Last Week!

Since I am stuck home today coughing my guts out, I thought I would relive my fun week last week with you guys...lucky you :)

We had an all day water park: Boy did we have a blast!! A couple of mild sunburns, but we had so much fun.

Tuesday was a playday with friends.




R is going fishing!




S is working the checkout!




E is visiting the pretend hospital.



R taking flying lessons!



Emi is scaling the rock wall!!



The four friends are soaring to new heights!!

Continued

On to Wednesday....we had a busy day!! We started at the park, then went to the movie. The movie was to crowded so we left for a local pizza place. That was followed by gymnastics...again....a short rest at home, gymnastics again and then Wednesdays in the Park for church!! Awesome day.



Hanging out at the park!




All the kiddos, minus Bri who had spent the night with a friend.




Repositioned kiddos!!



Group with Mommy's



Emi and R investigate a moth!



Kalli playing at the park.



Waiting patiently for the movie that never was!!

Then on the pizza place







No week with the girls is complete with out a little boogie down time.
But you can see that they are beginning to run out of gas!






I have to conclude this by leaving you with pictures of the BFF's. Tori and H met when they had each just turned one. They became instant friends as did H's mom and I. We have been together through moves, pregnancies, new babies, surgeries, many rough times and many more good times. Terri, I love you and your girls!!!

One of Those Days :(

Oh boy has it been a day. I woke up feeling pretty yucky. I think I have a chest cold. I hate chest colds!! I was suposed to help with a music camp at our church, but was unable to do so since I am coughing so much. By the afternoon, Bri and Kalli were both having coughing fits.

Anyway, we have had just one problem after another. I'm sure you all know how that goes. I have wanted to just climb in bed and stay all day!!

Tomorrow is a new day!!

M and M Mom's

We are looking at starting a new group at church called M & M Mom's, Mom's Mentoring Mom's. I have often thought how much I would love to grab a lady named Ouida from our church and just sit down with her and listen to her talk as well as ask her questions. I happened to mention this one day to another lady and she said that she had often thought the same thing. The more people I mentioned it too, the more I began to see a need for something like this. After speaking with our children's minister and getting the green light, I am working on starting a group. This group will be open to anyone who is a mom (to children of all ages), anyone pregnant, anyone who may one day become a mom, or anyone who just wants more information and advice!!

The name, Mom's Mentoring Mom's, was shortened to M&M Mom's because we all know you can't have a good meeting of mom's without chocolate!! Anyway, we will meet once a month and have different mom's come and give talks as well as plenty of time for questions! I am really excited about this and I hope that other people will be excited as well. I have posted a survey on the side of what time you think will work best. We are still working out details, but it looks like it will be a time of fellowship, food, mentoring and discussion! Can't beat that. Please let me know if you would like to help with the planning as well as if you have any suggestions or ideas.

WoooHooo, it's going to be fun :)

Medieval Times

We had a blast today at Medieval Times. We had great seats, though it looked like they were all great seats and a winning knight, can't beat that!! We arrived about 11:45 to a corridor already full of people! Of course there were two open bars, Intuit can't have any type of party/meeting without open bars, and some yummy appetizers. The girls enjoyed strawberry slushies with plenty of whipped cream. They had a princess there reading fairy tales and had sword fighting lessons. We also had pictures takes. About an hour later they opened the doors for seating.

Kalli actually sat through the entire two hour show!! The tomato soup was wonderful!! In keeping with the times, they do not have any silverware for the meal. Emaleigh refused to drink soup out of the bowl, looking horrified that I would even suggest it. Kalli really got into the show. She was standing on her chair yelling and waving her flag. Our knight even gave her a pretty flower!! She thought she could eat that too! I can't count the times that Tori hit the man next to her in the face with her flag. My sweet Tori is very competitive and REALLY got into it. She drank the soup but would not touch any of the other food. Since she is not a meat eater anyway, I really did not expect her to! Brianna enjoyed the show and the meal, though she did not eat much of her chicken. When I asked her afterwards why she did not eat the chicken she said she found it "disturbing" that she would have to peel the skin away from the chicken. Can you tell we don't eat much chicken on the bone with skin!

Despite the food misgivings that the girls had, we all had a wonderful time!

Brianna went straight from that to a birthday party and then to a church event. She is spending the night with a good friend of hers. She had a blast babysitting last night.

