JONES FAMILY ADVENTURES

For Santa or Against Santa... or neutral

2011-12-07T17:05:00.001-05:00

There are so many people writing blogs and such about their feelings about Christmas. Should our family or should we not use Santa? Is it lying to our kids? How do we keep Christ in Christmas? These are all questions that parents ask themselves around this time of year. This is what our family has decided to do, but your children may be a lot different than mine so follow the Holy Spirit's leading in what you are to do with your own family.

When we'd ask Samara, our middle child, what the difference between Santa and Jesus Samara would say "Jesus has power!" Love kids...

Last year was the worst Christmas year with whining and asking for stuff. The girls wanted a million things and "Santa" just couldn't make them all in that short period of time (he didn't have enough money either). Finally we decided, after Christmas to let our girls know that Sanata was fiction not fact. We just want their focus to be on Jesus and we really just wanted them to understand that we Santa wasn't giving somebody else more expensive things and them less expensive things just because they were more naughty.

Since we have told them that Santa isn't real (we have explained to them about St. Nicholas) they have been less demanding and I believe MORE happy. We still DO Santa. Their hge saying now is that Santa is real... it's Mommy and Daddy. We still have a Christmas tree and Santa decorations with elves and the like. BUT we are FOCUSING our attention more and more every year on Jesus. This year we are going to make a manger, minus the hay. In the manger we are each going to write 3 things that we are going to try harder to give to Jesus throughout the year. We're changing a few other things too.

I don't believe that you have to DO Christmas a certain way to be doing it RIGHT. There is no correct way. I DO believe however that whatever convictions your family has that you should live those out. This is what our family is doing... what is it that the Holy Spirit is leading YOURS to do?

In closing I do think that everyone should raise the level of talk and display of Jesus in their lives. This isn't just something that I think but it's Biblical. This season is a great reminder of what He came to do for us but He did so much more than we could think about before and after His birth. Thanks for listening to me blab. I've read so many blogs on this topic I guess I just wanted to throw in my two cents.

Natalie's 4!

2011-09-26T11:56:00.002-04:00

Nattie turned four on the 29th of August. She thinks she can do everything her sisters can. She doesn't realize she's just a little bit smaller than they are. She is a firecracker of a child and I love her to pieces! We went to Willie's with a couple of our family's friends for her birthday, they have a sandbox so it's the PLACE to be. Here are some pictures of the day.

It's been REALLY hot here so I made this cake and then the frosting melted right off it. Okay so it was a couple different things that made the frosting melt off it. Part was the heat and part was because I should've refrigerated the frosting before I started. So, this is what happens to most of the stuff I do like this so I'm not really worried. Those are supposed to be flowers on it by the way.

Some of Nattie's friends!

It turned out to be a great day. I hate that my little girl is growing up yet at the same time I'm loving it! She is just showing more and more of her personality, she's got a LOT of it.

Cardboard Dollhouse

2011-07-08T16:49:00.002-04:00

I think it was for Christmas that Meemo and Old Grandpa got the girls this cardboard dollhouse. We decided to finally build it two days ago and finished it up yesterday. We had a jammie day yesterday too so the girls had a lot of fun.

The girls worked so hard on it. They had to tell Nattie multiple times not to scribble on everything. She loves to help and be a big girl but doesn't have the patience to sit and color in the lines.
The front of the finished dollhouse. The front and back yards are the box that everything came in. The whole thing is made out of cardboard. It's actually really cute, and such a good idea.

The back of the house.

A closer look at the inside of the house. The little furniture pieces are also made of paper. It even came with paper to put on the floor as carpet. They have had a lot of fun playing with it already but have to be reminded quite a bit that it is just paper so they have to be careful... hopefully nothing gets put into anybodys mouth!

Cow Day At Chick-Fil-A

2011-07-08T16:39:00.004-04:00

Every year Chick-Fil-A has Cow Appreciation Day. If you dress like a cow you get free food. If you dress like a cow from head to toe you get a free meal and if you dress up a little bit you get a free chicken sandwich. We got 4 free meals today. Here are the cute pictures of the day.

Making their cow costumes.
I printed off the tails and the ears from Chick-Fil-A's website.

Yes, even I dressed up... free food!! We had a blast!

Our free lunch.

This is such a blast every year. If you have a Chick-Fil-A near you, mark your calendar for next year.... or go tonight!

Update on the Garden

2011-06-05T17:40:00.003-04:00

I haven't posted about my garden in a small while and I need to get a picture on here as to what the whole thing looks like now. I have a picture on here from a while ago but it's just not the same as it is now by a long shot. Well, maybe not a LONG shot but you get the idea.

We have gotten about 8-9 zucchinis out of our garden so far. Lovin' it! If you have a zucchini recipe for me I'd love to have it! We also got 5 green beans out of the garden yesterday. A little prematurely picked but I was just so excited about them I couldn't help myself. I think something is eating the buds off my tomato plants and I'm not sure what to do about it. It's either that or the sun scorches them and then they fall off. Hopefully I can figure it out and get them to produce fruit.
One of the green beans on the vine.

The garden. This just doesn't do the garden justice. I will have to take a picture tomorrow and post it. It's grown so much!

I think this was our first zuchinni we picked. It grew up against the edge of our garden box so I had to pick it.

All of these tomatoes have ripened and have been eaten now. They are yellow pear tomatoes (although according to Nattie they are orange) and they are like cherry tomatoes. They are quite good!

We accidentally picked a really small zucchini trying to pick a bigger one. Here is Nattie modeling the vegetables.

School's Out For Summer... well sorta

2011-06-04T23:10:00.004-04:00

I was debating on whether or not I wanted to post this on my family blog or on my homeschool blog and I decided that this was the place for it to go since it's not homeschooling and I'll have a TON of homeschooling pictures coming soon since Alyssa's already ready to tackle 3rd grade. I'm not going to be teaching them hard core during the summer but bits and pieces to see where they are and get them to where they need to be if they aren't there yet, which they probably are ready to go.

Here are some of the pictures we took at their "celebrations" at their school on the last day. Enjoy!

Samara and her best friend Isaiah.
Samara and her teacher. We are so proud of Samara!! And her teacher did a wonderful job this year!

Nattie thinks she should be able to join her sister in whatever she's doing since she is "big" enough. She says, "I know what to do and I will be a big girl!" Haha. Usually she's right but this time there was no way she was going to be allowed to go stand by Samara while Samara was doing her songs, etc at her celebration. Sorry Nattie Grace, maybe next year!

Samara holding her certificate! So excited!!

Alyssa's teacher did a slide-show presentation for the families and then let each of us take a DVD of it home. She is so thoughtful. I'm so proud of Alyssa, she did an excellent job this year. There were so many obstacles that she had to face, some of which she didn't know how to handle, but when it was said and done I think she showed 2nd grade who was boss! Hehe.

Nattie and Alyssa waiting for the presentation to start. So cool.

Alyssa giving her teacher one last hug before hitting the door.

Alyssa and one of her good friends since last year, A.J.

Alyssa, Samara, and Natalie, we are so proud of all three of you girls. You are such sweet girls and love to learn. I am so glad that Daddy and I get the opportunity to help you through life. I hope and pray that you will learn and grow all that you need to know and I have no doubt that you will do great things with your lives! Thanks for being AWESOME!!!

Oh and I put School's Out For Summer... well sorta as the title because technically school's out but it's only been 2 days and I've already gotten asked about a million times if I could teach each of the girls. Yes, they really do LOVE to learn.

Jungle Beat

2011-05-16T11:40:00.005-04:00

Micah's going to be helping me get some videos of this up on here but for now pictures will have to do. Alyssa was in a Musical at her school for all of second grade. She did fantastic!!! I'm so proud of her. They did a dress rehearsal for the school and she told me, "Mommy, I messed up." I said, "That's okay, what happened?" She said, "I was supposed to be mad and sad and scared when I was swallowed by the boa constricter but I smiled the whole time!" haha... my daughter is precious!

All of the second graders!

Alyssa standing by the poster announcing her Musical.

There she is in her Jungle Beat get up.
She was one of the smallest in her grade so she was 1 out of 5 that got a part being swallowed by a boa constricter.

After being swallowed. I have the whole video of this and like I said before if my husband will help me I will post it. It's ADORABLE!

Singing away!

There are 7 classes at the school and 23 kids in each class. THAT'S A LOT OF KIDS!!! They really did a great job!

Alyssa is 8

2011-05-08T21:38:00.008-04:00

Alyssa had a birthday yesterday and is now 8 years old. She is so beautiful. I can't believe she is getting so big so fast. I have enjoyed every second of her life. Even the bad times because they have made her and me stronger. We had a party at the park. She only invited girls to her party because she didn't want any boys there. There were a few boys that came and one that was okayed. She was so worried that nobody was going to come but she really had a perfect turn out, at least for her mama! Not a LOT of kids but enough to satisfy her. Here are some pictures of the fun that we had throughout the day.

My three beautiful girls before the party started. Alyssa was so cute. She kept asking, "When are my guests going to arrive?" What 8 year old talks like that? I guess my daughter does! We got there an hour before the party was supposed to start so I would be ready before everybody got there. Well, that was a little much because it took me about a half hour to set up and the girls said they were done playing by then, so we had to sit around for 30 minutes. It was okay though, they got all hyped back up when the party started.
My beautiful birthday girl!

Her butterfly cake that Mommy made.

Following the leader... the oldest in this case is the leader. Normally Samara takes over the leader position but it was Syssa's birthday. We've been talking about how EVERYONE gets a turn to be the leader but Mara likes to be the boss. Gotta watch out for that one.

Alyssa normally likes her hair down but I told her since we were going to the park and since it was going to be really hot outside that she would have to have her hair up. She told me that she wanted pig tails in buns. This is how it turned out.

Building a sand hill.

One of the activities that we did, along with playing at the park, was to make necklaces and bracelets. This is Mara modeling her necklace.

Syssa modeling her necklace and bracelet.

I didn't get a picture of Nattie since she wanted to go play so bad.

I got a parachute a while ago when I taught at the Mother's Day Out at our church. I love it. I decided it would be a perfect activity for our birthday at the park. Here are all the kids playing with it.

Alyssa had so much fun, actually the one that had the most fun was probably Nattie. She was hilarious and did such a good job.

Lift it up and go under.

Blowing out the birthday candles. I didn't know whether or not they would light since the wind was blowing, not too bad, but enough to where it kept blowing out the candles. Thank you Meems for holding up the lid to the cake so that Alyssa had candles to blow out.

I didn't post any pictures of this but before blowing out the candles on the cake I had all the kids decorate their own ice cream cone cupcakes. No ice cream involved. You take an ice cream cone and put candies in it. They don't have to go up to the top. We put 10 skittles in each. Then you frost the top of a regular sized cupcake. Then, you flip it upside down and put it on the ice cream cone. Next you frost the other side of the regular sized cupcake and put a mini cupcake upside down on top of the regular sized one. Then you frost all around all of the cupcakes on the outside and the top. Then you can put sprinkles on it. We put melon rings on top, like the cherry on top. I told them not to eat them until after we sang happy birthday and the kids listened very well. We sang happy birthday and they dug right in. I got the idea off howdini.com if anyone is interested. That's where I got the idea for the butterfly cake too.

Nattie eating her ice cream cone minus the ice cream.

Syssa chowing down with one of her friends.

Mara and a few more people at the party eating their cake.

Meemo embroidered a shirt for Syssa and she LOVES it. It has a fairy on it and it says "Raindrops are like Fairy Whispers". It's so cute. Thank you Meems!!!

She got really good birthday gifts and lot of love! Thank you everyone who made this party a success. Especially Meems and Micah. Love you Alyssa so glad you have been entrusted to our family! I love having you with us and can't wait to see how you learn and grow this next year.

EASTER

2011-05-01T00:22:00.004-04:00

I've been posting so much about my gardening, which is going on right now and has been on my mind a lot lately, that I almost forgot to blog about Easter. So here are the pictures. It was great!!! Meems and Old Grandpa are here and were here for Easter! Yeah! The girls loved it!

The three girls with their Easter buckets.
The three in their beautiful dresses.

Dying Easter eggs after church while Mommy cooks dinner.

We had roasted chicken, ham, mashed potatoes and gravy, cranberry sauce, and a bunny cake for dessert. It was really yummy!

Easter egg hunt. The girls love finding the Easter eggs. We hid them a little too well. Our kids aren't THAT big yet I've got to remember that.

Nattie finding an egg.

Mara running for an egg.

Syssa thinking about where an egg might be.

Starting the Easter egg hunt. They had so much fun!

I'm so happy that our Savior died on the cross for our sins but I'm so glad that He didn't stay in the grave but that He overcame that so we could live with Him and be more than conquerors through Christ!!! YEAH GOD!!! It's such an awesome thing knowing that we get to see those that have gone to be with Jesus before us. Thinking of Grandpa Al and the WONDERFUL things that he has done for so many people. I'm excited to be able to see Grandpa Al again someday!

The Girl's Flowers

2011-05-01T00:01:00.003-04:00

We've been going to the Farmer's Markets lately, to buy good wholesome fresh foods, and lately there have been people selling vegetable plants as well as a ton of flowers. Every time we go the girls, especially Mara, and I usually have said no because I wanted to get my vegetable garden up and going. But today there were so many beautiful flowers and the girls kept asking so I decided that they could each get one that they would be able to plant and take care of themselves.

This plant was bought by accident. It's called Bee's Balm. It attracts humingbirds and butterflies, and bees (which I'm not too fond of). I love humingbirds and butterflies though and it's supposed to be a nice red flower that comes out of it so I decided I'd keep it. I was trying to by the chocolate mint; they were close together and I guess I just grabbed the wrong one.
This is Mara's flower it's called a Penta. It also attracts humingbirds and butterflies.

