Revised

Here's the pics along with the post from yesterday! I think it's hilarious that I didn't even say what Kari's surprise was!! Haha! I would say that you could look below and see what it was but since my SIL hasn't emailed me the pictures from the park I don't have any to post on here. It was a bike with training wheels!! We will have loads of fun with that and probably loads of bruises too. Also, the little place under Malachi's nose isn't a booger, it's a big scratch where he cleaned the sidewalk with his nose, upper lip and chin.

First of all, I apologize for the lack of blogging this past week. It has been a whirlwind of activity as always but I promise I’ll try to do better. I know I’ve said that for three weeks now but I’m seriously going to try to get some kind of routine this week so that I’ll be better at juggling things. I was reprimanded by several people over the weekend for not doing the What I’m Loving Friday post and I think it’s so funny that people look forward to that. Makes me feel so loved.

I would like to update on all of last week but I think I’ll just start with the weekend so that we can have a clean slate with pictures and everything. Friday night was the first time I’d had my camera out in a while. So get ready to read a very long post with lots of pictures. I’m way overdue and I’m in the mood to talk and you all know that’s rare that I’m in that kind of mood. (I don’t want ONE comment about that sentence)

Steven, Ivy, Trinity, Chris and Lacey came over Friday night for some root beer floats, sugar cookies, Doritos, Nutter Butters, Oreos…..and pretty much whatever else we could find to make ourselves sick with. LOL!





While they were at our house Lacey happened to mention Hercules. I was shocked to realize that I hadn’t fed or watered the icky thing in probably 5 days. YIKES!!! But, drat the luck. He was still alive and well.

Although I will say that he was out of his shell longer than I’ve ever seen him because he was drinking so much from his sponge. I guess that meant that he didn’t appreciate my attempt to starve/thirst him to death. Drat Lacey too. If only she hadn’t reminded me he might have been gone after a few more days.

Saturday we went to the park with Lacey and Uncle Chris and had a picnic. It was so much fun! Pappy and Gammy met us there and brought Kari a surprise. She was so excited but a little scared at the same time. She did fine as long as it was doing what she wanted it to but when it started rolling a little too fast, she jumped off quick!

After the park, we went to Gammy and Pappy’s for grilled burgers and hot dogs and Kari and Malachi decided that they wanted to spend the night with Pappy and Gammy. Now, I’ll admit that at times I think that if I had one night of uninterrupted sleep and if I could sleep as late as I wanted to I would feel like a brand new person. But then when my kids are actually about to leave, I have mixed feelings. I feel guilty for wanting time to myself, I feel nervous that they’ll be away from me, I feel excited that I might get to actually sleep…..it’s so rare that the kids are away from me that I don’t remember from one time to the next how I’m supposed to act.

So, anyway, I quickly decided that I could find something to do that I enjoyed and normally couldn’t do with the kids with me. I went to the park and walked/jogged and then decided to grab a Mickey D’s ice cream cone (I know that it almost defeated the purpose of the walk/jog butohwell). When I went home I seriously think I sat on my bed for like 15 minutes thinking about how quiet it was in the house and how
I missed snuggling with my sleeping babies. And then reality set in that I could sleep and sleep and sleep and I snuggled down in the covers and slept like a big fat log until almost 8:00 the next morning!!! You have no idea how nice it felt. Well, actually if you’re a mommy you know how nice it felt. It made me appreciate my kids more and made me enjoy the rest of the weekend so much more too.

Sunday was our Fall Festival at church and everyone was supposed to dress old fashioned. Kari and Malachi’s bonnet/hat and Kari’s apron came from the Amish. I thought they were too cute. Malachi, Uncle Chris and Pappy all dressed alike and they were so funny in their bibs.



















We had a BLAST!!! I ate so much food and dessert that I was ALMOST sick. But not sick enough to rule out going back for seconds after games and stuff.

