Happy Birthday Amy!!!

We love you!!!

(And Happy Halloween to the rest of you boring normal people who don't get to have your birthday today. ::wink:: )

AND - Happy Birthday Robert!!!

We love you!

God designs the children.

For the past week or so, I went through a mommy-burnout slump. It's something I'm sure all parents go through every once in a while, but the stay-at-home variety (for those who deal with burnout), tend to have a more dramatic time coming out of it. Mostly because, as you can imagine, there is no break from what is "causing" the burnout. One can't take a vacation day.

ANYway, (and I wasn't fishing for sympathy there, I promise!) during said burnout, I wasn't the most pleasant thing my children have ever seen. My fuse was short, my ability to remember to pray for patience was apparently on the blink, and my aptitude for understanding fell quite short of acceptable levels.

Oh, for the sake of pete. I was a BEAR. An absolute bear.

So, anyway, yesterday, I got to leave for a couple of hours for a Junior Miss meeting. Tooter (who usually doesn't do this) got a bit distraught that I left, and according to Jmk, never really got happy about the idea of my being gone. And today, he has been quite the velcro baby.

My point, you ask? (What - you can't tell from my disjointed story?) If they were adults, and I had spent the past week being.... well, the way I was being.... I doubt either one of them would have wanted much to do with me. But our Father doesn't create tiny adults. He makes children who are loving and forgiving no matter what. WE're the ones who turn these precious little things into, well, adults. Tooter wasn't happy about my leaving for a couple of hours last night, even though I haven't been a model mom lately. Even though.

God is the author of Even Though. You've probably heard it called Grace and Mercy.

Truly Delightful Movie

Miss Potter starring Rene'e Zellwegger and Ewan McGregor

If you haven't seen this movie, or if you're like me and didn't know the movie existed until you saw it recommended on someone else's blog (hat tip to The Beehive!), then you have missed a wonderful treat. Put it on your list, and get it delivered asap. It's wonderful, it will make you smile and laugh and feel good and cry a little bit too.

AND, since I didn't know anything about Beatrix Potter's life, it was so interesting to me too.

Big double thumbs up from the Zoo!

Dirt dirt dirt.

What's better than being an almost two year old boy and having an entire truck full of DIRT to play with?











Jmk was spreading topsoil in the bare spots in the backyard, so as to spread some rye seed for the winter. Hopefully cut down on the muddy spots - and the kids got to "help". Poodle felt so grown-up.... But Tooter just thought it was the coolest thing in the world that he could play in the dirt with absolutely NO comments from Mommy!

Our Trip to the Fire Station

I hate to bump the pictures of Jmk's mom's fantastic work, but I promised to get these posted.

Since our trip to the Canton Corn Maze was canceled today due to inclement weather, I feel that I just ought to get the pictures posted from our field trip last week!

Some of the kids from the CHEC group met up at a local Fire Station to learn and have fun. It was a little advanced for my munchkins - Toot was mostly irritated that I wouldn't let him out of the stroller, and Poodle got lost in some of the technical talk. BUT, overall it was a good trip AND was fun for all the kids. Some of us stayed and enjoyed a picnic in the park afterwards and the kids got to play and get dirty. The moms mostly sweated. It was H-O-T hot that day!

This first picture shows a really smart thing that the fire fighters did for the kids. One of the men dressed out completely in all his gear, mask included. Their purpose was to let the kids know that if they are ever in trouble (God forbid), they should not be scared of someone dressed like this. Pretty good idea! They also let us hear the automatic siren that is activated when a firefighter is motionless for more that a minute. Eerie sound. They told us that if we were to ever hear footage (not see, hear) from 9-11, we would hear these sirens going off from the rubble of the Towers. It was a clarifying moment for us.

One of the really neat things they did for the kids was raise the ladder on their ladder truck, and then one of the firemen climbed to the very top of it.

You should have seen some of the kids' faces - they were captivated!

Watching the kids watching the fireman climb the ladder. That was the most quiet they were the whole day. Not counting the oooh's and aaah's, of course.

The equally amazed Poodle.

