got a whole bunch of stuff jumbled up in my heart and mind that I've been trying to work through and Haley had so many good things to share, most of which came from her class at Ladies' Retreat. I felt truly blessed and encouraged when we finally hung up. Thank the Lord for good friends! He knows just what we need, when we need it. :-)

The kids finished school really early on Tuesday and it's a good thing since we ended up having to go to town. We finally got a check from our insurance company (to repair all of the hail damage) and it had to be endorsed by James, by me, AND by Bank of America (they carry our mortgage). After numerous phone calls on James' part we finally ended up in town at BoA so James could walk the teller through the process and we would actually be able to deposit the check at our own bank. What a mess. After we got that taken care of we grabbed lunch at Taco Bell (love feeding our family for $12) and then ran to the thrift store. Mom got Katie an adorable skirt a couple of months ago, but she can't wear it because she has no shirt to match. I've been looking and looking, but to no avail--and I was shocked and offended at the thrift store prices this time! It was CRAZY! We've done tons of shopping there the past three years, but they've suddenly upped everything considerably. No, thank you. These are USED clothes, you know.

James made baked spaghetti for dinner that night. :-) After the kids went to bed I spent the rest of the evening reading The Hiding Place, the story of Corrie ten Boom. I'd heard the name for years, but never knew who she was. She and her family helped hundreds of Jews find safe hiding places during the Nazi invasion of Holland. They were finally captured and arrested, then hauled off to concentration camps, and then the dreaded extermination camp in Germany. It is an AMAZING story and I was truly blessed by the faith and courage and LOVE displayed by Corrie and especially by her older sister, Betsie. It makes you stunningly aware of how easy we have things (we don't have a CLUE what suffering is) and so very grateful--makes you want to never complain about anything again because we simply have no right to! And it lifts your faith to see the miracles that God worked even in the midst of such terror. It challenges you to get your priorities straight and begin to see the value of souls and lives and serve God wholeheartedly, come what may. Highly recommended.

The only thing out of the ordinary on Wedensday is that I took a walk with the kids. Sad that that's out of the ordinary, isn't it? Ha! Sad, but true. We all really enjoyed it, though I must say that some of the hills around here are not very kind. I'd probably look and feel a whole lot better if I'd climb them every day instead of once every month or two!

That afternoon I finally had all I could take. I plugged in the clippers, pulled up a stool, and hollered for the boys. I hate them in buzz cuts, but they're not patient enough for me to take the time to cut their hair with scissors (I'm not very good--it takes me forever!) and I just couldn't handle them being all shaggy anymore. So bbbbbbzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Got that taken care of.

That night Katie made tuna casserole for dinner. I was in the den and she yelled, "Mom, we don't have enough salt!" It took a minute for it to sink in. "What???" I went into the kitchen about the time she realized that the recipe called for a TEASPOON and a half of salt, not a CUP and a half. HA! She had a cup and a half of salt measured out into a bowl and ready to go. Wowzers, I can only imagine! Luckily she hadn't added it to anything else--it was still just salt. I was able to funnel it back into the container for future use. Crazy kid. She does pretty good for a 9 year old, but has a serious rushing-ahead problem (in every area of her life) and often fails to slow down and THINK about what she's doing. Or in this case, read the directions. Then she gets all flustered and thinks she's terrible at everything. "I can't cook! I'll never be able to cook, Mom!" It doesn't help matters when Sam chimes in with, "Yeah, she burnt the eggs this morning, too." Ha! But in the end we had a delicious casserole, thanks to Miss Rue. She's doing great. :-)

That night I decided to put off the pile of ironing that's been sitting there for days. What's one more night. I stayed up and finished my book instead. :-)

Yesterday we had another early school day so we could head to town. We left early in the afternoon and stopped by the Post Office and the cleaners, then went to the mall for the first time in forever. But since the thrift store has started charging department store prices... We found two shirts for Katie and a pair of jeans for each boy--brand new jeans for $4.88 at Penney's. Take that, thrift store. I'd rather pay that price for brand new ones that used ones. :-) Then we were off to Wal-Mart to grab a few groceries, then Sam's club to pick up cupcakes to share with the church folks in honor or Sam's birthday. We love any excuse to fellowship, you know. ;-) Sam opted out of the cupcakes and chose a huge tray of brownies instead. They were cheaper anyway, so we were cool with that.

By the time we finished at Sam's Club it was time for church. It was BTI service and Brother Chris taught all about the finances of the church and where they come from and where they go and all that stuff--with charts and diagrams of all kinds. James loved it and had plenty of input. I finally jabbed him and said, "If Brother Chris asks if there are any comments... YOU DON'T HAVE ANY MORE!" Ha! Not everybody finds the financial structure of the Church as riveting as James does. ;-)

After church we meandered to the back room to sing to Sam and enjoy his birthday brownies. It was great to hang out with the Clarksons for a while.

