What... Again?!

How has it already been 5 days since I blogged???

I remember Saturday well because it was such a grand and glorious day. :-) The snow from Thursday and Friday was just soooooooo pretty! We spent most of the morning trying to dig our way out of the yard so we’d be able to make it to church the next morning. It felt great to do some shoveling! I’m sure I would tire of it quickly if I had to do it all the time, but it had been years and I thoroughly enjoyed it—the work, the feel and smell of the snow-air, the memories of doing it as a kid… It was great! And we were able to get the van out. :-)

The weather that day was GORGEOUS. Bright blue skies and lots of sunshine. It was cool, but comfortable--the perfect day for playing in the snow. :-)

I was loving all the icicles, especially the ones hanging from the trees.

James went to run some errands and when he got home he had an inner tube with him! WA-HOO!!! I went out with the kids for a couple of hours and worked on getting a good tubing hill going in the yard. The first route was great, except I couldn’t get the track to curve away from the big wooden leg of the play fort at the bottom. It was only a matter of time before somebody was going to plow into it head first at full speed, so I started another track. This one was better anyway… but it ended directly into one of the metal legs to the trampoline! Ha! We have enough yard to make a good kiddy slope, but there always seems to be a stationary blunt object awaiting them at the bottom. And it always amazes me how kids have no concept of bailing out. I don’t remember having to be told to bail out before running into a post, fence, building, etc. when I was a kid. After some coaching the kids finally started working on it, but were usually too late. Oh well. We had some serious fun and no serious injuries (Katie might argue that), so it was all good! Anyway, here are lots and lots of pictures of all the fun!!!

This was one of Joe's first runs--Katie giving him a push.

Didn't turn out so well. Joe is a lot better at biffing it than he is staying on the tube! Ha!



Katie's first run. Ha! Looks more like the tube stole her hat and gloves and went down solo. Maybe she was going on faith, not wanting to see what she might crash into at the bottom?!
She got the hang of it after a while...


...but had real problems going down straight--she couldn't seem to keep from spinning. :-)


You can tell by Joe's clothes that he had already crashed several times--and was obviously about to do it again.

But look! He actually did stay on a few times!

We talked James into joining us for a couple of runs, too. :-)

Sam wasn't all that interested in getting in on the action, so I had him get on my back and hold on for dear life while I jumped on the tube...

That was all it took--he was hooked. (I love this picture!!!)


After watching Sam go down with me the kids decided maybe it would be fun to ride double. Of course, the first time they sat down together, then wondered how to get started. Ha!


Finally figured it out

The boys cruising down the hill


And after having rammed into the leg of the trampoline. It's directly behind Joe... wrapped in an old, cushy comforter by that time since it had become apparent that if anybody actually made it to the bottom of the hill they were going to hit the metal post. Ha!


As you can see, Saturday was one of the best days of our lives. :-) LOVED EVERY MINUTE OF IT! I must say, however... I was sooooooooooo sore on Sunday after helping shovel and all of the playing. It was worth it, of course, but my back and legs sure let me know about. How sad. Oh, well. "It is fun to get old!"

We had good services on Sunday. I cried throughout the whole Sunday School lesson on the rich man and Lazarus and the torments of hell, thinking about a certain backslidden friend who I’d just come back into contact with. Shed lots of tears and prayed lots of prayers for him throughout the day.

I wasn’t tired on Sunday afternoon, so I opted out of my usual nap. By service time that night I was really regretting that decision! Due to some last minute rescheduling it ended up being just a business conference instead of a regular service and, boy, did I have a hard time keep my eyes open. ~whew~

Monday was the big house cleaning day. This is week three of my “clean the house up on Monday” attempt and I have yet to actually get it all done on Monday. That’s okay—it’s still a good goal and I feel like I’m staying on top of things so much better this way. The only “chore” left now is the ironing. I’m sitting here looking at it… and deciding to blog instead. Ha!

Yesterday was library day. The kids were THRILLED to get their own library cards for the very first time. I’ve always just checked everything out on my own card, but due to some confusion with the account last week we decided (at the urging of the library guy) it was time to use separate cards. It gets confusing when you have 40 or 50 books on one card and something goes wrong, you know?! The kids got their usual piles of books and I picked up a few for myself. So far I’ve set aside two of the books I’d checked out. The first one had a bad word in it (“Christian” fiction—can you believe that?! I was furious!), so it got set aside after about 10 pages. I’m about three chapters into the second book and it’s okay, but I’m having a hard time really getting interested in it. I really like the super suspenseful stuff and this doesn’t have the edge-of-your-seat inducing quality about it. Not sure if I’m going to try to stick with it or just move on to the next book. Maybe I’ll give it another chapter or two to capture my attention.

After the library we went into town to the thrift store. We haven’t been there in a long, long time—probably because we haven’t really needed anything. I wanted to go look for suits for the boys though. They grow out of them so fast and I LOVE being able to buy them for $3 to $10 at this place. They didn’t have anything that would work this time, but we did get a nice, long black skirt for Miss Rue. :-)

We made another stop or two before heading back to the mountains, so we didn’t get home until about 3:30, I think. That meant late afternoon school for the kids, but they didn’t have any problem with it and finished up with enough time to do some more reading before bed.

Today it started snowing again!!! Wa-Hoo!!! We’re having WINTER this year and I couldn’t be happier. :-) Katie and Sam spent several hours outside today. Joe goes out to play, but is always back in before too awful long. The inner tube has been a big hit and they’re having a blast out there. Of course, most of their time today was spent making snow bricks in Tupperware and building forts with them. Oh, the glories of being a kid in the wintertime!


