Thanks Mr. Turtle!! It was fun while it lasted.

Kamryn found "old mister turtle" and Kimmi was the photographer. I love these shots Kimmi!!!

He went with us to ballet and we lost him in the van...then we found him. Then we lost him in the house....and then we found him again...wheww!!!! Richard is such a realist about things like that. He immediately imagined "old mister turtle" down an air vent that Jessie is always uncovering for us and in which she is always dropping things. When small things are missing, we often just stick our hands down in the vents and find many many treasures!!!(heehee) I usually have to get my nerve up to check the vents. Soooo, anyway, Richard was imagining "old mister turtle" passing away deep in a vent. Happily, we found him the next day under the couch.

Cason had mercy on mister turtle and set him free by the pond while no one was looking. We had lots of good times with him though. Maybe he will come a visiting again soon!!

A legacy of Faithfulness........

I cannot believe I found a picture of "us". I think it was taken from Richard's cell phone by a waiter who saw us doing the ridiculous extended arm photo of self thing. I hate that, but we were doing it too so I can't judge: ) I'm glad I found it. I was actually looking for a photo of Richard because off in the distance I can hear him and a room full of men talking, praying, and singing hymns. It blesses my heart so much. Sure, I mumbled under my breath just a wee bit as I put together the last of the notebooks with the curriculum he prepared while the kids cleaned the kitchen and living areas and got snacks ready.(Kamryn actually entertained Max and Jessie--sweet girl) God somehow calmed the chaos for me and supernaturally made it all work. For that, I'm very thankful!! I only mumbled for a short while as I thought about how he left the house by 6:30 this morning and works so hard and would drive in just in time to greet the first of the guys as they arrived. I then started praying for Richard and that the new men's group he is starting would be such a blessing to the men who would be involved and to their sweet families. It's a 12 week course written by my sweetie designed to aid men in leading their families in worship. He is teaching them how to teach through Ephesians (as an example), and the notebook contains a section of hymns, psalters, scripture memory, etc... Just some ideas of how to organize a family worship discipleship time. His heart is very much into seeing husbands/dads lead their families effectively for the glory of God. I think it's an awesome calling and he's definitely a good man for the job. I'm very proud of him.

Here is a verse from one of the theme passages:

We will not hide them from their children, but tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the LORD, and his might, and the wonders that he has done.

Psalm 78:4

waiting and warming up for the dance

We so love this happy little blessing. Next year she will be going to the father and daughter dance as well. She is so cheerful and playful and loving.

I really like this picture of kamryn and Nona enjoying some sweet time talking with Nana while they await the dance.

I love this photo!! Love that man too. They were just doing a little warming up.(heehee)

Chicken Dance and such as that......

Father and Daughter Dance 2010

It's really a big deal around here!! Really big. It is talked about and anticipated for weeks before it actually gets here. These are just a few pictures. I would have posted more but it's loading sooooo slowly. Richard got the girls little handbags and jewelry for the evening. Very sweet. There is a picture of Kamryn and Nona's bags but the big girls have more "grown-up" clutches. It was very sweet to see the excitement and the pre-dancing and picture taking and present giving. I'll definitely post more photos tomorrow with some tales of daddy's and the macarena and YMCA and the chicken dance and such as that...Can't wait to hear all about it when they get home!!!!

Karis styled Kimmi's hair(Oh, she is so grown up!!!!)

Cason and Richard had a good time together at his state meet this past weekend. He is the youngest in his age group now, but still did really well in his best events. He took a 6th and a 9th. We were somewhat surprised but he was not. Here is one picture Richard sent me from his iphone. That's Cason in the sea of Valentine balloons and girls: ) Just minding his own business: ) I really love that boy. It is more of a blessing than I ever would have imagined to watch your son grow in the Lord and into a man. He is such a blessing in our family. I'm very proud of his swimming and athletic finesse, but it so extremely pales in comparison to how proud I am of seeing him carry his baby sister around or reading Nona a story or just generally helping me and Richard in so many ways. He is so strong but has a gentle heart. He can take some ribbing too. Cason is known as the one in the family who does things the right way, and he has expectations that others should as well: )

Richard sometimes call him 'the Sheriff". If we're in the van and Cason is correcting someone's attitude or behaviour, Richard will chime in in his country/western voice and remind all the little "outlaws" they better listen to Cason "cause he's the Sheriff of Econoline-county". It's kind of picking on Cason, but he doesn't really care. He just smiles and agrees and keeps on doing what he's gotta do to keep things running smoothly around here(heehee) I love that sweet boy!