This morning we got up and Sam helped me bake his cake. He had requested chocolate cake (been ages since I've used that party cake recipe!) with orange frosting, so we made some vanilla butter cream frosting and dyed it as far away from pink and peach as we could without making ourselves sick on food coloring. ;-) Then we did school, after which we realized we had somehow forgotten our morning devotions! How did THAT happen?! So we had devotions, then it was about time for lunch. Sam had offered to make Sam his birthday breakfast (eggs), but Sam's not much of a breakfast guy so I ended up eating his eggs for him. Joe made his birthday lunch: Ramen. Enough for the whole family, in fact. I love having kids who can fend for themselves a little bit. Especially when they're generous with their efforts. :-) Here's the crowd, enjoying Joe's specialty...


Sam scarfed his noodles down because he was so anxious to get into the PARTY thing. He had begged to do cake and presents after lunch instead of waiting until after dinner.
Here he is with his first gift from his Mom & Dad...
And his second gift
And the gift from Grandma Vicki
Joe had rummaged through his things to find something that he thought Sam would really and truly enjoy and appreciate. He have him his microscope and a pot holder Joe had made a few weeks ago. Knowing Sam, he'll probably find some ve-e-e-e-ery interesting use for the pot holder that has nothing to do with pots. Or even pot, Brother Dustin. ;-)
Joe wrote out a little card/note, too. Katie never could figure out what to give Sam, so she made him a card. I don't think I ever saw it though.
Here's the birthday boy, making use of his most action oriented present.
We bought a package of caps, too, Mom. He and Joe have spent all afternoon chasing each other all over the mountain just banging away. The pack came with 2400 caps. After shooting several hundred and then discovering that a few rolls had fallen out of their pockets somewhere, I think they're down to less than half of that amount! Ha! I won't be sorry when they run out. ;-)

I had Katie take a picture of me with Sam. I have far too few pictures of me with my kids. It breaks my heart to think that the days of Cowboy Sam will be coming to an end sometime in the not-too-far future. I've always loved cowboys. :-)

I don't know why, but this birthday has struck me very strange. I CAN'T BELIEVE my youngest is SEVEN YEARS OLD!!! That just doesn't seem possible. It's crazy how old people always tell you when you're young that the time just flies faster and faster the older you get. You always think, "Yeah, I know." But you don't really know! All of my kids are half grown. In a few months Katie will be half way to 20! It's all just so wrong!!! In some ways, I LOVE seeing them all grow up and turn into real people (ha!) and develop mentally and grow in the Lord and so many other things. But there's this other part of me that already so misses having little ones! We watched home videos a few weeks ago of when they were all 2 or 3 or 4 years old. They were sooooo cute and sooooo much fun! They still are, of course, but I still somehow miss that special age that just FLEW by. How did they all pass it up so quickly?! ~sigh~ No fair. ;-)

Sam has been playing with his new Legos and robot along with his cap guns, and now James has taken him to pick out a kid movie that we can watch tonight. The kids have been seeing Toy Story 3 stuff all over the place, but I refuse to let them watch it because we've never seen Toy Story 2. You can't watch #3 until you've seen #2--it's just wrong! We'll see what James and Sam come up with.

That's about it from around here. Still praying and trusting God to help us out with all of the "got to get to Alabama" stuff. Got good news about Karla yesterday, though! She is finally starting to wake up and from every initial indication, she seems to be perfectly coherent (no brain damage) which is the most important thing--it means her daddy can talk to her about her soul. :-) Please continue to pray for her healing, but most of all that if she hasn't already given her heart to the Lord that she'll do that. God has been so good and so merciful in this situation. What a wonderful God we serve that hears the cries of His people and answers their prayers just because He loves them! We are so blessed. :-)

Alabama Trip, Part 3

We left the hospital at about noon on Monday, headed back to Cleveland, loaded up all of our stuff, three children, and my mother (though technically she loaded me up--Katie and I rode with her), and headed back to Bessemer. Mom spent the next few days with us in the fifth-wheel since Dad had hauled their camper back home on Saturday due to the change of plans.

We spent all day Tuesday with our realtor down there, Laura, looking at houses that we had asked to see. Twelve of them, I think. We really, really, really liked one in particular. We called all of the others by their street name, but simply called this one "the yellow house." I think it was the third one we saw, but it remained our favorite throughout our search.

