Woo Hoo!!

I just made my first mortgage payment.

One down...359 more to go.

Pretty exciting.

We have had a great time this past month settling into our home.

God has blessed us greatly.

I have had so many wonderful people come visit and play and guys to do non girly things for me.

The boys enjoyed helping the guys caulk the pipes and garage to keep out any unwanted visitors.

I love living in a brand new subdivision that is wooded...but you have to claim your territory from anything that lived there before you.

We live in town, yet there is such a country feel. We are at the end of a cul de sac that has a farm behind it and we heard the goats the other day.

I tried REALLY hard to put the lawnmower together myself...fortunately Carlos rescued me!!

I do like mowing my yard, that is fun and since I live on a slope, I get a really good workout!

Michael's favorite part of the house is the garage door. For some reason it is really exciting to him to pull up and then down that huge door.

Between that and moving the sprinklers for me, he feels like a really big boy.

He is.

Alex loves to roll around in the yard and find frogs. That child can find a frog in four seconds flat!!

I will be so thankful when I get grass on both sides of me. It is hard to contain them to just my front yard and they think it is great fun to play in the dirt with metal and wood.

That fortunately is just temporary along with the sandbags and port a potties up and down the street.

So here is to many more months of mortgage payments!!

***On a side note...I am looking for a swing set or play thing for the back yard if anyone is selling one.

So Very Proud

Michael is my social butterfly.

He loves to be in the middle of everthing.

He loves when we have people over and when we visit others.

Michael also loves to make friends and to talk.

I have been having intelligent conversations with the boy since he was born and now the student has surpassed the teacher, grasshopper!!

So this is why this incident makes me so very proud.

I went the other day to his school to have my parent/teacher conference with his teachers.

I sat there and listenend to his teachers tell me about how well he was doing academically and how he participated in class and answered questions.

This was great.

Then one of his teachers told me that when school first started that there is another boy in his class named Michael who is a talker and was talking to my Michael.

She said that all by himself, without being rude, he removed himself from the other boy as to not get in trouble.

This is huge.

My boy loves to talk and to make the concious effort to make a good choice without being told showed so much fruit.

That boy got some huge momma praising. I told him that this was better than any good grade he could make and that Jesus was so proud.

My big boy.

It Makes Sense If You Really Think About It

I love conversations when kids say something extremely funny but it really does makes sense.

Last night Chelsi Pohlmeier came over for dinner.

Five minutes after dinner Michael said that he was hungry and I jokingly told him to go chew on his cud, which led him to tell me that cows have four stomachs.

This turned into a conversation about the different functions of the body.

Boys always talk about bodily functions.

We were trying to figure out what the gallbladder does and figured that it filters something from the liver.

Then we decided that the appendix is a useless part of the body.

Alex said that the hair was a useless part of the body too.

Smart Chelsi said that hair is dead protein.

Alex looked at her and said 'that's why it lays down'.

Can't argue with that.

When The Wind Blows...What a Child Will Say!

Like most people on Saturday morning, we were at our house hunkering down. We were stocked up on water and non perishables, I even let my children get hot fudge sundae poptarts...what will they think of next?

I don't know, but my children were happy and bouncing off the walls AND INSIDE...what was I thinking??!!

So we were cuddled up on the couch watching the local news to see what Ike was doing. Since we don't have cable, we were watching channel 3 with rabbit ears...fun!!

We were listening to all of the locals on the phone telling of trees that were uprooted and fences that were down.

I kept hearing a banging on one side of my house. Now since I have new construction on both sides of me, I was a little nervous. I had secured everything on my property, but with jobsites there is always debris.

Alex jumped up and looked out his window. We saw that the gate was open and banging in the wind.

He looked at me with all seriousness (unusual for Alex) and said "mom, the gate is banging on the fence, quick we have to call the TV station and tell them".

I love these children!!!

Glitter

Yeah for Mary.

She came over last night so that she and Alex could do his "All about me bag".

There was glitter and glue and paint everywhere, they made handprints and dinosaurs and glittery shapes...fortunately they did it on the driveway which made me very happy.

I am so thankful for fun people who like to do these things and play with my kids.

My kids like it too because they are like big kids themselves, but yet they still say "dude, that's not ok and point them to Jesus'.

They like that I feed them!

That, I CAN do!!

Kari, I am going to take you up on your offer soon and so you know my kids think Dakota, Kye and Kru's mom is pretty cool.

Then it rained and washed it all away.

I never really wished for it to rain until I owned my own home. I keep thinking 'if it rains, I won't have to water'.

Fortunately, Michael has become very useful in the fact that I can say 'go move the sprinkler down a couple of feet', and he does.

I even showed him how to crimp the hose when he moves it and now he doesn't come back soaking wet.

You think all kinds of things when you own a home. Like 'if that goes down the drain, I'm in trouble' or 'who am I going to call if Alex flushes something else down the toilet'.

Notice something else, yes getting the train back was not fun!!

So Not My Gift

We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man's gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully. Romans 12:6-8

The Lord has blessed me with several of these gifts.

The one thing He did not bless me with is creativity. Now don't get me wrong, I can make up a story with the best of them and I love to write and use my imagination.

The one area of creativity that I am not blessed with is art or ANYTHING related to it.

Even scrapbooking makes me cringe. I do very nicely sticking all of my pictures in those cute boxes made specifically for that purpose.

My children did not inherit this gift either.

We are in trouble this year.

Both of my childrens teachers seem to love sending home homework that requires painting and artsy "All About Me" pictures and creating journals.

It is hard to encourage my children to do this when I am standing there thinking 'where in the world do I begin'?

I had to ask Kaylene this morning if she had any of that paint stuff to make handprints because Alex has a big project due next week that is all coloring, painting drawing and decorating!!!

The Lord knew I was going to have to go through this.

He also says that we are one body, many parts...so if this is your gifting and you want to help me, I will receive it joyfully.