THEN - each child got to climb up in the truck for a brief minute. Of course - this was prime photo op time! Tooter was mostly glad to be out of the stroller for a minute, I'm sure.

lol... Okay. Let me explain. She had already had her turn, and had put on my sunglasses while she waited and watched the other kids. Tooter was one of the last kids, and as I was getting him back into his stroller (I think - or maybe just wrestling with him), she "charmed" the fireman into letting her get back up into the truck. Charmed, pestered. Potato, potahto.

They were really kind to these kids!

Their tour was completed by getting to hold a real fire hose that had been charged - and they got to turn the water on and off! I wasn't able to get Tooter up there to do the hose - he had reached his breaking point after being in the stroller for most of the hour and a half that we were there. We had to get to the swingset and we had to get there on the double.

It was a great trip - I was glad we were able to go!

I have to brag . . . . . .

So, a couple of weeks ago, Mom told me she had decided to rip up the carpet downstairs and stain the concrete. To which I replied, "um....okay?" I asked her who she was going to get to do it and she told me she was. To which I replied, "ummmmmm......ooooooookay??"

Next thing I know I'm getting phone calls about how to get nails out of concrete.........didn't matter my answer, because she figured out her own way to do it.

Next she's telling me about the pry bar she bought at Home Depot, and the acid wash, the this and the that........anyway, long story short, we went over to see her handy work this weekend and it looks outstanding!



View from under the stairs.................(and Poodle holding court)


View from the landing inside the front door........(with Stinker rounding the corner)


View from kitchen into living/dining area........


I can't express enough how good this floor looks. As a weekend warrior myself, I've put together more than my fair share of projects that one could examine and quickly deduce that I did them. But this floor looks professional. Mom not only took the bull by the horns, she wrestled it to the ground, gutted it and grilled her own T-bone. (and yes I threw out the "g" word for her benefit.)

I've got a ton more pictures and I could literally go on and on about how this looks. But I won't. Because I need to save the blog space. Because apparently, she's only getting warmed up . . .

Author of Peace

After a weekend where I didn't feel like I got anything accomplished (I may have, but I don't feel like I did, you know?), and it being Monday when the kids are always a little weird because they are decompressing from the weekend, and with a really messy house, and a to-do list that was long and growing - I was..... out-of-sorts this morning. No, let's call a spade a spade. I have lost my cool with the kids multiple times this morning already. It has taken me all morning to pay bills, I'm only halfway thru with getting "the bed" washed, (I'm doing everything on our bed today - sheets, bedspread, extra blankets, and the mattress pad that takes a minimum of two cycles to dry. This is the type of day that Jmk could probably talk me into one of those washing machines that does "17 pairs of jeans at one time" or whatever it is), and I've got so many things swimming in my mind, that even my to-do list isn't helping me stay focused, like it usually does.

I guess you can tell that I'm in a state right now.

Well, in the middle of all this, when I was close to absolutely breaking down, I get an email from dear Sister Patty, a sweet church friend. I was waiting on an email from the mortgage company to get a blasted access code so I could log onto our account, and instead, the Lord blessed me with something that I needed to see and read.
I don't need to be on here blogging right now, but one of you out there may need this as much as I did. There's a reason that my messy house is breaking me down - because there is no peace in cluttered countertops and junk-filled floors.

I hope you get the comfort from this that I did:

O Lord, You are not the author of confusion

And that is what I feel today.

This home that You have blessed me with

Overwhelms me with its abundance.

As I skirt around misplaced objects and clothes

I find myself sinking into despair.

Though my cup runneth over I feel no peace

For there is no order here.

O Lord, You are not the author of confusion

For You are orderly and perfect and just.

Grant me the strength to find my way back to peace

To find enjoyment in Your provision and my orderliness .

I have not been careful with my time and I now reap

The rewards of idleness and lack of planning.

Help me redeem my time and reclaim my home,

That I may serve You and my family better.

O Lord, You are not the author of confusion,

Help me to discern those possessions that are truly needful

And dispense of that which is robbing me of my joy.

For having too much is as much a curse as having too little-

This anguish of soul and spirit still causes me grief the same.

Teach me Lord to be content with sufficient for each day,

For by freeing my heart of this burden of over abundance,

I will make more room in it for You.

© Glenys Robyn Hicks 2005

'For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.'
1 Corinthians 14:33

Well, this explains a lot!

I've always loved the look of pearls, and an article in the recent Southern Living just clued me in to what MUST be the reason.

