stitches, spelling, snowsuits, and soapbox

Last weekend we tried out the new pizza place in Trafalgar. I didn't take much for the girls to play with since I figured we wouldn't have to wait long--it's Trafalgar after all, how many people in a town this big could order pizza at one time? The answer, of course, is just about every single person in town. Also, it's mainly a pick-up place. They have seats, but your best bet is to order ahead and then get there, wait in line 20 minutes, get your pizza 20 minutes after it's done, and take it home to eat. There was a steady line about 8-10 people long waiting for their orders. But the pizza was good. Anyway, that's beside the point. While we were there, Hannah randomly asks, "How did your babies come out of your belly?" Luckily in my case I have an easy answer to that question. I said, "They cut a hole in my belly, get the baby out, and close it up." She jokingly said, "Well, how do they close it up, cause they don't sew it." "Actually, they do," I answered. Then she said really loud, "OH! I AM NOT HAVING ANY BABIES! I DO NOT WANT THEM TO SEW ON ME!" Alli said, "While I was in your belly, I didn't cry did I. No, I was a good baby."

Hannah's been learning to read at home. She can sound out some words and she can read some words, so I decided to get some early reader books from the library and give her the satisfaction of reading an entire book. She likes it, but it's amazing how many exceptions there are in our language. I have to keep saying, "These letters together say "___", but a few words later those same letters say something completely different. Anyway, she told me her thoat hurt and was saying, "O-U! O-U! Get it Mom? Ow?"

Alli twists her hair and sucks her thumb just like Hannah. But Alli takes a smaller piece of hair and twists it so tight that it gets in knots. Yesterday she woke up from her nap and looked like she had five little antennae sticking out of her head because she twists and twists and then folds it over and it twists onto itself and then twists again. Kinda like miniature dreadlocks.

Carrie can be jealous and bossy at times with her sisters. I've been watching a little three year old, Anna Beth, four days a week and that brings out the jealousy even more. When Anna Beth walks in the door, Carrie immediately says, "A-Besh! Sh! Shh! Stop!" as if she's already getting into "Carrie's things." She's a sweet girl, though and is easy to take care of.

Today we woke up to a little layer of snow covering the ground. I thought it would be fun for the girls to play in it. So I helped them get dressed. That took about half an hour. Hannah dressed herself and was waiting to go outside patiently, but I knew that by the time I got the others dressed she would be ready to come in so I made her wait for everyone together. Carrie cried for most of that half hour because she didn't want her boots on. I should have left them off anyway cause she didn't like the cold and cried when I took her out there. Would have saved myself one dose of the crying if I had let her go out there barefooted instead of fussing over the boots since she cried anyway when we got out there. Anyway...they liked it kindof. They played for about 20 minutes. Pretty good I thought, and no one had to come in to go potty! Yay! But that was at 8:25 this morning, so we had a long morning to fill with indoor playing and crafts. We made turkeys and glued on tissue paper tail feathers.

I've been going to the Morgan County Jail to help a friend teach Bible study two Thursdays a month. I love it! The girls there are just soaking it all up. Nine of them accepted Jesus and were baptized a couple weeks before I started. They baptized them in a livestock water trough. They are so desparate for a Savior. Most of them I think are in for drugs/alcohol (but I don't know for sure), and I was saying to Mike the other day that it is only by the grace of God that we aren't there in their place. Many of them had decent lives, but just got caught up in something. Some grew up in Christian homes, one planned on going into the ministry, one has a son who is an intern for John McCain, etc. Basically, many of them are just normal average people like us, and we have been protected from all that. Anyway, it's so encouraging to see these girls (most of them are younger than me!) who are "safe" from all those influences, they are clean and sober, and they are at the end of their rope and they are ready for a change. Not every female inmate comes to Bible study, sometimes 2/3 of them, usually 1/2. I expected that they would be skeptical, just wanting an evening out of their cells, but they are interested, they ask questions, they write down any scripture reference we make so they can look it up in their free time, they memorize verses to earn a Bible--and they are so thrilled to receive it! It's not prison, it's just the county jail. So, they might be held waiting for their sentence, etc. Anyway, they are typically there one year or less, so they are coming back out into the community and going to need to be welcomed into a church family and helped along in their faith. They are going to need to be strong to resist the same old influences, they are going to need to make a serious change in order to not be back in jail again. Most of them have kids, many of them young kids like mine. Some of them don't know where they are, just that they are in the foster system, but they don't have contact with them. Who knows what their foster parents are telling the kids about their mom? I admit I would have been one to say, "They should have loved their kids enough to stop whatever they were doing." But drugs don't say that, and if no one else in their life was a positive influence... And really it doesn't matter now, what matters is that these girls change their lives so that it won't happen again. They are so sad to be separated from their kids, and maybe that's punishment enough. When they get out, they need to make strong connections in a church that will support them and accept them and help them. Trish and I are the only women's Bible study, there are at least 3 men's Bible studies. So there is room for more as the jail staff is open to it. Right now we can only go twice a month, but pray that we will be allowed to go every week and that we would be allowed to have one-on-one discussions with the girls too. So pray for these girls. And maybe your county jail needs a Bible study. okay, I'll get off my soapbox now.