I finally took it upon myself to do some mending today. I’ve had a few things sitting there for MONTHS and I finally decided today was the day. A dress somebody had given us for Katie years ago (when it was way too big) just needed the buttons replaced (it had big, gaudy pearl looking ones, originally), so I dumped out my button jars and found four buttons that actually matched one other and the dress. I did the first button, showing Katie what to do, then let her do the other three. It felt great to finally have that done… only for her to try it on and discover the dress is too small now! Ha! That’s just sad. I told her she could wear it Sunday anyway after all her hard work, then we’ll pass the dress on to Abbie. (Em, you may want to straighten the buttons a little bit when you get it—it was Katie’s first time! Ha!)

Katie has been doing some cooking lately; beef strognoff one night and tuna casserole another night. Tonight I cooked oven fried chicken and company chicken (it was a huge pack—cooked half one way, half the other) with mashed potatoes and some FANTASTIC gravy (big accomplishment for me!), corn, and biscuits. Katie made dump cake for dessert and it was sooooo good hot from the oven, but I was too full to do any more than just sample the it. Maybe in a little while. :-)

Right now I’m listening to Katie’s music coming from one end of the house and Sam’s snoring from the other. That kid is a GREAT snorer. I can’t imagine what he’ll sound like when he’s a grown man! Got some things to do tonight (the ironing??? Nah, probably not!), so that’s it from here. But first, another few pictures of today's snow. :-) I love snow best of all when it lays heavy on the pine trees like this...

Sister Susie Sittin' on a Thistle

Ah, yes! I forgot when I wrote up that post below (which you simply MUST go look at, if only to see pictures of the SNOW!!!!!) to post a picture of Joe and his new DOUBLE gap.


Yep, he yanked the other tooth out last night. I don't know what's come over him (it wasn't very loose, but he just works and works and works until he can yank it out!), I just know we're going to have to put a stop to it or he's only going to be able to eat mush by next week! Hey, that reminds me...

He made up a joke yesterday and it was actually good.

"Hey, Mom... What do cannibals eat if they don't have a fire? Give up? Ramen. RAW MEN? Ramen? Get it???" Ha! James and I actually laughed (a first?!) and Joe didn't end up on another joke ban (also a first?), so he was quite pleased. I even let him call the General Overseer at HQ to tell him his joke. ;-) Of course, I got on the phone afterwards and asked Dad if he knew what Ramen is. "Uh... not really..." Ha! Oh, well--it was a good joke anyway!

Today we've been tormenting Joe and trying to get him to say as many words and phrases with "s" and "th" in them as we can think up. It's quite entertaining, especially considering the head start he already had with his previous lisp. :-) His new teeth are already coming in and it shouldn't take too awful long for them to fill that big gap, but for now I'm really enjoying this!

SNOW! SNOW! SNOW! SNOW! SNOW!

This is THE BEST snowfall I've been in many years (excluding, of course, Ladies' Retreat in Colorado... and being stranding on the WAY to Ladies' Retreat in Colorado a few years ago--that was a good snow, hu, Tammy?!) and I'M SO HAPPY!!!!! Oh, the wonder of it all! ~sigh~ I can't imagine a day much more BEAUTIFUL than this one. :-) :-) :-) :-) :-)

Believe it or not, I actually gave the kids the day off from school. We'll make up for it on Saturday, but it just seemed wrong to not take full advantage of the miraculous SNOW! The kids spent quite a while out playing in it today, giving me some wonderful all alone time. :-) Then I made a chocolate cake and it was about time for lunch. Left-over spaghetti from last night and some elk stew from the other day.

The snow was still coming down and looking oh-so pretty.

After lunch I decided it was time to whip up something that might go really great with our chocolate cake. Here are the makings of a truly delectable dessert...
That's right--SNOW CREAM!!! Wa-Hoo!!! (Sam's has a chocolate syrup smiley face with a cinnamon mustache, in case you were wondering...)
I went out and played with the kids for a while this afternoon. Oh, what I wouldn't give for an inner tube!!! It would have been sooooo perfect. The snow was too powdery for snowballs or building anything, but it would have been just right for tubing. We'll have to be better prepared next time! Still, it was SO gorgeous.

Out the front window...
The back window...
And the boys' window, down toward the gate...
It's really tough to get a good picture of our house because of how it sits on the hill... But doesn't it just look like the best little place in the whole wide world a person could be on a snowy day???

At about 4:00 this afternoon I went out to measure just how glorious it really was...
DO YOU SEE THAT?!?!? Nine and 3/4 inches!!!! WA-HOOOOOOOOO! I can't even remember last time I've had a snow like that in a place I actually lived. IT'S SO AMAZING!!!! And as far as I know, it never has quit snowing. Maybe we'll have a full foot by morning!!!! ~gasp!~ Can you imagine how fantastical that would be?! Oh, be still my heart!!! :-)

I took Sam with me and we walked down to get the mail. We already knew it, but that little trip confirmed that there was NO WAY our van was going anywhere tonight. We MIGHT be able to make it down the mountain, but there would be NO chance of making it back up. I hated the idea of missing church tonight, but what could we do? And besides, why would I go into town where there was no snow to get stuck away from my house where there IS all of this glorious snow?! So much better to be stranded here than there.

James made some tasty pork chop strip thingies for dinner and I made some fried potatoes and corn to go with it. Yum!

