long time no nothin'

I know I haven't been posting and I feel really bad. I imagine you checking every day when you have a minute, and I can feel your disappointment! I would be disappointed too if I were in your shoes. After us all being sick, it took a few days to get the house back in order, and I still have been slow to recover. I read today that sometimes it takes a few weeks to regain all your energy after a flu. WOW. I am feeling it. I thought I felt fine, but I am still coughing, and have to blow my nose a million times a day. The cough is more annoying NOW than it was before. Ready to be done! Livea still has her cough and snot-nose too.

I have pictures of the bug-zoo field trip to share with you. But I took them with my old crappy camera so I ordered a CD and didn't have money til today to get all the 300 pictures that were on the disk. LOL. It was expensive. I ordered them at Target so I will have to go sometime this week and pick them up and get those CD's so you can see the kids petting the tarantula, and the stick-bugs.

The weather is beautiful here. I miss you being here, and sharing it together with you. Some of the trees have leaves that are turning red now. Remember how desolate and sad it looks in the winter here? I am not looking forward to that. It seems like it just turned to Spring, and everything became bright and green, and now it all going to turn cold-gray and dismal. It seems way too fast! But our electricity bill will be nice to look at next month. I haven't been having to use the air at all. I think the high today was 79. It is really windy and the house stayed perfectly cool today. In fact, we had to close some windows because it was too chilly!

Roxie is my biggest enemy. She really bugs me. I hate not liking her, but she just bugs me so bad. She is so sweet, but she is a big oaf, and she hurts everyone, including me, and I can't imagine her surviving my dad for months in Phoenix. What am I going to do with her?! I wish she would just chill out and be like 10 years old already. Maybe I need to hire a dog walker. I wonder if I could find a dog-walker here. =)

Sorry we missed your phone call the other day. I forgot, but remembered in time, that we had to go to Topeka and get Jenna's broken and fixed retainer!! We were on our way back when you called, but I never got the call or message until the next morning. We must have been out of range when you dialed. Bummer too, because the kids would have had a lot to say since they were all buckled in and not going anywhere but where I led them!

We went grocery shopping today, and had a nice dinner, and I bought 2 half gallons of frozen yogurt that the kids are begging for right now. We haven't had ice cream in a while and I figured I'd better buy it now because I can't imagine it sounding too appetizing when it is 10 degrees outside.

We love you and miss you! I hope you got your box!!!! Maybe someone is pilfering it. =(

It's only Wednesday??

It's just Wednesday but it feels like the longest week in the history of time! I don't know why! I have been so tired this week, and busy. To top it off, Jenna had a headache all day yesterday, fell asleep in the car on the way home from Topeka (how often does that happen?) and when she woke up she had little to no voice and has been running a fever ever since. H1N1. Ha. I am obsessed aren't I?? =)


Jenna at her ortho appointment yesterday. She was being silly...posing more for me than being really mad about it. I cut her hair last weekend too, cute, huh..?

So, since Jenna was sick this morning (she has been on the couch almost all day), I had the dishwasher open this morning and was putting the dishes away, well, more like getting spoons out for breakfast, and plastic bowls for cereal... and around 10:00am when I finally got around to eating breakfast... I was standing there cooking eggs, and Livea showed up next to me and said "Sure! I will do the dishes for you Mommy! Sure!" I laughed, and turned around and she just started putting the dishes away. She put all of them away. The plates and bowls (glass!!), she asked "Now where does this go, Mommy??". It was so cute, and I told her she was the best 2 year old helper EVER. Her hair is kind of stringy looking because she took a shower with me, and I hadn't brushed it or anything yet.

I also had to take a picture of Livea's face drawing for you. She draws this face completely sideways - it is the strangest thing I have ever seen. Her arm was actually not at the bottom of this picture while she drew it, but on the pictures' left. She drew the entire picture that way, and does it every single time. I'll let her draw on the white board and the faces will all be sideways because that is how she draws them! It is so funny! She started drawing this all on her own, and she started drawing the ears and the legs on her own also. For a few weeks it was just the head, and eyes, and nose and mouth. No she draws circles all over it to indicate ears and legs. I am not sure why they need ears, but they aren't arms - they are ears, I asked.