With the old fashioned dresses and the old fashioned games we played it made my mind wonder what it must have been like all those years ago. Where the days were filled with simple things…..they didn’t have cell phones to interrupt them all the time. They didn’t worry about things like checking email and updating blogs and going here and there all the time. They enjoyed their days with family and friends and thanked God for what they had and didn’t complain about what they didn’t have.
But while I was wondering about all of that I decided that I love my cell phone and texting, my computer and emailing and blogging and going places and the old fashioned lifestyle only works for me for a few hours.

Hi!!!

First of all, I apologize for the lack of blogging this past week. It has been a whirlwind of activity as always but I promise I’ll try to do better. I know I’ve said that for three weeks now but I’m seriously going to try to get some kind of routine this week so that I’ll be better at juggling things. I was reprimanded by several people over the weekend for not doing the What I’m Loving Friday post and I think it’s so funny that people look forward to that. Makes me feel so loved.

I would like to update on all of last week but I think I’ll just start with the weekend so that we can have a clean slate with pictures and everything. Friday night was the first time I’d had my camera out in a while. So get ready to read a very long post with lots of pictures. I’m way overdue and I’m in the mood to talk and you all know that’s rare that I’m in that kind of mood. (I don’t want ONE comment about that sentence)

Steven, Ivy, Trinity, Chris and Lacey came over Friday night for some root beer floats, sugar cookies, Doritos, Nutter Butters, Oreos…..and pretty much whatever else we could find to make ourselves sick with. LOL! While they were at our house Lacey happened to mention Hercules. I was shocked to realize that I hadn’t fed or watered the icky thing in probably 5 days. YIKES!!! But, drat the luck. He was still alive and well. Although I will say that he was out of his shell longer than I’ve ever seen him because he was drinking so much from his sponge. I guess that meant that he didn’t appreciate my attempt to starve/thirst him to death. Drat Lacey too. If only she hadn’t reminded me he might have been gone after a few more days.

Saturday we went to the park with Lacey and Uncle Chris and had a picnic. It was so much fun! Pappy and Gammy met us there and brought Kari a surprise. She was so excited but a little scared at the same time. She did fine as long as it was doing what she wanted it to but when it started rolling a little too fast, she jumped off quick!

After the park, we went to Gammy and Pappy’s for grilled burgers and hot dogs and Kari and Malachi decided that they wanted to spend the night with Pappy and Gammy. Now, I’ll admit that at times I think that if I had one night of uninterrupted sleep and if I could sleep as late as I wanted to I would feel like a brand new person. But then when my kids are actually about to leave, I have mixed feelings. I feel guilty for wanting time to myself, I feel nervous that they’ll be away from me, I feel excited that I might get to actually sleep…..it’s so rare that the kids are away from me that I don’t remember from one time to the next how I’m supposed to act.

So, anyway, I quickly decided that I could find something to do that I enjoyed and normally couldn’t do with the kids with me. I went to the park and walked/jogged and then decided to grab a Mickey D’s ice cream cone (I know that it almost defeated the purpose of the walk/jog butohwell). When I went home I seriously think I sat on my bed for like 15 minutes thinking about how quiet it was in the house and how
I missed snuggling with my sleeping babies. And then reality set in that I could sleep and sleep and sleep and I snuggled down in the covers and slept like a big fat log until almost 8:00 the next morning!!! You have no idea how nice it felt. Well, actually if you’re a mommy you know how nice it felt. It made me appreciate my kids more and made me enjoy the rest of the weekend so much more too.

Sunday was our Fall Festival at church and everyone was supposed to dress old fashioned. Kari and Malachi’s bonnet/hat and Kari’s apron came from the Amish. I thought they were too cute. Malachi, Uncle Chris and Pappy all dressed alike and they were so funny in their bibs.
We had a BLAST!!! I ate so much food and dessert that I was ALMOST sick. But not sick enough to rule out going back for seconds after games and stuff.

