Friends

In our family, we believe in issuing you a best friend. Basically you are assigned one and you don't get much say. :)

Dylon and Kellen, just chillin'
Ry & Bo, always in the dirt.

Global Warming

It is April 29. I am sitting in my house, FREEZING!! Why is it so cold at the end of April? Aren't we supposed to be done with this for this year? Oh, I know, it must be so cold because of Global Warming, that makes complete sense. I mean really, I love the seasons and changes as much as anyone, but can't we just stick with something for awhile?

Dylon

So Dylon is 6 months now. I am sorry to say he does not get as much "blog time" as he doesn't talk or demand it. But, oh how things change. I put him down on the floor today, and he was not where I put him when I came back. See he rolled across the floor. Now with kid no. 1, I probably did a little dance or something. Today my thought was something like "Oh no, now he's mobile." Not very encouraging, is it? But he did tell us about a new development in his own way yesterday. He pulled Lonnie's face to his and firmly bit him on the nose. All of this to tell us he has his first tooth. So, Dilly too is growing up. he is so cute!! Every week I get told what a good baby he is. I just love him!!

Caden

And here is a pic of Caden for Nicole, sorry I don't have better one yet, I promise I will :)

TyTy

I know I seem to put a lot of pics of Ty up, but sometimes it is take a pic or lose my mind. This is not one of those times. This is just too cute to pass up. This is 5:25 on a Wed. night. He is about 1 1/2 feet in front of the stove, as I was making supper. He was talking to me, and then, well not. I guess he just couldn't hold on any longer. (He did wake up later that evening for supper, but then went right back to bed.)

Baseball, well sort of,

This is what we saw when we got to practice on Sat. I guess this team is just never supposed to meet, much less practice together.

So our great coaches said, "fields? who needs a field?" and the boys practiced in the grass outside the park. They still had a ball!!
Dylon thought is was great gun too! He wasn't sure why Mommy had him out in the cold wind like that.
Rylee, Tyler, and Bowen, their 3rd year on the sidelines together, with many, many more to come, I am sure. (Sorry, I didn't get a pic of Bo)
If possible, I think he might have even more attitude since the hair cut.

Here we go again

Baseball has been cancelled twice now due to some really incredible storms. So today we have a "make up practice" so I will once again be taking my 4 little ducklings to the wonderful world of Kent Stein, and hanging there for a little while. Lonnie is in class, so even though he is one of the coaches, he still can't be there. It should be interesting. The kids will enjoy being outside, even if today is a little cooler than the past week or so.
Well, off to the shower now, so I can jump start my day, after that we are off and running!

-

"Hearing God's whisper requires trust. We have to believe what he tells us is true. Often trust is developed through testing. Unemployment is the greatest test of trust."
-Keri Wyatt Kent

???

What age is it when instead of trying to figure out how to get out of bed, you start trying to figure out how you can get to bed earlier? Is it soon?

Sunblock??

The kids spent part of the day out side yesterday, and the middle 2 both ended up with a little sunburn. How fickle are we, that just a few weeks ago, we were complaining that spring would never come. Now we are bothered by the fact that we have to put sunblock on. Really it is a pretty good problem to have. But seriously, it is April, I don't think I am ready to dive into this yet. They are starting to ask me if they can go swimming yet. Uh-no, since the pool is in a box in the garage.
But really, it has been great for the kids to be able to start playing outside. they are just loving the weather. they are in the yard all evening after school gets out. I just love the spring before we have all the a/c on, and the windows are open and the house is just filled with all the fresh air. Only six more weeks and school will be out for the summer.
I am rambling now, so I should probably go do something productive.

Red Letters

Last night I was able to go to a very special place. I had the privilege of going to a book study group with a small group of women to talk about this great little book "Red Letters, Living a Faith that Bleeds" IT is fabulous. It was so nice to be in the company of people who are like minded. People who feel God moving for each of them. People who are searching themselves to find out exactly what God's calling and living it out will look like in their lives. I came home refreshed, encouraged, and well, hopeful. I am very excited to see how the next 4 weeks play out. It is a great book, and I recommend everyone who is interested in how God views "the least of these" should read it.

Business up Front, Party in the Back

We are so grown up, we laughed and laughed about this, and talked about leaving it that way for a day or so, just to hear what people would say

Gotta LOVE a mullet!!

Have you seen this boy?

Because when I look around my house, I can't see him. The little boy I see looks like this:


Daddy gave him a summer hair cut yesterday. I swear he aged a year while sitting there. He is so cute!! Oh, and Dylon isn't bad either!

Spring

Wow!! What a perfect day!! It was just beautiful outside!! I took advantage of the day to plant our elephant ears. They really are a pain, since we have to deal with them every spring and fall, but they grow to be so huge and wonderful in the summer. I also replanted a bunch of hostas from the previous owners. And now, we are finally home. We have only lived here for 2 years, but now we are home. Every house we have lived in as a married couple has has a lilac bush. Our trailer even had a lilac bush. So I was really kind of bothered that this house did not. So I was at my dear friends house the other day and she generously let me take some cuttings from hers. Now it is firmly planted int he front yard.
The kids were outside all day, barefoot for a lot of it. The older 2 "helped" with the planting. Wy kept asking to be sprayed with the hose. He did not seem to get that 70 and the hose don't go together.
Today was a great sermon at church. The topic was marriage, and when it isn't going right. There was a time of prayer and support for couples afterward. It was really good.
Then off to Chicken ranch for lunch with friends that Wy says are "just as good as family" I think that is probably a pretty big compliment from a 7 yr old.
All in all a great spring day.