I am making baby-burgers tonight for dinner, with spinach, pineapples (fresh!), and baked french fries - hopefully anyway - if I can get up and get it going, because it is after 5 already, and here I am settin'!! I wish you were here to eat baby-burgers with us - I'd probably even make you a big-daddy burger. ;o)
Love ya, miss ya.

a dream

I had a dream 2 mornings ago that I was sick, and dying. You were there, in our bedroom, next to me, in a chair, and I was crying, saying I was scared, that I didn't want to leave my life here. You asked me why I was scared, and I told you I was scared to die, because I wasn't good enough to go to heaven, I didn't want to face Jesus with the life I've lived here. It was one of those very emotional dreams, very real. You told me none of us are good enough to go to heaven, and thank God for His Grace. I kept thinking to myself, that I knew you were right, but that I just felt so undeserving, and I was so scared and not at all reassured, now that I knew death was imminent.

I woke up then, upset, and a song came into my head right away that I haven't heard in a very long time. It is called Grace Like Rain. I don't know why I remembered this song, but it was so appropriate for the dream. We used to sing it at Calvary Chapel Pearl Harbor. Do you remember it? Well, today I was cleaning out my bible cover, and I found three sheets of music from when they changed locations and didn't have their projection equipment up yet. One of them had the words for Grace Like Rain. It is so odd that I found it. I did a search for the song, and found it on YouTube, here are the words and the song. I probably wouldn't have told any of this to you if I had not found the music in my bible, but I thought it was really neat, and it spoke to me, and I don't know what it means yet, but I wanted to share. Where is Joseph to interpret my dream, when I need him. I love you and miss you.

Grace Like Rain

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost but now I'm found

Hallelujah, grace like rain falls down on me
Hallelujah, all my stains are washed away,
Washed away

Twas grace that taught my heart to fear
And grace my fears relieved
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed

Hallelujah, grace like rain falls down on me
Hallelujah, all my stains are washed away,
Washed away

When we've been there ten thousand years
Bright shining as the sun
We've no less days to sing Your praise
Than when we first begun

Hallelujah, grace like rain falls down on me
Hallelujah, all my stains are washed away,
Washed away

We picked a bunch of deliciousness from the garden tonight. When I turned around Livea had picked a bell pepper too. She said "I did a great job, haw Mommy?!" I laughed and told her she did a wonderful job. I have way too many jalapenos, I think I need to go give some away to our neighbors. I don't have any chips, but I plan on making salsa tomorrow. I guess we'll just have to go to the grocery again.

The kids are waiting for me to come kiss them in bed, and Livea and Adam are now yelling at eachother, so I have to get up there before they get too untired! I hope you are missing us just as much as you should ;o) We miss you tons, and love you more.

Memorization and a mess...

So the kids are learning Psalm 23 right now, and I am so impressed by what they can memorize. I didn't think Livea would understand memorization, and recitation, but she is doing so good. She is finally falling behind, but it took her 2 weeks to fall behind. She is doing amazing, and she loves being involved as much as she is.

I am in the middle of completely redoing the computer room/school room. Right now, it is a huge mess, with everything in the middle of the room, and I am heading to Walmart now to get some storage bins, to finish. Not in the budget, but just completely necessary for my sanity at this point. The drawers I have all their supplies in are old, and do not open well, and they just aren't working for us. I intend on buying the kids their own plastic lidded tub for their books. I also moved the giant cupboard that was in the closet, OUT of the closet, and put it against the walls near the maps. It had half school supplies in it anyway, it is more useful for me there, and certainly looks better than the plastic drawer thingies. I put the desk on the wall that the closet door is on. No more tripping over cords, yay! The kids yellow table and the big-kids desks are sorta mish-mashed with a big pile o'mess right now. So, we're off to get supplies to finish. I am finishing tonight. Otherwise we'll be doing school on the living room floor tomorrow!

We love you and miss you! Be done soon!

Lazy-dazy Sunday

We didn't go to church today because Adam has a nasty cough. Luke had a cold-y sounding nose all last week, so I was not surprised to wake up to hear Adam coughing. I decided I just wasn't going to drag him there sick, and get other kids sick, not when the H1N1 is so "pandemic" (can you hear my sarcasm?) that the government is threatening to forcefully vaccinate our children for it, when it is really only barely worse than the regular flu. Not to get off on a tangent....!