This is called rue. It also attracts butterflies. I hope I'm going to have a lot of humingbirds and butterflies in my yard. I LOVE them!

Alyssa's flower, the Zenia.

The flower that I picked out. It's called a Rock Rose.

Nattie's flower a Celosia.

The girls each got to pick out their own. They are all so different than I have seen. Not Petunia's or something else that is extremely common. I was so glad. I love all of them. Hopefully we can keep them going as well as our garden. I will update on my garden maybe tomorrow.

TREES!!!

2011-04-30T23:32:00.004-04:00

With all the gardening that we were doing we decided that trees should be planted as well. We decided, of course, on getting two pear and two peach trees. We love fruit and we have a vegetable garden so the next thing was fruit. Micah did such a good job! He was so tired... I've plum worn him out lately! He loves it though I'm sure!

This is Micah hitting one of the stakes in so we could tie the tree to them so the wind wouldn't blow over. It gets a little windy here.
Here's a picture of all four trees in the yard. Well, 5 if you count the one that was already there. The trampoline is to the right. You can't see it in this picture though.

Pear tree number 1.

Pear tree number 2.

Peach tree number 1.

Peach tree number 2.

I'm praying great things come out of these trees! My husband did great with getting them in the ground, now I have to water it enough so it doesn't die.

More Gardening Pictures

2011-04-29T12:22:00.017-04:00

I would've posted this earlier but I had the whole post ready to go and I hit Publish and it didn't go through. The page said hit the back button so I did and my post was gone! I went to edit posts since it's ALWAYS saved there. IT WASN'T. Anyways, at least I'm getting this posted now. This post is on my gardening that I've been keeping busy with. But first I decided to post a picture of my front yard.

Meems is on the right side of the picture letting the girls go down the driveway in the wagon. They have so much fun doing that. I'll post pictures later if I have time.

The green beans coming up, when they first started.

The green beans... these have been my favorite because I can SEE them growing the best!

Micah came home from work the other day with another garden box for me so I decided to go ahead and fill it up too. Here is my garden thus far.

This is the new box. I ended up moving that middle plant (squash) to the middle so it would have more room to grow. There's another picture of it towards the bottom of this post.

This is my purple tomato plant. The girls got a little carried away with the water the other day on the tomatoes in the pots so this one doesn't look too good. Hopefully it will turn around and do better.

This is the yellow pear tomato plant. It's got 5 little tomatoes on it. It's doing pretty well except that the leaves look kind of funny sometimes.

These are my green beans!!! They are getting so BIG! So excited about these... and Samara said last night that she likes green beans now... hopefully that's not just talk but that she's actually going to start eating them.

Oregano, Basil, and Parsley that the kids started growing.

Natalie has been a huge help with watering the garden, she loves it!

Carrots (I've been told that carrots, onions, and regular spinach are out of season so we'll see how they go. But vine spinach is okay.) You may have to click on the picture in order to see them. Same for the onions.

Onions

Peas

Green Beans coming up in my second garden box.

Bottom right, Elite Squash; Middle, Sweet Dumpling Squash; Top, Vine Spinach (I need a treillis for that!)

Baby Butter Lettuce

Red Bell Pepper

Green Bell Pepper

PLANTING

2011-04-22T13:02:00.006-04:00

Over the weekend we went to Lowe's to get a few things for the yard. Alyssa and Samara were playing on a cart and it bumped Mara's chin pretty hard. Hard enough that a trip to the urgent care center was in store. She ended up getting her chin glued together, thank God she didn't have to have stitches! Anyways while Micah and Grandpa took her to the urgent care clinic Grandma, Alyssa, Nattie, and I stayed at Lowes to get all the stuff we needed. So I ended up deciding that now was as good a time as any to plant a garden! Yes, last minute decision as far as buying everything for it but I'd wanted a garden for a long time. My husband is amazing! He goes with me on these things... I think he has had a lot of fun building a garden with me.

The ground in our area is ROCK. So we decided to build an above ground garden. This meant that we'd have to buy a lot of dirt.

At the farmer's market we bought some tomato plants and a red marconi plant, along with some garlic flavored chives. This is our purple tomato plant. We decided to put two tomato plants in pots near the house.

These are yellow pear tomatoes. I'm excited about these. Maybe because there's already some growing on the vines.

Micah started tilling the ground where the garden was going to go. He had a hard time doing it. Like I said before our ground is rock. Here is the proof. These rocks came out of the ground. We tilled more than what the above ground garden was going to take on purpose so we could buy another above ground garden at the end of the season and put it up. I want to start out with something I feel I can keep up with first and then get bigger.

Old Grandpa telling Micah how to work the tiller. Micah struggled, the thing just bounced everywhere. He is such a good sport though! He did an excellent job getting it done the way I wanted it.

Taking a break... I am quite the slave driver! BACK TO WORK!!! ;-)

We had to put these metal things around the tomatoes so they wouldn't fall over. If you look closely (click on the picture to enlarge it and then click the back button to come back) you'll see the little tomatoes on the vines.

Micah got done tilling pretty late. Thank you baby you are awesome!!! We put the edging stuff around it to keep the grass out. Hopefully it works. It works pretty good for our bush bed out front so I think it will be fine.

This is the finished product. I didn't take any in between pictures... maybe because my hands were all dirty trying to get the 7!!! tomato plants planted, they're in the back. (We thought there was only two but in the two containers one had 4 and one had 3 in them so now we'll have a TON of tomatoes!!!) The two you see up front are a red bell pepper and green bell pepper. These were all already growing and we transplanted them into the garden bed. Then I planted seeds for carrots, green beans, peas, butter lettuce, spinach, and onions. I'm super excited to see how these do!!! Hopefully I'll reap a good harvest out of them! And I planted marigolds all around the edges of the box.

My BIG helper. She's growing up so fast. Nattie loves to use the house or her watering can to water the garden, the tomatoes and the grass, oh and the tree. She walks around with the water on and just waters whatever she feels like. I tell her to make sure she doesn't spray in the open windows!

Such a good girl. If you see the garden in the back you'll see to the right that there's nothing over there. That's where I'm going to put the other box when I get it. Maisy (our dog) learned pretty quick already not to go near the garden. I thought it was going to take more but she's really learned quick.

This is a blossom on the purple tomato plant.

The tomatoes growing on the yellow pear tomato plant! I'll have to take pictures of these when they're done. I've never had them before so this should be interestingly fun.

If you look very closely I noticed today that my Marigolds were already sprouting. These aren't in the garden box but around the edges of it. I'm super excited about them. I kind of goofed though. I planted these all around the box and now have no room to stand to garden. I may have to pull some out and maybe transplant them. I'll do it different next year!

These are the garlic flavored chives... yummy! I just go and get what I want when I want.

So that's one of the projects I've done lately. Hopefully it will turn out well or what doesn't turn out I hope I'll learn from so I can do better next year. I'm loving trying new things out!

Thanks Meemo, Old Grandpa, and Micah for being such big helps... oh and of course thank you to Syssa, Mara, and Nattie!!! They are helpful too!

2011-04-21T16:48:00.002-04:00

This is what happens when tired girls watch one of their favorite movies!

They are my precious sleeping beauties!!!

Grandpa Ozzie's Surprise

2011-04-21T15:29:00.006-04:00

The last month or two have been quite crazy! There have been a lot of little things that have happened and lots fo big things too! One of the HUGE things was a surprise visit from Grandpa Ozzie (who lives 22 hours on a motorcycle away, that's how long it took him to get here). It was a good time!

His goggles are starting to fall apart. I guess that's what happens after riding on a motorcycle for so long.

He decided to try on Nattie's hat.

When Ozzie comes he is famous for going to restaurants that have an enormous amount of food or he goes to a regular restaurant and buys an enormous amount of food. This time was no different. We went to Big Lou's pizza parlor. The pizza was HUGE!!!! We had about the size of a regular large pizza left over.

Samara getting ready to EAT! She ended up eating the same amount as I did (a whole piece of pizza!!).

Nattie taking a drink waiting for the pizza.

Daddy with the three girls waiting for the pizza.

Mommy eating the HUGE piece of pizza.

Look at the size of that thing!!

Our friend Eric getting ready to demolish his piece.

Mara amazed me.... she was really going after it.

Erin eating.

The girls love Grandpa Ozzie's motorcycle. They won't let him rest until he takes them for a ride. Alyssa went first. She kept saying "I wanna go on a motorcycle ride!" over and over again until finally Ozzie took her. She spent a month with Grandpa Ozzie and Mama Jay one summer riding the motorcycle around so she is a BIKER CHICK through and through now.

Ozzie and Alyssa getting ready for a ride.

Samara going for her ride.

Nattie's turn.

We always have a good time with Grandpa Ozzie! He is such an awesome Grandpa! Wish he could be here more often, with Mama Jay too (she didn't get to come because she had to work).

The Thankless Job...

2011-03-09T12:33:00.001-05:00

I have been thinking lately about what moms say (and even I've said many times up until maybe 3 or 4 days ago). "Being a mom is a thankless job". I understand what is meant by this statement but I think I am a little off when I say this. We, as moms, don't get the kind of thanks that we would like to get from people, our spouses, or our children, but more important we get the approval, and I believe as I've been feeling the last couple of days, we get thanks from God! WOW!!! Isn't that amazing! The only approval that I want is from the Lord! I don't want anybody else's approval more than His.

He has entrusted me with 5 special, precious, unique girls! He has great plans for them and for myself; part of that is to rear these girls to the fullness that GOD has for them... not the fullness I have for them! I praise the Lord for this because on my own I don't have much to offer except a lot of faults, but God has ALL things and He only gives good and perfect gifts to us!

In my almost 8 years of mothering I've had some kind and encouraging words spoken to me as well as some mean and hateful things spoken to me. Some things that built me up and some things that tore me down. When people speak kind and encouraging words to me I try and see them as people sent by God to be a comfort to me especially when my girls seem to have LOST THEIR MINDS! (If you're a mom you'll know what I'm talking about!) But when someone comes along and says something that's not so nice or very discouraging with their words, actions, and sometimes even their looks, I have to know and be secure in the way God sees me and not the way that man sees me.

In the Bible it talks about how we, as Christ followers, are aliens in this world. We should act differently, talk differently, be different. I believe that this ultimately comes from knowing who we are in Christ and not allowing anybody to persuade us differently. And in this I know I need to watch my tongue and what I say to others so I'm not one to say hurtful things but be an uplifter instead.

I knew this before but I'm understaning at a greater level that my children are not my own. They are a gift from God for God! I need to pray daily... hourly... for wisdom, which He grants (Godly wisdom is far greater than human wisdom) so that my girls will be exactly what God wants them to be, not what I want them to be because I don't necessarily have a full picture of what their greatness is. I get a picture of their greatness but I'm definitely NOT all-knowing.

Motherhood is not a thankless job. If you don't feel appreciated for what you are doing with your children that will effect eternity then I encourage you to examine your heart and ask yourself "who am I looking to for appreciation". I know I need this advice more than most that's why I believe I've had this on my heart so much lately. God is the one I would like the appreciation and encouragement from more than any other! And remember we are just borrowing our children for this life. They are ultimately God's children not ours! Thanks for letting me share my heart today. Go and make great disciples out of your children.

Calling

2011-02-23T20:35:00.003-05:00

I shouldn't be on the computer right now. My mom is coming so I should be getting prepared for her to be here. But what is there to prepare? I can clean but I've already cleaned up a bunch and haven't put a huge dent in it anyways. I need to get some of my feelings out in writing here so that I can do what I need to get done around the house with a clearer view of what is going through my head. I don't know about you but I guess writing is just how I do that.

I got back from a 6 day trip to Haiti on Monday. It was awesome. We are adopting two girls from that beautiful country and I got to go see them. It was an answer to prayer!! I had just starting praying and telling God that I really just needed to go and visit them and make sure that they knew that I loved them. I wanted to spend some bonding time with them and be able to hear them say "Mom, I love you!" Which I got to hear a lot. But we really didn't have the money to pull off a trip. Maybe 2 weeks later I got a phone call and got offered a portion of the money to go!!! Absolutely amazing!!! Praise the Lord!!! It ended up that at the end of the trip I only spent about 20-40 dollars of my own money! God is so good!!! I am so happy that it all worked out the way it did!

Before I left the word PREPARE kept popping into my head. What! I know that we are supposed to be ready in and out of season to preach the good news of Christ (it's in the Bible, I'm not really sure the reference but it's in there) but I wasn't sure what this meant for me while I was headed to Haiti. I have yet to know understand fully what I'm supposed to be prepared for even now I still feel a sence of urgency to be prepared. So that's what I'm trying to do as much as I can. PREPARING! I mainly feel like I need to be prepared spiritually for whatever is going to happen next but I also feel as though I'm supposed to be prepared in other ways as well.

While I was in Haiti I was able to be with some of the greatest kids I know, as well as some of the greatest adults. Pastor Jean Fritz, the pastor of the orphanage (he also pastor's a church, runs a school, and is trying to do about 30 adoptions right now) is an amazing man. If you ever think about it please pray for him. He has so much going on right now! It's absolutely amazing to me that he can keep things straight. I pray that he soars on wing's like eagles, he runs and not grows weary and walks and not faints. (It's in the Bible and again I'm not sure of the reference.)

Haiti really is a beautiful country! If you look past the destruction of the earthquake and into the heartland of Haiti, the mountains, the trees, the rocks, the concrete homes, the wonderful people.... The people need a love that knows no end. They need Jesus, just like all people need Him! I'm just believing that Haiti is going to have a great revival come to it. Haiti is going to see the Lord in ways that it never has before! People are going to be set free from bondage that they have been carrying around forever. People being healed and Jesus restoring lives and marriages and families. I just know that the Lord wants this! He wants the people of Haiti to rise up out of the ashes and into His Glorious Light!

