Fun and more fun

Today was the funfair at Family Camp. Jocelyn Mann and Amy got beautiful butterflies painted on their face! They also got their hair braided. They do just about everything together. I love their friendship. Sometimes I am actually a little envious of their relationship. They always have each other. They get breaks from each other, but never for very long. Jeff is and always will be my best friend, but I would love to have a best girl friend. Someone that I could get together with and our children would play together while we talked or did things!
More fun!! Tonight at Granger was party night. We spent the night just having fun together, because next Thursday my kids, that are moving up to second grade, leave me and move up to Karen Sutton's class. I am going to miss SOME of them very much. The rest......have "fun" Karen!! Actually by the time they move up to Karen's class they really are no longer a problem to us. It is amazing how much they change and grow up in two years. I really dislike the summer months at Granger. Next Thursday we get the children that are going INTO Kindergarten. They have never had to sit for anything. We spend the entire summer trying to teach them to pay attention. After two weeks in school they all of a sudden get it, and our job gets MUCH easier. (This is only a small portion of the whole class!)

So many little things

I have many things to discuss, but none of them are very earth shattering! I will just post them all together.

I took Lauren to the dentist's yesterday to get her cavity filled. She got in the chair and he looked around her mouth and didn't see anything unusual. She told him where she had pain and then he asked her some questions about her pain. Apparently her teeth are just sore from BRACES!! No cavity! I was glad that she didn't have a cavity, but I felt really stupid for taking her in and wasting his time. Dr. Herbster was so sweet about the whole thing. He told us it takes a while to understand your braces and he didn't charge us a dime.

My son caught a snake and brought it home to his bucket, but it escaped! The Sutton's found it in their wood pile the other day. Today, I found it right outside our front door on the porch. It slithered off and went UNDER the porch. I can't go outside now without looking for it. I hate snakes!!!

I spent the afternoon watching 9 children swimming in the lake. They all had SO much fun. It was really easy for me. They never fought, they just played so nicely together. I love it when that happens.

I took Lauren shopping for some shorts that she would actually like to wear. We shopped in the men's section at Goodwill. She found two pair that she really likes. I have to face it. This child will never be a girly girl! It is strange to me how she wants to be thought of as beautiful (which she is), but she does not like to dress or act "beautiful".

I am loving the fact that I do not have to cook for the summer. The salad bar at the lodge is WONDERFUL! I am trying to make a salad one of my meals for the day.

God Bless the Maxwell Family

Yesterday we went to a cookout in Niles. The purpose for going was to say, "Good bye!", to our dear friends the Maxwells. They leave next Sunday to head to Oregon. This family is starting the great adventure of living on support. They are now a part of a ministry called YWAM!


Today we spent a good part of our day with the Maxwells. We started out at their garage sale first thing this morning. Next we took the girls to the Niles parade with us. When we returned them home, we ended up staying for almost another two hours. I took my children home to feed them lunch and to give Joel his nap. Later I went back to the garage sale to just sit and talk with Lisa for a while until the sale ended. At 4:00 sharp the sale ended and they said that I could have anything I wanted for FREE!! I was able to take many treasures, but our favorite is Joel's new bike cart. I am going to be SO sore tomorrow! I took him for quite a long ride tonight. WE BOTH LOVED IT!! It will either kill me or I will be in GREAT shape by the end of the summer. Thank you so much Tom and Lisa. I pray that the Lord richly blesses you both for your generosity!

Blessings

Here is our latest blessing!! The Johnson Family gave us their old couch!! It has a very nice cover on it. Jeff and I would rather have this 17 year old, solid couch than a new, cheap couch. We have learned our lesson. If you can't afford a really nice new one, than buy a solid used one! Couches are not something to save money on! Now that we have two couches, we all have somewhere to sit!!
This is Joel's first attempt with play dough! He loved it. We had so much fun together! He played with it and tasted it many times. I was constantly saying, "Joel, out of your mouth!" Oh well, it is made of mostly salt and flour.

Who has their heart?