I played Whoonu with the kids, then a couple of games of Candyland before tuning in to the CPMA service going on in Aurora tonight. Sometimes I think my brother is about the coolest guy alive. Like tonight when I was able to be there "live" and be so blessed by Brother Van's service about Fields of the Wood. As it turned out, our church ended up cancelling tonight anyway so it was great to be able to take part in that one. And I was so happy to see that Kristin was there! I've been praying for that girl. :-)

I just pulled my third dessert of the day out of the oven a minute ago: White Chocolate Blondies. I haven't tasted them yet, but they smell sooooooooooo good!!! :-) I'm letting the kids watch a show before bed (it's a snow day thing, I guess!), then I may start into my next book. ~sigh~ What a great day!

I'M SO HAPPY!!!

That's about it. Oh, wait! When we took the kids to the library on Tuesday I discovered that they DO have some Christian books there! I had looked when we first moved here and I couldn't find anything at all, but apparently they've had some good donations or something. :-) I picked up two Dee Henderson books and started the first one that night (I was good and went to bed at midnight--I'm so much more responsible than I used to be! Ha!) and finished it last night. Now I've got another sitting next to my chair calling my name. ~sigh~ Can life get any better??? :-)

Can't remember Saturday. At all. Weird!

Had a really great Sunday. I so thoroughly enjoyed being in the Big People's class! (Doesn't sound very flattering, now that I see it typed out...) It was nice. James had me play piano for song service again and it went MUCH better than last time. No Christmas songs. ;-) Then our pastor preached a really good message--as he always does. He preached on a passage and line of thought that I'd already sort of been on throughout the past week, so it seemed to speak to me extra. God is so good. I want to TRUST in God, regardless of my circumstances, and ever draw nearer to Him. I don't want to just live passively until something big and bad and hairy and scary comes along and then cry out to Him. I want to live and walk in the Spirit and near to the heart of God all the time, trusting and serving wholeheartedly every day.

We had a nice, leisurely Sunday afternoon, complete with a good nap. :-) I spent 30 or 40 minutes trying to figure out how to make the laptop play a DVD through the projector and after working and reading all sorts of online helps I finally got the "wallpaper" to show up on the projector, but never could get the movie to DVD to play on it. ~sigh~ So frustrating. My only other option would have been to call Jon and ask him AGAIN how to do this. I know he's walked me through it before, but I just can't remember how to do it again after so long! I didn't want to pester him, so I just gave up and decided we'd use the DVD player instead. (We wanted to use the laptop so we could hook up some speakers to it--the speaker on the projector is pretty poor.)

As you may have guessed, we watched a video at church last night! :-) It was James' CPMA service. He had several CPMA-ish readings and things like that, then we watched Brother Luis' message from the Assembly this last year about being baptized into the body. Good stuff. :-)

After service last night the Clarksons graciously agreed to stay and help us fold the Western Skies and get 'em all ready to mail. Then, of course, we just sat and visited for quite a while. Had a great time, of course. :-) After that James was starving so we talked the Clarkson clan into going to Taco Bell with us for some more visiting. What a great night!

Today has been the big house cleaning day. Wa-Hoo! I got nearly everything done that I had hoped for. Just a few loads of laundry that I'm still working on (don't know if I'll get to the ironing tonight or if it'll wait until tomorrow) and then in the morning I'll Swiffer the wood floor and vacuum the back half of the house. Then I'll be satisfied with a perfectly clean house! Clean enough to make me real happy, anyway. :-)

School took a little longer for the kids today--Joe's math is getting a little more intense and demanding. He's not happy about it, but he's doing really good. Katie... that girl is such a flibbertigibbet. Doesn't shut up and CONCENTRATE on what she's reading and has to re-do lots of her work. She has a great lack of control over the wanderings of her mind--not to mention her emotions! If she makes up her mind to learn something, it's a breeze. Otherwise she ends up seeing the same work over and over and over and over... Crazy kid! Sam is working hard on reading, as has been the case for the past year. Ha! Sometimes he does so good, other times he gets stumped on letters that he knew well just a few minutes before. It's strange. I'm trying not to push him, but to just keep working with him, assuming that if he keeps on seeing and hearing the letters eventually they'll STICK, you know?! I've started having him try to sound out words and write them down for me instead of just trying to read. It actually seems a lot easier for him. We'll keep working on it. :-)

The big event of our evening was Joe losing a tooth. Actually, he didn't LOSE a tooth. He wrenched and twisted and fought and struggled and pried until he finally wrestled a tooth out of his head. His two upper front teeth have been a little loose, but just barely. But for some reason he decided today that one of them was going to go. Must need some money for something. Ha! Anyway, his fingers were all bloody and I could see that he was fighting to hold back the tears, but he just kept working on it until he finally got it out. Crazy kid. At least the tooth fairy is in town this time. Last time--when Sam lost his--I had gone to bed and woke up about an hour later and somehow before I dozed off again it popped into my head that I had forgotten to do the tooth fairy thing! So I got up and took care of it. We'll see if James can remember any better than I did. Strange, how teeth seem to just be falling out of everybody's heads here the past month or two! Anyway, here's a picture of the new gap...



That's it. Nothing real exciting, but God is good and life is grand. It's nice and cold here, so we're still enjoying a crackling fire throughout most of our day. That makes me happy. :-) And... that's about it!

A Wonderful Winter Day

That's what we've had around here. :-) First of all...

