D.K.'s Debut

The boys school uses a discipline system where each child has a card with four colors on it...green, yellow, blue, and red. Each morning, each child starts on green. As the day goes on their card either stays green (if they behave) or it gets flipped to the various other colors. At the end of each month the entire school gathers in the school gym for what is called "The Green Assembly". While this may sound like a discussion of all things ecological, it's actually the time when all the kids who stayed on green for the entire month get their names called and get to stand up and have their pictures taken by classes for the bulletin board by the front office. It's a really BIG DEAL! Today's was the last one of the school year, so they also honored all the kids who managed to stay on green all year long... Prophet was one of the few that stayed on green all year long!! D.K. almost made, but not quite!!

For each assembly they open by singing The National Anthem. Normally the entire school sings together. This time, D.K. was asked to sing a solo. He did an awesome job! I am so proud of him. He has never sang in front of people like that before, so he was very nervous, but we couldn't tell. He got up there and sang his heart out, ending with the entire school joining him for the ending!



And as soon as he finished singing, he made a beeline for me and gave me a big hug before he went and sat down with his class!!

I Have No Words...

I know many of you have heard by now that Maria Chapman, the 5-year-old daughter of Steven Curtis and Marybeth Chapman was killed yesterday. Her teenage brother hit her while backing out of the driveway of their home while the family was there. My heart breaks for this family. I cannot even imagine the grief that her big brother is feeling right now. This is one of those things that will probably never make sense to most of us this side of eternity. Please be praying for the Chapman's as they grieve thru this. SCC's manager has created THIS blogsite for people to go to express their condolences to the family. I was on there this morning when there was around 900 comments. When I got on a few hours later, there were already over 5,000 comments left. I hope that by knowing how much they are loved and being prayed for, that they will find some peace. While I type this, the tears are coming back. I ache for them. I don't know them personally (lived on his music thru high school though), but they are an incredible family.

Prophet's New Glasses

The Tale of Five Blankeys

I was cleaning in Bee's room today to prepare for my BIL's visit from this afternoon 'til tomorrow morning. I was folding baby blankets and putting them in a stack in the amoire when it suddenly dawned on me that I was folding BABY blankets in a FIVE-year-old's room. When I think about it, I can remember thinking this before, but decided to leave them out and not store them away with the reasoning that Bee uses them for her baby dolls. I realized today that while, yes, she does use them for her baby dolls, I've been using that as a reason not to put all of my littlest one's baby things away. It's a way of not storing her babyhood away just yet. When I look around, those blankets are really the last remaining proof that there was once a baby girl in our lives. Her pants no longer have snaps in the crotch. Her shirts no longer have snaps in the neck. Her jammies no longer have feet in them. She only uses a sippie cup during the night. There's no longer the always present box of wipies. The diaper bag at the front door has long since been packed away. We haven't had a high chair or booster seat for a long time. The tube of flouride-free toothpaste was retired about 3 years ago, and I switched her to the big-kid shampoo from baby-shampoo about 3 years ago. Where exactly did my baby-girl go so quickly?

She's growing up so incredibly fast. It seems like just yesterday all those blankets came into my life. I remember buying or recieving each of them. The one in the top left corner is a circus toille material designed by Amy Coe from when Target first began carrying her stuff in their baby department. That blanket screamed "precious baby-girl" to me in a world that had been entirely Thomas the Tank Engine and Dinosaurs until she came along. I just had to have it. The pink one with the cherries on it is from my mom. We discovered that Bee loves super soft things, so mom went out and found that super soft blanket and bought it for her. It also happens to be an Amy Coe design. The green one next to it was bought by Mountain Mom for the exact same reason. The patchwork blanket above it was made by a co-worker of Mountain Mom's, and although I never personally met her, it meant so much to Mountain Mom to give it to me. The flowered blanket on the right is the Gymboree blanket that Sara Orange sent to her before she was ever even born, because all the little people in our house before her had a special Gymboree blankey too. Our earliest pics are of Bee wrapped in that special Sara Orange blankey while she's still in the hospital. They all carry memories...of the special people that gave them to her (and me) and of my baby-girl snuggled and warm in them. They may always be in her room somewhere. I may never pack them away, who knows!

I do know that for now they aren't going anywhere other than stacked on the second shelf of her armoire waiting for playtime tomorrow when they will once again protect a baby doll from the harsh elements outside, or cover the entire bedroom floor for a teddy-bear's picnic, or be draped across the back of two chairs to form a tent.

Goodnight everyone!

Just In Case You've Ever Wondered If "That" Really Works

My children have a way of making me test if things really work as people say they do!!!

Bee's hair full of bubblegum and before the application of peanut butter (crunchy and organic of course).