Anyways, like I said I just got back from Haiti so of course I have a ton of pictures! My computer cable broke when I got back to the states so I have to wait til I get a new power cord before I can post any pictures but as soon as that gets fixed I will be going crazy with pictures. I was so excited to see my girls, and they were so excited to see me. I may post a little bit about some of my experiences while I was there but for now I need to at least clean up a bit before my mom comes. She'll be thinking... what did I teach you about cleaning!? Haha. Anyways if you think about it say a prayer for our family and that our paperwork would get through smoothly and that nothing would stop God's calling on our lives!

By the way it worked out perfectly because Fafane's birthday was on the 7th of February and Guerline's birthday was on the 5th of March! I went on the 16-21st of February so I was there between their birthdays! PERFECT! PRAISE THE LORD! He is so GOOD!

Another Lost Tooth

2011-01-08T21:48:00.003-05:00

Alyssa lost her third tooth tonight. Well, lost or had Daddy pull it out? It was really loose so Daddy asked Syssa if he could pull on it and see if it would come out and she said yes because it was hurting anyways. A couple small yanks and her top tooth was out!

She was so excited! She was walking around the room raving and talking so fast I couldn't understand her. She kept saying the same s words over and over so that we would know that she couldn't say them very well. It was so cute!
What kid doesn't like to put their tongue in the hole where there tooth once was?

The gap. Her other top front tooth is loose too but she said that Daddy couldn't touch that one tonight... maybe another night.

School Days

2011-01-08T21:16:00.004-05:00

The kids were getting ready for school yesterday and it was just too cute. They pick out their own clothes every morning and get ready all by themselves. They really do a great job. I thought I'd take some pictures of them because they were being so darn cute!

This is Natalie. She gets up just as we are ready to go to school. Yesterday morning she was really groggy but I already had my camera out so I had to take a picture or two of my littlest princess. She was really sleepy.

Samara's become a little fashion diva. She says she knows what she wants to wear and that everything she picks out is cute. I think she's right too! She was super energetic and ready to go.
Alyssa loves to pose now so here's one of her new ones. She said it was Friday so she wanted to be comfortable. She says when she wears this shirt it's like she's a librarian and since she wants to be a teacher someday... she really likes looking like a teacher now.

The three beautiful princesses! Nattie didn't even want to look at the camera but I finally convinced her for this ONE picture. Thank you Nattie Grace!

Alyssa was getting ready to leave but when she looked out the window she was in awe of the sky. Who wouldn't be!?! It was beautiful. She kept saying "take a picture, take a picture!" I had to take a couple pictures for her. I told them that God had painted the sky and that he was an artist so the whole way to school they kept saying that God was so good at art and that they just loved the way God painted the sky. Even on the ride back home Nattie couldn't stop talking about the way God was such a great artist. It was too cute.

Then I went into the girl's room and found them still in bed. Well, not really but their life-sized dolls were in the girl's beds. It was too cute! Thanks Mama Jay and Papa Oz for their dolls that are HUGE! They are enjoying them for sure. The picture above is Alyssa's bed.

This is Samara's bed.

The girls being back in school has been going well this week, except that Mara came home the other day bawling again that she missed me so much. What do you say to that?!? I love my little girl and I miss her so much while she's at school too. We talked about it and she's okay now. Bless her heart.

Teeter Totter

2010-12-31T23:25:00.005-05:00

Mama Jay and Papa Oz (Micah's parents) got the girls a teeter totter airplane for Christmas. It's AWESOME! After literally 5 hours of labor later we finally got this thing up and going. They play outside a ton more now. Since we don't have a nearby community park it's nice to have some outdoor toys. We may need to plant some more trees to get some shade going though. Maybe someday... I've got lots that I would like to do around our yard and house.

Working together is so much fun... most of the time!

The girls couldn't wait to get it done. They got their cameras and started taking pictures. They thought we'd get it done quickly but instead we took forever, in their eyes.

We had one screw that took us an hour to figure out. I'd try to explain it to you but it would probably take me an hour to explain!

Trying to put these pieces together.

The FINISHED PRODUCT! The girls love it and we LOVE it too! This picture is taken the next day because it was too dark by the time we got it done. The girls still teeter tottered the night we got it done for a bit though. (How could we say no?)

Oh and Micah and I have tried out this teeter totter... it's pretty awesome!

A Trampoline Christmas

2010-12-31T22:30:00.003-05:00

After Christmas it rained for a couple of days so we weren't able to put up the trampoline we got for Chirstmas. Here are a couple pictures of what it looks like.

We got the accessory pack for it which came with a ladder, a shoe holder, and some stakes to stake it down. Here's a picture of Alyssa helping Nattie get into the netting. When I was growing up there weren't so many safety items. It makes me feel better about them jumping on the trampoline, especially after seeing them run into the netting every once in a while, but it's kind of funny to me since I never used a trampoline with one.

A cool view of the teeter totter and the trampoline. Thank you Mama Jay and Papa Oz! The teeter totter is a HUGE hit! They spent all day today in and out of the trampoline, on the teeter totter, and then on the swings. So fun! It's like we have our own little park in the backyard.

I'm not in the family picture since I was taking the picture. Here's a picture of me getting ready to bounce the girls across the trampoline. Well, maybe not that, but they sure bounce high for little girls. We have to tell them to be careful all the time.

The family on the trampoline.

I LOVE IT!!! Brings back childhood memories!

Happy Birthday Jesus

2010-12-26T00:36:00.005-05:00

Our Christmas Day went wonderfully! Here are a few pictures to sum up the day. My picture is the first one, I didn't mean to do that. In fact, I tried to change it and I can't figure out how to. This morning we got up to two little girls climbing in our bed saying that there were presents under the Christmas tree. The littlest little Jones girl wasn't awake yet so we laid in bed for a little while. Then we went downstairs and opened presents. It was such a great day. Alyssa read the Christmas Bible story, which she can almost quote word for word now. Then we made some rolls and went over to our friend's house for Linner (lunch and dinner--like brunch). Enjoy the pictures!

Micah's Grandma made this for me. I LOVE it! I'm thinking of putting a shelf above the window in my kitchen to put it.

My mom got the girls the game Operation. They were so excited. Alyssa's played it at school once so sh was super excited to get it for Christmas.

Micah's grandfather went to dance with Jesus January 1st 2010 so his grandma made this shadow box for him to have something to remember his grandfather. It was so cool!

My mom got this game for Nattie. It's a lot easier for Nattie. I've never heard of it before but we opened it up and tried it out and it was really fun! Thanks Mom!
Nattie and Micah

So the weirdest thing happened. Grandma Sue bought the girls markers/paper. When Syssa opened up her markers and went to use the black... it was empty. The marker had absolutely no ink in it whatsoever! It was so weird! It wasn't just out of ink but the black marker was white on the inside and had never been filled with ink.

These are some tracks we got the girls for Christmas. The weird thing that happened with this gift was that it was supposed to come with 2 tunnels and it only came with 1. I'll be calling two companies on Monday and hopefully we can figure this out. This was one thing that the girls liked the most. They played with it for a very long time! This is also the Christmas party that they fought over.

Grandma Nita made these for the girls. They are so cute. If you click on the picture it will get bigger so you can see it better, to get back all you have to do is hit the back button.

We got the girls cameras this year for Christmas. Alyssa has been begging for one forever. So I decided to get her a camera. I got her one at Best Buy that was on sale, you know one of those little kiddie ones. Then, I started to read the reviews on them and Micah and I decided that we would give that one to Natalie and buy another one for Alyssa. I looked it up online and found an adult camera (12 megapixels) half off. It was only 49 dollars. We thought since they were such a good price we'd get one for Mara too. They LOVE them! They absolutely love taking pictures (and video)! The screen is pretty big and the girls are getting the hang of it rather quickly.

This is the front of the camera.

The cameras came with these free cases.

This is my love and me! We had such a great day! HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESUS!!!

Family Time

2010-12-22T11:40:00.002-05:00

I was trying to post this last night but the internet was acting funny and wouldn't allow me to upload my pictures. Some of the fun things we've been doing on break have been schoolwork (and yes my girls think that doing schoolwork is a TON of fun!), movies, coloring, crafts, stations, and much more. I love having my girls at home with me. They make me laugh, smile, and just feel like a kid. Here are some pictures of the other night. We were watching a movie but Nattie, Samara, and Alyssa were more interested in reading than watching the movie... my kids are so into books, and I love it!

This is one of my favorites!

Alyssa trying to watch a movie and read at the same time. She's not reading at this point only because I told her she needed to look at me and smile. She's not too fond of being interrupted when she's reading but if it's to get a picture taken she's not too hesitant.

I love it when Micah helps the girls. This book is a book of numbers, colors, letters, etc and Nattie is showing her daddy that she knows them all.

This is Samara reading. She is doing really well sounding out words and knowing her sight words. I'm so proud of her. She's reading books all the time now. If you can see this page that she is reading is quite long for a Kindergartener and she read the whole book which had a lot of pages just like this.

Christmas Dresses Thanks Grandma Sue!

2010-12-12T22:06:00.005-05:00

Grandma Sue always sends Christmas dresses to our girls every year, and they are always super cute. I remember when I was little and my mom would always make me a Christmas and Easter dress. This was one of my favorite things. She even made my wedding dress... I would say that my mom is an amazing seamstress. Because she has so many grandkids, I'm one out of 9 of her children, she buys them their Christmas dresses. Here are some pictures of the girls unwrapping their dresses and pictures of the dresses themselves. This year their dresses were as cute as ever!

Alyssa getting ready to open her dress.

There it is!

Alyssa's Dress

Mara getting ready to open her dress.

Such Anticipation!

Mara with her brand new dress!

Nattie getting ready!

Opening it up!

Nattie's new dress.

The three girls after church today.

LOVE

2010-12-07T11:19:00.000-05:00

So I've been thinking a lot lately about LOVE. In the Bible one of the greatest commandments, second only to love the Lord thy God, is love your neighbor as thyself. In this we see the heart of God. I've been thinking a lot about love lately because I'm trying to figure out if my heart is in harmony with God's heart or if I'm completely out of tune. We are in the process of adopting two adorable girls from Haiti, which has been a ride! The love that we have for these two girls is such a different feeling than we've ever had before. It's not more or less than our biological girls but just a lot different.

When my husband and I got married I knew it wasn't going to be easy but I didn't think I was going to be able to just FALL out of love with him. I figured that would just be a feeling I felt FOREVER. Boy was I wrong. In the times that I didn't feel like I loved my husband I thought that that's just the way it goes. It took me a couple years and a couple of Godly people to tell me that's not the way it goes.

The thing it comes down to is that when you don't feel love for someone, even if you have in the past, you still have to CHOOSE to love that person. God doesn't just want us to love the loveable, or the ones that will give love back, He wants us to love EVERYBODY. In Matthew 5:43-48 it talks about the idea of loving your enemy! WHAT!?! And not only loving them but blessing them, doing good to them, and PRAYING for them! Wow. What a different way to look at people right? So even when people are flat out annoying, or flat out rude, or flat out mean to me... I'm supposed to love them anyway?!? The answer to that question according to these verses is obvious. The answer is yes! This will set us apart from others and people will wonder why we are so loving to people who aren't necessarily accepting of us. My prayer today is Lord help me to love ALL people.

CHRISTMAS TREE

2010-12-02T09:38:00.006-05:00

We usually set up our Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving. It's what we've always done... family tradition. This year, however, we went to the store for Black Friday shopping and we were exhausted all that day. We slept a good part of it and then we were trying to recouperate the rest of the time. So, we decided that we would wait to set up the tree. The next couple of days were still quite busy so we finally put up our tree on Tuesday night after Daddy got home from work. The girls were, of course, super excited. And so were Mommy and Daddy. I got to take a bunch of pictures with my new camera which is always super fun. I'm thinking about taking a photography class. If I do I'll keep you updated on how that's going. So here are some pictures of the fun night decorating the Christmas tree.
The girls decorated the tree almost all by themselves. Nattie needed a little help and sometimes the branches wouldn't go in right so we'd have to step in but for the most part the girls did the whole thing! They had a blast doing it.

I think I'm helping Nattie in this picture. I'm not quite sure. Usually setting up the tree is super stressful but this year, with the girls being able to do most of it themselves, I wasn't super stressed at all.

Daddy helping Nattie put on another branch.

Alyssa making sure each branch is spread out properly. She kept saying this doesn't look like a great Christmas tree. I didn't blame her for saying that since we've had this tree since we were married 8 years ago! It's slimming down a little more every year. We bought another tree last year but I decoate that one to be fancy, well fancy in this house at least.

Mara putting on an ornament. They call them or-da-mets. It's so cute!

The girls in front of their nicely decorated Christmas tree. Nattie kept ordering the two oldest around. Then she took Micah's phone and kept telling them to stand in front of the Christmas tree so she could take their picture. It was too funny.

Micah putting the star on the top of the tree. I really like how you can see the colors of the paint on my walls.

The finished product. We didn't realize how many ornaments we have. All of the ornaments on this tree are either homemade or were given to us by someone special. Micah even has a couple he made when he was a kid on here. This was a ton of fun. I love Christmas!

BLACK FRIDAY!

2010-11-27T02:30:00.005-05:00

Some of us decided that we would be a part of the madness on Black Friday. There were a few finds that I researched and we thought it would be worth it to go to Best Buy at 2AM. We were about to set off when we were informed that it was raining outside. We had to bundle up. The crazy part about that is in the daytime it was in the 80s. It got down to 29 degrees before we got into the store. We just about froze our tushes off but we made it.