I had an epiphany last week after getting the whole house cleaned up and ready for company. After they were gone and the house was still all nice and clean and perfect, I felt so much more FUN. I felt relaxed and like I had all the time in the world to spend with my kids or do the things I usually don't find time for. It made me realize that I miss out on doing a lot of the things I always WISH I did because there's always some household chore around here that isn't done yet. Even if I don't get to the chore, I don't "feel" like I can do the other stuff because the chores aren't done. Does that make sense? Even if it does, it's DUMB! Still, it seems to be the way I function. So I developed this new plan: do ALL of the housework on Mondays, then I'll be able to do all of the OTHER things (that are really so much more important) for the rest of the week. So...

I started in early Monday and, of course, didn't finish. I didn't finish on Tuesday either. But by mid-Wednesday I had all the floors vacuumed, both bathrooms scrubbed, the tile and wood floors swept and mopped, and all of the ironing done. It was a day and a half later than scheduled (but really, how realistic is it to expect ME to do all of that in one day?!), but it felt GREAT! It meant I had the next four and a half days chore free except for upkeep. Wa-Hoo! I've had more time for reading and praying and playing games with the kids and puzzles... ~sigh~ It's a great plan. So much better than having certain chores for each day of the week. Why not knock 'em all out as soon as possible, then LIVE the rest of the week?! I love it! Let's see if I can do it again next week... :-)

SO. With all of the housework all caught up I feel more lighthearted and energetic and all manner of wonderful things. It's GREAT! And I'm sure had a great affect on our snow day today.

That's right--we woke up to SNOW today!!! And it snowed ALL... DAY... LONG. :-) Oh, happy day! Of course, as is common to this area, no matter how long or heavy it snows, it never actually piles up very much. Maybe 3 or 4 inches today... or less?! Oh, well--it was beautiful anyway!

I had a second epiphany today. As I was humming away in the kitchen while making cinnamon rolls and a tasty taco soup and smelling the hot hearthside cider I'd already mixed up, it occurred to me that SNOW makes me want to cook and bake. I've known that for years, but for the first time I wondered why. I mean, my day is the same whether it's 12 degrees outside and a total blizzard or if it's 75 degrees and sunny: I STAY IN MY HOUSE AND RARELY STEP OUT THE DOOR. So why would the weather affect my desire to cook??? It's kind of crazy, really. But something about SEEING the snow out the window puts me in the mood. James says he may buy a snow making machine so we can eat as well in the summer as we do in the winter. Ha!

Boy, I'm taking a long time getting to our day, hu?! Here we go... I started off with a shower and by the time I got out all of the kids were bundled up and out playing in the snow. I learned later that they had rushed to get out there so I wouldn't start calling them for devotions and school right away. Ha! They've learned that I usually just wait until they come walking through the room before rounded them up. :-) The weather was GREAT and they were having such fun I just let 'em make the best of it throughout the morning.

I started some cinnamon rolls, then looked up a recipe for taco soup. We are still trying to finish off the taco meat from Family Camp last year (one more meal should do it!) and we had a little bit of the pinto beans from last week that we needed to use, so it was perfect. I kind of went by the recipe, then added a few other spices and such and it turned out FANTASTIC! It was soooooooooo good. That never happens around here. Whenever I try something new it's a total flop and we all hate it. Must've been the snow that affected my cooking skills. (Okay, that's the 3rd time I've used the word "affect" and I NEVER know if it should be Affect or Effect... help?!) Anyway...

The kids came in for lunch: chicken noodle soup and grilled ham and cheese sandwiches. Then we had devotions afterward (weird!) and started into school. I was able to finish up on the puzzle I'd started the other day in between helping them. :-) I spent all day stoking the fire and sipping on the cider that was especially delicious this time.

After school I went out to play in the snow with the kids. Katie and Sam, really. Joe came out for a minute, but I hit him in the back of the head with a snowball and it then plopped right down the back of his shirt. Ha! He didn't last long. :-) The snow was PERFECT for snowballs, but not so great for snowmen. It packed GREAT, but you couldn't roll it--which is the only way to get a well rounded snowmen. Oh, well. We did our best!

The kids had to show me how they "sled." Here's Sam doing the impressive backwards trick.
And this is what they call "belly whopping." So sad. These poor kids need a sled! They've never had one, so they don't know how pitiful this really is. Don't tell 'em. ;-
This is what Joe was doing when we came in. He reads for hours each day, usually in some strange, contorted position. This one looks more comfortable than most of 'em do. A lot of times he's hanging upside down off the couch. Weird.
We enjoyed our oh-so-tasty taco soup with chips underneath and cheese on top (yum!), then enjoyed some warm cinnamon rolls straight from the oven for dessert. :-) And more cider afterwards, of course.

We had a nice, relaxing evening and James even let the kids watch another Gunsmoke 'cuz it seemed to be that sort of a night. ~Aaaaahhh~ So relaxing. :-)

I'm getting real close to being done with the Regional paper, so I'm going to work on it a bit more and see if I can't finish it up tonight.

WHAT A GREAT DAY. :-)

All Out of Titles Since "A Party is a Party" Has Already Been Used Twice

Okay, let's see...