It really does work people! This is after the peanut butter, still greasy, but bubblegum free!! Yeah!!

Update on Me

For those who are wondering... I'm doing okay. Physically I'm doing good. Some soreness, nothing that pain pills don't fix. Emotionally I'm crap though! I think it's a side effect of the drugs this time! I know it's not hormones, wrong time of the month for that! I've dissolved into a pile of tears several times today and I have no clear reason for it! As my mom says, my body must just need to cry. So, here's hopin' that I wake up happier tomorrow morning!

This Is For Bre, And All The Other Teachers Who Are Counting Down The Days 'Til Summer

Jeff Foxworthy on Educators

YOU might be a school employee if you believe the playground should be equipped with a Ritalin salt lick.

YOU might be a school employee if you want to slap the next person who says, "Must be nice to work 8 to 3:30 and have summers off."

YOU might be a school employee if it is difficult to name your own child because there's no name you can come up with that doesn't bring high blood pressure as it is uttered.

YOU might be a school employee if you can tell it's a full moon or if it going to rain, snow, hail....anything!!! Without ever looking outside.


YOU might be a school employee if you believe "shallow gene pool" should have its own box on a report card.

YOU might be a school employee if you believe that unspeakable evils will befall you if anyone says, "Boy, the kids sure are mellow today."


YOU might be a school employee if when out in public, you feel the urge to snap your fingers at children you do not know and correct their behavior.

YOU might be a school employee if you have no social life between August and June.

YOU might be a school employee if you think people should have a government permit before being allowed to reproduce.

YOU might be a school employee if you wonder how some parents MANAGED to reproduce.

YOU might be a school employee if you laugh uncontrollably when people refer to the staff room as the "lounge."

YOU might be a school employee if you encourage an obnoxious parent to check into charter schools or home schooling and are willing to donate the UHAUL boxes should they decided to move out of district.

YOU might be a school employee if you think caffeine should be available in intravenous form.

YOU might be a school employee if you can't imagine how the ACLU could think that covering your students chair with Velcro and then requiring uniforms made out of the corresponding Velcro could ever be misunderstood by the public.

YOU might be a school employee if meeting a child's parent instantly answers this question, "Why is this kid like this?"

YOU might be a school employee if you would choose a mammogram over a parent conference.

YOU might be a school employee if you think someone should invent antibacterial pencils and crayons...and desks and chairs for that matter!

YOU might be a school employee if the words "I have college debt for this?" has ever come out of your mouth.
YOU might be a school employee if you know how many days, minutes, and seconds are left in the school year!

Back Under The Knife Again

Hey all. I just wanted to check in before retiring for the night to let you know that I will once again be going in for "surgery" tomorrow at the Cleveland Clinic. I have to be up there by 10 am (much better than the previous 6 am), so I should be home sometime in the early evening. Anyone's free to call and check on me, but I probably won't remember talking to you even if I can wake up enough to make my lips form words! When I had it done back in January, I know I talked to my mom and Inkling both that evening, but I have absolutely no recollection of it. Between the anestesia, the pain meds, and the Benadryl for the reaction to the anestesia, I'm pretty much out of it for about 24 hours afterward. I should be back on my feet by Thursday morning though and ready for action again. I hope so, because the current plan is for Smart Guy to leave for AL on Thursday right after he puts the kids to bed for the night. Two of our kids for our student ministry down there are getting married (to each other) and they wanted us all to come down. Unfortunately that's too far for all of us to travel while the boys are still in school, but Smart Guy is going down. Now, he's gotta figure out what he's wearing to the Hoover Country Club for the rehearsal dinner Friday night, should be interesting!!

My Hubby's Better Than Your Hubby

Just in case you were beginning to think that your honey's stand a chance against mine, I can now prove you wrong. Here's my Mother's Day from my marvelous man. For those of you that don't know this about me... I absolutely adore the author Janette Oke. Her "Love Comes Softly" series is possibly some of the best books of all times. The above DVD's are those books made into movies. Only the first one is missing, because it was out of stock at the time, but we'll get it a little later. I've seen it a thousand and five times, so that's not currently a problem. I've been wanting these for a long time, so I'm thrilled sick that I finally have them in my possession. Yeah, Smart Guy! Thank you Honey! I love you!

Back To The Big White Barn

Smart Guy's parents are here for the weekend so the kids wanted to take them out to "the big white barn" for dinner and fish feeding. This is D.K. reaching out to feed a goose a piece of bread. Most of the geese and ducks run when you get close to them, but this one just stood there and ate right out of his fingers. Check out the look of surprise on Prophet's face in the first picture and the shocked look on D.K.'s face in the next after the very first time the goose took the bread from him!





This last pic is another of the big carp that are in the lake out there. The kids and I are fascinated by the huge, ugly creatures. This one seems to have a wierd lump on it's side.