The brave ones that ventured out in the cold so early in the morning. Sarah Beth, Eric, Micah, and me. Notice the heavy amount of clothes. We really should've had a few more layers.

Below are some of the deals that we got.

We have been thinking of getting a nice camera for a little while now and haven't known exactly what to get. Thanks to the blogger of http://1plus1plus1equals1.blogspot.com for the suggestion of getting a Canon Rebel XS and Best Buys Black Friday deal, we decided to get this camera. The camera was hard to get. After waiting in line for 3 hours in the cold, Micah had to follow the employees of Best Buy around for a long while before we were told that they couldn't find them and then finally they found them on a top shelf in a box used for shipping with about 6 other cameras, only two of them were this camera. I have a wonderful husband! We also got the new ipod nano. We were looking into something so that I could have music while I was running and this was on sale so we went for it.

Another steal was an HP laptop. This one wasn't for us but for one of our friends. And then Eric got a new phone, the Samsung Fascinate. It was FREE! That was probably the biggest deal to be had.

There were a few other deals that we got on jackets, and a coat, and a pair of jeans, and some movies. I will only do Black Friday again if there's something I really want like this year. It was interesting, fun, COLD, and spontanious.

Thanksgiving Play

2010-11-27T02:17:00.003-05:00

While we were inside making lunch/dinner (since there's brunch i'm going to say linner) Brent took the girls outside to play with them to get out some of their energy.

Syssa swinging

Brent was chasing the girls around so this is a picture of Samara running away from him.

Nattie was attached to Brent just about the whole day.

THANKSGIVING

2010-11-27T01:41:00.006-05:00

On Thanksgiving day our friends Eric, Brent, Sarah Beth, and my sister in law, Erin, came to our house. We had a good time of games, cooking, talking, crafts, and so much other fun. I am so glad that they were able to come down and see us! They helped to make this Thanksgiving a wonderful one.

Eric helping to cut up onions. I made a cucumber salad and it didn't turn out very well at all. Oh well, I won't be making that next year.

Erin made deviled eggs. She is excellent at it. Thanks Auntie Erin!!!

Sarah Beth was painting the girl's nails and Brent thought it might be fun to paint his nails too. He didn't actually do it but he thought about it.

Beautiful Sarah Beth painting the girl's nails.

The turkey is done! I'm basting the turkey to keep it moist.

So this year the turkey turned out AMAZING. I got just a turkey breast because I didn't think anybody would be coming over for Thanksgiving and it would just be our family of 5. Then I found out that all the others would be coming, which makes me super happy, so I went and bought this bird because there were no other "just" turkey breasts.

I didn't do much special except cut up a whole onion and a whole clove of garlic and stuffed the turkey with it. (We love onion and garlic at our house so this is a WINNER.) Then I poured some olive oil over the top and sprinkled it with garlic powder. Then I cooked it for about 4 1/2 hours. I took the turkey breasts out before I took out the whole turkey because it gone done about 30 minutes faster. It was soooooo good. We even ate some of the onions and especially some of the garlic. It was yummy!

The girls eating. They loved it. My three are definitely good eaters!

The crew at the table.

We had the canned cranberry sauce and Samara made the shape of Texas. This is an upside down Texas. If you turn your head you'll be able to see Texas... at least Samara thought so.

Thanksgiving Pumpkins

2010-11-25T02:58:00.005-05:00

I posted the "recipe" to this on my homeschool blog at http://jonesfamhomeschool.blogspot.com/
Check it out. These are just pictures of friends having fun.

Brent and his pumpkin

Erin, my sister in law, eating her pumpkin.

Eric

The girls LOVED their pumpkins.

A week filled with fun

2010-11-23T15:41:00.003-05:00

The girls have this week off of school so we have been having a week (two days so far) filled with fun! We have done a couple crafts and done a lot of catching up on writing letters for Mara. Well, when she went into school at the beginning of the year she knew how to write every letter and place it perfectly on the line. (One of the things we worked on over the summer.) Now she has a hard time remembering where they go. I should've been working with her while she was going to school but I thought she'd be fine because she was in school right? WRONG! Well, all that means is that she will have a few sentences to write when she gets home from school. She has no other homework so I know she'll be able to do this with no problems. Usually she wants to do her Comprehensive Curriculum workbook because Alyssa has homework anyways. Well, hopefully when she gets back to school next week her handwriting will be better than ever... and then next year she will be ready to write stories instead of work on her handwriting.

Anyways, Micah's sister and a couple friends are coming down for Thanksgiving so I'm pretty sure I won't be blogging Wed-Fri... although I haven't blogged for a LOT longer than that before. I'm just starting to get back into this, even if it is just random thoughts. Well, I'll probably post any crafts or things that we do, with pictures, on my homeschooling site... http://jonesfamhomeschool.blogspot.com If I don't get back on here and post before Thanksgiving... HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!! (It should really be ThanksLIVING!)

Astro Boy

2010-11-22T19:48:00.003-05:00

So along with my new blog I decided that I was going to post movie reviews (which are just my opinions and don't really mean a whole lot). But I thought it would be fun to do.

We watched Astro Boy tonight and at the beginning of the movie I wasn't too sure I was going to like it. It starts of really sad. But it was a pretty good movie all in all. A little suspensful for my girls. Alyssa always has huge eyes and stands up and jumps around when she gets nervous in a movie and there was a lot of that. At the end of the movie though we related it to God. How do you relate ASTRO BOY to GOD you might ask. Well, I'm not! In the movie it talked about the blue energy and the red energy. I asked Alyssa (my 7 year old) what the blue energy in Astro Boy was like, and she immediately said like God. So I asked her what the red energy (the negative energy) was like and she immediately said dark power or Satan. I was quite impressed with her that she made that distinction. The blue energy was only used for good and the red energy was only used for evil. We talked about that almost at the end of the movie. At the very end of the movie the robot gets brought back to life with the blue energy. This was really cool because Alyssa starts lauging and giggling and says just like God brings people back to life. We are going to try and find parallels like that in every movie from now on because she really thought it was cool.

I say it's a good movie. (Samara said it was a boy movie) but I think it was good for all. Although my three year old didn't understand it at all!

Homeschooling

2010-11-22T16:24:00.002-05:00

Hey I'm starting a homeschooling blog. We are homeschooling next year and I'd like to do a "yearbook" for the kids and I've heard that you can print out your blog so I'm going to do a homeschooling blog so that I can just print out the blog as their yearbook. The blog site is going to be www.jonesfamhomeschool.blogspot.com This blog will be for family stuff and the other blog will be all about our days homeschooling and what we are doing in that area. It should be quite fun. Check it out!

Ballet

2010-11-22T15:24:00.009-05:00

The girls started ballet in September. There are three sisters at a church close to our house that do it as a ministry for free. The girls really love it. Alyssa, Samara, and Nattie were all in different classes to start with until Samara and Alyssa begged me to let them be in the same class so I eventually let them. Nattie is still in the little kid class though.

I have a ton of pictures of Nattie because I stayed in with her the first day for almost the whole time so she wouldn't be nervous. Now I go back and forth half and half between Alyssa and Samara and Nattie's classes.

Nattie doing some sort of pose.

Nattie doing bunny hops.

Nattie kept posing so I kept clicking. I thought she was so cute!

Here's Samara waiting for her turn to do frog jumps I think.

Outside they love to climb on these rocks. (Thanks to Grandpa Ozzie!!) They decided to try and do ballet on the rocks too. They almost fell off a million times but stayed up long enough for me to get a picture and then I told them they needed to get down.

Mara doing a curtsy.

I think Nattie was trying to do a curtsy too. She couldn't quite get it but she's really cute anyway.

Syssa's elegant curtsy.

Nattie trying to do another curtsy.

I think this is positon one. I don't know for sure since I never took ballet. It looks good though.

Mara's so cute!

Nattie's been really into posing lately. I think it's adorable but at those moments I just want a straight up and down picture or even a candid shot she always poses instead. Oh well. She's such a doll I can't complain.

Chosen Marathon for Adoption

2010-11-22T14:35:00.006-05:00

Chosen Marathon For Adoption
I finished my first half marathon on October 23, 2010!!! I'm so excited that I finished the whole thing. This was a fundraiser to help get our girls home.
This picture is of me before I started running. I was about 18 minutes late starting because I had to go to the bathroom before I started running and the line to the women's restroom was, of course, super long. It didn't matter though. There was a chip on our bib number that would start our own personal time when we crossed the starting line. It took a total of 2 hours and 8 minutes to run, I did end up running the whole thing although I didn't think I was going to be able to when I started. I give all the glory to God for that though because when I would start to get tired I would pray or a praise song would come on and I would just somehow keep going.

The three girls waiting for Mommy to get done running. After I fiinished Alyssa said, "that doesn't look so hard!" The funny thing is that Alyssa is the one in the family that is probably the least athletic. It was hilarious!

This is me just about to go over the finish line. I was so disoriented when I was done! I finally found Micah and asked him where he was at while I was crossing the finish line. I didn't know he was right there taking my picture as I finished. He even said good job and everything but I didn't hear any of it. I was fine until I stopped running.

Stretching is very important after you get done running. Nattie thought that it was important that she stretched with me. Sitting and waiting for Mommy for 2 hours and 8 minutes was a lot of work. Micah actually went to the van and had the laptop play a movie and Micah did his homework while they waited. I had my cell phone while I was running (no I didn't think I was going to need it to call for HELP) because my music is on it and so about two miles out I called him and let him know so he'd be at the finish line. I'm glad I did because he would've waited 3 hours because I told him it would take me at least that to finish. Boy was I wrong!

Well, I'm thinking of doing the same run next year (hills and all!). I'm actually really excited about it already for next year. Prayerfully next year we will have our girls with us so they can come up and wait for Mommy too! Thanks for everyone's prayers and support!!!

Update On Adoption

2010-08-13T09:58:00.002-04:00

I haven't given an update on the progress of our adoption in a little while so I thought I'd share the wonderful things that God is doing. Our first portion of money has been raised and our dossier, along with that money, is in Haiti right now being worked on. The pastor that heads up the orphanage told one of the people in our group that he thought it would be 6 months to a year before we could get them home. I don't know if this means from the time the dossier was turned in or if that was from now to 6 months to 1 year. We know that God will brin our sweet girls to us in His timing so we wait on Him knowing that He has a will for our family's lives.

We have been praying about how we are going to be able to raise the 2nd $6000 orphanage fee. We have felt God saying be patient and wait on me. So we've been trying to rely on the Lord and not stress about the money portion. I got an email 2 weeks ago stating that we were awarded a grant from Show Hope! This is just amazing. We were told by MANY different people that it would probably be a waste of time to fill out the applications (the apps took about 3 hours to fill out) because we aren't going through an adoption agency so they wouldn't be able to award us anything. We kept praying about it and Micah and I decided to fill out the paperwork to three different organizations offering grants, Lifesong, Show Hope, and Abba Fund. Abba Fund sent us a letter almost immediately and said that we did not qualify for a grant from them so we figured we'd probably get letters from each of the others saying the same thing. Well, this grant from Show Hope is a good portion of that $6000. All in all, we probably only have another $3600 to raise! This is amazing!!! We need $1200 more for care fees (we pay $200 a month for 12 months). Then, there are fees for what's called readoption, when they get to the states they will need birth certificates. And then we'll need some of the second portion of the orphanage fees! We'll also need to travel either to Miami or to Haiti to pick up the girls which that can vary from about 600-1500 dollars depending on if we have to travel to Haiti or to Miami and how long we'd have to stay at either place. (Travel fees are not included in the $3600.)

God is so good! Just remember if God told you to do it, He will provide a way for the finances, the energy, the paperwork, all of the resources necessary to accomplish what He's told you to do. We are all called to help the orphan and the widow (James 1:27). This will look different for every person. Ask God what He wants you to do and He will show you! Thanks again to everyone who is supporting us monetarily and by prayer. They both help out so much!

Riding Bikes

2010-07-31T20:34:00.002-04:00

This week was a big week for Alyssa. She practiced and practiced until she is now finally able to ride her bike all by herself. After all of the "I can't"s over and over again, she finally said that she'd do it. She wasn't scared anymore after she figured out that she could do it if she practiced and now can start and stop and balance on her bike without any help! She's so proud of herself. Two years ago, though, when she was first trying to learn how to ride Micah had told her that if she didn't know how to ride a bike then she would never be able to ride a motorcycle. She loves motorcycles and wants one someday so that motivated her big time. Well, now that she knows how to ride her bike she asked when she was going to get her motorcycle. We had to explain to her that Daddy didn't mean that she'd get a motorcycle whenever she learned how to ride but that when we do get a motorcycle she'd be able to ride. Oy! How do you explain these things to a 7 year old. Anyways she's so happy about learning how to ride she wants to do it ALL the time. Good motivation for Samara because she wants to be right alongside Alyssa. It shouldn't be too much longer before she knows how to ride her bike as well... and then there's Nattie. I'm not worried about her learning. She will take her cue from her sisters probably like she always does. I haven't taken pictures of her on her bike yet but when I get them I will post them.

Fun at the Creek and Geocaching

2010-07-25T02:22:00.004-04:00

Yesterday Auntie Erin showed up to hang out for the weekend. We love Auntie Erin and wanted to do something fun with her so Geocaching is like an adult scavenger hunt. You can go online to geocaching.com and then punch in coordinates in a GPS to where the "treasure" is. When you find the treasure you get to look at it take one thing out if you want to, but if you take one thing out you have to put something in of equal or greater value. It's a lot of fun to do these treasure hunts but we didn't find any today. I don't think our GPS is good enough for the coordinates. Anyways here's a picture of us in the car trying to find our first set of coordinates.