Sunday was a good day. Because our pastor had run off to Colorado with the only set of keys to the church (ha!), we had service up at the Clarksons' home. Since we had no preacher we had Sunday School and worship, then Sister Shanda went ahead with her VLB service. Sunday School was excellent and worship was... a struggle! Ha! It's tough when you don't have a piano and you don't have any real strong singers, you know?! James serves as both of those around here usually, so it's really hard when he's gone. I tried to pick songs that most everybody knew well and I made sure to find what key we needed ahead of time. Joe was our lone musician and we would have been in big, big trouble without him and his guitar--that's all I can say! He did very well and Katie was a huge help getting us started. (I have my Dad's knack for music, unfortunatly. ;-) I usually can't "hear" where to start a song, even when somebody gives me the chord. But Katie can, thank goodness!) Anyway, after we made it through song service (!) I really enjoyed Sister Shanda's lesson--as always. It was on faith this time. Good stuff.

Since we had decided to do Sister Shanda's service in the morning along with everything else (it was originally scheduled as our evening service), we had the rest of the day until the guys arrived home from Men's Retreat. Shanda said we could just stay at her house until then, but it ended up being a lot longer visit than we had anticipated. Due to what sounds like an amazing, Spirit-filled service up there, the guys didn't get out of Retreat until about 3 hours later than usual... and they didn't get back to the Clarkson's house until about 10:30 that night! The kids had a blast playing with the Clarkson kids and I really enjoyed my time with Shanda. We mostly just talked and hung out and tried to contain the chaos. I love when the kids have a chance to play together (it doesn't happen very often), but 10 hours is just too much! They get sooooo wound up when they're together and I am NOT the kind of person who handles noise and chaos well. But I was prepared for it this time and endured it far better than I usually do. :-) It really wasn't that bad and I'm really glad we had a chance to spend some time with all of them. It was fun. :-)

It was great to hear some of what went on at Men's Retreat. Brother Chris said, "I know I always say this, but... this was the best one ever!" Ha! The guys said it really did seem like God took it to a brand new level this year with several outpourings of the Spirit and several of the gifts of the spirit at work there. I'm anxious to hear more! I never get a whole lot of information out of James... and Sister Shanda probably gets way too much information out of her husband! Ha!

Monday was a good day. Did school, scrubbed the bathrooms, changed the sheets--stuff like that. Tostada casserole for dinner that night. Made Joe very happy.

That night James and I had a really good talk about some things concerning the kids and our family and stuff like that. It seems like since then I have felt new clarity of direction or something. Like things are just running alot more smoothly around here and I feel more focused on what our goals really are as we try to teach and train and raise our kids. There's been a special nearness to the kids and to the Lord. I'm so thankful! We should have talks like that more often. :-)

Yesterday I got all of the laundry and ironing done, vacuumed most of the house and wet Swiffered the floors. The kids were excited to see that it was snowing again in the morning, but were especially thrilled when it turned to hail. It really wasn't as bad as the head gear would indicate... Ha!



We headed to the library a little late yesterday afternoon, then went on into town to run some errands. We ended up at Dion's for dinner, then went to visit Sister Grimes and Pat for a little while. That was nice, but we were sooooo tired! Sam nearly fell asleep there and I wasn't too far behind him! Ha! Got home and got the kids to bed and I got my second wind (wa-hoo) and was able to stay up and finish the last of the ironing. :-)

Today I got the other end of the house vacuumed and some more things organized and straightened up around here. James took Joe with him to town and was gone for a few hours. Joe had only gotten four library books yesterday due to our late visit--just before closing time--and he had already finished them, so James took him back to the library today to take his time and get some more. He came home with a bag full of 'em and a big smile. That kid LOVES to read. While he was gone I did school with Kate and Sam and got the kitchen cleaned up and looking good. Joe had to do late school due to his trip to town, but he actually whipped through it pretty quick so it wasn't too bad. We all made some thank you cards today (I wrote some out, that is; the kids made some) for Christmas gifts received. Had soup and sandwiches for dinner, then enjoyed an episode of Gunsmoke and a bowl of ice cream before devotions. Now the kids are in bed, I'm blogging because I nagged my Mom about it today (and therefore have to do it myself so as to not be a hypocrite), and then I'm going to get started on the next issue of the Western Skies. The deadline is tonight and I actually have a decent amount of material to work with already. Wa-Hoo! So I'm going to get busy on that now. G'night, all!

A Party is a Party--PART 2, that is!

...but a Christmas party, hhmmmm!

Well, day two of the Mom/Kids party has been nice and relaxing. That's a problem. Parties aren't supposed to be relaxing! Oh, well. It's been a good, enjoyable day around here.

I started a fire this morning while Katie made breakfast for everybody, then we had a good devotion time together. The boys were chompin' at the bit to get outside and dig up their treasure, so they disappeared for quite a little while. They finally discovered that we didn't actually have a buried treasure in our yard, but I can't remember what they determined it was. It kept them happily occupied for a few hours anyway!

I got one phone call last night and two today from some of the Colorado ladies; one at the Girl Party and two wishing they were there just like me! Ha! The Craig ladies were going to have a little get-together this evening so that will help them have some fun, I'm sure. Let's see, what else... I took Toy Story back today and got my $25 deposit back (terminated the membership I created the night before) AND a full refund on the rental due to the faulty disc. :-) Uummm... OH! I have very grown-up feeling children today. The three of them talked me into letting them go get the mail this afternoon. Alone. Alone together, that is. Sounds pitiful, hu??? Ha! We don't live on a city block, you know, so it's not like there's a mailbox out in front of our house. There is a lock box for the mail down the road quite a ways, definitely not visible from the house. We usually just stop as we're driving by and pick up our mail but on occasion we do gather the kids and walk down to get it. But today the three kids begged and pleaded for me to pleeeeeeeease let them go get the mail all by themselves. Sure, why not?! They were back in about 10 minutes, but I must say it felt pretty eerie those 10 minutes! Not because I was worried about them, but because I was all ALONE. I was trying to think if I've EVER been all alone in this house... I don't think so! It wasn't eerie like SCARY, just eerie like, "Whoa! This is WEIRD!!! Where IS everybody?!" The kids came in a few minutes later just beaming, feeling oh-so grown up and proud of themselves. "And we didn't even fight, Ma!" Ha!