Fall pictures

More silly sayings...and some sentimental

I don't remember how this conversation got started, but we ended up talking about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego (not sure about the spelling, but this isn't English class). I told Hannah that I had heard on the news that morning about a lady from South Africa who was a missionary in Afghanistan working to help people with disabilities. I explained that there is a group of people called the Taliban who were mean to her because she was "spreading Christianity." They don't know God and they don't understand that His son Jesus is the only way to heaven, and they got mad at her. You can read it here: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,440841,00.html
Anyway, Hannah was listening carefully then said very seriously, "Mom, I know what we need to do. We need to get a Bible--maybe a bunch of them. And send it to the guys who don't know about God. And we need to get a piece of paper and write down all the important stuff for them to know about and put that on top of the Bible. That way they will know about God and won't be mean to people anymore." She thought a minute more and said, "Mom, can I change my mind about something? Can I change my roller skate bank to be for Bibles instead?" (Ever since she went to a friend's house and played with their roller skates it has been all she can think about. She started a piggy bank and will do all kinds of jobs to earn money, and even though we never told her this, she says that if she isn't nice and kind then she won't get paid! But when she first started saving for it she wanted to take the money she had been saving for two years to send to Haiti and use it for skates. We explained that the Haiti money is for the kids in Haiti and she can't take that away from them to use on herself. So in this instance she was asking if it would be ok to use skate money to to toward Bibles, and of course, the answer is yes. And just for that, I think she'll see skates under the tree at Christmas!) Then she thought a little bit and asked, "Mom, would it be ok if I went over to that place and helped them learn about God?" I told her that if God wanted her to that she would go no matter what, but she needs to listen to what God wants her to do. I hope he wants her in a safer place, but wherever he leads...

On a lighter note!... Some funny things Alli has said:
"My tongue is like a napkin." (When I asked her to use her napkin to wipe her face.)

Yesterday there were a lot of jet trails in the sky, and the girls were pointing them out. Alli argued, "That's not a real plane, that's just a toy one. See the rope on the back of it?"

This past weekend the girls' cousin, Joy, got bapized so we went to celebrate with them. When it was time to leave their house to come home Alli got close to Mark and said quietly, "I like your children."

Hannah has been giving "re-useable hugs and kisses." Sometimes I'll ask her for just one more kiss after she has already given one and she'll say, "No, that last one was a re-useable." Or, at bedtime I'll kiss her and she'll ask, "Is that a re-useable?" She even asked Gramma Kathy this past weekend (they were here for the baptism as well)!

Silly sayings

A recent conversation with Hannah and I went like this:
Hannah: "Mom, I don't want to go to outer space."
Me: "Why not?"
Hannah: "Because...I wouldn't be able to find America without the words on there."
Me: (Just to be sure) "What words?"
Hannah: "You know--the words on the globe!"

There is a boy in Hannah's class in Preschool that Hannah says "acts mean to everyone." We were explaining to her that she still needs to be his friend anyway, and Michael said, "Sometimes if a boy bothers you, it's just because he likes you." I interjected, "--As a friend!" The next day Hannah came home from school and said, " I know (this boy) loves me 'cause he treats me bad. And I'm gonna go back and tell my other friends that he treats us bad because he loves us!" I had to kinda straighten that out a little.

When Alli is thirsty she says, "I'm stirsty."

Alli doesn't like people to laugh at her, but that's really hard because she's sooooo funny! If she thinks we're laughing at her for something she gets really serious and says, "Don't LAUGH at me!" Which makes it even harder to keep a straight face!

An update...