With the old fashioned dresses and the old fashioned games we played it made my mind wonder what it must have been like all those years ago. Where the days were filled with simple things…..they didn’t have cell phones to interrupt them all the time. They didn’t worry about things like checking email and updating blogs and going here and there all the time. They enjoyed their days with family and friends and thanked God for what they had and didn’t complain about what they didn’t have.
But while I was wondering about all of that I decided that I love my cell phone and texting, my computer and emailing and blogging and going places and the old fashioned lifestyle only works for me for a few hours.

Well, I've just spent 20 minutes trying to upload pictures and I don't have time to wait any longer. I'll post pictures tomorrow hopefully!
:)

Winter

Since I’m at mom’s and can use her internet I decided to go ahead and update my blog. I may not be able to update again for a few days and I sooo miss doing it everyday.

I’ve really been looking forward to fall/winter. Winter is definitely not my favorite time of year but I do like it up until after New Year’s Day. At that point I’m pretty much done with it. I like the first few snows but snow kinda loses its appeal when you no longer go to school and have the privilege of “snow days” where you can sleep in and lay around all day. Farmers National Bank doesn’t offer that in our benefits package unfortunately. Now I have to brave the snow to drive up my very steep road and make it to work every day that it snows with the kids in the car with me. It gets a little scary at times. Like last year when I backed the van into the ditch directly across from my driveway. I was so scared that I sat there with my foot on the brake until Chris came to my rescue. After that when they predicted a big snow I just packed clothes and stayed at MIL and FIL’s since they’re only 2 minutes away from where I work.

So, anyway. I was really only going to make a point about indoor winter activities for kids not talk about snow. When it was chilly and rainy last Saturday morning we opened the play-doh for the first time since March. Kari has a HUGE play-doh play center and we have so much fun with it in the winter. I put it away for the summer along with the finger paints, water colors, Kari’s fairy tent and a whole slew of other stuff that I bring out only for winter evenings.
We can get pretty creative with our play-doh but it’s already proving to be an attractive chew toy for Malachi. He obviously hasn't learned to appreciate the artistic value of play-doh.

My fish pond

Christmas tree

Kari's milkshake creation

Hilda and her heart

Along with fun indoor winter activities is an earlier bedtime for my kids. AND ME!! That makes this tired mama so happy. While I’ll admit to being a spring/summer gal, I am looking forward to several things about the coming fall/winter months. I’ll need y’all to remind me of this post around the middle of January when I’m saying “Spring!! I need spring weather!!!”


So, do you have any neat ideas for winter evenings? :)

What I'm Loving Friday!

So, I pulled up my blog to do my Friday post during lunch and I thought "Oh, that's strange. It's got my Friday post from last week on here."

And then I realized that last Friday was the last time I've posted! YIKES!!!! I'm so far behind that I fear I'll never get caught up! I haven't posted any updates about us since last Friday so for my What I'm Loving Friday I'm going to post the things that I've loved about this week:

1. Monday when we were grocery shopping at Walmart, Kari ran out in front of one of those motorized wheelchairs that have baskets attached on the front. It seriously scared the little old man to death! But the bad thing was that Kari laughed her head off because she did it! (she's definitely my child) The poor little man kept asking if Kari was okay and I kept asking him if he was okay....I laughed all night about that!!

2. Malachi has finally started saying "drink" for when he wants a drink instead of grunting and pointing.

3. I got a new car!! The Lord worked it out so wonderfully that I haven't doubted one time that He wasn't leading me to this vehicle. The whole situation had His hand on it. :) I will post pictures as soon as I get my life back and get my camera out. LOL.

4. Yesterday while we were driving to church I turned Kari's sing-along CD down so that I could try to remember the words to a song. The whole time I was trying to sing the song she kept asking me to turn her CD back on. Finally, she got frustrated and said "Mommy, I wish I could get big so I could dwive our caww and you would get little so you could sit back heah wis Bubby." I think she was a tad on the aggravated side with me.