We got out the Balloonies today. Aunt Sue had them at her house last time we visited, but we never got a chance to get to them so she sent them home with us. Today seemed like a good day! I love watching the kids' faces while they try to blow them up. :-)

They can't ever make 'em real big like Mom can...
Especially Joe. Ha!

They have fun anyway--and I love the smell of that stuff. Talk about fumes! WHOA! People are always worried about lead paint from China... how come nobody has looked into that stuff--it's probably toxic! Ha! Crazy stuff, I tell ya'.

After the Balloonies I let the kids watch a Veggie Tales and I cleaned out my stamping stuff and took pictures of everything I'm going to sell. That's right, I QUIT stamping, scrapbook making, and card making--I'm DONE. Truth be known, I never actually started... I just collected a whole lot of stuff! Ha! No, I've done some over the years and I really, really enjoyed it. But I don't do it often enough to get really and truly good at it, so it's just not as fun as it used to be. I decided I'd be happier if I just sold all of my stamps and papers and tools and ink and all that junk. Maybe I'll be able to get a little something for them on eBay. And if I get rid of all of it maybe I'll stop feeling that magnetic pull to the stamping section every time I'm at Hobby Lobby and I'll be able to stop picking up more stuff that I won't use! Ha! We'll see how it goes.

The kids and I played a couple of games of Whoonu today, but that was all. I expected to play more with them, but the day just sort of slipped lazily away before we knew it. Pretty soon it was time for everybody to take their Saturday night showers and get ready for the second and final pizza party! But first...

Sam came to me this afternoon complaining that his tooth hurt. I got to looking at it and discovered that it was a little bit loose. He was thrilled! He's never had a loose tooth before and was determined to get it out of there. He must have worked on it a LOT because when he came to me again a little while later it was really loose. I made him let me take a picture of him right away with all of his pretty little baby teeth. He's the only one of our kids who has had pretty little teeth, so straight and white...

Good thing I took the picture because a little later he came back and the tooth was really, REALLY loose. I told him he could probably just grab it and pull it out, but he's seen the string method used on Katie so many times he wanted to try it that way. So I tied a string to his tooth and he pulled, slow and easy, until it eased out of his gums. Weird! I've always done the yank-and-get-it-over-with thing! But Sam has a much higher tolerance for pain than the others. Anyway, here he is in the bathroom, checking out his first ever tooth hole!
And showing it off...
He is soooooo happy. Immediately put the tooth in a plastic bag and under his pillow. He's probably in big trouble because the Tooth Fairy is at Men's Retreat and his assistant is pretty forgetful! Ha! I'm going to TRY to remember to take care of that as soon as I finish blogging. Anyway, Sam was soooooooo excited about losing his first tooth and really wanted to call his Dad. There's no phone reception up there and it's against the rules anyway (!), so I let him call his bud Isaac up at the Girl Party. Sister Jamey answered the phone and I was amazed at how long Sam talked to her--he's usually so shy and doesn't have much to say to people. But he was quite talkative and seemed to enjoy talking to her as much as he did talking to Isaac! I'm happy for him, but I felt this strange sort of sadness for myself. My baby boy just lost his first tooth! It's another one of those reminders that I don't have any little kids anymore--they're all growing up! And as fun and exciting as that is, I can't help but miss the "little" days, you know?! They go so quickly... Only old people say things like that, so I guess I'm officially there now! Ha!

We enjoyed our pizza party tonight and had a good devotion. The kids are really enjoying A. J. Tomlinson so far. I think we're about 40 pages into it right now. That's about, what, one-twentieth of the way through?! :-)

Since our pastor ran off with the only set of church keys (ha!), our service plans have been changed for tomorrow. We don't have a preacher, so we were going to have Sunday School and worship in the morning, then Sister Shanda's VLB service tomorrow night. But with the locked-out-of-the-church thing thrown into the mix we've decided to have church at the Clarksons' house in the morning. We'll combine Sunday School, worship, and VLB service into one service instead of coming back in the evening. I enjoy having service in homes on occasion, so I'm looking forward to it! The kids have already got their play clothes packed to take with us since we'll be staying the rest of the day with the Clarkson crowd, waiting for the guys to get home from Men's Retreat. The kids are thrilled to have a whole afternoon to play with the little Clarkson people!

I hope everybody has great Sunday services and a wonderful week. :-)

A Party is a Party

... but a party on a summer's eve, hhmmm!

A girl party is a girl party. And a kid party is a kid party. So far I'm really enjoying my weekend home alone with the kids. But only when I can keep myself from thinking about the girls gathered up north and all of the games and laughter that I'm missing out on with my dear friends! Ha! How spoiled I am!!! It really has been a great blessing that I've been able to be with them the past several years. It would be pretty selfish and childish to mope around that I'm missing it this year instead of being thankful for all the years I have been able to be there. So I'm trying hard to be thankful for the "extra" blessing I've had of being with them those times, and the blessing of having some special time with just my kids this weekend. I just really hope they're watching Nicholas Nickleby up there right now... Ha!

