VBS 2016

Vacation Bible School 2016 is still going strong. 

This year I have second grade.  I LOVE second grade.  The kids are super cute.  They aren't into too much drama yet.  And they aren't too cool to participate in all the fun.

My boy doing what he does.
Christian always runs VBS games and does a great job at it.

Zeke keeps winning the prizes.  

These are some of my faves.  And they happen to be Zeke's baseball buds from last season. 

Painting bird houses and looking beautiful at the same time.



Aren't these twins the cutest?

My favorite moment of the day was when we were in class time.  I had them listen with their eyes so I could tell they were paying attention.  Then I laid out the salvation story in all it's awesomeness and they were super attentive and interested.  I tried to soak it all in as I was praying for THEM to soak it all in.  I love teaching my class again. 

VBS Decor

All week we have been getting my VBS room ready and decorated.
The theme is COWabunga...so farm stuff.  

I've had lots of help from my kids and mom and a couple of glue guns.  

This guy got lots of practice cutting with real scissors.  He's never been great at cutting anyway but with left-handed scissors he can manage.   Problem is that the rest of the world doesn't just keep left handed scissors in their junk drawers.  Sometimes lefties have to use right handed tools.  

I LOVE how the flower wall turned out.   We spent many hours cutting and painting paper plate flowers and leaves.  And see the little bees?  

The barn was Laura's creation.  But then we lost her help when she had her wisdom teeth extracted.
She gave us good instructions on how to finish up and it gave the room the farm feel we needed.  

I love the way it turned out.

Now to finish studying for my lessons next week and welcome a room full of second graders!

3 Days In A Row

For three days now BlueEyes has been on his best behavior.  And since I didn't even know he had a best behavior I think we can all agree this is a significant turn of events.  

~A good attitude. 

~No jealousy

~Sharing

~Fewer fits 

~No climbing out of his bed. 

~No making a huge mess with food on purpose

He's been cooperative and pleasant even!  I have no idea what brought on the change but I'll take it! 

Now here's praying for day #4. 

He Sees And Knows

The kids and I have been studying Genesis for awhile and this week we wrapped it up.  So many great classic stories and lessons.

We turned the page and headed right into Exodus today.  I love the powerful way that chapter 2 ends.

Joseph, along with his generation, has died.  A new king is on the throne and is not happy with the
enormous Israelite population.  He kills them.  He enslaves them.  And they cry out to God for help.

Here's my favorite part:
"God saw the people of Israel -- and God knew."  Exodus 2:25

And if this were a mini series, they would end this episode right here.  It's an inflection point where everything is about to change.   It's about to get so exciting!

God saw.  And God knew.
God still sees and He still knows.

But more than seeing and knowing.  He is all-seeing and all-knowing.  There is nothing hidden from God.  He knows your situation and every circumstance.  He knows your past, present, and future.  He knows your heart and your heart brokenness.  And before a word is formed, He knows it.

He is loving and faithful and mighty to save.   And just like the people of Israel, God sees you and knows you.

And He loves you.

Some Happy Things

Can I be real honest?

This year has been one of my hardest years of happy things.
I'm not talking about joy.  Or thankfulness.  Those are entirely different.  Just happy.

And since that's not my typical personality, I'm not sure why it's been such a thing.   

Maybe because we've had a lot of sickness.  And still going strong.   

Maybe because we've had so many Big Days this year. (But isn't that happy?) 

Maybe because I'm struggling with my relationship with BlueEyes. 

Maybe sin.  (Well of course.) 

Maybe this.  Maybe that.  I really don't know.  

But suffice it to say I'm easily angered.  Easily annoyed.  Quick to gripe.  And slow to smile.  

And I HATE IT.  I mean I have everything!  And I'm thankful.  So what on earth?

But there's nothing like a nice long phone date with my Arizona bestie to help me fix my thoughts on my reality.  She is an awesome listener and suggested I keep a list of the things that fill my tank.  Those things that might help to get me out of this funk.  

 Such a simple task.  But something I enjoyed doing so I thought I'd share it on here too.

~Walking

The weather is perfect and my Fitbit is fun.  I've had such a good time with it and love to watch my steps accumulate. I have a neighbor that I like to walk with.  Not only does she push me to walk a little longer but I also enjoy the friendship.  But my best walks are alone.  Just me and my ear buds.  That is where I'm able to really think and pray right now.

~Essential Oils

I have so many favorites.  Lavender, frankincense, and lemon is what I usually diffuse at night.  Like almost every night.  Peppermint and lime is my favorite day time combo.  Tonight I'm diffusing eucalyptus and fir needle to help my man breathe better.   And I just bought Clove oil for my mouth sores.