5. Tuesday, Kari and Malachi had a play date with our friend, Laura and her little boy, Landon. Landon and Kari are the same age and LOVE playing together. I have a post about them coming over but I don't have time to find it right now. Here's a pic of them playing at our house though:



Gammy took the kids to Laura's house around 12:00 and when I got there to pick the kids up after work Kari looked at me like I was the evil one or something. She did NOT want to leave. Both kids napped for Laura and all that so it did my heart good to know that they were so good!!

6. Malachi has learned to climb out of the bathtub by himself. And he's learned how to open the front door and go outside by himself. And he's learned how to remove the outlet covers. And, courtesy of his sister, he's learned how to move a chair over to the bar and climb up on the bar to find stuff. ARGHGHGHGHG!!

So, anyway. That's our week. My new position is going great and I LOVE it but it keeps me much busier than I was in my old position. I miss you all and I miss blogging everyday but I promise that I'll be back to normal soon.
I hope everyone has a great weekend. :)

What I'm Loving Friday!

Happy Friday, blogging world. I seriously hope that my life gets back to normal soon because I feel all out of whack this week. The kids and I ate supper OUT 3 days in a row. We NEVER do that but I haven't had time to get groceries or anything. Not that anybody cares but I just thought it was worth the mention that I've been super busy.

So, moving on....I'm loving lots of things but I only have time for a few!

1. I'm loving that I'm going to Jackson County tonight for a birthday party for TL!! I heard that Ashley is getting a hayride together and I also heard that Jean is making some GOOOOOD food. I also might mention to anyone else that's going that I've already claimed the food. So eat before you come. At least eat your dessert before you come. You can have everything else but the dessert goes to me.

2. I'm loving my new position at work! It's definitely some mind-boggling stuff but I'm staying busy and learning new things and that's what I was hoping for. Although I must say that I'll be glad when the computer and the desk are "mine" so that I feel in my element. Does that make sense?

3. I'm loving that sweet baby boy of mine that wraps his arms around my neck and gives me sugars when he sees me crying at church. *tears*

4. I'm loving that precious princess that looks at me and says "Mommy, you are purty to me."

5. I'm loving all my blogging friends that leave comments on my posts!! It makes me feel so loved. Ha!!!

Everyone have a great weekend! Love ya!

:)

I'm Still Here!

Quickly as I'm sitting here at Mickey D's sponging off their Wi-Fi service I'll update you on our lives.

We had a fun weekend with Memaw and Sissy. They have this terrific park about 10 minutes from Memaw's house that has a brand new set of playground equipment along with an awesome walking track that I made good use of. The weather was beautiful and we all enjoyed ourselves tremendously.






I also went along on a "Jon and Latasha Date" as a chaperone. OMW. The dating life had long ago filed itself away in the very back portion of my mind and I was drawn into a world of bygone years and experiences I had while dating. Not an era of my life I like to visit often. But we had fun and I got to eat some GREAT italian food. Although the next time I go I'm not riding in the backseat of a car. That way I won't be sick as a dog and be able to eat more. Ha!






So, anyway.....I started my new position Tuesday and, considering this is only the second day, I'm doing rather well. I remembered my children's names and how to get home and all that so my brain isn't fried just yet. But my time is very limited and since I don't have internet service at home yet, my blog may suffer. For all of my faithful 5 readers, I'm working on the problem!!

With that being said, I must sign off for now. This must be senior citizens day at McDonald's because these older people are hilarious! They are everywhere in here taking advantage of the 49 cent ice cream cones. I even heard one elderly gentleman comment on the calories and fat grams in one cone. Oh, dear. I'm leaving.

What I'm Loving Friday!!

Happy Friday!! First, a little update on some things. I'm moving to another department here at work for about 6 months so I won't be at my own desk computer for a while. I will have a computer by the end of next week hopefully but won't have access to the internet! Good news....I get my laptop today!! Yay! That means I can do my blog away from work!!