I can't find a link to the direct article in SL, but this article explains it pretty well too.

The basic gist of the article, for me:
Although only one-tenth of one percent of the world's cultured pearls come from their waters, approximately 90% of all cultured pearls begin with a mother-of-pearl nucleus taken from the shell of a Tennessee mussel.


There's a little Southern charm in most all of those pearls, girls! A little bit of Dixie inside each lovely jewel. That's why we ALL need a few strands. ::vbg::

For Jmk.....

...to remember in those later years when Poodle dares to bring a boy to meet her Daddy.....

I just lit a candle, and was letting her blow out the match. She pretended it was a birthday candle and here was her wish:

"I wish, I wish - to love my fahther fo-ever and ever!"

Honey, you'll always be her first love. :-)

Overhead in the Park.....

Woman #1 (with more fashion than sense): What in the world are those women doing wearing flip-flops? Don't they know it's October?

Woman #2 (with more patience than me): But it's October in (insert our state of residence here). It's too hot for anything else!

Kudos my dear!!! Comfort and common sense a part of our fashion decisions - that's what I like to see! I know that I'm still a slave to the no-white-shoes-after-Labor-Day rule, and all that..... but I say if it's 78 degrees in December (which isn't uncommon in the Deep South), then wear those flip flops. Hose? Bah - who needs 'em? (And I don't care how white your legs are. Un-hose those white legs!) They're helpful in the little bit of cold weather we get. Other than that, they are good for nothing but upping your core body temperature.

You get my point. I think we should have an award for people who spread common sense and logic in the face of questionable opinions that really don't make sense. The Zoo's FlipFlop award?

FlipFlops to you, Woman Number Two!!!

Website Update

Okay. I feel the need to explain something. I haven't updated the website in forever, because:
#1 - it takes time that I don't usually have. I depend on the blog, mostly.
#2 - our desktop crashed awhile back, taking with it 2 months of pictures that I didn't have stored elsewhere. My brother is working with it to see what can be salvaged, so we'll see what can be done.
#3 - Sony's Imagestation website is closing, and it has taken me awhile to decide where to start posting pictures.

I wanted a place that could do a few things: give me lots of storage for free, not make people sign into the site in order to see the pictures, allow me to password the site so I could post a direct link from the blog, and be easy for me to create the only album.

Couldn't find that animal.

Finally decided to just go with Google's Picasa for now, and will see what else is out there. But, I can't password protect the album. And, because I tend to include personal info on the pictures (like names!), I don't want to post a direct link to the pictures.
Crazy people use the internet, unfortunately.

So, I have gotten August's pictures up to view, and will wait and see what kind of problems may unfold before I put up any more. The website address is described at the top of the blog - but if you want to see the pictures, and aren't sure about the website address, just leave me a comment, and I'll email the link to you!

Practice

The Zookeepers have picked up a new camera which is quite a bit smaller than our old one (and, no - there's no velcro holding this one together), so I'm having to get used to the new one. And what better way than to snap the kids!

I loved this one of Poodle, because she has her baby face in it. ::sniff sniff:: sigh......





And - Mr. Tooter. He pretty much has his stinker face!!!
:-)

Thank Goodness for Audrey

Preface note - Audrey is Poodle and Tooter's dear baby cousin, who is a mere almost-7-months old.

So, we're walking yesterday afternoon, and we pass by another family walking with their two kids - one I would guess about 2 years old, and the other one was just a wee lass (or maybe lad). Poodle promptly told us that SHE wanted a baby. Jmk and I raise eyebrows at each other and tell her that she has Tooter. Just to see what happened. (And, I was thinking about what I had read on a friend's blog about what her 4 year old had said about his baby sister. Which was very sweet. I wasn't expecting quite the same response from Poodle). So, anyway, we mention Tooter, and she turns around and looks at him... just studies him intently. Then turns back around to face forward and says "No, I don't think so. I want a girl baby".

More raised eyebrows between me and Jmk.

I tell her that Mommy doesn't have any babies in her tummy, and that we can't promise her a girl baby anyway.

Well, this isn't going to do, of course. So, she says "oh, what am I going to do about a girl baby? Oh! That's right!!! I have baby Audrey!!!"

lol.... I guess we can keep those infant clothes up in the attic a little while longer. ;-)