Something in our parenting needs to change, now that Lauren is turning 13! To be honest I am not ready to change. This change is going to require me to not be so selfish with my time. Here is the deal. During the summer, the camp turns into the equivalent of an amusement park-water park-teen hang out! It is getting increasingly harder each year to keep our children at home in the summer. Lauren is old enough now to work in the kitchen and help make the meals. She is the same size as most of the team members, so some of them accept her as one of them. She feels very grown up outside our house. She would move into the girls cabin, if we allowed it. She wants to be one of them SO badly. Here is where we need to change. We need to make our house more exciting so that she will WANT to stay home. (I am not even sure this is possible, but I have to try.) In our house all the children are treated equal at bed time, they all go to bed at the same time! Jeff and I cherish those two or three hours to ourselves, but we are going to have to treat Lauren differently now. She needs to feel grown up in her own house. We have decided to let her stay up later at night. This is going to be a huge step for me! I can no longer be selfish with my time! She has to come first, before myself. I also need to make times of fun at home during the day for all the children. The problem with this whole idea is...I am not fun! Jeff is by far the fun one at our house. He can make us all so happy by just coming home for a few minutes. In the summers we do not see Jeff much at all, so our house is not normally the picture of fun. After all this rambling, I hope that you don't think that I am against my children having friends outside of our house! That is not it at all. I just want to make sure that my children feel more loved and cherished in the house than they do outside of the house!!!

What?

Emily (my sensitive, sweet, adorable child) rode home from Granger with Karen Sutton tonight. When Emily came in the house she was feeling really bad for Miss Karen. Apparently Karen is not feeling too well. Emily told me that Karen's head hurts and she thinks she might have a SCIENCE infection! Bless her heart, she really thought that was what it was called! The look on her face was priceless, she was totally stunned when I told her that it was called a sinus infection. I will never be able to say the word again without laughing! You know what one of the best parts about having so many children is......that one of them is bound to say something funny sometime soon!

(Jeff thinks that it would be a good thing if some of our children were to get a science infection!)

Look MOM!

This is what happens when I am too busy to put shoes on him....he puts them on himself!

The mystery bucket

In the last two days alone, this bucket has served the purpose of housing enough pets to open a zoo! You NEVER know what animal you will find in it. My favorites have been the two bunnies that Daniel caught. It has also housed a kitten, a fish, and several turtles. Daniel is such an animal lover. He wants to keep them all, but his cousins and his mother keep making him let the poor creatures go!

Cute pictures

I found this funny picture of Carter when I downloaded the pictures off of my camera today. The girls love to use my camera and take goofy pictures. This one was great. I just had to post it!
Lauren and Hayden enjoying themselves on the porch swing. Their outfits matched, but the camera girl didn't get the red pants in the picture.
Amy loves to pose. This is one of my favorites taken this week!

So funny!!

Make sure that you read yesterday's post!! I posted two very close together and want to make sure that you see both!
I received this post as an email from my father. I just had to share it with you in great hopes that it would make you laugh too!
MALE VS. FEMALE AT THE ATM MACHINE A new sign in the Bank Lobby reads: "Please note that this Bank is installing new Drive-through ATM machines enabling customers to withdraw cash without leaving their vehicles. Customers using this new facility are requested to use the procedures outlined below when accessing their accounts. After months of careful research, MALE & FEMALE Procedures have been developed. Please follow the Appropriate steps for your gender."
******************************* MALE PROCEDURE:
1. Drive up to the cash machine.
2. Put down your car window.
3. Insert card into machine and enter PIN.
4. Enter amount of cash required and withdraw.
5. Retrieve card, cash and receipt.
6. Put window up.
7. Drive off.
******************************* FEMALE PROCEDURE:
Unfortunately, most of this part is the Truth.!!!!
1. Drive up to cash machine.
2. Reverse and back up the required amount to align car window with the machine.
3. Set parking brake, put the window down.
4. Find handbag, remove all contents on to passenger seat to locate card.
5. Tell person on cell phone you will call them back and hang up.
6. Attempt to insert card into machine.
7. Open car door to allow easier access to machine due to its excessive distance from the car.
8. Insert card.
9. Re-insert card the right way.
10. Dig through handbag to find diary with your PIN written on the inside back page.
11. Enter PIN.
12. Press cancel and re-enter correct PIN.
13. Enter amount of cash required.
14. Check makeup in rear view mirror.
15. Retrieve cash and receipt.
16. Empty handbag again to locate wallet and place cash inside.
17. Write debit amount in check register and place receipt in back of checkbook.
18. Re-check makeup.
19. Drive forward 2 feet.
20. Reverse back to cash machine.
21. Retrieve card.
22. Re-empty hand bag, locate card holder, and place card into the slot provided!
23. Give dirty look to irate male driver waiting behind you.
24. Restart stalled engine and pull off.
25. Redial person on cell phone.
26. Drive for 2 to 3 miles.
27. Release Parking Brake.