Tori has learned how to knit on the round knitting thingy and bought her own today with some of her allowance. She will probably spend the evening knitting!!

I wanted to leave you all with a picture William just emailed me of three of the girls. Apparently Brianna had a bunch of these band aids from the party and the girls decided they would tape their mouths shut!! Great idea :)

Hooray!

First let me say that I think I have fixed our problem of pseudo posting! There is a way to restrict the comments to only people who are registered users. So you have to post under your own name. This doesn't stop rude people from posting, just makes it where they have to post under their own name! I am going to continue moderating comments though until it calms down a bit. You guys are awesome and I am so thankful for your support and encouragement during this little blogging issue.

Now, on to important things! We have had a great day today. My friend has left :( This morning she and I went to several garage sales and had a blast!! I found some awesome finds.

We have a packed weekend with a trip to Medieval Times. Williams work is having a family day there. We get photographs with the knights and princess' and a story-telling session. The girls get jousting lessons too! Sounds fun!!

Bri has a couple of parties to go to as well as a babysitting job. Tori has....you guessed it, gymnastics!

We are still receiving books today!!! Hooray! Our music book for the year is called "The Classical Music Experience" and it comes with cd's!! It goes through a brief study of about 30 famous composers and then has 3 of each composers songs on the cd. I am soooo excited!!

Alright, I need to head out! Thanks again guys!!

Books and Thank You!

Oh, today was a great day. I got several shipments of school books in the mail. I love getting new books. I like the feel and the smell! I am really excited about the girls starting school soon. I think we are going to have a wonderful year.

We have been so busy this week! My friend is in town and we have been on the move all week.

We had a great time at Wednesdays in the Park! It is such an awesome idea and great way to reach out.

I also just want to say thank you! I have loved getting to know some of you via blog.

Well, have an awesome weekend!!

Big Day`

Yesterday was a big day for Tori, can you guess why??!!

BEFORE






AFTER




Doesn't she look
awesome!!!!

Kalli and Such

Kalli is doing much better! She has had no fever for about 24 hours now and had a great day yesterday. I think everyone actually feels good today.

I think I am going to play

Barnes and Noble

Let me clarify a bit one of my previous posts. The Harry Potter parties at B and N are definitely the best. Brianna has gone for several years now and always really enjoyed them. She almost gave up a really cool sleepover to go! I was just making an observation of the large crowds on this one night. I think I pay the salary of at least a few people at B and N buying school books throughout each year:) I think yesterday I more than made up for buying our HP book at Kroger by spending over $1000 there ordering school books (yes, homeschooling is soooo expensive!). I am a die hard B and N fan!!

Anyway, I do not want to offend any other B and N fans, I was just saying William was glad to not have to deal with the crowd on that particular night. I will say though that he loves to spend hours there sitting and looking at books! William had heard from the Kroger crowd that the B and N crowd was out of the store!

Another note, B and N has a great story hour for the preschool set!

Please Help!

Okay blog friends, I really need some help! One of the hardest part about homeschooling for me is keeping up with the reading. Tori and Brianna each year read about 15 different great literature books. Being they are in different grades, that equals 30 books for me. I love being able to read and discuss the books with the girls, but this year I see no way.

With it being Brianna's freshman year, she is doing a study of Great Books of early modern history. She will cover 12 books this year. I just can't read them all with her. What I am looking for is someone who maybe loves one or two of these books and would be willing to sit down with her and have a discussion after she reads the book. Maybe you see one of your favorite books in this list, or one you want to read! I am not looking for an expert, though if you are that is great too! I just need someone for her to swap ideas and thoughts with.

So, could you please look through this list and see if anything catches your eye? Especially you ladies from church!! I would love her to be able to discuss these from a Christian perspective. I can pay you for your time, or treat you to lunch while you have your book discussion. We can work something out! But I would just love for her to be able to do this with several different people. It would be a great experience for her as well as a huge help for me!!!

All of these are the origianl text:

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
Meditations by Rene Descartes
The Pilgrims Progress by John Bunyon
The Declaration of Independance
Common Sense by Thomas Paine
The Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin
A Vindication of the Rights of Women by Mary Wollstonecraft
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorn
Moby Dick by Herman Melville

Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Week In Review!!