After we geocached and found nothin we decided to go to the creek. We brought the girl's swimming suits and water shoes and two boogy boards that they could float on. So we started pulling the girls on the boogy boards and wading in the water just a bit. It felt good on a hot day like today. Especially after geocaching, searching for treasure in the hot hot sun! We then got a little deeper and a little deeper. Before we knew it we were swimming (literally) in the creek. We had gotten to a part that even the three adults couldn't reach in parts. Thank goodness we had those boogy boards to keep the girls on! We found a rope that was tied to a tree so Micah swung on it into the creek, then Erin, then Alyssa, followed by Samara, then of course Nattie had to try it. Okay then it was my turn. I got ahold of the rope and stood on the tree roots that everybody else was standing on, and then I got scared. I hadn't planned on being scared. It was just a rope tied to a branch on a tree that you swung out into a creek with. My (almost) three year old had just done it. Wow. Anyways I got up the guts to do it and there was absolutely nothing to be afraid of. It was so much fun. The girls had a blast too! We will be adding that to our list of Saturday adventrues for sure!

Micah and Erin trying to build a dam to make a place that the kids could ride their boogy boards down on. They loved it.

Nattie got tired of being in the water so Mommy got out with her. She wanted to sing for the camera and take pictures with the camera. She's so cute! I'll post some videos later of the songs that she sang for me. Well, I'll try to remember and try to find enough time to do that.

Samara going down the "water slide".

Syssa going down the "water slide".

So all in all it turned out to be a great day! Even though we weren't able to find anything while geocaching. Better luck next time I suppose.

Feeding the ducks and...

2010-07-23T15:51:00.002-04:00

I watch two beautiful girls during the week and so I decided to take all five of the girls to feed the ducks. Well, it turned out that there was more than just ducks to feed. The fish ate the bread, and so did the turtles. I didn't even know there were turtles in the river! It was so much fun to see the girls faces as the turtles swam up to eat the bread. Here are some pictures of our adventure.

To Homeschool or Not to Homeschool... That is the question

2010-07-23T15:22:00.002-04:00

Micah and I have talked about whether or not we should homeschool for a long time now. It's what I really want to do. I want to teach my kids Biblical principles, which we feel are the most important things that they will learn anyway. I tried last year while Alyssa was going to school to try and teach her the Bible when she got home from school. This did not work out well at all. She was so tired when she got home from school that she wouldn't pay much attention, which would frustrate me and in turn frustrate her. We are looking into a school that they would go two days a week and be home the other days for homeschooling. I REALLY like this idea. It would be awesome to get them into this school. We are looking into it more and hopefully can get them in it. I will most definitely homeschool Guerline and Fafane when they come. I don't want to put them in school without knowing much English. Although we got to Skype with them last night and they are learning English! I'm so excited. Maybe by the time they get here they'll know how to communicate, at least a little. In the meantime I'm trying to learn as much Creole as I can before they get here too. Any suggestions would be EXTREMELY helpful!

LOVE

2010-07-22T12:30:00.002-04:00

Today love is on my mind. The very being of God is love! If we are striving to do the will of our father then we must also BE love. Not just show love to people that we like but be love to ALL! The other day I was driving, oh the pleasures of driving, and a lady got on the shoulder of the road to get two cars ahead and tried to cut in front of me. Well, I wasn't going to have any of that so I tailed the person in front of me so that she couldn't get in. She persisted for a while but I was NOT going to budge! I was there first, and besides she needed to be taught that she shouldn't break the law by going on the shoulder of the road to get in the front of the line. (Wasn't she taught anything in Kindergarten about how important it is to stand in line and not get out of line!) I was so convicted that night. I knew that if my kids understood what I had just done they would know that it wasn't very loving. Even though she was in the wrong with what she was doing I still was not right. So I'm awful at quoting the Bible but I know it says this in there, I just don't remember the passage. If you know the passage please leave a comment so I remember. This is also kind of a Kim paraphrase because I don't remember it exactly. It says in the Bible to know what you are supposed to do and not do it that is sin! WOW! Sin isn't just doing bad things, it's knowing that we are supposed to LOVE and being unloving, sometimes on purpose and sometimes without thinking about it because it's been sort of engrained in us. My goal for the rest of this year... and the rest of my life for that matter, is to be loving especially when I know somebody has done the "wrong" thing... like go on the shoulder of the road to cut me off.

By the way, I may get to Skype with my precious princesses tonight! I'm so excited!!! My heart aches for them! Please continue to pray for them and for the adoption process! Pray for my heart! My MOMMY'S Heart. Blessings to ALL!

Third of July FIREWORKS

2010-07-21T02:29:00.003-04:00

We went to Six Flags and watched fireworks there on the third of July to beat the crowd out for the 4th. We saw some fireworks from our house on the 4th but loved being able to get in and out of Six Flags with relatively no problems. Except on the way out they only opened one exit gate when there were four that could've been opened. The person in charge that day probably got an ear full of unhappy, sweaty, crowded people! Oh well, it's just another way that we can learn patience I guess. They did end up opening all four gates... eventually.

Waiting for fireworks to begin.

The girls were getting antsy so we pulled up a youtube Dora video to keep them occupied while we waited.

Alyssa waiting.

Samara waiting.

Nattie waiting

Still waiting!

The fireworks were awesome just like last year! But unlike last year we had Alyssa with us to share in the excitement. I have THOROUGHLY enjoyed having my sweet girls at home with me this summer! I have been teaching Samara how to read and Natalie has joined in a bit. Samara is reading easy books and Natalie is learning her letters and their sounds. Alyssa is learning all types of things. They all LOVE doing schoolwork and they especially LOVE starfall.com. I do too because they know how to navigate it very well. Even Natalie knows how to go to what she wants and then click on it. Sometimes she right clicks instead of left clicking and comes and gets met to click off it, but usually she does wonderfully. They are the lights of my life!!

Rain in the Gutters

2010-07-21T02:12:00.003-04:00

One day it was completely sunny outside, this was last month, and it started to rain. The girls were so excited that it was warm and they got to play in the rain. After the rain stopped they decided to play in the gutters where the rain was gathering. So fun!

Samara

Alyssa

Natalie

My girls!

Playing in the mud in the road.

Our girls and new pictures I've received

2010-07-21T01:23:00.007-04:00

These pictures aren't in any specific order but there are some of our girls at the orphanage and some in their hometown of Deye Mon. So happy to see that they are more healthy than they were while living in Deye Mon. We just recently found out that Deye Mon is about 200 years behind the rest of Haiti. They don't have electicity or running water. They don't have much food. In fact mothers would have to carry their children, or walk with their children, for miles upon miles to take them to the mission so that their children could have a meal to eat and then they'd walk back home. Our girls got dropped off at the mission because their mother couldn't take care of them anymore. We know that their mother is still alive, but I believe she's still not healthy and doesn't have a lot to buy anything with, and their father died before the earthquake. We don't know a whole lot but we're starting to be able to piece a few things together about them. Anyways here are some pictures, old and new.

Guerline is in the blue dress, Fafane is in the I love NY shirt, the other two are going to some friends of ours, they are Berlinda, laying on the ground, and Marguerite, in the orange dress.

Guerline, Vagline, who goes to our church here in the states, her parents were able to get here off of Humanitarian Parole before it shut down, and Berlinda.

Guerline and Fafane are on the outsides, and on the insides are their cousins. This is when they still lived at the mission probably about 2 years ago.

Guerline, I think this was in January of this year, after the earthquake.

Guerline while she still lived in Deye Mon.

Fafane catching tadpoles while she still lived in Deye Mon.

Fafane is the one to the very right and Guerline is asleep on the floor.

Guerline

Guerline while she still lived in Deye Mon.

Fafane is the one in the middle with her eyes poking out over the top of the blanket. I believe this is at HCRM.

Fafane is the one on the left.

Guerline while she still lived in Deye Mon. I got to talk to the girl sitting down. She is AMAZING! She was able to help our girls out while they lived in Deye Mon! She has had some great stories to share with us about our girls and has done an amazing job in helping keep our kiddos healthy!

Lonise is on the very right, her parents were able to get her home on Humanitiarian Parole as well, and our Guerline is right next to her. So beautiful!

Fafane, Lonise, and Guerline.

The Fab Four! Guerline, Fafane, Berlinda, and Lonise. These girls were found together and went to the orphanage together. Lonise is home, Berlinda has a family here that is in the process of adopting her, and then of course our girls have a family waiting for them too.

The Fab Four goofing around!

The Fab Four

Update

2010-06-30T22:47:00.002-04:00

Quite a few people have been asking me about our adoptions and how they are going. Here is the update. Our paperwork is almost finished! It's getting translated to French right now and then after that we send it to the Haitian Consulate for "legalization". After that we can send our dossier (just a fancy name for the compilation of paperwork) to Haiti. We don't necessarily want to mail it because we don't want it to get lost in the mail system so we may wait until the 28th of July to send it because we know people who are going at that time. It may reach Haiti at the same time if we sent it with the people that are going and if we mailed it anyways. I don't know how long it takes to get things to Haiti. Anyways it's a small decision in this process and we will do what the Lord leads us to do, even in this small decision. Thanks again for everyone's prayers and support! We have been told that this process will take from 6 months to 2 years. We have also been told that it can take 2-3 years. And then we were told by yet another person that it will take over 3 years. We have been praying about this and we know God's bigger than anything! We are praying our girls home by December!!! If anyone wants to join us in this we would appreciate your prayers! Thanks to all of you that have been supporting us through prayer!!! This is just speaking in specifics to cry out to God for these kids. The group that we are adopting with are also praying for December so if you are a prayer warrior then please pray for our whole group. I think over 40 kids at HCRM are represented in our group! AMAZING!!! I pray that God just shows HIS power in all of this. It will only be by a movement of our Almighty Creator! And we know He is WILLING and definitely ABLE! Thanks again!

5 Haitian kids

2010-06-19T21:14:00.004-04:00

There were 5 Haitian kids that were able to come to their forever families today! Kens5 did a news story on them. Here's the link if you want to check it out. http://www.kens5.com/video?id=96730049&sec=547077 You'll have to copy and paste it I think. I'm so excited! These 5 got here on student visas. This gives us hope that maybe our girls could make it here soon! I am almost done with the paperwork on our end. I think in about 2 weeks it will be completely finished and then I can send it to Haiti and they can start the paperwork on their end. If you can imagine the process for paperwork there is a lot bigger of an issue than it is here and it took us almost 2 months maybe more to get our paperwork done. Plus Pastor Jean Fritz has something like 40 or more adoptions to do!!! That's going to be a lot of work. Continue to pray for our Guerline and Fafane! We still need quite a bit of money to bring them home as well. We are trusting that God will provide but I also believe He sends angels in the form of you and I to help fund things like this. Again if you have any ideas for a fundraiser, want to do a fundraiser for us, or would just like to donate money to us, please let us know. Thank you all and God bless you!!!

God is good!
All the time!
All the time!
God is good!
Thank the Lord that these kids are home! Let's pray the rest out as well!
By the way the names of the kids that are home are Nahomie, Julie, Wisnick, Love Mael, and Kimberly. So AWESOME!!! It makes me a little jealous because I want our girls home but I know that we will get our girls in the exact moment we are supposed to have them here.

Skype

2010-06-17T16:05:00.002-04:00

I absolutely love Skype. Even from a third world country like Haiti I am still able to talk to and see my girls! It's amazing. It's quite choppy and delayed but it still works. The girls like to just sit and stare at you because you don't know what they're saying and they don't know what you're saying! Alyssa, Samara, and Natalie fight to see themselves in the bottom of the screen and fight to see Guerline and Fafane too. It's so funny. I was able to Skype with them yesterday and today. I truly have loved it. Thank you to all that have allowed me to Skype with my girls. It's truly a blessing to be able to see them and talk to them even though they have a blank look when they look at me. I can't wait to get my paperwork done and the money we need raised so we can get them home as soon as they can get the paperwork on the Haitian side done. Lord, give me the strength to wait on you! The song called Hosanna that we sing by Hillsong is a wonderful song, one of the lines in it says "break my heart for what breaks yours!" I truly believe that it breaks God's heart to see these kids as helpless and homeless as they are! My heart is broken for all of them not just ours... although ours are special to us! Anybody who has any interest in adopting from Haiti or from any other country for that matter, don't hesitate to ask God if it's right for your family. And be prepared for the answer. All Christians should be looking out for the widows and the orphans so whatever that looks like to you, whatever it is God has called you to do for them, DO IT!! God will provide all the rest.

Friendship

2010-06-14T09:43:00.003-04:00

Friendship is so important in this life! I want to share with you a few quotes I found on the internet this morning that are awesome!

"Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born."
- Anais Nin

"A friend is one who walks in when others walk out"
-Walter Winchell

"A friend is someone who is there for you when he'd rather be anywhere else."
- Len Wein - Sent by Paulo Louro

"A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart, and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words."
- Sent by Donna Roberts

"A friend is one who believes in you when you have ceased to believe in yourself."
- Sent by Lysha

"Your friend is the man who knows all about you, and still likes you."
- Elbert Hubard

"Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up."
- Bible: Ecclesiastes

"Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art... It has no survival value; rather is one of those things that give value to survival."
- C. S. Lewis

"The greatest good you can do for another is not just share your riches, but to reveal to him, his own."
-Benjamin Disraeli

"It's the friends you can call up at 4am that matter."
- Marlene Dietrick

Friendship is truly a strong connection! Thank you to all my friends!