Friends

Here is my fun buy for the big day of garage sale shopping. Now Joel is riding around in style for only $5.00! No more riding in luggage. The boy on the back is Joel's favorite friend Hayden.

Today I want to talk about my friends! I want to share with you what makes them so special to me!

Karen Sutton- I think that I have shared about here before, but I will do it again. She is always here! I love her availability. I can always count on her to be happy to see me and to have something to say to me. She is VERY giving. She could be easy to take advantage of, but I refuse to do so! I love her dearly! She is a great neighbor. I wish that I had a dozen neighbors just like her!

Jenny Tolleson- She is the wisest, godliest, young friend that I have! She challenges me to be more like Jesus. She is excellent at emailing me. (even though I stink at getting back to her) She is ALWAYS happy. I enjoy the bounce in her step. I wish that she lived closer. We would be great together!

Leah Hitt- When I think of Leah I think of her HUGE smile! She is the most caring, tender friend that I know. She has held me while I bawled on her shoulder and she has laughed with me and made me happy. She wouldn't hurt a flee! She is so accepting of me and all my flaws! I adore her!

Maria Mann- That women is a rock in my life. She never seems to get flustered about anything! She has the most amazing calming affect on me! I NEED HER! She has a wonderful smile and a great laugh ( her whole body shakes when she really gets going :) I used to have her to myself every Thursday night for a couple of hours, but not any more. I miss those times.

Shiela Maines- She seems to look up to me, even though I am shorter and younger than her. I enjoy her laugh. She always knows how to ask questions. She can get just about anyone to talk to her. She has a lot of wisdom that I like gleaning from her. She makes the BEST homemade wheat bread!! Sheila is one of those friends that doesn't change. She is REAL with everyone, and I love her for it!

Paige Weeks- We would be best friends, if she lived closer! She has the absolute best accent of all my friends! She is a wonderful cook! My family has had the privileged of staying at her house many times. She is a very gracious host. We just enjoy sitting around talking!

Rachel Pappas- She is very talented! She spurs me on to try and do new things. Rachel cares about me and my relationship with Christ. She doesn't care much about what people think of her. I wish that I could be more like her in that way. (I care too much!) She has such deep, thoughtful feelings, but often doesn't share them with anyone. She doesn't fool me though, I know that they are in there!

Diana Jo- She cares about me and my family. She understands how I feel about most things. We enjoy talking to each other any chance we get an hour or two free to do so!

Lisa Smith- NO ONE hugs people like Lisa does. She is by far sweeter than any of my other friends. Sweetness just oozes out of this girls pores!!

This is not a complete list of all my friends, just the major ones in my life at this time. I hope that you are as blessed as I am to have such great friends.

Want a ride?

What do you think from these two pictures? Is it fun to be the baby of the family? Are they torturing the poor child or is he loving the ride? All I can say is that Amy and Daniel had a blast taking Joel around the house in my luggage bag!! I sometimes wonder, who is Joel going to "torture or spoil" when he gets older? No, I am not longing for another baby! I will leave it up to his sisters or brother to provide him with a niece or nephew to do those thing to!! Can you imagine? I could be a Grandma in ten years or even sooner!!! Lauren would be 23/ Emily-21/ Daniel-20/ Amy-17/ Joel-12. Just seeing those numbers makes me want to go hold each of them right now and keep them the ages they are tonight!! But I won't, I will let them sleep now and hold them tomorrow when I get home!!

Tomorrow I am going garage sale shopping!!! I am so excited! It will probably be my only chance for a long time. I had to choose a weekend with several subdivision sales. With the gas prices as high as they are, I can't afford to go garage sale shopping many more times!

Another "sick" story

With all the sickness in my house this week, I found out something. 3 out my 5 precious children apparently prefer to throw up in bed! This fact alone is why I never wash their sheets. I know with much certainty that they are either going to wet on them or throw up on them at some point. So I just wait until then! Four beds are now clean. (Joel chose to bless two beds!)

Now you know why I haven't written in a few days. Not much to write about.

