Double Digits!

The new tradition in our home was dad's growing up: As soon as the birthday boy/girl gets up, they get their presents accompanied with the Happy Birthday song. I love this one.
And fittingly he opened legos and more legos....

He ate Legos for breakfast!

I love this shot, dad cancelled his morning to put this together :)

GG and Gramps came!

Booger was played....

This birthday boy likes Brownies ala mode. He wanted to make footballs but settled on stars.

2 days old

Yes...yes she did.

I love it. I didn't let her go as short as she wanted in the back. Next time I will. It was the pony tail they gave me that threw me into shock! She wants it about three inches higher in the back.

We also ate out at WING STOP last night and our oldest gave it the "best chicken place ever!" He even made me take the picture of the paper in the bottom of the basket. It proudly claims:The Wing Experts.

They are: they said 10 minutes and in 10 minutes they brought us a 3 different kind of chicken strips, a huge basket of fresh seasoned fries, and free refills on a BIG root beer. I have to agree. Best chicken place ever!

(They also play sports on three screens.)

Here is one of the pumpkins we got last Monday. If you've seen BOLT the movie, you will understand how funny his pumpkin is. the hamster "Rhino" made this face in his hamster ball when he was ready to fight. And that's what he asked daddy to carve. "Let it begin!"

We went to love creek orchard as a family. No I didn't bring the camera. So I would actually be with the family. Regretting regretting..Everything we did from hay ride, pony rides, singing with two honky-tonk Christians with spoons! Chasing wild turkey around a pond. They all said the same thing.."do you have your camera? Take a pic!" ugh!.....Never-the-less, great time with their dad. We, being high school sweethearts, were amazed at where God has brought us as we walked 4 beautiful kids in hand across the field. For the parents and siblings around for those roller coaster days you can join in with the wonder of it all. Life is still a ride but this time, I don't want to get off! I just read psalm 139 last night and these verses rang true. No matter what we have done, how far we ran, in Christ we are in His favor: surely goodness and mercy shall follow us all our days.

"You both precede and follow me. You place your hand of blessing on my head.

How precious are your thoughts about me, O God! They are innumerable!

Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life. "

Love to you all and have a blessed week!

Let it Begin!

We had a great time last game day. Our cheeks were sore from smiling! it was hilarious to see the younger kids "play". At the beginning you could hear our little one singing, "evewy body is kung-fu fighting! HOO- HA!" with all the kicks and chops for affect. We were so proud.

The Dragons

The Bluebirds

The Ref said these two girls teams were the most aggressive group of players she had seen all day. Ya, we all took it as a compliment.

The Steelers

The Raiders

I have to confess, I cried at the first game of the day. One of the boys got excited during a play and elbowed a team member right in the eye. Who then cried all the way off the field covering his wounded eye. As a mother I only cared for my son slightly embarrassed. I just smiled and said "it's ok! Keep going!" I could see he felt really bad. I found my heart was strangely outside my chest and in the middle of a football field surrounded by 8 year olds. He went right back into " game mode". I, on the other hand, was a bucket of emotions. I had to laugh at myself. I also knew this is the same love of the Father. I know He hurts for us, and laughs with us. (And quite possibly chuckling at me too.)

School's In!

1st practice:

He felt led to help the coaches talk to the parents. We all got a chuckle with how comfortable he was taking over things.

Somehow Classical music and this dress inspired her heels and as he put it "I need something handsome for me"

Baking together

Making Slime

Having a closer look at an ant bed.

Nature walk challenges in our neighbor hood: To just look and discover things they were interested in.

This was my favorite part, He would walk a while and suddenly I would hear a desperate voice, "Momma! I need a hand!" He wasn't falling, just nervous about how tall the grass would get. For this to come from my most independent, this was sweet music to my ears.

we searched for any signs of Who's on this clover from a weed!?!

I looked up and had to take a picture of the beautiful Texas sky

Here is a science experiment on Sea creatures: The challenge was to see how long they could hold their hand in ice water with one rubber glove, then we added a layer of Vegetable Shortening (blubber) and timed ourselves again. The time went up from 45 seconds to about 3 minutes. But mostly lasting longer than the other brother!

Off the Grid

We had a once in a life time opportunity last week. GG blessed us with an all expense paid cruise to....the Bahamas! Naturally we saw God's hand all over it. Something we could not afford in a time we needed it the most and never could have earned it. It was like a glimpse of Heaven. We can't thank the Lord enough or GG. So we decided to take the blessings we received and start putting them to practice in our own lives. Like what you ask? Besides send others on a cruise??? Well. I'll tell you. I felt so free to try so many new things because their was always the option to change my mind with no hassle. Simply generous and truly catered to. They really wanted to know what I personally enjoyed and then ...did it. Basically "my hearts desires"

Our 4 blessings got to hit the town with Gram for a week. Which I heard their hearts desires was also the goal for a whole week. I didn't feel spoiled just treasured. Now if I throw a huge fit when one desire is not met then yes: bad things. Truly Godliness with Contentment is great gain. You could be as unique as you wanted. Which before I would have called that "difficult or time consuming". I think it was that Extra Mile With A Smile. They never made us feel like an imposition, but they would re-assured "that's why we're here: FOR YOU". We really were impressed by that and realized that's been missing in our home. So hopefully our kids will feel the change that has taken place in our hearts. We came home blessed and better. For all who made that possible THANK YOU. You'll never know how much we needed that time away to refresh our love for each other and our kids. To know God has incredible things in the line up not just difficult things. To know we are thought of in such a kind way...you've touched our hearts.

Psalm 103:1-5, “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name! Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.”

I must explain the towel bunny. Every night when replacing any towels, the room keeper makes fun animals. the first night was an elephant wearing my sunglasses. We laughed. The next night we really forgot about this event. and I walked into a monkey hanging from the ceiling. It had eyes and a long tail. Scared me half to death. I guess because I was eye level I jumped back out of the room screaming. The next night after hearing I got scared, we came in the room to find what we called the "I'm sorry bunny".

The shot of us on the beach was my favorite, because after getting up and down like 4 times trying to avoid random naked hairy men, this was what we got.

You can take the teacher out of the school but you can't take the school out of the teacher. We had fun showing kids and parents how to understand the jelly fish. Where you can safely pick them up, what a sting feels like. Charlotte Mason would be so proud. This was the highlight .... these were taken by J as he swam with sharks. They were about 5-6 ft. I saw the first one with him (a 5 ft. nurse shark) and lasted about 5 more minutes. I headed back to the sail boat, he went back and found 3 lemon sharks. He was happy in the water, I was happy out! And once again, he took a handful of young men and their dad over to the sharks. He has a gift for making you feel safe