Over the Edge

It such a weird place to be, sitting on the edge of something that is just huge. So huge that you cannot even imagine it. But at the same time a complete mystery to you. You know you are sitting at the edge. You know you are getting ready. You know it is coming. You just don't know when. Or what. Or just how big. But you can feel it.
That is where I am. Every fiber of my being knows it. My heart cries out about it. My brain struggles to comprehend it. So I struggle. Then I relax, because if this is where God wants us, than terrifying and confusing as it is, there is no other place that I would ever want to be.

(This post either makes complete sense or it is totally random, you decide)

Earthquake?

Well apparently there was an earthquake last night. We had to watch the news to know that, as we slept right through it. You would think that with the zoo we live in that the animals would have let us know something. One of the birds fell off of her perch, but other than that, nothing. I asked Lonnie this morning if he felt it and he said nope, not at all. I guess we missed all the excitement and have no fun story to tell, except that we were asleep by 10. We are soooo old!!

It's Going Going.....

Complete and total rain out, complete with a fantastic lightning show, one that would rival any fireworks show you could imagine. Of course the rain came AFTER all 4 kids, 5 chairs (some extra for my dear friend and her child) all the jackets, snacks for kids, snacks for big people and water were loaded into the car. Then and only then did the rain come.
SO the night was much shorter than planned, but it is ok, we will try again next week. :) And I am certain it will be fun!!

Here we go....

Little League starts tonight. Can you believe it? I mean, we are simply not sports people. But I seem to have some really crazy friends who are trying to convince me that this is character building and good for them and all of that. Really, I turned out ok without the ability to throw a ball. Whatever.
In all seriousness, I am very excited for Wy, as this is a big step in a little boys life, and I will be there to support him and cheer for him and embarrass him as much as a mother should. I have heard from more experienced little league moms that I am about to dive in a little deeper than I thought. It should be quite fun.

Well, off to the after school playground now...

Ty

Cottage Cheese, it can be both fun and healthy, did you know you can finger paint with it?

Oh, and yes, that is Cottage Cheese on the dog. Poor girl, she puts up with so much.

And when you play as hard as this one does, you crash just as hard. What a sweety.

Tuesday

Yes, Tuesday means laundry around here, they are one and the same.

Aahhh, Sunday

Wy went to the neighbors to play for a little while, Lonnie is napping, Ry & Ty were watching a movie in her room. Then I went to check on them. They were really quiet so I thought maybe they had fallen asleep (see how naive I am?) no, instead the had emptied the whole top shelf of her closet all over the floor. These are all the toys that are put away until I have the patience to deal with them. Oh well, now they are all over the floor, but the kids are happy. Wy is home now, so they are all in there and playing quite happily. I managed to get a cat nap in. Why is my nap 10 min and his 2 hr? I will never quite figure it all out.
Lonnie had a very full week. he started a new job as the Assistant Director of Campus Security at Palmer Chiropractic College. It should be quite a challenge for him. It will allow him to use some of his previous experience, while still going to school and finishing his BA. He had some training on Wed, Thurs, and Fri, and officially starts his new position on Mon. It is a big change for our house. Lonnie has been home so much, it will be a new experience for the kids. When he came home on Fri night, he was like a superstar, they couldn't get enough of him, it was just great!!

Yep

Yep, in case you were wondering, that is in fact 12-15 lbs of dog food.

Whinopia

Whinopia is a little known country, rarely visited by grown ups. However 2/4 of my children are incredibly fluent in their language.
Ignoranceville is a small little teaching school where they apparently learn to look you straight in the face and then walk away while still not having done what you said.
Screamsburg is a quaint village no one really wants to visit.

If you would like directions to any of these destinations, they are easy to find, as they are all located directly on the route to Spankingtown.

Rainy Days And Laundry Nights

Today it rained, All day long. Not just the misty kind of rain. Rain, all day. So like any normal person would do. I walked to school to get Wy. Then, we walked to long way home. It was a lot of fun. We were pretty wet when we got home, but that just means PJ's even earlier.
Then we followed or habit of every Tues. (Lonnie has class) and we watch biggest loser and put away a weeks worth of laundry. It sounds silly, but we love it and have a lot of fun doing it. And by the way, laundry for six is quite a lot of laundry,

Buttons

Screaming does not work. It juts makes Mommy and Daddy even more angry. Spanking isn't working, they just start up again when we walk away. Time outs work, but only sometimes.
So, thanks to Super Nanny, we have a new system in our house. It is the button system. There are three jars on our counter, one says, "bank" it holds all the buttons that are not in use. The other two say "good :) " and "bad :( " with faces for the younger kids to understand them. So, good behavior gets buttons in the good jar. Bad behavior in the bad jar. When the good jar is full, we will have a big reward, a family outing to the park or something like that. If the bad jar gets full first, they lose Saturday morning cartoons for a week. So we spent our day talking about buttons. It surprised me how much leverage they have. The kids are really into it. Who knew? Well apparently Super Nanny did. We will see how it goes, since today was day one, but I can tell you that today was one of the calmest days we have had around here. It was great. We still had our issues, and they tried stuff, but it really went well and after one or two "bad" buttons, they tried really hard not to have to do that again.
We are pretty excited about it. We will be watching to see how it goes.