Now I have something to tell you about. Today was kind of exciting here. We had a big storm blow through our area, so we got to leave our house and go to a friend's basement!! Yippee. It was a lot of fun. The children played games and Diana Jo and I talked!! I needed to get out of my house and feel normal again. I sure hope her family doesn't get whatever we have. I was going to stay home and just wait it out here, but she told me that she wasn't afraid of the flu. Lord, bless her for that!!

Happy Mother's Day

I wanted to take this Mother's Day post to introduce you to my mom. She has been my mom for almost 36 years now. She is my number one encourager! I can't imagine my life without her.

Loves her family no matter what
Interested in everything I do
Never too busy for me
Doll collector
Affectionate

Makes me laugh
Always looks nice when she leaves the house
Rather give than receive
Irons everything
Extremely hard working

Writes great emails
Happy
Intimidated by no one
Thoughtful
Enjoys spoiling me

Happy Mother's Day (Linda Marie White) better known to me as Mom!! I love you. Thank you for always being there for me!

Cheeeeeeese

This is what I saw of my little boy this morning at breakfast. He actually ate and drank this morning....YIPPEE!! His fever is gone and he slept through the night. We are all so relieved that Joel is back to his normal self. (happy, getting into everything, and playing with his siblings) Thank you SO VERY MUCH for praying for us!!

Pros and Cons

There are some real pros and cons to Joel being sick. The pros are...that only Mommy and Daddy are good enough for Joel. Siblings will not do! He wants to be held by us all the time.



The cons are....that siblings will not do. ONLY Mommy and Daddy are good enough for Joel!! He wants to be held by us ALL THE TIME!!

This picture was taken this morning. He was so sick. He was either moaning and groaning or sleeping, there was just no in between. He is doing better tonight. His fever is gone for now, but he is still very weak. Our concerns for him at the moment are that he won't eat anything and he is not drinking much at all. Please keep praying.

Words of wisdom

I have some words of wisdom for anyone wondering what to be when they grow up. Be a DENTIST!!! Apparently, the pay is great and the hours are few. I don't know if it is like this all over the USA, but the dentist offices up here are not open everyday Monday thru Friday. For example, I called our dentist today at 3:00 to make an appointment for Lauren. I got the answering machine. The office is closed on Wednesdays. I continued to listen to the message. The office is also closed after lunch on Fridays. That brings the grand total of open office days to 3 1/2 per week out of 7. The office is closed HALF the time!! Mine is not the only dentist with few hours, I know many. Maybe that is why it costs an arm and a leg to get any work done and you have to wait six weeks for an appointment. I am honestly going to suggest this profession to all of my children!! The only problem that I can think of, is that they would have to be known as Dr. H to all their patients. "Why?", you ask......because we all know that no one seems to be able to pronounce Herdklotz correctly!

Joel is still very sick. He has stopped throwing up, but now he has a really high fever. Thanks for your prayers. Please keep them coming!!

What a day!

Last night I posted that I did nothing while I had the chance to do so many things. Well, Joel woke me up at 7:00 this morning. He was as happy as could be so I got an early start on doing SOMETHING!! I have spent a good part of my day cleaning and organizing this house. I am so excited, I can actually see the tops of my furniture!!! You laugh, but I am totally serious. I forgot what the tops looked like. It feels SO good!! I love the week after my garage sale. This house is almost all uncluttered!! Yippee!
(I wrote the first part of this post earlier today. I am finishing it now that the day is almost over and after MUCH MORE cleaning has been done!!! I won't go into detail about all the cleaning. I think you will figure it out on your own.)
I am now conducting an experiment. For all you moms out there you might be very interested in the results. Thanks to Joel, I will soon know if you can keep from getting the stomach flu after being thrown up on repeatedly! Yes, you read that correctly......REPEATEDLY!! For all of those who care about the results, I will keep you posted. On a more serious note....please say a prayer for Joel. He is VERY sick. I have never had any of my other four children this sick at such a young age. It just breaks my heart to see him sick.

Camping

Tonight Jeff took the children camping out in the fields behind the RV sites. They are sleeping out in tents and I get the house to myself!!! He is such a wonderful Daddy. Usually when he takes the children away, I spend my time doing some project in the house, but not tonight! I wasted my time watching movies. It felt really good while I was doing it, but now I regret wasting my time. I should have done SOMETHING. On the other hand, I do have all day tomorrow to do SOMETHING!