Well, Brianna went to her sleepover for the youth group and had a wonderful time! She hated that the sleepover was at the same time as the Harry Potter book release and almost decided to forgo the sleepover, but she didn't. She is really glad she went and they all had a blast! William went at about 11:45 last night to the neighborhood grocery store to get her the HP book. Luckily he was one of the last ones to get a ticket before they ran out. Otherwise he would have had to fight the horrible crowd at Barnes and Noble! Anyway, she got home around 11am and she has been in her room reading ever since. I walked in a little bit ago and asked her if she got the the part where Harry dies (I was just kidding, as I don't know if he dies or not) and my obviously tired from the sleepover daughter about went hysterical! Gee, she is serious about her Potter!

This week we got back the standardized test results for Brianna from a test she took in May. She was anxious to get them back because she was hoping to qualify for the Duke TIP test in order to attend a Math camp at UNT next summer. I always worry about the taking these tests. Mostly because we only text every other year so they don't get as much practice in the art of standardized test taking. But also I would hate to miss teaching them something and they suffer because of my mistake. It is always nice to get the results in. Though I know that everyone has days where they take these tests and stink at them, it is always encouraging to me to see them do well. I alternate years of them taking the tests as they are quite expensive when you don't get them for free from the public schools (the tests as well as paying for a test administrator) and I just don't see a point in taking them every year until about junior high and then really only for practice taking them for the SAT.

So, this was Bri's year and she did a great job on it. She had been stressing because of 2 she knew that she missed and I told her if the worse thing that happens to her this year is that she misses two on a standardized test, it will have been a good year! Anyway, she qualified to take the other test in the spring so she is very happy!

We got our cruise booked and are really looking forward to that. I also got confirmation of our beach house rental for the week. My friend Terri and her girls are going with us and she, being the planner that she is, is already making lists!!

Kalli had a horrible day yesterday. Her fever got so high that it caused me to sweat just holding her. It did scare me a bit that she was so warm. I have never seen her feel so bad, poor baby. She ended up throwing up too! Today she still has a low fever, but is feeling much better.

William and I went today and bought some new pieces for the girls swingset/fort. It is about six years old, but it is a decent one and we are hoping for it to hold up four more years for Kalli. Not sure about that though! We got some new swings to replace the old ones and a trapeze as well as a new cover for the fort. It may being leaning over, but by george, it will look better!!

My friend Terri comes on Monday for the week. I think on Monday we are going to spend the day at the water park, Tuesday go to a play day with my church, Wednesday do donuts in the park, movie, gymnastics and church in the park. Thursday we are going to stay home and she is forcing me to let her help organize my closet! I think she is tired of hearing my complain about it. She is the type of friend who, when she comes, always helps me get some project or another done. William is working late all next week so we are going to have a blast! Friday we are going to garage sales and out to breakfast!!

Whew, I thought I just had a couple of things to post, but ended up with a novel! Sorry!!

Gee Whiz!!

I think I have a family full of sickies! Kalli is so miserable. I am guessing her head hurts as well as her throat. She just holds her head and whines. I did all the checks that they taught me when Bri has meningitis. You know, looking up and down, picking the legs up. She seemed fine with all but the leg thing, but started acting like she felt a bit better. Now she is just wanting to be held and crying very quietly. I think her throat hurts because she won't drink anything. She has now gone back to sleep so hopefully that will help her feel better and I will give her some tylenol when she gets up. I guess we will have to alternate the meds with her for a while to help with the pain so she will drink.

The joys of parenthood!! I don't really need to take her to the doctor, because I am sure she has the same thing Emi has, but I am watching to make sure she does not get dehydrated.

Wow! I have rambled on haven't I??!! I will keep you posted :)

Update!!!

Well....Kalli just woke up with fever and it seems like her head hurts! I love having kids :) Naw, I really do.

Recovering!

Wow! We had a great time on Wednesday at the water park. We got there when they opened and stayed 10 hours! It was so fun though to have so many people from church to hang out with and get to know.

When we got home from the water park that night about 9pm, the phone was ringing. My mom was calling to let me know that Emaleigh was sick. Emi had gone on Tuesday to spend a few days with her Mimi. When she left she had started to run a fever of about 101. You might recall that my kids tend to get a high fever all of a sudden for about a day and then they are fine. I let my mom know and sent Emi some meds to take if her fever made her uncomfortable. Well, by the time they made it to my moms it was 105 and she had chills. So they started the medicines. Ended up alternating Tylenol and Motrin every three hours for two days and still only got it to about 102.