Here's an update on what we've been up to recently. Last week we went to IA/IL so Mike could help his parents get ready for his grandparents' auction. Mike and Gene (his dad) stayed at the farm in Bloomfield, IA to get things ready while the girls and I stayed in Keokuk with Kathy (his mom) for the first half of the week. We visited Grandma Weede each day which was fun. We got to see her new apartment in Keokuk. It's beautiful! There is a pond with a sidewalk around it just outside her apartment building, so we let the girls feed the ducks. When the ducks saw us coming toward them, they quacked and waddled toward us and wouldn't leave us alone until every last speck of bread crumb was thrown out. The girls thought that was fun! The next day, we had a picnic lunch with Grandma Weede and Kathy at Rand Park in Keokuk. It was a gorgeous day! The girls played on the playground equipment and swings for a long time, then we walked over to look at the river. It's such a pretty river. We had a great time with the Grandmas in Keokuk. The girls with Great-grandma Weede on her front porch.


The second half of the week the girls and I went to LaHarpe to stay with my folks. It's always good to be home when the weather isn't cold, so we went to town to play at the same parks I played at when I was a kid. We had fun talking to the cows and feeding them, and Hannah got to see the calf she named "Night Sky." On Saturday, Hannah and Grandpa went on a long ride together to go to Bloomfield for the auction (about 2 hours away). She had a great time, and came back with lots of stories of the things she got to see. The bridge in Ft. Madison was open for a boat to go through, and although that's annoying to wait for that as an adult, it's something I remember enjoying when I was a kid, and Hannah didn't seem to care that she was waiting on a bridge. She just had fun picking up all the rocks by the side of the road. She loves those kinds of days where she doesn't have to share the day with her sisters, it's good for a change. And Alli, Carrie, Grandma and I had a great day in LaHarpe. We went to the reservoir to try out their teeter-totter. Alli liked the one at the other park and wanted to try a different one, so we did. They both were missing a handle! Welcome to small town. At least they still have teeter-totters! Anyway, we had a great week, and wish we could have more fun grandparent days like these.

Here is the town reservoir where we went to play on the teeter-totters while Hannah and Grandpa went to the auction.

This is a huge rock that my sisters and I used to play on when we were kids and while it still lived in its home in the woods on a friend's property. It was recently moved to this spot in LaHarpe, which took some hard work and a massive wrecker truck--it weighed 4 1/2 tons!

Grandpa and the girls on a walk down the lane to see the cows.

Some funny things I need to write down before I forget:
Alli had to go potty while we were driving. Hannah thought she needed to announce it and said, "Alli needs to go potty real bad." Alli replied, "NOT BAD, Hannah, I got to go GOOD!"

She doesn't like to be called "silly, goofy, funny" or anything like that. When someone says "you're silly" she crinkles up her eyebrows and says, "I'm NOT silly, I'm Alli Kate!"

Carrie is our comforter in this family. Whenever one of her sisters starts to cry, she drops whatever she's doing--even if it's eating (one of her favorite things)--says, "Oh No!", runs to them and gives them a big hug until they stop crying. Now Alli has started to call for Carrie when she gets sad.

Hannah is having a great time in school. Yesterday we all got to go along on a field trip to our church's children's minister's farm. She has llamas, goats, chickens, a horse, cat, dog, etc. We fed the goats then went on a walk to collect things from the woods. Then we had a snack and games in the back yard. She has a beautiful property, and the kids had a great time.

Mrs. Caudill had fun games for the kids while were were on the field trip, since all the little siblings were playing too, it made for some interesting "rules" to the games! Under the parachute!

Here is Hannah and her friend Makayla at the Children's minister's house on her class field trip.

Apple Works

Today we went to the apple orchard that's a few miles from us with our mom's group from church. The girls had fun riding their train, playing in the barn with a giant slide, and petting and feeding the goats, chickens, and alpaca. An alpaca is like a smaller version of a llama, and it's sooooo cute! I think maybe I can convice Michael to let us get one as a pet! :) just kidding.

Dave and Sharon Johnson from Keokuk have been staying here in their RV for the past couple weeks. They are planning on staying for a few more weeks. They are retired and they travel around in their RV--what a fun life! We've been having a good time catching up with them. Last night Mike and David went to the camp's men's meeting at Plainfield Christian Church. They got to see Mark Proctor leading the music. While they were gone, Sharon came over for a girl's night at our house. We had fun playing with the girls and after they were in bed the guys came home so we got in some good chatting time!

Great-grandma Weede and Hannah's birthday

A few days before Hannah's birthday her preschool teacher told us to bring in a birthday snack and and drink to share with her classmates on her birthday, so Hannah chose to make white cupcakes with pink frosting and sprinkles. Alli, Carrie, and I took the cupcakes, princess plates, and pink lemonade to her class on her birthday. Then Mrs. Caudill told all the kids go into the classroom except Hannah and two friends that she chose to stay with her. While her other classmates were in the room they set up the plates, cups, and cupcakes, lit a candle holder with five candles, turned off the lights, and called for her to come in. When she and her two friends came in everyone yelled, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" to her. She got to sit at a table with her two friends. After cupcakes Hannah got to choose five games to play with her class. She chose "duck, duck goose", the "cookie jar" game, the "lion ate somebody" game (where one child is covered up by a lion shaped blanket), and freeze tag. We didn't have time to play a fifth game. I was so proud that she was kind and include her sisters in the games, and her sisters felt very important sitting there playing an organized game with the bigger kids.