Micah's trip to Haiti

2010-06-13T22:38:00.011-04:00

Here are just some of the ton of pictures Micah brought back from Haiti. Some I have no idea how to explain. If you have ever been to an orphanage you may just understand that it's not something you can explain. It's so much different than you could ever think.

This is Fafane and Guerline with the cars that their Daddy brought them.

Being silly. These are some more people that went with Micah plus the kids they are adopting.

Jumprope! One of their favorite things to do!

Looking down from the upstairs balcony.

One of the nannys.

The street outside the orphanage. It's on a steep hill so you kind of have to get a run at it to get up it.

Braiding hair

Daddy with his girls!

At the Baptist Mission in Haiti.

Standing outside. Pastor Jean Fritz is amazing! That's him in the white and blue shirt.

Guerline. They all wear clothes that are way too small for them. I can't wait to get them home and get them clothes that fit them properly! Lord, make the process go by quickly and smoothly.

Guerline being camera shy.

Fafane eating a footlong hot dog. She also had a piece of pizza. The girls were so hungry (grangou).

Micah with his girls.

The footlong!

Eating... Yummy!

Fafane saying my daddy.

The girls really clung to Micah. It happens when they know you want to adopt them... and even when they just want you to adopt them or sometimes for no reason at all.

Guerline taking a picture.

On the computer with Skype. We love Skype!

Guerline on the ladder. They hang clothes to dry on the rooftop and they use this ladder to get up there. It rains a lot at night but the clothes end up getting dry somehow.

Looking down off the balcony again.

Should I jump in? They don't get baths very often so I'll bet it'd feel good if she was able to get in.

Beautiful!

Sunglasses

Eating Ice Cream! Yummy.

Random kids being silly.

Micah was so awesome with the girls. He taught them little bits of math with playing cards. How awesome is that. They caught on quickly he said.

Star-tacular!

Such a sweetheart!

Stephania looking at pictures that Micah was taking.

Guerline taking a picture of Micah.

Where Guerline slept each night, on the floor!

Babies sleeping. How awesome is this!

Taking pictures of herself. I have a ton of pictures of Guerline but Fafane is my shy one.

My Guerline loves to be silly.

Rummage Sale

2010-06-13T22:26:00.002-04:00

We had an exciting and fun-filled day yesterday doing a rummage sale at the church. It ended up being just that a RUMMAGE sale. We tried to get stuff out of boxes and bags but a lot of it stayed in bags and boxes. It was nuts! We started setting up at 6:30 AM. People started coming by around 7:30 and of course it was not enough time to get all the way set up so people rummaged through boxes and bags while we set up. We had two trucks lined up for the event to help us get all of our stuff from our house to the church. One owner of a truck blew out his knee and couldn't walk so that was out of the question and the other guy... well, I don't know what happened to him. So we ended up with only our truck... it's a Chevy S10 (very small). A guy from our church came to the church to drop off donations and asked if we needed any help... oh boy he didn't know what he was asking for. Of course I said yes because all we had was the van and the truck to get the stuff over there. He said that he would help out with his truck (thank you Jesus) and started over to the house to get things loaded up. Anyways the sale went on and the kids sold lemonade. It was so cute I wrote on a sign Lemonade for 1.00 or more donation Refills .50. Alyssa apparantly didn't like that because she kept yelling out to people saying Lemonade 1.00 OR LESS! Haha... It was hilarious. We made quite a bit of money and got really sunburnt and sore! The kids were at the church all day and did an excellent job! They were so good. I love those girls! The day was hard and hot (94 degrees I think) but we made quite a bit of money off of it. We have quite a bit of stuff left over so we're going to have another garage sale sometime within the next couple of months. We started packing up at 5:00 and it took us until 10:00 to get everything packed up and back to our house. It was a long day but knowing that we are doing these things to get our girls home, it makes it all worth it! Thank you so much to all who helped out!!! We couldn't have done it without you! You will be blessed beyond measure!

Fundraising Ideas

2010-06-09T11:52:00.002-04:00

Hey,
I wanted to get everyone's input. I need fundraising ideas for our adoptions! What is something that you think would sell or I could do to fundraise for our girls to come home from Haiti? Any ideas are appreciated! We need to raise this money so that they can come home! Thanks for all suggestions.

-Kim

P.S. If you live far away from us and would like to put on a fundraiser for us that would be awesome to! Thanks!

Thoughts of Haiti

2010-06-06T19:01:00.002-04:00

One of our friends is in Haiti and I would like to share something that he wrote home to his wife. I didn't ask him if I could use what he said but she posted it on her blog so I don't think they would mind.

"I literally had to take a break for a while and try to collect my thoughts. It's a bit overwhelming to be grabbed at and touched by this many children. Not to say that I have attained Christ-likeness (is that a word?), but I wonder if this is how He felt as He traveled from place to place. No wonder He taught us to make sure we go to our quiet place everyday to connect to the Father and get refreshed. Maybe this is more what life should be like for all of us? We should NEED to get in our quiet place everyday because we are giving so much of ourselves away for others. God help me live this daily."

Wow! I agree with this! I went to Haiti in April and know exactly what he is talking about. It was absolutely crazy there. You have to get out of your comfort zone. You have the chance of getting lice, scabies, skin infections, ring worm, etc. just by being with the kids and letting them touch you so much. But you can't tell them no... you don't want to tell them no. All you want to do is hug them and kiss them and tell them that they are beautiful.

I'm having a really hard time this week. I am trying to put on a fundraiser and I just feel like only a few people want to help. I completely understand that people have things going on but it's hard work to put something like that on and I need people. God give me the strength to get through! The other thing is that trying to fund these adoptions seem impossible. We have gotten a few donations and are planning some fundraisers but it just seems so far away. God is a BIG God and I know that He will come through, most likely when I least expect it. I've learned waiting on God is the ONLY thing I can do. Lord, show me your way and help me to give this whole process up to you so that your GLORY will shine!

Guerline and Fafane More Pictures

2010-05-24T18:19:00.005-04:00

This is Berlinda, Guerline, and Fafane where they were found. Our girls are the two on the left. This picture makes me want to cry everytime I look at it. Their parents just couldn't feed them anymore so they left them out in the mountains with no food, water, or safety! The people at the orphanage found them at took them to the orphanage and they have now been there for a year. Please God bring them home quickly and keep them safe while they are not in our care.

These are just some pictures that were taken with some of the groups that went to the orphanage. I got these off of facebook so hopefully I can get the actual copies so they will be full size.

Guerline is a lot more social and talkative than her sister Fafane so you'll see a lot more pictures of Guerline than Fafane. I hope that changes when we get a chance to go back.

Trying to figure out how to play cards when they don't know English is hard to do!

Wow

2010-05-24T18:06:00.003-04:00

I knew this before but I am getting hit quite hard by it right now, that whenever you do something that has eternal value things get thrown at you that you never thought would. We had to go get our blood drawn twice because the person who drew it did it in expired tubes. So this delayed us about 2 1/2 weeks for that particular thing... which isn't a huge delay since I did get it going as one of the first things. But when I went to pick up the paperwork that stated that we were HIV and syphylis (sp?) free Micah's had the wrong birth date. I blame it on the military since they make you write it as dd mon year... example today would be 24 May 2010. So Micah wrote his birthday 01/02/1983 but was born on the first of February. Oy. The nurse said all she had to do was call down and get it changed and then reprinted so hopefully that is the case and we can get this taken care of. My first reaction was to be furious with Micah. (Anyone else know what I'm talking about?) And I did at first and then realized that with something like this there are going to be setbacks... which we've had a lot of already! My response to this minor thing showed me something about my character that I didn't like. I pray that I learn patience throughout this! I was told by someone before never to pray for patience, which I don't exactly, I pray that in everything I do I LEARN patience. Thank you to everyone who is praying for us or has helped us with any expenses... you are all true blessings to us!

Police Station

2010-05-17T12:36:00.002-04:00

With all of the many things that go into a dossier, paperwork that will need to be sent to Haiti, comse many firsts for us. Today we got to experience the police station. We got Alyssa off to school but didn't have anywhere for Samara and Natalie to go so they came with us. They loved it. I had to explain to Samara that this isn't somplace you want to visit. The only reason why you want to come is because you have something to do because a lot of people go there to be put into jail for doing naughty things. So hopefully she now understands the importance of not wanting to go to the police station (I doubt it though because she was having so much fun).

Today I got a phone call from the people who did our bloodwork for our dossier and come to find out it was never processed! (Deep breath) She took our blood in expired tubes, which isn't a huge deal, but nevertheless they couldn't process them. So here we go back up to get our blood drawn... again. Please pray for us as this is a frustrating process. I'm glad we've been pulled and stretched as much as we have because I think we're flexible enough to handle this but it's definitely not the most ideal situation! Oy... oh well.

Thanks for all your prayers!!! We appreciate them!

Money

2010-05-11T17:22:00.002-04:00

Hey all,
Please be praying for our family. We will hopefully be able to turn in our dossier in June but we will need $6,000 by then so that Pastor Jean Fritz will be able to higher a lawyer to start processing it. We know God is bigger than this measly $6,000 but we believe he lays on people's hearts to give to things such as this. Thank you all for your continued prayer and support!
-Kim Jones

Guerline and Fafane

2010-05-09T00:20:00.003-04:00

Two days ago at about 7:00PM we were told that we are going to be able to adopt Guerline (8) and Fafane (10). We are so excited. I just wanted to post that but it's late so I am going to bed now. Enjoy the pictures.

Guerline

Fafane

A little about everything

2010-03-01T18:30:00.006-05:00

There have been a few exciting things going on lately. What isn't exciting with three little girls running around? Here is just a mumbo jumbo bunch of pictures. Some of the fun stuff we've been doing latley.

We went to Science Night at Alyssa's school. They had an alligator and a snake that we could touch. The alligator and the snake would take turns getting touched. We stood in line for about 15 minutes for the alligator and by the time we almost got up to the table the alligator was put away and the snake was there. The kids didn't mind too much.

The girls learned how to make rain. You put a cup of sand in a plastic baggie. Then you add like 4 Tbsp of water I think. Then you zip it up but leave enough room for a straw. You blow into the gallon sized baggie with the straw and then when it's full you zip it up all the way. You set it next to a window and in a little while "rain" will appear.

Alyssa got her hair cut.

Another picture of Alyssa's hair. I didn't get any before pictures... I should have!

I also bought some foam curlers. When I was a kid my mom used to always put these in my hair. Especially on a Saturday night so that my hair would be super curly for church the next day. I remembered how much I liked that so I did it with Alyssa. She got super excited.

Posing... she's being goofy in her excitedness... is that a word?

This is her hair after the foam curlers. I took a curling iron to the front a little bit because it didn't do exactly what I wanted it to do. She said that she wanted curly hair like her sisters and I think this did the trick.

The back of Alyssa's curly hair.

Mara's new thing is she likes to vacuum. We started with her little vacuum which does suck up some dirt and things but Nattie now likes that vacuum so I let Mara use my big vacuum.

Nattie and her little vacuum.

Alyssa's tooth fell out today at school! I was kind of disappointed because I wanted to be there to help her with her tooth. But I got over that. She pulled it out at school because she said it hurt. When I looked in her mouth her big tooth has already started to come in. You can see it if you enlarge the picture above. She's super excited for the tooth fairy to come.

Another picture of her gap.

New Post

2010-02-22T14:33:00.004-05:00

I didn't know what to title this post since while I am posting I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to post about. There is so much going on in the world, so much on my mind, and I'm eating burnt French fries because I forgot I had them in the oven. So there's much I could post about but I'm told by my wonderful sister, Angela, that I need a new post. When I came to the site to do a post I looked at the last thing I posted and I agree it's been quite a long time since my last post.

Okay so where do I start. Micah's Grandpa and Grandma Manville came down at the end of last night and left yesterday morning. We had a great time with them. The girls were spoiled... and I was too I'll have to admit. Our tradition every time they come is to go to Red Lobster and we all know that if Micah or I try to pay Grandpa doesn't allow it... not at Red Lobster! Grandma was a huge help with cleaning, making dinners, keeping the kids out of my hair while doing homework or whatever else I had to do. Thanks Meems! Grandpa even helped out a ton, especially with Nattie. When he put her down for a nap she usually stayed there. Thanks Old Grandpa!

For Valentine's day we went up to one of our timeshares and met Micah's sister, Erin, there. I was kind of a stick in the mud as I was exhausted from all the work I have to do being a semi stay at home mom and having a job 2 days a week and having 2 college classes. I had a ton of homework too which is so much fun when you're trying to have fun at a timeshare. It was a lot of fun anyways even though I slept a lot of the time trying to catch up on sleep.

I have been sick, laringitis and such, for the last week! I have had little to no voice for 4 days and have been couging and had a runny nose and so stuffy headed, I have been quite cranky. My poor Micah! He has had to take care of me. Normally I just get on with life but as I said before I think that because I'm so busy I'm taking longer to get over this. I'm on the upside though so I should be over it soon.

IF YOU DON'T READ ANY OTHER OF THIS POST READ THIS. I just have to tell you all... yes you all not y'all... not yet at least, Samara today vacuumed the upstairs all by herself. We have a small vacuum that the girls like to play with. It really works but doesn't get the deep in dirt. I went upstairs with the big vacuum today and asked Samara if she wanted to try it. She said then if I practice enough when I get to be a mommy I will know what to do. So precious!!! I love my girls.

We're potty training. Not fully but trying to get the concept down. Nattie's been in panties all day today and has had three pee pee accidents and two poo poo accidents. YEAH. She's doing better than last time where she didn't go in the potty once! This time she's pottied in the toilet about 4 or 5 times. She's gotten either cookies or skittles each time so hopefully she doesn't get on too much of a sugar high in this process. Hey if it works and I don't have to do diapers for her anymore than it will be worth it to live with the sugar high for a while.

