Being a Bad Blogger

It's easy, really. Either ramble aimlessly until people totally lose interest, or throw yourself toward the other extreme and don't write anything at all for days and days and days... It's much easier to succeed at being a bad blogger than it is at being a good blogger. And sometimes one just feels the need to succeed at something, you know? ;-) I just haven't been in the mood to blog lately. Sometimes it just doesn't feel as fun as it used to be, you know???

Anyway, I'll make up for it now. Then you'll be sorry. Well, the handful of you who last through the post, that is. :-) Let's see, what's been going on here... The big and exciting news of the week is...

SAM READ! It would be incorrect to declare that "Sam is reading" because that would indicate he could do it with some regularity and I really don't think we're to that point yet. But "Sam read" (past tense) is completely accurate. This learning to read thing is a real struggle for him and for his Mom (!), but it's so exciting for both of us when he takes those little baby steps and shows some improvement. His brain is just so... undisciplined is the only work I can think of to describe it. Even letters that he KNOWS he sometimes draws a complete blank on. So I'm trying to start with similar words. The other day we used the "A" card and the "T" card, then placed a whole bunch of other letters in front of them for him to try to sound out. (Bat, cat, fat, hat...) He was able to get a few of them ALL BY HIMSELF!!! If I called him right now and pulled out the same letters he would struggle to remember what they say, but he is making progress and he has technically begun READING. Wa-Hoo!!! Yeah, Sam!!! I'm very proud of him because I know he's having to WORK to learn this. And it's actually more rewarding for me, too, because it feels like this is the first time I've taught somebody to read. Katie and Joe pretty much taught themselves (with the help of a Leap Frog toy) and I had very little to do with it. It's so rewarding to know that I'm teaching my son to read! Another year or two and we'll have it down. Ha!

Can't think of much new with Katie. She keeps wanting to knit, but I really think we're going to have to have a real, live person teach us because the pictures in the book just ain't cuttin' it! I need somebody to tell me what I'm doing wrong. Oh, Auntie Em...??? :-)

Joe has a bruised ear. Yeppers, true story. I didn't know it was possible to bruise your ear, but it is. His left ear is just one giant purple bruise. He fell again (on his head, of course--he feels it his weekly duty, apparently) and slammed his head against the wood floor. His ear served as a cushion, but has paid the price dearly. I really should have taken a picture of it a couple of days ago when it was REALLY purple. It's an amazing thing. What a freak! Ha!

Thursday night we had our quarterly conference and Communion & Feetwashing service here at our house. We had a really good service, I thought, and then enjoyed some good fellowship afterwards. I was able to use up the last of the strawberries that had been left over after I made jam last week and made them into a really scrumptious strawberry cake with strawberry icing. Yum! Love that recipe. :-)

When we got up Friday morning it was snowing. And it snowed all day long!!!! Is that great, or what??? Mid-April. Gotta love it. It never stopped snowing, but it never did stick either. Just melted as soon as it hit the ground. Then at about 4:00 the flakes turned HUGE, coming down in giant custers. James says they weren't snowflakes, they were snowclumps, and he declares he saw one the size of a baseball. (Not a basketball like I originally told you, Tammy! HA!) Within about 30 minutes we had 2 inches or more on the ground!

We had 3" or 4" by morning. How cool!!! I started a puzzle, of course. I figure I've earned a few puzzles after all of the house stuff we've been doing. :-) I made potato soup and garlic cheese biscuits for dinner.

I got up yesterday...



...took a shower and had devotions with the kids, then sat down and finished that 1,000 piece puzzle. :-) What a grand day!!! In the afternoon I got started on preparations for today. The room at the motel where we usually have church was already booked for this Sunday, so we had service here at our house again today and followed it up with a cookout. :-) We really enjoyed the Sunday School lesson and spent quite a bit of time on it. Had good worship, then James preached on how NOT to be born again. Interesting! Then we grilled burgers and hot dogs and James mixed up some sodas for everybody. Ha! So fun!!! Raspberry cream seemed to be the soda of choice today. :-) Sister Galaviz brought potato salad since I don't know how to make it (thanks, lady!!!) and I made pea salad since I forgot to make it on Easter. (Nobody in my family likes it but me, so I always make it on holidays and then enjoy it for the next several days!) I made lemon bars and Millionaire pie for dessert. It's sooooo nice to have people over! It just makes me so happy to be able to cook and bake for them and open my home and enjoy the fellowship. I think it's my calling. It's much better than standing up front and trying to speak! Ha! Of course, that followed the fellowship today. Tonight was to be our VLB service, but because of having to reschedule everything at our house we decided to have service, then a cookout, then immediately go into VLB service. Although I'd say we had a VLB "thought" rather than a VLB service! It was extra short, even for me. We sang several songs and just enjoyed having a PIANO to sing with for a change (we miss that sooooo much!), then I shared my "thought" and *voila* we were done. In the end, I think it was just right. Anything longer would have felt too long after everything else, you know? We talked Sister Galaviz into staying and playing one glorious game of I Buy. I ended with 60 points (25 up until the final hand) and James and Sister Galaviz ended with 275 and 290 points or something great like that. ~Aaaaahhhh~ That's my kind of game! :-)

Now all of our company is gone, the kids are alternating playing outside and coming in and whacking balloons areound the house, James has run to town to get some supplies for his next project on the office, and I'm sitting here wondering what in the world to do with the rest of my Sunday! Maybe another puzzle??? It's so strange to not have anything going on tonight! Maybe we'll play a game.

AH, YES! Now THERE'S something blog worthy!!! James has been trying real hard to fill some "void" and "lonely" patches in his poor wife's life and has played games with me TWICE this week!!! Whoa!!! He plays games when we have company, of course (he never used to do even that), but never does otherwise. In fact, we put the kids to bed one night and grabbed Rummicub out of the closet and Katie asked what we were doing. I told her that Dad was going to play a game with me. The shock in her voice told it all: "WHAT?!?!? He never does that!!!" Ha! We played three hands of Rummicub that night and I won them all. James told me to go pick another game. I stared at the huge stack of games in the closet and realized that we don't HAVE any two player games because two people never play games here--they're all group games! Ha! So I pulled out Memory and made him play that with me. :-) It would've been fine, but I set up the cards... and set up the cards... and set up the cards... ! They were spread out in a HUGE square on the floor when it finally occurred to me that this must be TWO sets of Memory mixed together! Ha! I insisted that we go ahead and play anyway after having spent all the time to set it up. Instead of 72 cards there were 135, which meant there were 9 missing. In the end, James had 19 matches, I had 46 matches and we had 5 "extra" cards. It's incredibly difficult to play with two sets of Memory! You find a fish, find it's match, then pretty soon there's another fish--and then another... and you've got to remember where the new ones are, not the ones you've already found. Crazy! Fun, nonetheless. The next night we played 2 more rounds of Rummicub. I won those, too. Mom says I'm not going to be able to keep James playing games with me if I keep beating him. So, what am I to do?! LOSE??? I don't think so!!!!! ;-)

That's about it from here. Oh, here's a picture of the boys with the Museum of Natural History. :-) They watched Night at the Museum a few weeks ago, so they tried to replicate it. They had Rexy and Theodore Roosevelt on his horse and the soldiers and who knows what all. They put little papers in front of everything to say what they were. Ha! It was great!