Now, my mom was freaking out ready to take her to the ER. But to me, this still is no big deal. Now by day three I would have taken her to the doctor. After calming my mom down by promising her brain would not fry, I told her to just watch for any other symptoms to pop up. Well, when she was calling on Wednesday night she said Emi had been watching tv and all of a sudden started screaming her throat hurt and she wanted to come home. So....after ten hours at the water park I drove and picked up Emi. I think I finally made it home about midnight (I am so not a night person!). Of course, once she got home she never ran fever! Yesterday morning she still had no fever, but I looked in her throat and it was full of pus pockets. So I thought, strep throat. I called the doctor and ran her in about 8:45am. After arriving, the doctor looked at her throat (still no fever) and thought strep throat! The throat culture came back negative. She looked again, closer, and said that actually the pus pockets are in front of her thoat, more in the very back of her mouth. Apparently strep throat is further back. She ran some blood work, which was fine, and said that Emi has some type of virus. The sores looked they were forming small blisters and then combining into larger ones. One probably burst and this is way she had the sudden screaming fit.

She let me look at them and they look so painful! Of course with a virus there is nothing you can do, so we went home keeping her on Motrin to help with the pain.

I hate running to the doctor for every little thing! It seems to me that the less time they spend in a doctor's waiting room the less they will be sick! Have you ever thought how dirty and germy those things must be, no matter how much they clean them!!

So anyway, we have another freaky illness. No big shock there! Of course she is back at her Mimi's house.

Now, I have a horrible sunburn. I guess I thought that if I can't see my back, neither can the sun :) Tori has poison ivy from our donuts in the park before the water park, and Bri has a sunburn! If we aren't a sight!!! So we are home recovering from all of our fun!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Have a great day!

Church.....For Cool People!!

Well, tonight is church. I have spent the morning ironing our nice clothes, putting curlers in my hair and of course picking out the perfect matching handbag...NOT!! I have spent the morning packing picnics, bug spray and sunscreen. How cool is church at a water park...and it still counts (my preacher said so :)).

James 5:13-20 and the Faith Tree

I have a story that I want to tell you. It has been on my heart for a while that I need to share this so here goes!!!!

Let me start by saying that studying the faithful prayer is something that is very dear to me. It is a subject that I can read and talk and pray about night and day. There are so many great books on the subject! William and I have spent hours, days and months studying and praying about this topic. I really enjoy reading about other's studies regarding this. Though I may not agree with everything they speak of, these are some of the books that I have enjoyed....
1. Afraid God Works Afraid He Doesn't by Terry Rush I think this is my favorite and is the first book I read that really made me want to learn more about this subject.
2. The Fourth Dimension by Dr. David Yonggi Cho
3. Andrew Murray on Prayer by Andrew Murray
4. The Wonderful Spirit Filled Life by Charles Stanley
5. The book of James in the Bible!!
Let me say again...I do not agree with every single thing they say, but these books in some way help me on my journey to learn about the Faithful Prayer!

Now, on to my story!

Five years ago I went to a store called Big Lots. Cool store by the way! As I was leaving I saw five trees on the sidewalk outside of the store. They looked like twigs wrapped with bags on the bottom. They were only $11!!!! Well, William had just been laid off and we were big on love and short on money :) Oh, but I had wanted a tree so badly planted in the back yard. I saw that this tree was destined to grow into a Weeping Willow so I decided I would buy it. After taking it in the store to purchase, I found out it was even marked down from that to $8!!! Like I said....cool store! So Brianna, Tori and baby Emi and I bought this little "tree" and tossed it in the trunk.

After arriving home I took it out and sat it on the driveway where it sat and sat and sat for a few more weeks. This particular spring it rained a ton and we had a lot of trouble finding a time when the ground was dry enough to plant it. Finally the poor tree began to stink and rot at the roots. We decided that it must be planted if there were to be any hope for it. We tried to dig a hole, but with the ground so wet and muddy we did not have much luck, or much patience! So after digging a hole that we figured was good enough, we plopped the tree in.