When we got back to the trailer that night there was a note on the door from the Ridlespurges telling us to go into the church--there was some barbeque and a jug of sweet tea waiting for us. How thoughtful!!! We called and invited them over for dinner (ha!), but they couldn't come because they were meeting with somebody in need that night in an attempt to minister to him. What wonderful people they are. HE is a little nutty. ;-) I like 'im a lot. We're really impressed with the whole family--and everybody else we've met down there so far. Anyway, we enjoyed our dinner, then called it a night. After a game of I Buy. :-)

We only had two houses to look at on Wednesday, down in the Pelham area. It's not all that far, really... but the Interstate convinced us we just didn't want to make that drive to go to church all the time. After seeing those two, Laura arranged for us to go see The Yellow House we'd fallen in love with the day before. We wanted to look at it one more time, just to make sure. That's when we found out that somebody else had just put an offer on it a few minutes before! CRAZY! We went ahead and looked at it anyway, not knowing if the offer would be accepted or not. It was sad looking at it this time, knowing it was most likely going to sell before we had a chance at it. And it did. Of course, it hasn't actually closed yet and anything could happen, but the people did accept the offer. So unless something strange happens, we'll have to find something else. To be perfectly honest, we loved the setting more than we loved the house. It wasn't too far from the church (about 15 minutes), in a nice, quiet area, not too close to the road, with 2 acres, and a beautiful, very, very private back yard with flat grassy areas and nice treed areas and a purty little split rail fence around the whole thing--they PERFECT yard for the kids and poodle. When we get a poodle. ;-) And everything about the house would work--the right amount of rooms and spaces, without being huge and oversized. Here it is:



But oh, well! I've decided that I can sell houses. All I have to do is decide which one I want and it's going to sell immediately--to somebody else! Ha! The first house we fell in love with (right after the Assembly) had been on the market for over two years. I decided it's the one I wanted and *wham-o* it sold. This one had been listed for 7 months. The very day that I decide it's "the one" *wham-o* it gets an offer. Crazy! Come to think of it, both houses were yellow. Maybe we ought to try for another color... ;-) Frankly, I think we just need to wait until we get THIS house sold.

Which is another story. Too long and too much of a drudgery to repeat. In the end, we still have no contract in sight. I began to wonder a few days ago if it's a hitch with US. You know, like maybe there's something we haven't surrendered or something God is wanting to teach us that we haven't learned yet. I've wondered it off and on for a few weeks now, but I'm wondering it a lot more strongly now! More than praying for the house to sell I've been praying that God would accomplish His purposes IN US through this. I feel like perhaps when He is able to do THAT the sale of the house will follow in quick order. Who knows?! I just want to be surrendered to Him, His will, His ways, His time--and learn gracefully all that He is desiring to teach us through this. But for the sake of our family and of all of Alabama, I am truly hoping we learn whatever we need to learn very, very quickly! Do keep us in your prayers.

We went to our home church for the first time on Wednesday night. It was Brother Powell's BTI service and he taught a great lesson about what "Let the Church be the Church" really means. There were three visitors that night. :-) After service we visited with some of the good folks there for quite a while and enjoyed it so much. Up until this point we have known by faith that we would be happy in Alabama. Now we know it by the little titch of experience we've had there. :-)

Thursday morning Mom headed to Anniston to spend a night with Sister Bishop and we headed west again. We were able to make it all the way into Texas, which was great since we got a bit of a late start that day.

The next evening we made it to Andrews, just in time for stew and cornbread at Aunt Sue's house. :-) Sue had been watching Jeremiah while Sam was at work and Tammy was at Ladies' Retreat (I don't want to talk about it!!!), so Sam came over after a while to pick up "the boy." He stayed and played I Buy with Aunt Sue and James and I before he left. It was great. :-)

Friday was such a nice, leisurely day. We were tired after the long trip and lack of sleep throughout the past week and it was great to have a day to just do nothing. We visited with Aunt Sue and Uncle Jerry for most of the morning, then Sue hopped in with us and we dinked around town for a while. We drove by our old house, then stopped by Cassidy's for lunch. We went to Sue's store and I stocked up on candles and more Blossom Bucket--I am SUCH a sucker for those little clay things. We took the kids to the park for a little while, then headed back to the house for a much needed nap. Unfortunately, it was not to be. Uncle Jerry wanted to take the kids to ride in the golf cart and James insisted that we ALL go along. We all went out to the golf course for an hour or so. Uncle Jerry let the kids take turns driving the cart all over the place and then trying to hit some balls. Aunt Sue and James and I just sat on a log and talked while we watched them.