~Music

Lately I have felt so starved for good music.  Especially from Jes and Mike.  They are my favorites.
But with soccer, and baseball, and golf, and Big Days and whatever else it's hard to squeeze it all in.
After our CO peeps left, I realized we didn't play and sing with them even one time.  And that is SO SAD because I love all their voices.

Tonight Mike moved a guitar into our bedroom.  THAT makes me smile.

~YouTube Mom Vlogs 

There are a few mom channels I subscribe to that encourage and inspire me to be a better mom.  My kids think it's crazy that I care what someone else bought at the thrift store!  And someday I might even do one of my own!

~My New Book

I put this in my Amazon cart to save for later and then next thing I know it was delivered to my door! Thank you Honey.

About 3 pages into this I realized I could not keep this to myself.  My kids needed this book too.  This is the true story of a fire that changed a man's life.  At 9 years old he blew up his parents' garage and suffered severe burns on 100% of his body.   It changed John's life in a way that is so remarkable and he writes, travels, and speaks on topics such as .... owning your life, admitting your mistakes, being grateful, and overcoming adversity.

Since I have a 9 year old, I know they make a LOT of stupid decisions.  So this quickly turned into our family read aloud.

~Bible Reading, Journaling, Coloring

My friend Shannon turned me onto this Bible study journal.



At first I was disappointed that the pages don't differ much.  But then I realized they don't need to since my reading will be different each day.  I have new thoughts and different prayers.  So the same sections will continually be different anyway.  See?



Anyway.  I do love working through it.

Thank you, Wendy, for pointing me to the happy places!

Laura's Graduation!

Laura's senior year has been so different from any of our other kids'.

You may remember that Christian opened the door into the public school opportunities with his kicking a couple of years ago.   Since then, his sister just skipped right in behind him taking college classes for her junior and senior years.  She has accumulated so many college hours she almost has her associates already.

On her second day of school she got offered a job as the tech assistant.  This was a wonderful opportunity for her to not only earn some money, but also to gain some valuable technology experience and meet some great people.  In fact, Laura knows almost everybody in Charleston....young and old.  During the summers she worked in the cafeteria helping with the summer lunch program.

So it just made sense for her to get to graduate with the community that has been such a big part of her life these last couple of years.  It was also great timing since we had lots more people who could attend the public school one vs the homeschool one.

So the homeschool graduation was first.  It's always a good time.  And I still get teary eyed watching her video...



Isn't it so sweet?

Then we had a little time to gear up for the second graduation.  The graduation itself was fine.  About 70 graduates or so.  But the real excitement was OUR COLORADO PEOPLE!!  

Oh how I love these folks.  

We played lots of games.

Ate great food that my parents made. 

Had some fun in the backyard. 

Played some more games and had some great conversation.

And enjoyed Rommel's puppet show.  

It ended all too soon since everybody had to fly home and go back to work.  

But we sooo appreciate all the effort and time and money to come and see US. 

My parents totally saved the day with all the cooking chores that weekend!  

There would've been no way I couldn't pulled it off 1/2 as well with all the other things to do.  

Besides, NOBODY makes brisket like my dad.  And everyone loved my mom's buffalo wings. 

We were so spoiled.  

Thank you everyone for making Laura's graduation so special! 

What's Up With The Babies

We hit our one year foster anniversary last month.  One whole year!  That also means we've had Mr. BlueEyes for a whole year since he came the same minute we opened.

He has changed so much in a year.  It's an age where they grow and learn a ton and let me tell you...he has grown and learned.  When he came he said one word.  He couldn't run very steadily.  He wouldn't sit in our laps or put his head on our shoulders.  He couldn't wave bye-bye and he didn't know any songs.  

Now he is a crazy 2 year old that almost reads.  Or at least he knows all his letters and numbers and colors and amazes his day care teachers.  He's pretty impressive.  

Precious has been with us almost a year as well.  He came to us at 2 days old and his birthday is next month.  Except for the 6 weeks he went back to his mom, he's been with us.  And even during the 6 weeks, we had him for a few of the weekends.  I am still so happy he is back. 

He's a super fast crawler and is taking a few steps at a time.  He is fairly even tempered.  Except when he's not.  And he's not too great at nighttime sleeping.  His blue eyes are simply gorgeous and his big smile with his 8 teeth is ADORABLE.   I'm so in love with him.  