Shopping List

This morning Cole was trying to get my full attention so I would listen to a couple of items he needed from the store next time I planned to go. I told him to not even try and get me to remember but to write it down. Here is the list he and kamryn and Nona came up with for me.(heehee)

army men

glue

beads

feathers

little catapults

paper with pictures of birds on it

It just really made my morning!!!! Does anyone know which aisle I should look on for "little catapults"?

Hidden Spots

I love cleaning out a closet. Or, maybe I should say I love it when my closets are clean. My huge closet in our foyer is sometimes very tidy with it's contents in pretty wicker baskets. It has, along with alot of other spots, been very messy for a while now. I hate when that happens. I feel so organized when my hidden spots are tidy. It's kinda like this...if closets, drawers, my purse and under beds and couches are cleaned out, then everything must be clean. Since we've been showing our house for two years now trying to sell it, I have often times had to clean and tidy in a superficial manner. Does anyone know what I mean?? It means piling junk in baskets, laundry under cabinets, and sweeping dirt under a rug. Basicly just hiding "stuff" wherever we can. Uugh!! It really makes me itchy to think about it. I told Richard the other day that it would make me so happy if he would get me one of those big dumpsters to go in my driveway for a few days. Would that be pretty?? Ummm, we'd definitely get a letter about that: ) Anyways, when we show the house and it looks good to people not looking too deep, I just don't feel good about it. I think about how it would have been nice to spend that time folding laudry instead of hiding it in cupboards or it would have been nice going through and throwing or giving away what we found under beds instead of sticking little containers of randon things in closets. That gets me back to the topic of my newly cleaned out foyer closet. I just wanted to say...It looks good. The whole time I've been typing this post, I've been thinking of how it parallells with our spiritual lives. i seriously just wanted to tell about about my closets but I'm thinking I'm not going to be able to resist going deeper with it. Here is how I clean a really messy closet with buckets of mis-matched "stuff" and coats piled on top of that. And here also, is how to clean the mis-matched piled up junk in our lives. Just take a broom and sweep it all out. I don't sit in the closet and pick through the buckets and decide what to keep and what to throw away. I make the closet look really good and really quickly. I get almost immediate impact. OK, then I have alot of "stuff" right there in the living room. Just right out in the open. I immediately take a trash bag and throw away all the obvious garbage. And then what happens next is beautiful. I call everyone else in my family in to help me sort everything out and put it where it all goes. Together, we make everything right really quickly. I guess that parallells confessing to others. Confessing is letting someone else share your messy burden with you. It really makes the burden light. I don't know, maybe I've gone too far with my little analogy now. There is no doubt that masking or being superficial or putting up a nice front or sweeping issues under a rug, though, makes me feel itchy inside just like sweeping real dirt under a real rug makes me feel itchy too. I am very thankful for the Holy Spirit convicting me and not just convicting me but helping me haul it all out to the dumpster when I'm hiding and holding onto things I shouldn't. My little question i was going to ask before I turned spiritual here was going to be if you enjoy the cleanness of the closet when you're done or the lost treasure you find amongst all the junk... I'm sorry, but that preaches too. For instance I found some cool grammar flash cards and also some flash cards with the constellations I used to use with the older kids and that will now be perfect for the younger set. I am seriously going to enjoy using those with Cole, Kam and Nona tomorrow during school time. It's a simple pleasure---you know---seeing my little children learning something new from some flash cards that bring back a sweet memory of Karis, cason and Kimmi. I think, spiritually speaking, when our lives and hearts are cleaned out, we can enjoy the simple blessings in life more.

Praying for God to reveal more hidden spots to me.

Magnolia

Here are some fun pictures we took at Magnolia Plantation

about 2 weeks ago with our friends the McKoys. We love the

petting zoo. Magnolia is our favorite plantation. We used to get a family pass every year and go at

least every couple of months. We've always phographed our littl'uns on the pretty bridges there. It's just a beautiful placefor it. We took some the day we were there, but I plan to go back in a few weeks for really good ones with everyone dressed matching a little better with hair all fixed for a "framing" photograph. None of these will work for that but they were pretty cute.

Sweet of Jessie and Karis. The animals made her a little nervous.

Max and Cason made the animals(and me!!!) nervous. Especially Cason with the wild boar.

The bridges and other pretty spots for photos!!!

You can see how this would have been a good spot for a photo had I possessed a child who wanted a picture taken of himself. I didn't have one at this moment though. Just use your imagination: )