Oops!! The root ball was still about halfway above the ground. Well, with not much hope for the tree anyway we just told the girls to slap some mud pies around the part that was showing (I think that we thought if we could not see the roots through the mud then they were safe :)) After this debacle we were ready to head in and Brianna and Tori asked if we could pray for the tree. Okay, no big deal, so we do.

Skip ahead about six months to one October evening. We had a little storm. I really mean little! There was some thunder and lightening, but not really any wind. We go out the next morning and guess what??? The tree had broke in half. Now when I say broke in half, I mean broke in half. It was laying on the ground. The girls were devastated. William decided that he would go to the Feed and Seed store to speak with the wise owner and ask if there is anyway to save our tree.

William returned with bad news. The man showed him what was more or less a band aid kit for trees, but said that it only works if they are still attached at least half way. There was no hope for our tree, but to help the girls no feel so sad he went ahead and bought the band aid kit.

We all go outside and put this band aid on the tree. I am amazed that the tree could even break in half because it was so small and thin. It usually would just sway in the wind! After applying the band aid we are all ready to head inside, but Tori asks if we can all pray for the tree. Once again, no big deal, so we do and then head inside. The next day I see Tori and Bri outside with the tree. After inquiring about what they were doing, Tori let me know that they were praying for the tree to be healed. She said that she had learned in church that prayers can heal people with God's power and since He made the tree, He could fix it. Oh dear....

For days, upon weeks, upon months come rain, snow or sun Brianna and Tori would go out and pray for that tree. Well, William, being the awesome man that he is, saw an opportunity for the girls. So he began to pray and I began to pray. We would pray often, "Lord, we know that the tiny faith of a mustard seed will move mountains, but Oh God, please let the faith of these children move this tree. Help it grow like their faith will." William would go out after the girls would come in and pray over this tree. This went on all winter. The tree seemed to be holding on. Over the next year it grew a little and we began to praise God for this. Then over the next four years the tree exploded and grew high. It grew tall and wide and straight. It now shades them as they play in the yard. It hides them went they want and swings them as they play monkeys. It is our faith tree. The girls still talk about their prayers and God's faithfulness growing that tree.

I learned a lot from the tree. Sometimes life feels like you have been broken in half and there is no hope....pray. People will tell you it can't be done.....pray. Our children want to have and show faith....pray. Two or more shall gather....pray. Pray hard, pray often, pray with faith and pray for the hopeless. Just pray!


This is our Faith Tree today!
The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective! James 5:16b

Quick Clarification

I just wanted to clarify something from my previous post. I was stating my reasons for originally being against Harry Potter. I am in no way trying to change other's minds or say anything negative about other's who have a different view. I have several wonderful friends who have very good reasons of their own for not allowing their children to read HP. I am only speaking of my own prior reasons, my own opinion, and my own lack of actually reading the book before I made an opinion. This has been on my heart and mind this morning so I wanted to quickly make that clear.

So don't worry friends, I am not going all controversial on you :)

What In The World Do You Do With Just 1???

Well....I slept, quite a bit. I played in the little plastic pool...told you I would! I snuggled every nap time and bedtime with my 2yo baby. I read a TON!

I actually started and finished three books from Friday until today. The first was "Left To Tell". I was really excited about reading this book. I had read and heard great things about it. While I liked the book, I disliked what I saw as the author's dwelling on visualization. Probably just my mere misinterpretation of what she was trying to say, but hey, this is my blog and my opinion!! Just kidding!

The second book I read was The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis. Oh my goodness, that was a wonderful book! My mind has not stopped pondering some of his points since I finished reading it. The first point that he made is that what draws us together (really any of us, friends, spouses, community) is need. If we have no needs would we desire to still be together. I also thought about how much we alienate ourselves when we refuse to share our needs for whatever reason.

Finally, my third book was the 3rd Harry Potter book Prisoner of Azkaban. Love it!! I was totally against the HP books when I first heard about them years and years ago. William read the first one and said it was great and was fine. I had never read them though. After he read them, we allowed the girls to read them and Brianna has loved them now for years. I am not sure why exactly I was against them. Probably because that was the "in" thing to do at the time. It was not really the magic because magic was in Snow White and every other childhood story/movie. Like I said, I don't really know why. I was raised with the big thing being Dungeons and Dragons and my parents forbid anything dealing with that to come into our house, I think I really just wanted to forbid something :) Anyway, my point is, now that I have started reading the books I absolutely love the lessons that the books teach, especially book 2. I have found them to be much less violent than the Lord of the Rings books. Number three was great and I can't wait to go on to number 4!!