At supper time Mark, Julie, Ben, Grace, Hope, and Joy came for a double birthday party since Mark and Hannah share the same birthday. We roasted hot dogs and ate ice cream cake. We had fun playing together. I'm so glad we have family closer!

In a last-minute decision Gene and Kathy and Great-grandma Weede came to visit on August 27th! We had a great time touring the camp on the golf cart with Grandma Weede. She got to see where we live and play and what keeps Michael so busy all day long. We loved spending time with her and hearing stories about raising three girls. We went to Dairy Queen for supper and ice cream later...yum. When we got home, the girls were in the mood to cuddle up and read, so both grandmas got lots of lap time with the kiddos.

This is the boquet Hannah picked to decorate the table while the grandparents were here.

Cute stuff

A few days ago Alli and Hannah were reading to their dolls while sitting on the couch. They were each reading a different book, but at the same time. I heard Hannah say, "Alli, quit saying that!" a few times, then she became frustrated and said it one more time like she meant it. I stopped working on supper and listened to Alli. She was saying (in a deep, strong voice), "THE POWER OF GOD...THE POWER OF GOD...THE POWER OF GOD..." I laughed, but Hannah said, "But Mom, it's not funny, she keeps saying it over and over and over."

Yesterday we went up to the playgrounds at camp to play. I was playing with Alli and Carrie on the playgrounds while Hannah was in the playhouse/sandbox. She came running over to me saying, "MOM! You've got to see this! There's an ANGEL in the playhouse--a REAL ANGEL!" To buy a little time I asked what this angel said to her. She hugged me, looked up and smiled and said, "He said I was good!" Then I went to the playhouse to see, thinking it was an imaginary friend. We both had a good laugh when she said, "See, Mom, it's a real angel!" while pointing to the snow angel she made out of the sand!

Today while Hannah was at preschool, I took Alli and Carrie to Wal-Mart for groceries. We got two bags of powdered sugar and Alli pretended one of them was her baby. She rocked it, sang to it, patted it, etc. She was having fun, mostly thinking she was being silly. Carrie, who LOVES her baby and blankie saw what Alli was doing and thought her sister had taken her beloved baby. She looked at me funny when I gave her a bag of powdered sugar to hold for a baby. But she did anyway, and wrapped it up in her blankie.

Bunk Beds

We stacked Hannah and Alli's beds today, so they are "real" bunk beds. They were very excited about it, and it makes a lot more space in their room for playing (and messes!).

I'm in the yard near the camp office so I've got the chance to put several pictures on here. I don't have a lot of news, but since a picture is worth a thousand words, I'll let them speak for me.

Preschool!

Hannah started preschool today!!! She has been excited ever since we registered for it back in February. But in the past few weeks if we asked her if she was excited about preschool she would respond with, "I tired of everyone talking about it, just be quiet!" Monday they had an open house at her preschool (which is in two of the classrooms at the church), and she saw that most of the kids were in her Sunday school class, and they had some great dress-up clothes, so she got more excited about it. This morning she woke up to a boquet of sunflowers, a Cinderella card, and a red balloon that said, "Happy 1st day of School!" all provided by Grandpa and Grandma Humphrey. She was "frilled" (thrilled), and she read the card several times! We loaded up in the van and dropped her off at 8:30 at the church. Her teacher, Mrs. Caudill, comes out and opens the van door and helps each kid into the building. Hannah said they sang a song to welcome each kid into the class, they drew pictures, played outside, read a book, ate a snack, and did a weather chart. When anyone asks her if she liked her first day, she says, "Well, I was a little nervous at first, but then I found out that it's fun, and I like it now." While she was at school, Alli drew three cards for her and helped me bake a cake. We decorated for a "First Day of School" Party. We picked her up at 11:30, and she seemed tired, but happy.

Some more zoo pictures

Where does the time go?

I know it's been a while since I've updated this...sorry. And I don't remember what has happened in the past month, so let's just start with today. Mike took the day off and we went to the zoo today!!! We had a great time. I think the unanimous favorite was the oceans area with sea lions, penguins, polar bears, fish, and sharks you could pet! In the penguin area, they had a glass floor in the hallway between two aquariums, so you could watch the penguin swimming from one side to the other.