When we got back to the house it was too late for a nap. BUMMER. We let the kids watch a couple episodes of Gunsmoke, then it was time for tacos for dinner. After a while Brother Sam showed up again (he'd been invited for dinner, but was an hour or two late--surprise! Ha!), so we got in another game of I Buy before bed. :-)

Sunday morning we headed out pretty early and hadn't gone too far when we got a call from my cousin Stacey saying that Uncle Jerry--while we were spending the night at his house the night before--had had another heart attack. He didn't tell anybody because he didn't want everybody trying to gather around him and pray and all that stuff. He's so cold and hard toward the Lord--so much bitterness in his heart. I guess the heart attack lasted for an hour and a half or something like that. He looked terrible that morning we he told us goodbye, but we just thought it was the lingering of the headache he'd had the night before. Please, please, please pray for him, that God will somehow soften his heart and help him to surrender his life to the Lord. He's a wonderful man and we all love him dearly, but he's so lost in pride and stubbornness and bitterness. He desperately needs to be saved--and his health keeps reminding us all (and surely himself, as well) of how soon and how quickly he could enter into eternity.

We set off that morning on our last section of the journey... and the longest one ever. This whole trip seemed long and hard to us. We are used to traveling and usually don't think anything of it, but we had a hard time this go around! I think it's because it's not according to our schedule. Usually this time of the year we drive 5 hours to Colorado for Ladies' Retreat (I'm not talking about it!), then maybe an hour or two to a church and then another, then 6 or 7 hours back home. So the 20+ hour trip (each direction), plus the added driving to Knoxville and back, is more than what we're used to--and not very long after the big Assembly trip. And that stretch of highway from Roswell up to Clines Corners is the longest, flattest, ugliest, slowest stretch of highway ever invented. It's TERRIBLE!!! We actually stopped in Vaughn for lunch because we couldn't take any more. Who knew there was even anything to stop at in Vaughn?! Vaughn is one of two little itty-bitty, junked up, run down, used-to-be towns in the 2 or 3 hours between Roswell and Clines Corners. But they actually had a really neat little diner sitting back off the road a ways and we so enjoyed watching the dude make all of our meals--which varied greatly--right in front of us: some sort of Mexican steak dish for James, a burger and fries for me, a taco, rice and beans for Katie, oatmeal and toast for Joe, and bacon, eggs, and toast for Sam. One guy did all of the cooking on three griddle areas within about a 6' stretch and he was AMAZING. Neat-o.

We made it home at 2:00 in the afternoon and discovered shingles and skylight pieces all over the yard. Apparently we had a major windstorm while we were away and our already torn up roof (from the hail last time) just got blown to smithereens. The boys busied themselves cleaning that up while Katie helped me unload the van and then she vacuumed it out. I got everything unpacked and put away, then separated and started the first of 6 loads of laundry before we left for church that night. Last night, I guess it was. Wow--it feels like longer ago than that! Ha! It was so good to be back in service here, which throws everything for a loop inside of me again. Ha! I get my heart set on Alabama and am so excited to be going there and anxious to get there and all that... then I get with the people out here and my heart breaks all over again to be leaving them! It wears you out, you know?! Anyway, it was good to be back in service and visit with Brother Chris for a while afterwards because Sister Shanda wasn't yet home from Ladies' Retreat--but I'm not talking about it!!!

Okay, I'm talking about it. It KILLED me to miss Ladies' Retreat!!! Even now the tears are coming back! Aaaaaauuuuugggghhhhh!!! I hate this!!! I had known for a while that I wasn't going to be able to be there and I was sad about it, but coping okay. Then Tammy called on Friday while she was with Emilee ON THEIR WAY to pick up Jamey and Karen and head up to Retreat, and I just lost it. And I think I've cried every time the subject has come up since then! Is that pitiful, or what?! It's just SO HARD to have missed out on everything--the girls, the classes, the services, the away-from-everything time, the games, the laughs, the craziness, just EVERYTHING. I've heard little blips about how great it was, though no details yet (patiently waiting here), and I'm sooooo glad. Every time I thought of the Retreat I would pray that everybody would have a FANTASTIC time and a GLORIOUS Retreat and that the services and speakers would be anointed and all of that stuff. Then I'd envy them all. Ha! Sad, but true. I've been way, way too emotional about it. But then, rumor has it it was an emotional weekend for Brother Dustin, too, though for different reasons. He's all mushy and gushy and feeling emotional like a woman and all sorts of sorry stuff. When I start feeling ashamed about how pitiful I am I just think of him and then I feel so much better about my own condition. At least I AM a woman. ;-)

Today I got the rest of the laundry done, got the kids back into school, got the house cleaned up, and fixed a nice homemade dinner of fried chicken. It was GREAT. I'm sooooo tired of eating out!!! ~sigh~ It's good to be home. I just wish home was in Alabama. Sometimes. Other times I still can't bear to leave here. I'm so confused. ;-)

And that's about it from here. I think that gets me all caught up. As a reminder of the important parts, please pray for:

Karla's salvation, as well as her physical recovery -- and her family; they need strength and grace to hold up through all of this

Uncle Jerry's soul and health

Our family's need to get to Alabama--that God will accomplish His purposes in us and sell our house and help us find a new one in Alabama--and not let it sell to anybody else! Ha!