SUMMER day 53, Wed July 22

What a great day we had. My niece spent the night last night & so this morning, the kids & I went to the "dead animal museum" in town and then took a detour to Chuck E. Cheese before we took my niece home. How fun!

Just a sampling of our day (because trust me, there were soooooo many more pictures)!

First we went to the museum.
Everyone bearing their fangs!
Gimme a hug, but fella!
Samuel, quick! Move before he bites you!
I suggest you buy a house & put it on Boardwalk.
Samuel & the lion, duking it out.
Cheetah vs. Samuel staring contest---who won?
Pucker up, baby!
Uh oh, now the gator's got Savannah in his sights!
Here's where the real fun begins.
Sarah & my niece on the horse ride
Savannah & Sidney in the picture taking machine
me & Savannah (from that same machine)
me & Samuel
me & Sarah...and Samuel who poked his head in & made his sister really mad at the last minute!

Ok, who needs this today?

I feel a pretty strong "tug" by God to post this video. Right now. Someone reading my blog needs it. I LOVE this song & was just listening to it & watching the video when God clearly said "POST IT". So here I am.

I'm praying for you, whoever you are, as I hit "publish post".

SUMMER DAY 48 - Fri July 17

This week has FLOWN by. In fact, the whole summer has! Here we are mid-July and I'm realizing that we only have about 1 month to go before the kids are back in school. I swear, every year it goes by faster. Not just the summer either. Time in general just flies with each passing year.

I'm instilling a new 'program' next week! Remember our weekly Bible verse that we've been doing this summer? Well, I should hang my head in shame because I haven't done too well at updating the verse-of-the-week the past couple of weeks. My desire in doing that with the kids is not only to hide God's word in their hearts but to allow the Holy Spirit to change them from the inside out....especially the way they treat each other. While I LOVE having all three of them home during the summer, it's usually a quick descent from "WooHoo it's summer!" to "Good Lord, how long til I can separate the three of them with school days?". They argue & fight & look for ways to irritate each other from sun up to sun down. Or at least it seems that way. I know every mother of grown children smiles & looks back on the sibling rivalry & would tell me that it'll all turn out fine...that all kids fight & argue a lot. And I know that's the case. Before I know it, they'll be packing up boxes to move to their own apartment or college dorm. They'll be moving out & on their own and I'll look back fondly on these argumentative summers & laugh. But in the meantime, my goal is not to just stand over them & yell and be the monster mommy that I feel like sometimes. My goal in parenting them is not to just say "no" but to have them understand "why" and really GET that.

And so, we're starting a new program of sorts on Monday. I got the idea from one of 2 sources....and I can't remember which it was. It was either from Lynelle Zandstra, mother extraordinaire OR from Lisa Whelchel's book Creative Correction. I've learned a ton from both of these ladies over the years and find myself putting lots of their ideas into action with our kids.

The program we're starting is a Secret Servant program. The idea is like a secret pal system. On Monday, the kids will all draw a name of one of their siblings from a hat. For 1 week, they'll look for ways to serve/help that sibling without being caught. Sneaking in to make their bed while they're in the bathroom....finding a way to do one of their chores for them when they're taking a bath....making their favorite snack & delivering it without being caught. They'll be able to think up fun ways to do sweet things for each other and they'll be on the look out for ways that their Secret Servant is helping them! It's a win-win situation! I told them about it today & they all got excited and started verbalizing different ways they plan to serve their siblings. I loved that conversation!!! At the end of 1 week, they'll be able to reveal their identity & THANK their servant for all the kind things that were done for them. We'll re-draw names each Monday til each of the kids has had each of the others...and we will keep going if they want to. (crossing my fingers)

And so, we're on the verge (I hope!) of something that will really change their relationships. I can't wait to see how it plays out!

SUMMER DAY 46 Tues July 14

First & foremost, today is my niece Robyn's birthday. It's hard to believe that six years has passed already. You see, my sister and her husband had fertility troubles and Robyn was such a sweet blessing. I remember the day that Cindy called to tell me she was pregnant. I remember sitting on the floor in the kitchen holding the phone & being so excited that I cried a few happy tears while I listened to her giggle & talk. Then the day came that she'd have an ultrasound to find out the sex of the baby. I remember being tickled to death when we learned she was having a GIRL!!!!!! I think Cindy stopped on the way home & bought about 5 little girl outfits for her first daughter. :) And then came the day that she called & said "My water broke! I'm in labor!". I stayed home all day long waiting for "the phone call" telling me that Robyn was here. I didn't want to cook anything for supper that would be super-involved or time consuming because I kept thinking that "any minute now" we'd get a phone call that she was here & we'd leave to go meet her. Finally late in the day, I gave up on waiting & VERY QUICKLY ran the 1 errand that had to be done before the place closed. And wouldn't ya know it? While I was gone, we got the phone call!!! All of the family congregated around the bed at the birth center to meet little Miss Robyn. What a sweet little treasure she's been to our family! And so today, I want to wish Robyn a very happy 6th birthday! I love ya, sweetie!!