Backing up a bit... We had a good time with our company a few days ago. Scott Bambrough is attending the Men's Retreat in Colorado, so he and Angie stopped and stayed with us on their way through on Tuesday night. They didn't get in until about 11:30, I think, but we still stayed up and visited until about 2:00. At least that's when Angie and I called it a night. The guys were still going strong out in the office at that time, although they were both looking pretty ragged. Ha! We managed to be up at a decent our on Wednesday and--believe it or not--I pulled off a nice breakfast of bacon, eggs, biscuits and waffles. I am NOT a breakfast cook (my kids are lucky to have something other than cereal two or three times a month!) and usually struggle to get everything done at the same time (the eggs are always cold!), but this time everything fell right into place. Scott played baseball with the kids for a little while (with a tennis ball and a rifle... they don't have a bat! Ha!), then we all gathered for "church." Katie had prepared a "Sunday School" class, then Joe played his guitar for our songs. Afterward the kids went outside to play and the adults gathered for a nice game of I Buy before the Bambroughs took off. It was a great game. You can guess who won... :-) By the time we finished it was already past noon, so we talked them into staying for lunch before pulling out. Sandwiches and Frito pie. We had a really nice time and I'm so glad they were able to visit.

After they left we got busy on school... The rest of the day has been forgotten.

Yesterday... hhmmm. Lost, too. I just know we've been real faithful to school lately. It's the longest we've stayed HOME in quite a while now, so we're working hard to not miss any opportunities for school. Christmas cards--I finally took the Christmas cards down yesterday. I know it's a random thought, but it just hit me. :-)

We had a good BTI Bible Study last night. We're going through The Body of Christ and everybody really seems to be enjoying it. It's so important to go through those things--and the Teachings and the Advice--and keep them ever before our people so we can be firmly rooted and grounded in them.

After service I stayed up and proof read the Evening Light... though it was one of those nights when I kept reading the same thing over and over again because I'd get half way through and realize I didn't have a clue what I'd been reading. That's no condition to be in when you're supposed to be looking for mistakes! Oh, well. I tried!

This morning was Day One of "The Party." We got up early and took James to town to meet up with his chauffeur to Men's Retreat, Brother Chris. Got him "dumped off," as the kids kept saying, then headed back up the mountain. We stopped at the grocery store to get doughnuts for breakfast and a box of popcorn for our pizza parties. That's a good way to start out! :-)

Everybody enjoyed their doughnuts, then we had devotions and got right into school with hopes of finishing it quickly so the fun could begin. Ha. Bad plan. Katie was so bent on finishing quickly she was FLUNKING her lessons! B's, a D and an F!!! I was stunned and none too happy about it. It was obvious that she was just racing through trying to get it DONE without actually taking the time to try to learn or remember anything. I was flabbergasted and re-assigned several things, but as I was looking through her work I realized it would take her a couple of hours to re-do everything. She was already in tears and with the "Party Weekend" slipping away with each passing moment I knew it would be fruitless to try to make her do the work properly--she would have been a wreck and she CANNOT function like that, so it would have taken even longer than usual. I could have made her do it, but it would have made for a truly miserable day for both of us--on a day we'd both been so looking forward to. So I told her she was DONE with school for the day (in essence, "Katie, you win--you did so poorly today because you wanted to get into the 'party' and I'm going to let you just get away with it." I HATE THAT!!! But what else could I do?!), but to be prepared because Monday was going to be a killer school day!

These were taken before I discovered Katie's sloppy work. Sam decided he was going to copy a whole book today. He loves to copy stuff and I figure it's good practice for him and might help him out with his letters. We've been working on vowels this week and the sounds they make, as he tends to get them confused quite often! Causes real problems when trying to read, you know! :-)

Joe was gracious enough to sort of smile for me, even in the midst of dreaded schoolwork.
Katie and her little poodle, Kung Fu, NOT hard at work, as I discovered later.

We had lunch, then a Katie helped me bake some chocolate chip cookies. We all gathered around the table and got out some of the kids' Christmas crafts they hadn't had a chance to get to yet--some molds of Sam's and some clay of Katie's--the kind you're supposed to bake when you've finished your creation. Joe got bored pretty quick (not much of a crafter, that Joe fella') and ended up looking through the phone book for funny names. Talk about boring...

Here are some of our creations. Katie made the dog and I made the butterfly and the sheep. The dog is by far my favorite! I told Katie that if she keeps practicing maybe she could make some things out of clay for the Mission Table at the Assembly or something--I think her little pooch is adorable! :-)
She thinks so too, of course. :-)


After the crafts were put away the boys went outside to play. They came rushing in after a while a-a-a-a-all wound up about something. Sam finally found me and said, "Mom!!!! We found GOLD!!! In the yard!!!!!" They were digging with the shovel and kept hitting something hard that "clanked" each time. They are convinced it is an enormous treasure chest and all they have to do is unearth it. They're so convinced they've been fighting over who gets the gold crown that is surely in it, who's getting the jewels and the gold coins and who knows what else. I started to tell them they were probably just hitting a rock (I hate for them to get their hopes up like that, you know?!), but they would have none of it. So I'm letting them enjoy the thrill of feeling like millionaires. I made them come inside though because the area where they're digging is very muddy right now. I told them they'd have to wait until things dried out before they could continue. That ought to make the treasure hunt last a few more days, at least in their minds.