But one way or another things will be settled for them both soon.  BlueEyes' mom is quickly running out of time and by the summer if things don't change he will be adoptable.   There is some family who are interested....yet not interested enough to pursue placement for the whole year he's been in foster care.  So probably not I'm thinking.  

There is a man in CO who claims to be Precious' dad.  We won't know until DNA testing is done.  It's a slim chance that his mom will get him back at this point but if this guy is really his dad then that opens up a whole new family possibility.  Time will tell.  

So we have no idea what the summer will bring but until then we are enjoying their sweetness.  

Mother's Day

Did you have a good Mother's Day?

I hope to post lots of pictures as soon as they are uploaded.  My family was home, except Laney who had worked all night before and needed to sleep.  Grandma and Grandpa came over for lunch and Meg and Ethan came to church with us and spent the day.

And somehow, I don't even know, but somehow I even took a nap.   And I don't know about you but when my day includes a nap it is immediately elevated to the awesome status.  So yeah, it was an awesome day.


I've been having a lot of fun with my Mother's Day present.   A Fitbit Charge HR!

I love having the goals to shoot for and the continuous tracking of activity.   I slept with it the first night and couldn't wait to wake up and play with the sleep tracker function.  Except when it was morning it sorta felt like someone/something had been creeping on me in my sleep to know exactly how many times I was restless or woke up and how many hours and minutes I was actually asleep.  

But it was good to know.  Not like I couldn't figure out that Precious' night time crying was messing with our sleep but still.  And having the pitiful numbers in front of us prompted us to figure out something else to do with him.  

So we shifted sleep arrangements again and it seems to be working out splendid for everyone so far.  

Today was my first day to meet all my goals and it feels awesome.  I still haven't figured out the food tracker and I'm not even sure I have time to log everything I eat all day anyway.  

It's fun and I love it.  But my most favorite gift of all is a notebook that all my kids wrote in.  They each took a page and filled it with love notes.  Awwwwwww......... I heart them.  

My girls took me to see Jungle Book at the REAL MOVIE THEATER later in the day and I didn't even fall asleep.    It reminded me of how much I like going to the movies except that there is hardly ever a movie I want to see.  But I did want to see this one because the Disney version is one of my very favorites of all time and I absolutely love the songs.  

And y'all.  I will have to own this.  And watch it a million times.  I loved it.  

I can't wait until it comes out at the cheap theater so I can take my whole crew and surprise them! 

A Little Bit Of Lately

This year!

It's almost practically May and I promise it was just Christmas last week.  I didn't even get a chance to update my April calendar and it's already time to turn the page.  These days are whizzing by!

But I forget it is always like this because of the 5 birthdays.  Also graduation.  Those things tend to take up a lot of time and celebration.  I hope to share some pictures soon.

Here's what's been going on lately.....

~ First of all I finally caved and sent the babies to school day care twice a week.  The first time I chickened out.  But it just got to a point of crazy that I couldn't take anymore and I felt like we all needed some breathing space.  I still feel horrible about it.

But they are doing great with it.  They are super excited to see Daddy pick them up and come home exhausted and ready for bed at 7pm.  We get two days a week to concentrate on school, errands, and no diapers.  And y'all it is BLISS.  It gives me a chance to miss them and to also take care of other responsibilities.

~ Nana came and spent a whole week.  It was the week of graduation and doctor appts and so forth.  She saved the day so many times I lost count.  She left today and I immediately called my dad to thank him for sharing.  He told me not to expect it again. :)

~Our a/c is out.  Or at least not working right.

~ I have a goal to not hit the grocery store until Friday.  We are eating from the fridge, freezers, and pantry.  And while we have plenty of meat (thanks Dad), we don't have a lot of extra stuff like cheese or mustard right now.  I think the challenge is fun.

~Tomorrow the babies get shots.  Poor babies.  Poor us.

~I finally finished Downton Abby.  And I already miss it.  It ended perfectly and it was so fun to watch that series on date night.  I've moved on to Call The Midwife but I can't talk my man into it yet.

~I've had 4 kids sick today.  That means lights out at 8pm tonight no matter how old you are.
It also means I have more kitchen work for myself since I don't want them touching dishes.

So I better get to it!

Time To Celebrate!!

We are gearing up for a lot of celebration of THIS GIRL!!  

Today we start preparations for her first graduation.  She is getting to graduate TWICE.  Saturday is our homeschool graduation.  Tonight we set up and get everything ready.  Her slide show is done and it is just beautiful.  Nana is here to join us and we will have some Charleston peeps there too.  