Hannah fed two giraffes in the Plains, and she and Alli petted an elephant after she had her bath in front of an audience. Right after the elephant, we decided to eat our lunch. I told the girls to use some hand sanitizer since they had just touched the elephant, and Hannah said, "But it just had a bath!"

After lunch, they played in the Splash Zone. It's a water huge water feature that has lots of cute water sprinklers, sprayers, dumpers, etc. They got drenched, but they had fun and got cooled off. Sometime during the day Carrie got knocked down accidentally by Hannah, she ended up with her fourth bloody lip and her first bloody nose! Then when we got home, the girls were playing on the porch swing, and Carrie got her second black eye from walking in front of the swing! They're pretty tired, so I'm sure we'll get them to sleep at a good time. Right now we're up at the playgrounds for a quiet evening.

Oh, yeah, and the other exciting news (most of you know) Carrie has a broken leg! She doesn't have a cast on it. She had been limping for a couple of weeks so a few days ago I took her to see the doctor. He had us go get x-rays and then come back to have him read it. He said it was a "green break" and it wasn't broken through. If we had come in at the first sign of limping she would have had a cast for two weeks, so she was at the point where she was beginning to heal up anyway and it wasn't crooked, so she's limping around! I'm sure it's a lot less misery than if we had a cast on it, and anyway she's getting better every day.

4th of July

We had a great 4th of July! We started the day with a patriotic breakfast. The girls and I made pound cake yesterday, so we had cake for breakfast with strawberries and blueberries on top. Then they colored pictures for decorations. We went to camp to see a girl from our church get baptized at noon. She was a camper here this week, and she was so excited that she was being baptized! After the girls' afternoon nap, Hannah asked, "Is this the day we get to go see fireworks?" I said yes, and she replied, "Ohhhh, this is the moment I've been waiting for!"

We took the girls to Franklin's Masonic Home where they had a huge celebration on their front lawn. The girls got to watch a short 5 minute parade with kids and parents riding their bikes/wagons all decorated for the 4th. They picked up all the candy their little hands could hold and stuffed it into my pockets. The Masonic home's front lawn is HUGE and they have a fountain in the center, the girls had fun by that.

And they played on the big inflatable slide and bounce house. They watched a Silly Safari show with "Amazon John" who showed off his pets: a huge python, a cute little hedgehog, and a gigantic frog. We sat next to a family that was in our small group this past year, we had fun chatting with them. Then, finally, the fireworks. They didn't start until about 10:15 or later! But all three girls stayed awake and watched them. Hannah said, "I didn't know they would be this beautiul!" We got home about 11:15pm, the girls went to bed, and slept until 7:30 this morning. They're taking a good nap now, thankfully, because everyone was a bit grumpy today.


Thursday the girls and I were walking over by Mike's shop at camp and they started splashing in the puddles. Here's a look!
And a few weeks ago, they had giant lollipops. Just thought it was a good Kodak moment.

Monday

What a busy last few weeks we've had here. Mike's folks came to visit two weeks ago. They stayed in Plainfield and were planning on watching Mark and Julie's younger two while the rest of their family went to Ohio to work at a special needs camp for the week. As it turned out, Julie came down with strep throat! So just Mark and Ben went to the camp, and Gene and Kathy took their girls for the daytimes. They came to play here at camp with our girls, so that gave Julie a chance to rest up, and it gave me a chance to finish up last minute details for VBS the following week. We swam, ate at the dining hall, played at the sandbox and playgrounds, fed the fish, and rode around on the golf cart. We had a great time.

Then the week took a turn for the worse. We got a call Wednesday evening that Mike's grandpa (Kathy's dad) had died. Gene and Kathy rushed back to Iowa. We followed on Friday morning. We noticed we had a tire going bad, so we bought two new tires on our way through Macomb, IL, and had them put on in La Harpe. We spent the night with Mom and Dad, and left Saturday around noon to go to Iowa to be with the family. Mike's grandpa will be missed immensely. He and Mike had a common interest in tractors and mechanical things, and Mike really looked up to him. He always had a dream to spend a couple of weeks in at their place helping his grandpa restore his old John Deere "B". It's thing unfinished that make it difficult, but we know that we will see him again soon.