This evening I thought I'd surprise them and do something we've never done: rent a movie. We loaded up and headed to the little video store down the road. James had been in there once to look for something and said it was very nice and didn't have any nasty posters hanging anywhere. I can't even remember how long it's been since I've been in a video rental place! I walked in and asked the guy to help me find Toy Story. I remembered seeing it when I was a teenager and thinking it was great. My kids have never seen it. I had to pay a $25 deposit (can you believe that?!) that will be returned when I decide to terminate my "membership." That will be when I return the DVD next week! Ha! We came hope, threw the pizzas in the oven and put the movie on. The kids were so excited, but it ended up being more frustrating than entertaining. The DVD kept getting stuck. You know, where the picture will just freeze and you can't fast-forward or rewind or even skip to the next scene. It was crazy! I finally took it out and tried it in the other DVD player, but it did the same thing. So we watched parts of the movie, but missed several parts... including the ending! Can you believe that?! It got stuck about 10 minutes from the end of the show and we couldn't get it to work. I even took it out, cleaned the DVD, and tried it in my computer so the kids could see how it ended. Nope, no good. I ended up looking it up on YouTube and showing them the ending on there. Is that pitiful, or what?! What a gyp. I intend to get my $25 deposit back as well as the rental fee when I take the thing back, that's for sure! Even with the kinks, the kids enjoyed it just because it was something new. It has some really great parts, but really wasn't quite as good as I remembered it being. The kid next door is really creepy! Bleagh.

After the movie (with which we enjoyed our Totino's, root beer, and popcorn) I let the kids stay up for a while. Katie and Sam played with Lego's and Joe did some more reading in Harry the Poisonous Centipede's Big Adventure. He's loving it, of course, but so far still things the first Harry book was better.

We read several pages of A. J. Tomlinson (I was about 175 pages into it before it occurred to me that the kids would probably really enjoy it in devotions, so that's what we're doing now--from the beginning), sang a song or two, and now they're all snoozing away. I'm going to try to get some decent sleep tonight myself. I'd love to get on a better schedule than I've been on, but it's sooooo hard to get readjusted! Anyway, that's the story up until this point. I've been praying that the guys are having a WONDERFUL Men's Retreat and that the girls are having a FANTASTIC girl party (okay, I didn't actually pray for it--but I've thought it several times!)--I'll be anxious to hear about all of it. Not sure what our plan is around here tomorrow, except we'll probably play some games. That'll be nice. :-)

It's been a good few days around here. Sunday was nice. I enjoyed teaching the kids' Sunday School class again, but I'm REALLY excited about being in the big people's class this coming week. Seems like ages since I've been able to be in there! I split kid duty with Sister Shanda, but it seems like anytime it's not my week to teach we're gone somewhere. Unfortunately that won't be the case this week. ~sniffle~sniffle~ But more about that later.

We had good services Sunday and good fellowship. After our morning service Brother Hugo (not a member, but a faithful attendee) offered to take everybody out for lunch. Wow! We felt terrible taking him up on it, but he was pretty insistent. Some folks had to go home instead, but the Clarksons and Sister Connie and our family had a great time visiting with him and one another over a great lunch. How kind of him! After service that night we stayed at the church and talked with Brother Chris and Sister Shanda for a lo-o-o-o-ong time. It was great! I so love fellowship and it seems like we do too little of it at our church sometimes. We've been staying and visiting with the other young family more lately and I've been loving it.

Yesterday was a regular old Monday around here: house cleaning, laundry and school. That's about it. James let the kids watch an episode of Gunsmoke before bed--made 'em very happy. It's probably been years since we've watched that show. I still have a whole slew of tapes that I filled up with Gunsmoke episodes when I was a teenager. Brings back memories of sitting down to lunch at 11:00 (when it came on TV Land) in Dad's Lay-z-Boy, then working the rest of the hour on my quilt... That took me 9 years to complete! (Maybe I would have finished sooner if I would have kept my dedicated Gunsmoke/quilt hour ever day! Ha!) Anyway, I still love Matt Dillon, highly dislike Miss Kitty, think Doc is a cute, gruff little old guy, and Festus surely must've been a Smith. I think it's cool that my kids enjoy a show that my Dad used to watch when he was little. :-)

This morning we got a call from Tammy saying that her sister and her husband (Scott & Angie) were planning on staying in Albuquerque tonight on their way to Colorado. I don't think so! Thanks to Tammy knowing me so well and taking the liberty to tell her sister that was nuts, we're expecting company any minute now! Wa-Hoo!!! So after devotions and school, my day was spent in house cleaning. I love having company because it motivates you to get the whole house nice and squeaky clean. I usually only accomplish one room at a time, so it's great when I actually have to do it ALL. I guess I don't have to do it all for company (they won't even see half of it, probably!), but I don't want to miss the opportunity since I have the motivation. :-)

That's the good news. The bad news... No, the sad news... No, that's not right either. The tragic and heartbreaking news is that I will be missing the Girl Party this year. ~SIGH~ I don't want to talk about it, really. I might cry. While the usual crowd of wives and children will be piling up for the weekend after sending the guys of to Men's Retreat... my kids and I will be all alone here at home. Oh, the agony!!! It's just SO WRONG. So, so wrong. ~sigh~ But what can you do? It's just the way life is sometimes I guess. Cruel. Just plain cruel. I do hope they have fun up there and I've told the kids we're going to have our own party here... but it's just not going to be the same! I don't know how this happened. It's just not supposed to happen like this! Okay, I'm done. No more pouting. At least publicly on the blog. I'll go sulk all alone somewhere...

That's it for tonight. I've successfully depressed myself right out of anything else to say. No, wait... there is one more thing I want to say...

Oh, woe is me!!!!!

;-)