So, now that you know what I spent all weekend doing, you can also know that I can't wait for tomorrow evening to come around and get two of my girls back and then Tuesday night we will all be together again!! Yooooohooooo:)

Shark Story!!

Okay so....just kidding! I just realized that I start my paragraphs too often with, okay, so...

Alrighty then, yes, that is better! Alrighty then, many of you, well, not really many, more like a couple. Do over.....Alrighty then, a couple of you have asked about the shark story I mentioned a couple of days ago, so I thought I would share.

Four years ago Bri, Tori, Emi, William and I took a two week vacation. The girls and I had just finished up studying the Civil War so we decided to vacation through some of the southern states to see some of the CW sites. We stayed for several days in Gulfport, Mississippi. We had so much fun playing in the ocean, taking dolphin cruises and visiting islands! Of course as a mom, I read the sign on the beach that said to practice shark safety and be careful in murky water. I noticed that the water was very murky each day and pointed this out to my not quite as observant husband. He proceeded to point out to me that I was a worry wart and all water, in the Gulf that is so close to the barrier islands will be murky. Whatever!

Of course I kept this in the back (okay more in the middle) of my mind each day when William took the girls swimming. I would sit on the beach and watch for Jaws to come in and try to eat my children. The first day, I saw it. It was black and stuck above the water like a fin! I waded out to call to William (boy was I brave!) and pointed to the shark fin, desperate for him to get my babies back on the shore. He, of course laughed and flapped his arms like wings. I wondered if this might be an ancient shark-be-gone ritual that he was performing. Then as panic was about to come out of my mouth, I noticed that the shark flew away. Okay, so it is really hard to distinguish a shark fin from a bird on the water okay!! I am from Dallas, so give me a break!

Let's all have a laugh on Kristi..... but wait, we swam for a few more days. I continued to lie in wait to warn everyone of Jaws coming, but began to relax a bit. During our last day of swimming, we had the beach almost to ourselves. There were several people on a pier that went out pretty far into the water and a couple down about 1/2 a block from us. I was enjoying watching William and Tori play in water that was only about thigh deep on William. Then....I see another black fin looking thing. I tell myself, okay, this has to be another bird, honestly what are the chances of seeing a shark. I looked down at my book, but decided I would keep a check on it. I looked up about 30 seconds later (okay, I was keeping a really close check on it) and it was gone. Sigh of relief, it flew away. Wait, I see it again but it is getting closer to William and Tori. At this time William and Tori were enjoying standing there watching these fish jump out of the water around them (duh, shark bait!). Okay, I really see it now and oh my goodness, it really is a shark! Its really large head comes out of the water behind them to grab some fish.

Now, I am trying to figure out what in the world I am going to do. I love my family, but there ain't no way I am going in to get them (Of course that is because I was thinking of the two kids I had left on the beach :)). I could not yell out to William because Tori would drown herself trying to get out of the water. I calmly, yes I really did this calmly, called for William to please come in out of the water. He shouted, sure, no problem. Now, those of you that know William know that he can be a bit, oh how do I say it,.....SLOW! So as he is gathering Tori and walking, no more meandering toward the beach, still laughing and enjoying the waves, I see that the shark is much closer! Probably about 7 feet from where they are. I then yell for William to PLEASE, come in NOW! At this point he is close enough to see my face and see my panic so he picks Tori up and comes in quickly!

Once on the beach he turns to look and he sees the HUGE shark. I decided that I probably should tell the nice couple down the beach that were in the water. I thought, honestly I went through this in my head, I thought well, should I yell shark like in the movies or should I walk down and tell them. What do beach dwellers do???? I decided to walk down, introduce myself (from the beach of course) and warn them of the shark.

I think the man thought I was insane! They instantly came out from the water. His wife hit his shoulder and said I told you (man we had a lot in common, I had done the same thing)! He said they had noticed us looking at something, and thought maybe there was a shark. But we were so calm that they decided naw! Oops, I guess beach dwellers do yell shark! We went out on the pier and watched the shark for a long time. It ended up being about 8 feet long and was obviously chasing the jumping fish.