We came back a day late for VBS at our church. I was the director again this year. We had a great VBS, 230 different kids came through the door, with our biggest day being 210! That's a record, last year's highest day was 160. And we had around 80 helpers, half of them youth! The Lord was definitely glorified through the week. I think the kids really got the message, and didn't just try to win silly prizes. We supported the local school system as our "mission" this year. They have a program that provides school supplies to kids who need them. The kids raised $2222.00 for them, and they wrote notes to put in the back packs that told about Jesus. They also completed three other service projects and commited to do one more during the summer. Now that it's over, I feel like the summer is just beginning. I want to do all the summer things we've been putting off because of VBS planning like going to parks, having friends over, going to the zoo, or whatever.

Wish I had some pics to post, maybe later!

Dirt Drying & Dentist Drilling

Actually, no drilling from the dentist, it just sounded good. The dirt is drying, though! The people who were affected by the floods this past weekend are still trying to dry out and clean out. It's on the news every evening, the prosecuter's office, the hospitals, the police station, and lots of homes were flooded, and we are under a boil water order all week. Here, the ground is beginning to be a little less squishy in places, but it will take a while to get all the puddles dried up.

The Dentist...I took Hannah and Alli to the dentist today for the first time while Carrie stayed with Angie. They did great! The dentist said they both have identical crossbites (that's where on one side of their mouth the upper teeth fit over the lower teeth, but on the other side, the lower teeth go over the uppers). He said that at age 8 or 9 they would recommend a palate expander that would push the uppers out over the lowers. He said Alli's front teeth were a little crowded, and that maybe that expander would prevent her from having to have braces, but all this is on a 3 year old, so when the permanent teeth come in we'll see. Anyway, they had a good time. On the way home we celebrated by covering their teeth with sugar at Dairy Queen! But they came home and couldn't wait to brush their teeth with their new tooth brushes. They even remembered Carrie and got her a new toothbrush from the dentist!

Rain, rain, rain!

We just had the longest thunderstorm I can remember! It started storming at 9:00 last night and didn't quit until about 2:30 this afternoon...let's see, that's 17 hours of storming! And it was a downpour through all of it. I've heard different reports of how much rain we got, at 9:00 this morning a town nearby had already received 9 inches of rain. Our rain guage overflowed at 5 inches, but that was early this morning. Our yard is clearing out now that the rain is done, but we have one tree down from the storm. At camp it's another story. At least three trees down, and the lakes were WAY out of bounds. They were both going over the dams with such a current that a car could have been swept away if it had tried to go through. And now that the water has gone down a little, you can see that the gravel is washed away from under the pavement. Mike's been at camp trying to get the trees cut up and all the buildings swept up and dried up. He has a lot of work to do, and five people have come down to help out, so hopefully they will have it somewhat ready for camp tomorrow! Our county is in a state of emergency and no one is supposed to be out on the roads. But I'm glad the rain is over. Now everything will dry up a little, and people can clean up a little. I was thinking about the flood of 1993 when the Mississippi was 20 feet above flood stage! Thankfully this is just one long day of rain and our house isn't covered with water.

Warm weather at last!

It seems like this spring has been unusually cool, but finally it's summer-like! Yesterday and today it has been around 90 degrees and humid, but we'll take that just to be able to get outside and play.

Carrie loves playing outside! As soon as she's done eating breakfast in the morning, she wants me to open the door for her. It doesn't matter if her sisters are out there playing or not, she will play alone for a long time outside. She's such a goof. You can see the ornery-ness in her. She teases her sisters and acts silly just to get a reaction out of them! And she says all kinds of things--loudly! She yells to Daddy when she sees him around camp like this, "AAAAAAAAAAAAA DAAAA DAAAAAAA!" And she says, "Bye Bye Dada" and "book" and "baby" and "Hot! Hot!" and "juice" and "shoes" (which she loves to wear, just like a girl!). She's so funny to watch while she's walking. She kinda waddles, and she keeps her arms bent at her elbows. But she never stops for long. She is so active and busy all the time!

Alli was playing "super hero" today. That means she was dressed in her floaty swim suit (panties showing out the back!), dress-up high heels, and a bright red cape! At lunch we were talking about flying in a plane through the clouds and she said, "If I was in a plane I would open the window and JUMP OUT (as she makes a gesture with her hands taking a flying leap into the air) and I could fly because I would have on my red super hero cape!" When she says silly things like that, Hannah says very seriously, "That's a great imagination, Alli, but that could never happen."

Hannah can draw just about anything! When Daddy leaves for work she quickly draws him a detailed picture "to remember me by" and tells him that if he thinks of her he can pull out the picture and be happy. This is a picture of a bird!