No Water Creatures in Our House, Please!

It should be against the law for teacher's to send a child home with anything living...especially something that lives in water. I hate water creatures... they stink, they have to have their water changed, they stink, they eventually die and leave a child feeling guilty for doing something bad to them, and oh, did I mention, they stink! I know, I sound like a big fuddy-duddy! If this was a particular other person, I'd be thinking, just get over it and let your kid have fun with it!



Doesn't the fish bowl full of three tadpoles look pretty on my dining room table?



Just so you don't think I'm overreacting... D.K. just brought these home from school today, and the only one left living at this hour, five hours after coming hom is the big one on the left. The other two have already kicked the bucket! Poor D.K. looked so pitiful when he realized they'd already died!

My Little Hippie

I think my daughter was born in the wrong decade!

This Has Got To Be The Most Oober Cool Playland I Have Ever Seen

I found this while cruising the net looking for playground equipment for our church's play area remodel (hopefully coming soon)! I think it's so fun-looking, although I don't think it's as big as we're wanting! Our play area is used by the Headstart program that is housed in our building and the entire neighborhood uses it on a regular basis, so we're wanting something big enough for several kids at once.

Ah, Man

Have you ever tried to open a bag of something only to have it suddenly burst open and spew forth all over the place? Been there done that, usually with a bag of chips, or something the dog will eat up off the floor. Tonight, instead it was with a bag of frozen green peas (their small, frozen, round little selves make a delightful pinging sound when they all hit the stovetop and floor and roll EVERYWHERE at the same time) meant to be put into our chicken pot pie! The dog wouldn't touch 'em even if he'd been starved for a year! So that means that I've got to find them all. I think I've got them all, but of course I'm sure I'll find a few the next several times I sweep the floor or move the canisters around on the countertops! Oh well, I could've been worse.

This Is So Sweet and Hilarious At the Same Time

The Big White Barn Night Out

This morning I asked Smart Guy if we could go out to dinner tonight at a restaurant that we'll refer to as "the big white barn". The "big white barn" sits out in the country, being a former working farm, and has several small shops sitting on the same property, along with a lake full of fish and lots of hungry, greedy ducks. Bee and D.K. both recieved gift certificates for the toy store out there for their birthdays back in February, so I thought it was time to use them. So after school, we headed out. It was fun being out there. We walked around awhile after we ate. D.K. followed the ducks around awhile, then we fed them and the fish until we got tired of standing in the cold rain. This was, BTW, was of the places I took Inkling for dinner when she came of visit back in October.

Parking lot view of "the big white barn".




The original farmhouse that is now being used as a really quaint gift shop.




The sun rays were shining thru the clouds so pretty. I tried to catch 'em, but the pic doesn't do it justice. That's D.K. and Bee running around in the field.




The tractor to ride on in the waiting area.




Waiting area view.



The red and white checked thing is the base for train tracks going around the room. I couldn't get a good pic of the train though. The thing with the wooden frame in the middle bottom of the pic is a beehive. We looked and looked for queen bee. I know she's in there somewhere, but about the time we'd have one area searched, they'd have moved around so much that it seemed like we'd never find her.




This is the deco that greets you when you walk in one of the doors.




The view of the salad/soup/bread bar and the upper eating loft from our table. The pic makes it hard to see how grand it really is. It's huge.




Prophet and D.K. with the lego moose who stands on guard outside the door of the toyshop the kids had gift certificates for. The toyshop was, by-the-way, closed for the night when we got there at 6 pm. (Once I thought about it, I think Inkling and I had to leave the story early when we were there during her visit because they closed so early).




Bee had to have a picture with the tulips!




My family walking around the barn.




D.K. eating some of their famous blueberry bread SMOTHERED with their honeybutter. He had at least and inch of it on there. If you blow up the picture (click on it), you should be able to see some of it on the tip of his nose. He had about four pieces like that! The waitress we had was so much fun and she was the one who pointed it out to me!




Daddy pushing Bee on the swings by the lake.




The dock out onto the lake where we fed the fish.




Prophet and D.K. sitting on the bank watching the ducks, hoping they'd come up to them (not a chance)!




The view of "the big white barn" from the dock out on the lake. The windows all the way across are the main dining room windows that look out onto the lake.




If you look real close you can see a huge carp in the middle of the pic. There were three of them that were about 2 1/2 feet long amongst all the bass and bluegill in there. There were literally hundreds of fish in a small area around the dock waiting for us to feed them.

This is What Happens When You Ask 3rd Grade Boys To Dress Themselves

This is how they came down for church this morning! I gave them instructions to put on plaid shorts with "matching" polo shirts! Apparently "matching" is a relative term!