He loves music

Joel now has a favorite movie! His choice over any cartoon or kids movie we have is The Sound of Music!! He watched more of that movie than any other movie that the kids have watched. He "sang" and danced with the songs. He has always been attentive when someone was singing as far back as I can remember. I am really wondering if he will be a singer like Lauren. It amazes me that this love for music could come at such an early age.

Daniel informed me of something today and I thought that I should share it with you incase something needs to be done about it. Jeff was helping Daniel with his math this morning. Daniel came into the room that I was cleaning and told me that Jeff works him too hard. He expects too much of Daniel and it is going to make him the smartest kid in the world! He told me that Daddy is ruining his chance of having any friends. No one will ever want to play with such a smart kid! I could do nothing else, but laugh. The worst part about the whole thing is that I think that he believed it! He was totally serious. This child needs to be a lawyer. He knows how to find all the angles of a situation. He thinks outside of the box just like his Daddy does!!!

Father Daughter Banquet

Jeff and the girls had their annual Father Daughter Banquet tonight. The girls always look SO forward to this time. They spend most of the time helping Jeff work the banquet, but to them that is just fine. They love to work with Jeff. I must admit, I love to work with Jeff too!! He is so much fun in the kitchen.....always joking around. I enjoy watching him work too. He amazes me with every meal he cooks. He works SO hard and doesn't seem to mind it. I wouldn't want his job for ALL the money in the world!!! I know, technically I have his job, but mine is on a MUCH smaller scale. Mine is easier, but never ending. His is harder, but with times of no cooking for stretches of time. Oh well back to the banquet. While Jeff and the girls were having their fun, the boys and I had our time together. We went to our favorite $5.00 pizza place, picked up our pizza and ate it in the van!! (The pizza place really doesn't have much of a sitting area to eat in, so either we came home for the night and ate our pizza, or we ate it in the van and stayed out for the night!) After we were done eating, we went to Burger King and the boys played on the play place. We ended our night by going to Walmart for groceries. We had a great time together!! We will probably make this our tradition for this special night.


Hey, talking about traditions, what were some traditions that you grew up with and what are some that you are doing with your family now? I need some ideas. I want to make memories with my children and I want to give them things to talk about with each other in years to come!

No zzzz's for me

It is almost four in the morning and I have been awake for over an hour. Today is the big day!!! The garage sale starts at 8:00. I have no idea why I can't sleep, but I am a little concerned about what my thinking abilities will be on this all important day. I hope I don't make some stupid mistake with the money. I better go for now. Have a great day and I will write again as soon as I get some sleep!!

Tuesday night soccer

Tonight Amy had a soccer game. Jeff is her coach and Lauren is the assistant coach. Amy's team consists of nine very energetic Kindergarten children. It is so much fun to watch them "play". If you have never experienced this level of "play" you have to seek out an oportunity as soon as possible!!

At half time the children snack on oranges. They were having fun making orange slice smiles. Oranges are great, but they are sticky. A mom certainly didn't come up with this tradition!

Funny things

Here are some of the funny things that have been said at our house lately.

1. A certain child was having her spelling challenged. (I wish that you could have heard the tone of voice that this was said in. It was very upset, defensive and sure of herself!) I do too know how to spell lake....L-I-K-E!!! We all just about died with laughter!

2. Carter and Morgan were playing on my back porch. Well, they weren't playing, they were fighting. I told them to please play nicely or I would have to send Morgan home (I was watching Carter so I couldn't send him home too). Well they continued to fight so I sent Carter off the porch and I was going to talk to Morgan. She so sweetly looked up at me and said, "Miss Judith I won't fight with Carter anymore." Pause, she looks down, and then continues, "Because you sent him off the porch!" Thanks Morgan for your honesty. A note to the parents...they did play nicely for the rest of the time!

3. Emily was playing with Joel this morning. He was laughing and wiggling around. Emily tells him that he is going to be football player, because he is so restless! (I don't exactly know what she thinks of football players, but restless is not the first thing that comes to my mind.)

4. Hey guys, there is no toilet on the toilet paper roll! (One of the children quickly replied, "No kidding, Mom!")

5. After seeing the new "Our five blessing" picture, Lauren's response was, "We aren't a bad looking family after all!" (I am so glad that she finally likes the way that she looks!)