Camp started this week, and it's so much fun to see the campers running around and hear them playing again! There was a tornado a few miles from here the other day, and yesterday a huge branch fell out of a tree at camp just as a group of kids was walking under the other side of the tree. It would have been a bad situation had they been walking under the side that the branch fell out of. God has no doubt been watching out for us, with disasters just missing us by a hair.

Hello out there!

Since I've written last...Alli's fever broke the afternoon after we took her to the hospital for labs, wouldn't you know. The labs ended up coming back negative on everything, too. She's getting her energy back slowly, she still seems a bit tired and cranky--more than usual.

We've been trying to be patient with the weather. It seems like it rains two days then it's dry two days. And the temerature isn't that warm yet either--around 63 degrees or so. But today it's actually pretty nice out.

Today we had Angie's two youngest kids here for part of the morning. I was already planning to have another mom from church here with her 4 year old and baby for a VBS meeting, so we had a houseful of little kids. There were two 4 year olds, two 3 year olds, one 2 year old, one 1 year old, and one 6 month old! Actually, it was a great morning. The kids played together so well, and the other mom and I got a lot of VBS planning done.

Tomorrow is a community 5K walk/run where I'll have a booth set up for VBS registrations. That will be fun! So I'd better get some work done for it.

Alli's fever

Sunday night Alli felt warm as we were getting ready for bed. She woke up in the night burning up. In the morning ther temperature was 103 degrees. She didn't have any other symptoms, but she was tired and "shiver-y". She had the high fever again on Tuesday, so I took her to the doctor to check her ears since we just got through with a round of antibiotics for ear infections a few days before. The doctor said her ears were fine, but her throat was red. He did a Strep test, but it came back negative, so he thought it must be something viral. (As a side note, the kids did great in the dr's this time!) She continued with the 103-104 degree temp all day Wednesday and Thursday. But around noon on Thursday, I found a tick in Alli's hair. It was a little smaller than a pencil eraser, so I must have not seen it for a day or two! Then I got worried that it might be Lyme's Disease, so I called the doctor again. He said he thought it wasn't related, but because of her fever he wanted to see her again, this time to take a urine sample. Luckily she had to go before we left the house because I don't think we would have gotten the sample from the doctor's office! He said the urine was fine and a second strep test was negative, so he ordered labs. We all got buckled in the van to drive a block to the hospital to get the labs done. They behaved so well! The lab technicians had to swab Alli's throat again and take some blood from her arm. She was brave, and they even gave her a purple teddy bear with a bandage on it like her own. Hannah and Carrie got matching teddy bears (without the bandage) for being good helpers. The nurse called with the results this morning. She said the blood work showed nothing bacterial, and the throat culture won't be done until tomorrow. She still had a temp of 104 today, but this afternoon it started to go down. By this evening she only felt a little warm and she was getting her appetite back! Thank God, because I don't think I could have gone a whole weekend of worrying and assuming the worst.

And my long, drawn out story about a fever being a problem is nothing. My friend Amy is at the hospital now with her 5 month old daughter who had open heart surgery yesterday. She is recovering well. Isn't it amazing to see how God can be watching each of us and He knows what we're worried about. He reveals himself to us as our Great Physician in times of great and small health problems.

Funnies

A few things the kids have said lately have been too precious to forget, but then when they are finally in bed and I try to remember...I've forgotten. Tonight I came straight here to write it all down. This might be a little long because Hannah was the one talking. :) At bedtime tonight she said, "I'm gonna talk to God. 'God, I want to be an artist and paint and I really like to srite songs and play music. I want to be an artist and play songs for you. I want to be a preacher when I grow up.'" Then she said to me, "God can give me the words to say when I'm and adult and I tell others about Him. I want to be a preacher 'cause I know lots of Bible stories. I know all the Bible stories. I'm going to talk to God now, but I'm not going to pray because I'm not going to say dear God or Amen. 'God, I love you. You are so good and you can do anything we "axe" you to because you're so smart and strong and good. You're the only one that's good...and me. Please help Alli's cold and Carrie's cold to go away. And help Daddy to sleep a long time in the morning. amen.'" Then she said, "You know God is so strong and so big He's bigger than everything. In the morning I'm going to talk to Him some more. I'm going to axe him to help me not be bad to my sister. You know when you give away love, your heart gets bigger. It's like paying for something and they give you change back. When you give away love, you get more love and your heart gets bigger."

Yesterday at bedtime, Alli said something really quietly, but I didn't hear her. She repeated it really quietly two more times before we figured it out: "I saved the day." She said it so quietly! She mixes up the words to songs all the time. "Do you know the muffin man" becomes
"Oh do you know the muffin man,
the muffin man,
the muffin man
Oh do you know the muffin man,
so you can have some cake?"