This entire time, Brianna was standing on the shore convinced that her dad and sister were going to be eaten by this shark (sometimes she is a tad like her momma!).

So anyway, when we take our little beach trip in September I am very sure that at least two of my girls will not go out past ankle deep in the ocean! Nor will their Momma!!!

So This is How Quiet Sounds????

Tori getting ready to leave for camp!!


Okay, so I dropped off Bri and Emi this morning with my dad and then went to hang out with a friend. Then Tori, Kalli and I grabbed a burrito from Taco Bueno and planned to head to the park to finish off lunch before Tori left. The sky opened and it poured, so we went to plan B. We ate in the church building waiting for time for Tori to leave. So I got her all loaded up. She met a couple of new friends and was excited to be on her way.

Okay, so now that I know how quiet sounds, I have determined I don't like it that much and am ready for my girls to come home!!!

Big Day!

Okay, today is the big day! I drop Bri and Emi off at 9:30 and Tori at 1pm, then we are down to 1. I am not sure what we are going to do with ourselves! It will be so quiet around here. They were all gone to their different activities yesterday so Kalli and I were alone for a couple of hours and it was so quiet! It was nice for a while and then I started missing the noise and chaos....and my girls.

Thank you so much for all of the offers to have Kalli over this weekend! I am really touch by the many of you who offered that already have your own hands full!! I am thinking that we will be doing lots of swimming in the little pool and playing in the sandbox. I got several books from the library last night that I am excited to start reading. Many of them were ones that you guys suggested on your blogs!! I think I may become a closet BAD girl!!

When things calm down this afternoon, I am going to post our ocean shark story that many of you have asked about! Please keep the beach suggestions coming, especially the details about good places to stay and things to do while you are there! I am looking them all up and can't wait to pick one!

Well, I am off to finish packing for the girls!! Keep them in your prayers as they head off to their destinations!! Peace out!!! (My new saying for the week...we all need one :)

Something Profound and Horribly Interesting!

Or not! I don't really have much to post, but I don't want to be like you OTHER people who never blog!!! Yes, you might detect a bit of blogging self-righteousness!

Let's see....we had Wednesday in the Park last night, but the park was the church building! Despite the dreary weather, it was a blast and there were still visitors! William took Brianna and a friend to a midnight opening of Harry Potter on Tuesday night. They really enjoyed it and they all slept all day yesterday!!

I have actually never read the Harry Potter series. William and Brianna have, but I was lagging behind. After seeing it recommended on many of your blogs, I started to read it. Well, I have read the first two in the last week. I have been staying up way too late reading! They are so good! What awesome messages the books carry, especially the second one.

Hmmmm, what else.....I think we are going to take a little trip in September. We were thinking of going back to Colorado, but now we are considering the beach. We have only taken the girls to the beach one other time a few years ago. We had an incident with a really BIG shark and I am not sure they will get back in the water, but there are so many other fun things to do there. I would LOVE any suggestions of good beaches, great places to stay and fun things to do from all you experienced beach goers out there!!

Alrighty, I need to head out and pick up Tori. She spent yesterday with my mom and comes home this morning just to pack and leave again tomorrow!

Later!!!!!

Alive and Kicking!!

Yup, we are still here!! It has just been a crazy week with all of the girls' activities!

Tori ended up missing her entire prayer trip last weekend, but her arm is looking better. It now just looks bruised and has a little rash on it. Thanks for the prayers!

I can't believe that it is time to begin planning for school. I was going over Brianna's requirements for next year and I am overwhelmed. She is taking her Latin, logic, physical science, chemistry and geometry from outside sources so I thought that there would not be too much for me to need to do. I was wrong!! I have grammar, writing, reading, history, speech and debate, computer and Spanish!! Oy!! Then of course we have 5th grade stuff for Tori and Emi starting Kindergarten.

Well, I guess it will be fun :)...this is wishful thinking at its finest.

This coming weekend we will only have one of the girl's!! Tori leaves Friday for church camp. Brianna and Emaleigh leave on Friday to spend the weekend with my dad and step mom and family in Oklahoma. I wish that we were going with them, but I was not comfortable being so far away while Tori is at camp. So....that leaves William, Kalli and I. I am thinking I will get a lot of reading done!!