So instead we stayed home, and lounged around. Lukas said "what is today Mommy?" I told him Sunday. He said "WE DIDN'T HAVE PANCAKES YESTERDAY!!" So I made pancakes and we didn't have enough chocolate chips, so I made peanut butter and jelly pancakes and they weren't as good, but they were quite tasty even still. The kids devoured them just like they were chocolate chip pancakes.

So after you called I decided to just rearrange furniture. That is always fun on a no-church Sunday, right?


Looks kinda strange, huh? There is just more room in here this way. It wouldn't work with you here at all since there are only 5 chairs at the table. But it's good for now.

I made chicken in a wine and cream sauce for dinner, with asparagus, onions, and mushrooms and noodles. You've had it. I have made it a few times. It was delish. The kids all ate it because they wanted strawberry shortcake afterwards. Adam threw the biggest fit, you can well imagine, because he didn't want to eat the asparagus, but I swear Josh, as soon as he resigns himself to it, he is just fine and he'll eat it. It just takes all of us listening to him whine and cry through 20 minutes of dinner before he gets to that point. Arg. So I let Jenna and Riley make the strawberries. They washed them, and cut them up, put sugar (stevia!) on them start to finish all on their own.
Dinner was so tasty. I stuffed myself (as you can well see by the amount of food on my plate, but the funny thing is I had more!) with delicious dinner and dessert. I almost drank a fly out of my cup tonight too. Very disgusting. I felt something and about swallowed thinking it nothing, and then I was like, uhhhhhhhh, and I spit it all over the counter and sure enough - FLY. Gag. I maybe could have thrown up then because the thought of you chomping on the fat fly in your v-8 popped into my head, and I just had to get rid of the fly before I really spit all over the counter. =)

I am going to get the kids in the house now, clean them up, and read another chapter in The Horse and His Boy, and then put them to bed. I am aiming for 7:55 so that I can listen to Pastor Mark tonight. I aimed 2x today at both service times, and missed both because of one kid-thing or another. It'll be nice to sit and listen without any interruptions, er, hopefully.

Oh, I almost forgot. Livea was telling Riley today that "Daddy is gone for a long time, and YAH, he is going to be GROUNDED when he gets home!" I have no idea where that came from! But it was funny. Silly little thing of her!

I love you, and miss you! I hope you're remembering to journal. I keep forgetting to ask you about that. I can't wait until R&R. I keep thinking that I can't wait until you're home, but R&R is sooner!!

finally, some pictures (from my phone)

How can you just not laugh when you see this cute little cheeky smile??? I can't!

Isn't she a cutie with bangs? Maybe her cheeks just are bigger..? I don't know, but they sure do look gigantic in this picture. She was saying "cheeeeeese" for you too. She doesn't know how to keep her eyes open when you tell her to smile.

We went to Dillons tonight to get water bottles filled. I lifted her up to put her empty bottle in the return cage, and she got to push it all the way in. Afterward, I set her on the ground, and she looked up at me with those giant cheeks and said "I did a good job, didn't I, Mommy??" So sweet!

After homeschool group yesterday Christina and I stayed and chatted it up for a while. The kids were all playing and having such a good time together. I should have taken pictures with all the kids playing together, but wasn't paying attention close enough, but got this one.

And this too:









Look how cute they are. You will have to show this to Brad, if you can. It is a better picture of Christian than it is of Adam. They played together so good all day. All of the kids did. It was a good time. I didn't take any pictures of Jenna or Luke, so they will have to get some pictures of them tomorrow for you.

I am going to give Adam and Liv a bath now, and get the kids in bed semi-early tonight. Not at bedtime, but earlier than 9, hopefully. I let Adam play on my computer a little bit ago. He tore of the C key comlpletely and the P key doesn't work that well now, I have to press really hard, and I am tempted to just glue the c back on with super glue, but I am scared what it might do. Still, I have to slow down to press C, and for example right now, I typed "Press", but only "ress" typed out actually because maybe he started to tear the P key off too. Little naughty.

We miss you so much, and we love you.