Carrie has been saying lots of words lately. She can say "baby" and blankie (which sounds like "cakie")and she can repeat "I love you" one word at a time, but maybe I'm just anxious for it to sound like I love you 'cause it really sounds like "I fuff bbbb." Lately she's been taking all the canned food off the shelf and taking it all over the house. You can track that child pretty easily since she leaves a trail of things she gets tired of. She'll pick up something and seem really interested in it, but throw it down behind her as she's walking off to another room to find more adventures. She doesn't care about a room full of shiny toys, she'd rather dump a whole container of Q-tips on the floor, or play in the potty, or unroll the toilet paper, or take the pots and pans to her bedroom, or chew on the remote, or put anything in the trash can, or carry her "treasures" in a "purse" which can be a bag or basket or shoe. She puts the treasure in and then slings the "purse" onto her shoulder and walks around proudly.

And we did have an exciting day a week ago. Last Wednesday I took the girls to Angie's house so I could get a haircut. When I got back I watched her kids so she could take one of her kids to afternoon Kindergarten at noon. No sooner did she leave and Carrie fell HARD on their wooden deck step. She banged her lower lip really hard and it was bleeding everywhere. They didn't have any popsicles and she didn't want any ice on it, so I soaked a paper towel in lemonade and wrapped it around ice for her to suck on. But I could see cuts on the inside and outside and I thought she bit through her lip! When Angie got back, she watched my kids again so I could take Carrie to the doctor. The doctor said it was just a bad cut and didn't need stitches! It's still a little swollen today, and it's still scabbed up. But she doesn't mind!

I'm never leaving the house again!

Last week I scheduled doctor appointments for this week for Carrie's one year check up and Alli's three year check up. Monday morning I got the kids dressed and got their coats and shoes on and buckled in the van (with quite a bit of arguing)and came upstairs to get a cup for one of them. I decided to check the calendar for the appointment time, but it was for TUESDAY! So we went to Wal-Mart instead. There's no way I would let a van load of buckled-down kids go to waste. Then Tuesday, we started over again to go to the doctor. We made it there in good spirits, everyone was happy and behaving. I was feeling pretty about it. Well, pride comes before a fall...as soon as the doctor came in the room, someone replaced my sweet children with some of those other rowdy, misbehaving, rude, screaming kids! I was so embarassed! All three of them were awful! And is there a worse place to have your kids misbehave? There's no place for time-out, and even if there was, no one in the entire building could hear over the screaming. I couldn't spank them, of course, the doctor is right there. What's a calm, collected, patient, kind mother to do? I don't really know what happened next. The doctor took Alli on his lap and held her while I dressed her. All the while she was kicking and screaming. Meanwhile, Hannah was trying to take his otoscope! He sternly told her no at the same time as me, and she burst into tears. Carrie was on my lap until, during Alli's kicking, I had to put her down so she began to scream and melted into a little lump with her face on the floor. AAAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!! When it was all over, the doctor said, "You know how to tell the difference between a terrorist and a toddler? A terrorist wears the diaper on his head." ha. ha. ha. Not too funny at that moment, but at least he was trying to lighten the mood instead of giving me a lecture.

Today we went to town again to pick up the prescriptions for Alli and Carrie (they had ear infections). While in the pharmacy drive-thru Alli said she had to go potty. I asked her to hold it a little while since we were going to Wal-Mart next. When we got there, she had already wet her pants! I didn't have any spare pants, so I tied a jacket around her waist and took her straight to the clothes and got the cheepest pair of pants we could find.

So between mistaken appointments, meltdowns, and wet pants, I think I'll stay at home a few days!!!

The Big 3-0!

Well, the big milestone has arrived, I turned thirty on Thursday. I had a great day! It started the night before when some friends surprised me with a birthday party at Applebee's. We sometimes go there for half-price appetizers after 9pm, but this time they were all there before me and yelled "Surprise!" when I walked in--fun! Then yesterday, Julie Proctor invited me to a cute little cafe called the Bread Basket. http://www.breadbasketcafe.com/ Mark had the day off so he watched all the kids while we ate really great sandwiches and salads and huge pieces of dessert--yummy! The kids had a great time with their cousins, too! When I got home, there was a bouquet of flowers from a friend who couldn't make it to Applebee's the day before. And Mike got me a new washer and dryer that I really, really like! And a couple at church offered to babysit this weekend, so they're coming this evening! Plus all the cards, phone calls, and emails from family and friends. So, I think I'm stocked up on pampering for the next few years! Thank you to everyone who made my day special. Here are some cute pictures we've taken lately.