Then later tonight we have the honors banquet.  I have no idea what this is since it's with the public school.  And last time I went to one of their banquets it involved only punch and cookies and not at all what a real banquet is supposed to be.  So I'm guessing this is a RECEPTION where she will be recognized in some way and get some awards for being so smart.  I really need to work with these people on naming their events! 

Next month we do it all again with the Charleston graduation.  And even though this one will be the boringest of the two, it's the one where most of our family and friends will be because of some April scheduling issues.  We get to offset the boring with FUN and that's awesome.  

I've been so happy with the relationship we have with the public school.  It's really the best of both worlds and they have been very accepting and generous with everything they can offer.  I consider it a great blessing in my kids' lives!  

This Year's Bees

I'm so happy with my bees this year.  

They all came out strong from the winter.  4 happy hives with 4 good queens and still plenty of honey stores.  In fact, I pulled the supers and extracted quite a bit of honey. 

This was my first honey to sell and I sold out in 15 minutes!!  

I was so thankful since you may remember that we are horrible at selling anything.  Turns out local raw honey is a different matter.  

Mr. Hardin came over to help me do the first thorough inspection of the season.  By the time we were done, our four hives were eleven.   Eleven!!   This includes the nice swarm Laney and Jess caught at the courthouse.

Eleven hives is way too many for us to have here so we took some to my in-laws and made a bee yard on the back of their property.  (It's best to move bees at night.)

This has been both great and a pain at the same time.  A pain because all those nucs need feed and extra attention.  But great because I actually love the long walk back there.  I may be singing a different tune this summer though!

Fast forward a couple of weeks.  I have one hive that has gone queenless as well as the walk-away split I did.  So I did something fancy and risky.  I took a queen cell from another hive, cut it out, and grafted into the queenless one.  As soon as the weather clears up I'll see if it worked.  The other queenless one was a split and I took a whole frame from the swarm hive full of eggs and brood and I'm hoping they'll raise up a queen from there.  We'll see.  I also have a failed nuc which was not surprising but disappointing anyway.  So now we have 10 with 2 of them looking weak.

We needed new equipment for our nucs to move into and the honey money helped.  

My kids helped me paint the new stuff as well as some older equipment that was getting kinda shabby.

A face lift for an old hive.

I think the bees will like this new home!  

OH HAPPY DAY

I've kept it a secret for 3 whole days and now I can finally tell.

We are getting our first GRANDBABY!!



We are all so thrilled!
I've had my grandma name picked out for years.  Literally.

And I'm finally going to be a Honey.

Baby Hugs

I love everything about this picture.

My husband's strong arms holding up these two big babies.  My sweet guy that wholeheartedly loves another man's child....over and over again.

I love Precious' warm jammies, all bathed and fresh and ready for bed.

And of course I love my BlueEyes loving on his little bro.  

Home From Camp

I love this camper.  We don't get to use it as much as I'd like, but whenever we do it is so much fun.

  

Camping was fun for everybody until about late Tuesday.  That's when Joshua started itching and swelling up.  Apparently he made friends with some poison ivy/poison oak/something.  

And don't let his smile fool ya.  He was/is miserable.  We took him to the doctor and he got a shot.  I can't tell that it did him any good.  In fact it got worse and started oozing.  Ewwwww!!  The itching was terrible and keeping him up at night.....and waking me up too. 

Next thing we knew, this girl had it too.  So we took her in for a shot and the doctor also gave Joshua something else.  We are hoping for a better day for both of them tomorrow.  

Yesterday, we were shopping in town when I got a call from a friend in my bee club.  Someone had called him about a swarm at the Charleston court house and he wanted to know if I wanted it.  

OF COURSE!!  But I wasn't home!  And swarms are finicky and would most likely be gone by the time we got there.  So I called Laney and asked if she and Jesse would go get it.  

She didn't even hesitate.  Laney hasn't had as much opportunity to work the bees but she acted quickly, followed my instructions, made good decisions and CAUGHT IT.  

Look at what a perfect and low swarm!  Easy Peasy.  We left right away and got there as they were finishing up.  They had an audience as well as the newspaper man there because small towns are adorable. 

I peeked at them this morning and they look happy.  Since the weather is supposed to almost freeze tonight, we moved them to the garage.  Tomorrow Mr. Hardin is coming to work bees with me and I can't wait to show him what my kids did! 

 And look what happened today. 

A couple of cuties made their appearance in our incubator.  

This has been an eventful Spring Break. 

Then And Now

Just look at his baby-ness! 