Well, I'm going to try and post more often and next time I'll try and post pictures. Please pray for our family as we have big decisions to make. Thanks.

Impossible is not a word, just an reason not to try.

Celebration of Granpa Al's Life

2010-01-25T12:39:00.005-05:00

So for those of you who don't know, Micah's Grandpa Al went to heaven to spend eternity with Jesus on the first of the year. He was a great man and I can't say too much without bawling because we miss him so much so if you want to you can read the other post that I made about him earlier this month. Here are some pictures that I enjoyed taking. One thing that happened through all this is that family that hadn't seen each other in a long time came together and got to see each other. It was awesome to be able to meet some of Micah's family that I hadn't gotten the opportunity to meet yet. Everything went so well it was amazing.

This was the table in the front of the funeral home that sat Granpa's chaps for horseback riding and his leather vest that he would ride his motorcycle with.

Grandpa's chaps.

Grandpa's vest that I think Grandma did all the stuff on it. On the front it had Al embroidered on it.

THE FAMILY!!! Yes we are a lovely looking bunch.

Micah and I.

Shawn and Lenny. This is Grandpa's sister.

Alan, Uncle Mike, and Patrick (Worm). In the middle is Grandpa's brother and the left and right of him are Uncle Mike's two sons.

The three girls.

Vickie, Gracie, Dave, Jacie, Rick, and Dick. Gracie is Grandpa's sister and Vickie and Rick are her kids, Dave is married to Vickie and Dick is married to Gracie. Jacie is Dave and Vickie's daughter.

What a beautiful family!

Did I say beautiful? I meant weird. I love this family!

The rest of us.

Joel and Peggy, Joel is Grandpa Al's son.

Grandpa Al's sons. Kris, Mitch (grandpa's adopted son... for all intents and purposes), Joel, and Ozzie, and of course Grandma Nita.

Cody, Jasmond, Uncle Kris, Kylar, and Kristian. Uncle Kris' kids.

Silly Family

2010-01-25T12:22:00.002-05:00

After the celebration of Granpa Al's life, most people call it a funeral, we got a little silly. This costume, if I remember right, was a second graders costume that was given to Jay because it fits her. She is 4' 9 3/4"... Don't forget the 3/4" she gets kind of upset. Anyways it was just what we needed on this celebration day.

Here is Jay in the Monster's Inc. costume.

And Nattie.

And Mara.

And Syssa.

Busy

2010-01-25T12:13:00.003-05:00

Hello all,
I was told by my sister and Meems, Micah's grandma, that I need to start updating my blog more. I'm going to try to update every Monday. I have been quite busy with school, gymnastics, Mother's Day Out, training for another triathlon, and just being a mom of three. We may have a special opportunity coming our way but I'll post about that some other time when I get more information. I'll post again today when I get on my other computer where all my pictures are. For now, everyone have a great day!!!

The New Year

2010-01-03T18:16:00.002-05:00

Micah's Grandpa "Grandpa Al" passed away on New Year's day. This didn't come as a big surprise and yet it did. We knew that Grandpa had quite a few health issues but we didn't think it would be on New Year's Day. I don't think there is a way to prepare for something like this. I just have to say that he was one of the most wonderful, Godly men that I have ever met. Hewas so loving and excepted me into the family instantly. As much as he was Micah's Grandpa he was also mine. He will be greatly missed by many many people whom he has touched in great ways. We also know, however, that he is in a better place. He has received his mansion and is walking on the streets of gold that are talked about in the Bible. He was a preacher for a long time and even living with Micah's parents he started helping out at the Methodist church preaching every once in a while. I remember in July when we were back home and he had recently had his leg amputated and he was supposed to preach that weekend. We all told him to just sit down and preach, nobody would mind. Without showing any pain, he got up and preached a great sermon. He has touched my life in great ways and has always given Micah and me sound advice and lots of love. Like I said before he will be greatly missed but I know that I will get to see him someday! Alyssa says that he's with Jesus so he has to be happy and we'll see him again. What a smart 6 year old.

Christmas Play 2009

2009-12-14T22:11:00.004-05:00

Alyssa was in a Christmas play last night that was fantastic. She was so excited. After all the rehearsals and all the time she put into it she finally got to do it. Samara and Natalie got to do a preschool performance. They sang two songs. Twinkle, Twinkle Christmas Star and Ring Those Bells and Turn Around, Ring Those Bells and Stomp Your Feet, and Ring Those Bells and Jump up High (sung to the tune of Jimmy Crack Corn). It turned out really cute. The kid's play was A King is Coming to Town. They were talking about a king coming to their town. So they went through all the kings. First was Elvis, the king of Rock N Roll. Then, was King Tut. Next was the king of the jungle, an ape. Last was the most important, King Jesus. It was really cute. I hope to buy the DVD.

This is me getting ready to help the preschoolers with the motions to their songs.

Natalie is in the polka dotted dress (cutie). And Mara is in the red dress with her curly hair and back towards us.

"showing shepherds where Christ lies" that is what they sang on this part of the song. It turned out so cute. Although at first some of the kids were running all over the stage. That's okay though they started singing once we started.

This is Alyssa doing her king of Rock N Roll choreography. She did such a great job.

There's Elvis! Alyssa's to the very left.

Alyssa got to be King Tut's entourage. I hope one of my friend's has a better picture because she was precious!

This was the king of the Jungle one. She's beating her chest like the king of the Jungle.

It really was fantastic. I love to see Alyssa, Samara, and Natalie do fun things like this. Hopefully I'll start posting more on here too. I know I've been slacking but I know how important it is for some of you to see pictures!

Update

2009-10-26T09:04:00.002-04:00

So I know I haven't posted for a while... again... I've been trying to balance everything from college to housework to gymnastics... etc. If you're a mom you know how it goes. I'll post some pictures maybe later on today since it's rainy and gloomy outside today. We're going to have a movie day. I have a college algebra test tonight so it'll be good to just relax today. I'll post again soon... if something else doesn't come up first.

LONG TIME

2009-09-24T18:11:00.002-04:00

I haven't updated in a while because we have been so busy. I decided that I would update everyone really quick. I will post pictures hopefully this weekend. We are doing very well and keeping very busy. I'm in school taking College Algebra and National Government. Alyssa has an excellent teacher. She is really doing a good job in school and is so excited to go daily. Her and Samara are also in gymnastics and loving it. We're looking to get Alyssa in piano lessons but we'll have to see if we're getting a raise this year first. Samara and Natalie are in Mother's Day Out and loving it. They both really love their teachers. Nattie wasn't sure at first but she goes in her classroom with no problem now. She even sees me every once in a while if I pass her classroom and she doesn't cry for me at all. I love being a teacher at MDO and I love my class this year. Micah's still working hard and is thinking about starting school again soon. Hopefully we can all keep ourselves from our schedules running our lives. Micah and I have also decided to do the 4-5 year old Sunday school class. I guess it's Kid's Church. We have a Saturday night service so Sunday school doesn't work very well. ;-) Weare going to be doing the 11 o'clock service so it will work as Sunday school. I will try and post pictures soon. For now HAPPY FALL!

Angela's now a Mencl

2009-08-01T01:48:00.006-04:00

Angela, my sister, got married on the 23rd of July. It was beautiful and my sister looked more happy and more beautiful than ever! I love you Angela and welcome to the family Gary!

This is my girls sitting outside the temple that my sister got married in. I thought they were adorable!

Outside the temple.

Me and my hunny. My dad and Alyssa having fun.

Gary and Angela... the newlyweds. The HUGE wedding party.

Gary, Angela, and our family of 5.

Micah and I decided to take a couple pictures of ourselves since we looked so good ourselves. Woot woot.

So each of Angela's brothers and sisters and their families got a picture with the bride and groom. Left is my sister, Jennifer's family. Right is my sister, Melissa's family.

Left is my sister Pam and her boyfriend Jeremy and her daughter Kallee. Right is my brother Daniel and his family.

Left is our family. Right is Jason and Allyson.

My mom made her 7 grandaughters these beautiful dresses for the wedding. She also made some for Gary's side of the family. I think they turned out totally adorable.

It was a wonderful day and I'm so glad that we have Gary as part of our family.

Trip Back Home

2009-07-28T22:35:00.003-04:00

My sister, Angela, was getting married and it had been a while since we'd seen family so we decided to take a trip back home.

Alyssa was already with Mama Jay and Papa Oz so I had Natalie and Samara on the drive up. Micah had to do some stuff for work so it was just the three girls on our way.

It took us two days to get there. The girls finally decided to sleep on the second day.

When we got to Papa Ozzie's house the girls had to go on a motorcycle ride.

Nattie's a bit too little yet so she danced and did yoga in the driveway while the other two did their rides.

Samara on her first real ride.

Besides the motorcycle Mara fell in love with Maisy, the family's pet Dachshund. Grandpa Ozzie was nice enough to give her to us as our family pet. We are pretty sure we are going to take her back home but we've told the kids that she is their dog but we might leave her for Grandpa Ozzie to take care of just in case we decide she'll be too much for us before we leave.

Nattie was supposed to be taking a nap and she had woken up early on this day apparantly and got into markers. She got it all over her legs! It came off in the hot tub though so no worries.

At Melissa's house this is Madison and Natalie playing. It was a miracle since the whole time the two of them were together they competed for everything. If Nattie said my daddy so did Madison. If Madison said my Grandma then Nattie wanted her Grandma too. It was so awesome to see them actually play really well together.

Happy 3rd of July!!

2009-07-04T13:11:00.005-04:00

Happy third of July everyone. Okay so today is the fourth of July so we're celebrating the good old fashion way. We're at home resting!! How nice is that?! Yesterday the girls went to Six Flags and then last night we went to the Six Flags fireworks show. I know we haven't seen very good fireworks shows so last night's show was awesome! At least we thought so. I haven't seen fireworks that up close since I was a kid. Anyways we decided to go last night instead of today to fight the crowd a bit. It worked! It was still crowded but I'm almost positive that today will be a lot worse. Anyways here are some of the pictures.

It has been getting into the 100s here and we've had a lot of humidity and that is why her face is red. She is anxiously awaiting the fireworks.

Nattie also waiting for the fireworks.

Daddy and his girls.

The family minus Alyssa. She will be coming home soon! I'M SO EXCITED!

My love and me.

The fireworks start and Mara is in awe. She absolutely loved them!

And Nattie didn't like them at all. She wouldn't look at them and when I'd take my hand off her ear she would freak out!! We put the videos on today to look at what we got and she wouldn't even look at the computer. She wanted to snuggle with me again and that was it. It was funny but when I'd try to get her to look she'd SCREAM. Hopefully this doesn't happen for the rest of her life.

Oooooohhhhh!!

Aaaaaahhhhhh!!

Pretty!

2009-06-23T17:36:00.002-04:00

I decided it's been a long time since I blogged last so I had to get some of my summer pictures up here. Bear with me I know it's a lot all at once. Alyssa is with Micah's parents for the summer and I miss her very much but she's having a blast. She's in swimming lessons there and is riding on the motorcycle with her Grandpa Ozzie. She is having the time of her life! She doesn't want to talk to me very much because I call a lot and she gets sick of talking on the phone. I hope she wants to come back with me when we go up to get her. I'm sure she'll be ready to come back home. Nattie is in swimming lessons and Mara starts hers up next week. We are probably going to put the girls back into gymnastics when the school year starts. I'm going to be going back to school in the Fall finally. I am going for Elementary Education and hopefully going to be a 2nd grade teacher when I grow up. If that doesn't work out I'll go back to school for secondary education and I'll be a middle school math teacher but I want to try second grade first. Micah's wanting to go back to school in the fall too. I am also going to be teaching Mother's Day Out again this year and Nattie and Mara will be in it so we'll be busy starting July with our traveling back to our family and then coming back and starting school etc. Nattie is now in the bottom bunk bed and doing well and Mara is in the top bunk bed and loving it. When Syssa comes back she'll get her own room, Nattie's old room. We want her to have her own room since she's the only one that needs to get up really early to go to school every day of the week. We'll see how it works and change it around if it doesn't work. We love you all and hopefully I can keep this thing updated better.

Exercising

2009-06-23T17:30:00.002-04:00

The girls see Micah and they love to join in sometimes. We are glad that we can teach our kids to be active.

Doing chair dips... GO Mara... I think Nattie was taking a rest. hehe.

Resort Day

2009-06-23T16:54:00.006-04:00

We went to a resort just north of us just for the day and had a blast. We played mini golf, jumped in the pool, and then played Apples to Apples Jr with the kiddos after we ate. It was a lot of fun and only about 45 minutes away.

Nattie.

Daddy with his fans watching him.

Mama Jay... we didn't get Erin setting up to swing. I'm not sure why but she was there too.

Mara getting ready to get her ball.

Syssa getting ready to whack it in.

Sisterly love.

The pool. It was so hot this day! Syssa is learning how to swim and is really doing a good job.

Micah took a shot from above. We are all so beautiful looking.

Nattie has no fear of the water and will jump right in so we are watching her like a hawk when we're around water. We're doing swimming lessons so hopefully I can help her learn not to jump in until we are ready.

Alyssa jumping to Erin.

Samara swimming with Daddy.

Nattie on my lap.

Beached whales.

The little kid pool was relaxing for the adults because all the kids could touch the bottom so we all got a little sun while the girls played in there for a little longer.

What a cheesy face!

Syssa and Erin playing Apples to Apples Jr.

Mama Jay and Sammi Jay playing Apples to Apples Jr.

Micah and I playing Apples to Apples Jr.

There was a movie theater at the resort that was playing the Devil Wears Prada but it was at the end so we just took a couple pictures and then left. It was a fun day!