As for my day, it's been an interesting one.

About a year ago, Savannah had a migraine headache. It was painful enough that she ended up vomitting from it. It came on fast & hit her like a ton of bricks, but once she reached the point of throwing up, it passed pretty quickly. That was the only one she'd ever had. We had no idea what brought it on or why she had it so we just moved on and forgot it.

Unfortunately, today it hit again. She's had a stuffy nose for a few days. This morning when we got to work, she mentioned some sinus drainage (I thought) symptoms. I got her some Advil to take at one point because she mentioned that her head hurt. At some point, she told me that her vision was blurry & she was seeing lights. I had her go lay down in a spare classroom at the school but it wasn't long til she came back to tell me she felt nauseated. I called for help & went to the bathroom with her....and sure enough...she threw up. Poor kid. That's when it hit me that she was having another migraine. All the symptoms she'd mentioned before were classic migraine symptoms but I missed it! We quickly moved my class to other teachers' rooms & packed up and left. On the drive home, she threw up several more times (thank goodness for car trash bags!). She came home and went straight to bed with the blinds closed & a sleep mask on to block out as much light as possible. Poor baby girl...I felt so bad for her! Thankfully she was able to go to sleep & after a couple hours she had "slept it off" and felt better. I hated to see her hurting so bad. I'm glad it's over & done with now!

Friday's trip video

Our church's youth pastor just posted this video of Friday's day trip that Savannah went on. At about the 5:40 mark, you can see her in a pink Tshirt trying to get the ball away from the wall during a Whirlyball game.

SUMMER DAY 42, Fri July 10

First things first! Happy Anniversary Greg & Kathy! You guys are some of my very favorite people! You have a beautiful family. So here's to your 10th anniversary! May God bless you with many more years together!


Today, Savannah went on her first 'trip' with the youth group at our new (?) church. They simply called it a "Dallas Day Trip". They've done mission trips & they're going to camp in Colorado soon, but she's not really ready for lengthy, distant trips w/ the group yet so we felt like this was a good 'starter' trip for her. They started out this morning by going to a place in Plano, TX to play whirleyball. It's kind of a combination of bumper cars & lacross & hockey or soccer all at once. Our youth pastor posted this picture on his Facebook page, so I'm stealing it to show you. (She's just to the left of the center of the pic in a pink shirt.)


When they left there, they went to a mall & hung out for a couple hours. I know that Savannah was thrilled with that (ha ha....she is sooo not into shopping). After the mall, they headed to a baseball game that began at 7:00pm. They'll leave the game about 10 & will make it home somewhere between 12:30 & 1:00am. She'll be EXHAUSTED tomorrow after not having much of any 'down time' today, but I hope she's having a BLAST.

SUMMER Day 40, Wed July 8

We had a lot of fun tonight going to the RODEO! It was the first time I've ever been to one in my life and of course it was the kids' first. Such fun!

A long time ago, Larry told Samuel about Mutton Busting, and ever since Samuel has begged us to take him to a rodeo so he could do it! I'm not sure if he was more excited about the idea of chasing down a lamb or the money he might win. For a couple weeks now, we've talked about going to the rodeo & Samuel's asked us repeatedly "Will they have muttle busting....errr ...musson butting ....err muttle butting......?" We kept telling him we weren't sure. As it turns out, at the rodeo we attended tonight, they had a calf scramble where they release 2 calves with a ribbon tied around their tails. They have all the kids out in the arena try to chase down the calf & get one of the ribbons. Samuel tried really hard but he didn't get a ribbon. Oh well, his grin afterwards was SO worth it! :) (Make sure you click on the first 2 of these pictures so you can see where Samuel is---I labelled the pics, but I don't think you can see it unless you click on/enlarge them.)




We saw all the crazy events the guys & girls do and while it was exciting, I know that I know that I know I'd never be able to pull that off myself! I spent most of the night gasping & jumping & throwing my hand over my mouth when the cowboys were thrown off the bull or nearly trampling by a bucking bronco....or when they looked like they'd be snapped in half by the bareback horse that wanted them OFF its back! yikes!! No thanks, it's not the career for me!

Before we left, we had these cool Weenie Octupuses. (I keep questioning myself on that....is the plural of octupus actually octupi? I can't remember.) You may remember my posting the recipe on here a month or so back. You take the dry noodles & thread them through the pieces of weenie and then boil the whole thing. It comes out looking really interesting. I sprinkled some garlic salt over mine. yum!!