You guys can pray for Emaleigh's foot. While at my mom's this weekend, they thought she stepped on a nail and cut her foot. When I looked at it closely last night, I saw that something was still in the cut. Of course she went crazy at the thought of my digging around in her cut (completely understandable!). I explained after much screaming and crying that she had a choice. We could wait and go see Dr. London...again...in the morning and let her look at it, possibly give her a little shot to numb it and dig out what was there. Or she could let me do it. I explained that all I needed to do was take tweezers and go just a little into the cut and pull out what was there. I also told her that we would hold some ice on it for a little bit to numb it some. She decided to let Dr. Mom work her magic!!

We put the ice on it for a while and then she talked to William and tried to relax while I dug around in her foot! I pulled out a piece of wood about the size of my finger-nail. She was very brave! After putting antibiotic ointment and a band aid on it, she of course needed some ice cream to take the edge off!! Pray that her foot does not get infected, as we know that we are so good at getting infections around here!

Well, we have a spilled bowl of cereal that is calling my name....no, that is Kalli calling my name and Tori yelling that there is a spilled bowl of cereal! Gotta go!

Arm......Part 2 :)

An infection we will grow,
An infection we will grow,
Hi-Ho the dairy-O,
An infection we will grow!!

Yes folks the official word is we have another infection!! Hold the applause please :) Poor Tori! The doctor did not want her to go out of town on her trip as she felt that it needs to be watched closely. She started Tori on two antibiotics. I think that the redness has somewhat diminished tonight, but the red area has definately grown out of the second border that was drawn around it. I guess we will continue to watch and wait.....oh the excitement in our lives!!

Off To See The Doctor.....AGAIN

Okay, I honestly don't know why it seems that Tori and Kalli always end up getting infections all of the time!! They take baths, wear clean clothes and they don't play in cow poo. So why is it that these two always seem to take any bite or scrape to an extreme??!! Tori has what we think is a bite, but it has doubled in size overnight so we are going to the doctor this morning. Normally I would wait and see another few hours or so, but she is scheduled to leave at 3pm for a church trip. So, we are off!! I will let you know what happens in ..."As Infections Grow, brought to you by The Huckabees!!

4th of July!!!

Happy belated 4th of July!! I hope that everyone in cyberland had an outstanding holiday. We did here at the Huckabee household! I have always been really cautious about who I invited over because of the fact that our house is really small and frankly could use a little tlc! After reading the book that I shared about last time, I talked to William about us having a little 4th of July shindig! We prayed about it and sent out the invitation. I really prayed for a good mix of people so that everyone would have someone to talk to and have a good time with. The girls and I prayed constantly about the weather. We have been having weeks of nonstop rain, so we were really needing to dry out a bit.

Well, as the big day approached, the forecast was rain, rain and a bit more rain. We kept the local radar on our computer so that we could keep an eye on the storms. My dad kept telling me that it was going to rain and we needed to just cancel. Well, when I went to bed on Tuesday night it was raining, I woke up in the middle of the night, looked outside and saw stars!! Wednesday morning the forecast was....rain! So we watched the radar off and on throughout the day. We watched storm by storm come through and split in half as it hit our area. We stayed dry all day!! Our friends living just a bit to the south said they had pouring rain and our friends just a bit to the north had pouring rain, we had none!! It was so awesome.

Okay, awesome occurrence number two.....the back yard was still really muddy from all of the previous rain so we decided to get some hay to lay down so at least the kids could get to the playhouse. We could not find a seed and feed store open yesterday so we could not get any hay. I had a thought that we could buy some plywood pieces and lay down, but we really did not need to spend that much money. When we got home I had an email about a lady in this area who needed to get rid of six pieces of plywood!!! So we picked it up and put it down.

We ended up last night with 49 people in our small 1500 square foot house! We had such a wonderful time. There were a few times that it seemed a little cramped, like when people were lining up to get food. Even then, people were so patient that it worked out great. Our backyard was full of people visiting and kids running and screaming, our house was full of people talking and more kids running and screaming....it was awesome!!!! I will have wonderful memories of this 4th of July for a long time to come, as will my kids. We all had a fabulous time. I was truly blessed last night.

So the lesson in this is.....
1. Pray, pray, pray
2. Don't be afraid to invite a lot of people to a small house
3. Kids will entertain themselves
4. Friends are awesome!!

Oh, I wanted to also let you know that it is raining here this morning :)