1. I'm loving that I get to spend the whole weekend with my mom and sister! We're gonna have so much fun!

2. I'm loving my SIL's new boots. LOVE them.


3. I'm loving that Kari is sleeping in her own bed now. I'm working on Malachi...

4. I'm loving what Bro. Deckerd preached at church last night! Wowzers! Just what I needed.

5. I'm loving that Taryn participates in my Friday posts and does her own What I'm Loving Friday. Love you, Taryn!!

6. I'm loving the new sweater I bought at Kohl's last week!! Woohoo!! Fall weather can't come soon enough for this gal.

7. I'm loving that on Tuesday I start a new position!! The Lord really worked this in my favor and I'm so thankful for that!

8. I'm loving that today the bank paid for pizza in our department and it was from Papa John's with lots of ham on it! My diet went downhill fastly about an hour ago. And I enjoyed every bite of ham, canadian bacon, sausage, cheese and garlic butter I put into my mouth along with the two cinnamon breakstick-thingies I ate. Please don't comment on how many calories I just consumed because I'm fully aware. Just sayin'.

9. I'm loving this new store for kids. There's only one store in the state of KY and that's in the Oxmoore City Mall in Louisville. They have one in the Tanger outlets in TN though and I'm so excited about going there in November. Their clothes are FABULOUS!! I found some awesome deals there in June and I CANNOT WAIT to go again!

10. As always, I'm loving the Lord and all that He does for me!

So, what are you loving today?

:)

Why???

I have a post of nothing but questions today. Questions about things that don't necessarily matter but that make me ponder.

Like:

1. What's all the hype about skinny jeans? I mean, I don't wear jeans at all and it doesn't really matter. But I've yet to see ONE person that they look good on. I don't care if they're a size 0 or a size 20, they look terrible. And I'm not even going to discuss leggings.



2. These boots? Words surprisingly escape me.

3. Why do people that you work with always feel like they know more than you, even when you're training them?

4. Why is it that just when you're tearfully thanking God that your kids are being so good for you that they go and do something that makes you want to pull your hair out?



5. How do I go to Walmart and get the few things I need and leave when there are millions of things to buy in the store? But then when I go to the Dollar General to grab some cereal and diapers I end up with a buggy full of stuff? Absolutely no logic to that.


6. When I want my kids to go to sleep, they get hyper. When I need them to stay awake, they can't keep their eyes open. What's the deal?



7. Why in the devil can I not pass up the 28 pound mark and move on to 29? I've been here for over a month I think. Probably because my SIL is non-existent anymore and my walking time is limited now. Or it could be the cheesecake in the fridge or the iced animal cookies in the cabinet. Or the breadsticks from Fazoli's.


8. Why does God still love me and lead me and pour out his love and mercy and grace to me.....even when I'm rotten? Even when He must be so ashamed to call me His own??

9. How is it that I am so blessed with the best younguns in the world? And the cutest, if I do say so myself.



:)

If Not For Grace

I received this awesome devotion from my good friend, Waveline. Love it!

We talked about God-sized dreams yesterday.

About how they are messy, imperfect, glorious and flawed.

Because we are too.

And one phrase kept reverberating through my being...

If not for grace

If not for grace

If not for grace God-sized dreams would never come true.

Because I can tell you from experience...

You will cry at the wrong time.

You will say that awkward thing.

You will forget what to do in that most important moment.

And, God in His stubborness, will carry on with His plan anyway.

You will fail at least once, and probably more.

You will think you are incapable.

And sometimes you will be.

But God, in His audacity, will use you anyway.

You will miss opportunities.

You'll take steps you shouldn't.

You'll walk through the wrong door and shut the right one.

And somehow, inexplicably, God will get you there anyway.

You will be hard to live with sometimes.

You will fall short.

You will forget to stand tall.

And, God, uncaring of what's cool will say, "That one's mine" anyway.

You see, God-sized dreams don't make sense.

Not a bit.

Because they come from the heart of the One whose ways are higher than ours.

They flow from the One who stubbornly believes in grace.

If not for grace...

we wouldn't take a step

because it's grace that paves the road to God-sized dreams.

And we walk it, unworthy, anyway, all the way--

utterly broken

and entirely loved.

:)