And who knows what on earth he was so upset about. 

But at least he had his Meg to love him.  

And even after 8 years, some things just don't change.

Some Camping Fun

Today was my first full day of camping.  And when I say full, I really mean from 10am-5:30pm.  Once I got the babies dropped off and settled, I headed to camp with my people.



A hammock burrito!

I'll just say that hammock business takes skills I don't have.  It's not as easy as it looks on Gilligan's Island.  The first time I attempted it I flipped all the way over and landed on the ground.  And I can't tell you how disappointed my kids were that they missed it.  The next time, I had Christian help me.  I didn't flip out, but I wasn't good at it.  You have to balance and adjust and .... just whatever.  I'll take a lawn chair thank you very much. 

We walked down to the lake where my kids scared me half to death climbing rickety trees and jumping on unsteady boulders.

And look at his new braces!  Isn't he just adorable?  I love him.

We did a lot of sitting around the camp fire and eating camp food.  I also did a lot of sitting in the camper and talking with my man or playing cards with my girly.

The best part of this trip is having all my big kids with us.  Laney works a lot these days so it's especially great to have her here.....even if she is a goofball with oreos.

We took a hike and followed some trails.



We also fixed the camper door that wasn't working quite right.


Meanwhile, the babies were having fun and doing great at my friends' houses.  There were a few times I did miss BlueEyes because I know there were lots of things he would've loved.  Maybe we can take him for the day another time.  But this time it was awesome to only have potty trained kids.  

Goodbye Jay, Spring Break Plans, And A Push For FFSS

You should see my living room.  It is littered with chunky plastic toys of primary colors.  But today there are a few less because our sweet Jay went to live with his brothers and grandmother yesterday.
He was one of our easiest and friendliest babies.  So easy to love, and like.

I'm proud of his grandmother for stepping up and taking her grand kids.  No doubt it will be super hard.  Single grandma.  Full time job.  6 kids and the oldest is only 10.  I hope she will do well.  And I hope his parents do well.  This morning I am praying for them all.  And praying for his day care workers to see how special he is and show him favor and extra attention.

So now we are back to two and the life of twins is over.  I see now why God never gave me real twins of my own.  Because OH MY GOODNESS!!

This is Spring Break for us.  This year that means camping!!
The weather so far has been very cold but no rain so my campers are not complaining.  We are camping close to home and I've been going back and forth with babies.  But today everything changes.

I have 2 friends heroes that are taking the babies for 3 days.  I'll drop them off after breakfast and pick them up before bed.  3 days in a row!!  We will all be camping together.  Just us.  No diapers. And even though they deserve a million dollars, they will not accept any money.  So I'm baking muffins and dinners when we get home and taking things to them in the morning.  They are awesome.

This is a part of foster care that you don't hear much about.  It's called Foster Family Support System (FFSS) and each foster family is supposed to have at least 2.  They are allowed to watch the kids for up to 72 hours.   It's easy to get approved....just background checks and one walk-through.   They are very important, sorely needed, and hard to come by.  And they are a huge blessing to every foster family.  So when I hear someone say they would love to help but they can't foster, I'm quick to tell them they could be a FFSS.

Anyway.

Today I will enjoy lots of campsite fun with my kids.  Everybody is off work and school for the whole week, except Meg.  And she will come and join us after work.  I'm so excited!!

A Little Bit Of Lately Because My People Haven't Noticed I Slipped Away

Alrighty.  Can I just say that 3 babies is just a little over-the-top?  I have always admired Michelle Duggar, but at this point she is my hero.  Because how on earth?  She's had so many babies and 2 sets of twins.  My youngest two are 4 months apart but developmentally they are exactly the same.  It's what I imagine having twins would be like.  And Oh My Goodness.  

Now and then I just need to escape.  Except that it's never long enough and rarely uninterrupted.  

So this.  

We've had a ton of rain.  Most days I don't go anywhere and we can just enjoy it all.  

We have been so blessed with gifts lately.  Lots of folks sharing their hand-me-downs and a new bunk bed set for the boys.  The bunk bed they had before was the metal kind.  Soooo squeaky and wobbly.  But this is a nice sturdy wood set with drawers underneath.  We love it.  

In addition to putting together a new bed, my guys also worked on some of the small engines that have been giving them trouble.  They've been taking an engine repair class and learning all kinds of ways to trouble shoot.  They even got the neighbor's lawn mower and fixed it.  I can't even tell you the excitement when it actually started!!  My neighbor didn't want it back and told us to sell it.  And we already have a buyer!