Alyssa's Kindergarten "Celebration"

2009-06-23T16:36:00.004-04:00

Alyssa has graduated Kindergarten. She'll be in 1st grade next year! How crazy is that! They called it a Celebration not a graduation. I'm not sure why but oh well. We celebrated!! When we came up to the door they had a reading cafe set up with menus and Alyssa had a little apron on and she would ask us what we would like and she'd go get the book that we picked and read it to us. It was a really cute idea.

All of us were intently listening as she read. Micah's mom and sister were with us but I guess they were taking the pictures.

The menu.

Hi Nattie.

Mommy and Mara watching while Syssa gets ready to do some songs she learned.

All Smiles.

Getting ready to sing.

All grown up.

What a cute group of kids.

Her kindergarten class.

Nattie running around after the celebration.

Erin Graduates her Second Year of Master's Commission

2009-06-23T15:56:00.007-04:00

Micah's sister, Erin, graduated her second year of Master's Commission and so we went to see her. It was awesome! The girls love their Auntie Erin so they wanted to cling to her the whole time.

We stayed at a Days Inn. Here's Erin, Mara, and Nattie.

Erin got Alyssa some messy putty sandy sort of stuff that ended up being more sandy than we thought. Oh well we were at the hotel not at home.

Really she had fun she just didn't want her picture taken right then.

They played with it next to the bathroom. The only hard floor in the hotel room.

This is at the first night of her graduation thing. They were playing with her hair and she was making them laugh really hard. As you can tell.

Micah's so proud of his sister!!

I'm proud of her too!!

The kids are proud of her too!!

Alyssa got to give Erin an award and her ring. She was her "Timothy". Erin passed the mantle onto her.

The Master's Commission singing. Erin looked over at Micah for a split second and smiled.... we got it!!

Me and my good looking hubby.

The three of us. I'm so glad we got to go to this. It was very special.

The girls started to pose a bit after it was over... I had to take pictures. Mara Jeanette.

Nattie Grace.

Syssa Sue.

Nattie kept tackling Mara and then laughing really hard. It was so cute.

Kisses for Daddy!

We were trying to keep the girls out of the way while they cleaned up after the graduation.

Afterwards Erin came to this park where everyone says goodbye so the girls saw the fountains and saw that you were able to swim, or at least get into the water, there and they were all for that. This is Daddy, Mara, Nattie, and a friend of the family, Eric.

In and out of the water they go.

Should we get back in? Oh yeah!!

Nattie walking up the side.

Eric at the park. We went to a different park after the other park since we were going to go to six flags since we thought we had free tickets but it ended up they were half price which is good but none of us had any money. Oh well the park was nice too.

Fun in the summer

2009-06-23T15:49:00.001-04:00

Eating cookies together.

We bought a little pool. They loved it as you can all tell. When Micah's mom came down they put the pool under the slide and had a great time with the "water slide".

Our 7th Anniversary

2009-06-23T15:42:00.002-04:00

On our anniversary this year we went to a burger joint that has 30s swing dancing and before they actually open for that they have "lessons". The lessons teach you a little bit in an hour so you don't know much but you get a little bit. It was a lot of fun and I'm glad I was able to spend some quality time out with the love of my life.

Learning the steps.

Let's Dance!

Austin

2009-06-23T15:36:00.001-04:00

Our state capital. Isn't it pretty?

Me and my best friend Sarah from 2nd grade. I was so excited to be able to see her again.

Me and Sarah's friend Philesa.

Mother's Day

2009-06-23T15:28:00.000-04:00

Here are some cute pictures from Mother's Day.

IHOP for Alyssa's birthday

2009-06-23T15:14:00.004-04:00

For Alyssa's birthday she chose to go to IHOP for dinner and get breakfast. The girls had a good time with their smiley face pancakes.

Nattie is so cute.

This is one of my favorite pictures EVER! This is how they are but they fight all the time too.

All smiles!

A panckae just for the birthday girl. Happy 6th birthday big girl!!

Alyssa's 6

2009-06-03T22:51:00.003-04:00

My oldest baby is 6 years old now! Can you believe it?!? I can't! I love my baby girl so much. She is growing up to be such a beautiful young lady. Hehe. Love you my Syssa girl.

Alyssa's bday cake. What a cutie!

One of the presents she got. She loves books!

Blurry picture but these are some of the outfits Syssa got for her birthday.

Six Flags

2009-04-24T16:16:00.005-04:00

This year we decided to get season passes to six flags. There are a lot of good reasons to get these but the water park peaked my interest the most since it gets quite hot here. Today we went for the first time and the kids had a blast, they did the rides today.

Waiting for the first ride.

Nattie acted like a big girl. She didn't want to sit in the stroller she wanted to walk. She wanted to go on all the rides just like the big girls. It was too cute... there were quite a few things for her to do!

On the "ferris wheel" ride.

Nattie didn't get to go on the Wiggles plane ride. She was too small. She was sad for a minute but she got over it once she saw the slide.

The train ride.

Micah lookin' good.

EASTER with friends!!!

2009-04-13T14:23:00.007-04:00

We had a great Easter celebration. Our church did something a little different for Easter and I guess it's becoming a tradition at the church. They had bright lights during the praise and worship part of the service and then before the sermon started they handed out noise makers and then bounced beach balls everywhere with a song called "Happy Day". It was actually really cool I thought. Then we came home and ate lunch and did an Easter egg hunt with our friends Raleigh, Heather, and their little boy Isaac. Then we settled down and played some golf on the playstation and then, of course, rockband. Because who can say no to rockband on Easter. Hehehe. Here are the pics of the festivities.

Samara, Isaac, and Alyssa waiting to have at it at the Easter egg hunt.

Alyssa finding eggs.

Samara

Natalie

My beautiful girls and their mommy. I wish I would've gotten a picture of me in my dress. It was really pretty. I'll have to wear it again sometime soon.

Eating a jelly bean... or trying to but daddy's teasing her.

Nattie found an egg.

The gang looking for eggs.

This was the last egg found. Alyssa found it of course.

Nattie with her loot.

Isaac hunting.

Hello girls.. having fun?

There's one Daddy!

Me and my hunny.

WHACK!! haha.

ANother picture of me and my girls.

Heather and her Isaac.

Red Lobster night with the grands!

2009-03-27T20:38:00.004-04:00

We haven't taken a lot of pictures lately so I decided to take some random pics. This is what we came up with tonight.

I didn't know that Micah took a picture this close up... hello Kim! haha.

Finger lickin good!

Ketchup is yummy. What cuties!

Goofy faces.

Meemo's goofy face

Micah's goofy face.

Micah's photography.

In the car on the way home I got bored. This is me acting like I'm cool. HeHe.

What a good picture of me and my hubby.

LLLLLICK!

CHEEEEEESE!

What?!?!?

My two cuties!

The grands... beautiful couple! They've been married 49 years! WOW!

Grandpa and Nattie. Eat little girl!

My Syssa Sue with her Meemo.

Busy Busy

2009-03-19T17:31:00.002-04:00

So here it is March already and I haven't blogged since January and I have lots of good reasons why. I started doing a preschool/daycare type thing at my church called Mother's Day Out. I teach kids that started in September at 19-24 months old. Now they are all over 2. It's on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9-2 so I'm gone just about all day Tuesdays with the girls' gymnastics class after Mother's Day Out. Thursdays I'm also gone most of the day. In between I do chores water my lawn that I don't want to die and spend as much time with my little ones as I can before they think they're too old for their mom. I am trying to make a better schedule so I'll be able to do the fun things I love to do like scrapbook, cross stitch, blog, etc etc etc. I need to get a lot of my stuff sorted and put away and then I will be fine. Hopefully I can get that done soon. Just rest assured that we are happy here and mostly healthy and are loving life.

I said mostly healthy because I am going to be going to an ENT (Ear, Nose, and Throat) dr on Wednesday because I lost my voice about 5 weeks ago and it still hasn't come back completely. I've been told it can be many different things so I'm going to go and see if I can get it taken care of before it turns into something bad. I'm not nervous at all but I'd really like my voice back completely really soon. I'll post again when I figure out a good schedule. Until then, I hope you live in joy and happiness
:-)

GYMNASTICS

2009-02-11T08:22:00.002-05:00

Alyssa and Samara started gymnastics yesterday. They loved it. We went to check it out last Tuesday and while we were watching I could barely restrain them from going to the classes that they would be going to. They went for the first day and bounced on trampolines, did uneven bars, did the floor etc. We are excited for them to start doing something to expell their energy and they are so excited for something new and exciting. I think I've found a piano teacher for Alyssa as well but I haven't contacted her yet. I'll keep y'all (I had to do it since I'm in Texas now) posted on all that we are up to.

Our church also has this thing called Mother's Day Out where you take your kids from 9-2 on Tuesday and Thursday mornings and they get to learn about Jesus and letters etc. They are getting an actual curriculum for next year and are opening up three more classrooms so they need more people to teach. It will earn me a little extra money and get Samara and Natalie in for free and I love to teach little kids especially about Jesus so I decided that I'm going to be a teacher next year for Mother's Day Out. (It starts in August again.) This year though they needed some help because there are quite a few people that are going to be out of town or even when someone gets sick or the like that they need a substitute teacher. I substituted on Thursday and yesterday and I loved it. I subbed for the 12-18 month olds. Tomorrow I'm going to be subbing for the 3-4 year olds (Samara's class). I think Natalie would do better in her class if I wasn't in there with her but I think Samara might do just as well. We'll try it out tomorrow and if doens't work out to have Samara in my class then for next year I will just do a different age group. It's a great opportunity and I'm so glad that the Lord has provided this for me.

Popcorn

2009-01-27T08:41:00.002-05:00

Last night I popped some popcorn for myself and didn't eat the whole bag so this morning when the girls got up and Syssa went off to school Nattie and Mara asked if they could have some of the leftover popcorn. I told them, "sure you can each have a handful after you finish eating your oatmeal". Nattie got done and got her handful of popcorn and then Mara got done and wanted her handful as well. She ran over to the popcorn bowl and put her tiny hand in. I said, "no, let Mommy get your handful." I thought she was going to fight me on it but she didn't and quietly sat back down in her chair and waited.

Now this doesn't seem like a "spiritual story". But I thought about something that happens I think quite a bit in my own life. God tells us that he has a great big handful of popcorn waiting for us, but we want to get our own handful of popcorn. We want to do everything ourselves. So in the end we end up with a human-sized handful of popcorn instead of a God-sized handful of popcorn! Wow, how many times do I do that and wonder why the help of God isn't coming. It's because I have stuck my hand in the popcorn bowl and won't let God in.

I just wanted to share that with everybody today and I hope you are all blessed because of it.

Gift Exchange

2009-01-04T23:21:00.002-05:00

Every year we do a Christmas gift exchange with my siblings and my neices and nephews so that it cuts the cost of what we would be spending on everybody. I have 7 siblings with 3 married and my mom has 10 grandchildren so you could imagine what that big bill would look like if we didn't do things this way. This year we decided to do T-shirts. Melissa had Micah, Jack had Kim, and Chantel had Natalie. Here is what we got this year. They are too fun.

It fits Micah perfectly

Pie, Ice Cream, and a bath

2009-01-04T23:15:00.002-05:00

Today for dinner we did something new. We had a rather late lunch so for dinner we decided to have apple pie and ice cream and that's it. Believe it or not the girls didn't eat much... I guess it was too sweet... but when we asked them if they wanted anything else they said no. I'll bet the ate too much for lunch. Even though I didn't think it was a good idea at first the girls loved it! They were so happy that they were allowed to just be kids. After that of course they were a mess. In our new house we have quite a big tub in the Master bath. I love it so I thought I'd share it with my wonderful kiddos. They had a great time splashing around. They did get a little too out of hand so I had to tell them to stop splashing so much. Then, after that we got to play Disney's Scene It with the girls. Nattie didn't understand that she wasn't supposed to take the pieces off the board so we tried to remember where we were. We had a great night. I hope all of you had a great night too.

Box fun

2008-12-30T09:58:00.001-05:00

We are moving into our new house so of course we have a ton of boxes! Alyssa had a good idea to color on the boxes. They made snowmen and houses and lots of scribbles. I didn't happent to take any pictures of the decorated boxes but they were really cute.

Back tracking.

2008-12-27T12:19:00.003-05:00

For those who don't believe it snowed in San Antonio a couple weeks ago I have pictures. Now I know it's not a lot but there was snow. I know it was a while ago but here you go.

Ears

2008-12-25T20:06:00.003-05:00

I meant to post this picture with the other post. This is Alyssa's beautiful ears... pierced.

Grandma Sue's bought dresses

2008-12-25T18:56:00.003-05:00

Every year Grandma Sue gets the girls Christmas dresses. These are the dresses that they got this year. Thanks Grandma Sue they are so adorable.

Alyssa got her ears pierced

2008-12-25T12:37:00.003-05:00

I have been wanting to get Alyssa's ears pierced for a really long time and Micah was really nervous to get them done because she is so young. Mama Jay, Grandpa Ozzie, Auntie Erin, Alyssa and I all asked Micah if it would be ok to get them done for Christmas this year. Yesterday for Christmas Eve day Micah finally said that she could. But not after Micah telling her that it was going to hurt really bad and that she was going to bleed all over the place. He has never gotten his ears pierced so the girls in the family who have gotten their ears pierced comforted her and told her that it would probably hurt but it usually doesn't bleed at all. She was so brave yesterday as she sat really still so that the ladies at Claire's could pierce her ears both at the same time. She cried a little but I was so proud of her for being so brave. She got to pick out her earrings and they are small yellow gold balls. They look so good on her. She's growing up too fast!! She loves them and says that it was worth it.