Why don't they believe me?

I have told my children, if they cut their own hair, they WILL regret it. She didn't believe me!

I have told my children, if they destroy something.....they will have to pay to get it fixed or replace the item! One of them did not believe me. I am in the process of making that child a believer REAL soon!! I am looking for a great seamstress that can fix this and the other cut that was made. If I can't get it fixed, then I get to go shopping with some money from my unbelieving child!!

I have told my dear husband that I should not be cutting his hair. He wouldn't believe me....until last night.

I would like to be fair in this post. My husband has been telling me for years that I would really like granola and yogurt. I did not believe him! Last week I finally weakened and had a taste. I absolutely love the stuff. After a week of eating it, I am so addicted to it...I can't wait for morning to come so that I can have my next bowl. I should have believed him!!!

Our little girl turned 8 today!!

Wow, I can't believe that my Amy Jo is getting so big. I am not sure that I am truly ready for her to grow up yet. Here is a short video to celebrate her little life. (I took this openning video of Amy a couple months ago that is why she states her age as 7.)

Amy you are such a joy to have a round. You LOVE to be a helper to me. You make me laugh almost everyday. Your smile can just melt my heart. I love you little girl SO very much. I thank Jesus for allowing me the privilege of being your Mommy!!!

Happy Birthday, Amy Jo!!!

Water fun

Emily went tubing for a couple of minutes today!! She had a blast!!!

Amy had her fun on the water slide!!! Sometimes life here at the camp is just TOO easy!!!

What were we up to today?

Daniel's fun thing for today was listening to a CD, while in bed.



Emily is all about her hair. She enjoys looking good for any occasion. Today she worked hard on straightening her hair so that she could go....swimming in the lake!



Lauren and Amy's newest passion is making pot holders!!! They are very creative and quiet when they are doing these!! If anyone out there has extra pieces for a loom sitting around, my family would love them. Even Daniel has gotten into making these things. In fact we now have SO many pot holders in our house that many of you will be getting one for Christmas!!





Joel loves to have a HAMMER (or hanger in Joel language) in his hand at all times. I won't tattle on him and tell you some of the more creative places he has hammered. I will tell you though that he has gotten the hammer taken away more than once.

Her ears aren't working?

This is a conversation that Amy and I had recently. She was up in her room and I had called her three times to come downstairs. (I know...I should have just gone upstairs and gotten her the first time, but I didn't.) This is what was said when she finally did make it downstairs!

Me- Amy why didn't you come downstairs when I first called you?
Amy- I didn't hear you Mommy.
Me- You didn't hear me?
Amy- No, Mommy I didn't.
Me- Did you hear me the first time I called?
Amy- No ma'am. (said real slowly and serious)
Me- Did you hear me the second time I called for you?
Amy- No ma'am. (said same way as above)
Me- Did you hear me the third time?
Amy- Yes, I did! (said very excitedly)
Me- Did you hear me the fourth time I called for you?
Amy- Mommy! You only called me three times! (said in a very excited reprimanding way) After the words escaped her mouth, she realized that I had gotten her to admit that she had indeed heard me all three times. You should have seen the look on her face! I regret to say that I was laughing to hard to discipline her. I will be firmer next time...I promise!!

Now that you are done reading this post, please go over to the kids blog and read today's post. I am amazed at Lauren's thinking and her ability to communicate it. God has blessed her greatly!!!

2008 Father Daughter Banquet

Lauren, Emily, and Amy get to go to the Father Daughter Banquet here at the camp each year. While they are there they help their daddy with his work. When there isn't anything left for the children to do, they go to their seat and enjoy the food and the program. This night is always fun for the them all.

Amy helping Daddy make the punch.

Emily paying close attention to Daddy showing them how to cut the pies.

SMILE for the camera!!!

Little Miss America cutting her first pie.

A quick picture of them together before Daddy had to run refill something.

Good point!

Emily and I were "discussing" something that had happened earlier this morning. We kept stating our way of what happened. Jeff very nicely stepped into our "conversation" and said, 'Okay ladies you are both on the same page and it is time to stop "talking"." Emily and I just sort of laughed and thought...Same page? Are you kidding me? At that point Amy made a very wise observation.....Yeah, they are on the same page, but they are reading different parts!



Have you ever thought of it that way?

Photo shoot

I love taking pictures of the children. Tonight I got several fun shots of Amy. I hope that you enjoy them at least half as much as I do!

Date with Mommy!

My mom sent each of us a gift card to Wendy's for Valentine's Day. Amy wasn't able to get her's on the same day as the rest of us. She got her's sometime this week. When Amy got her card, she told everyone that she was going to take Mommy out on a date and then Daddy. Well, today was my date with Amy Jo! I asked Amy what she would like for us to wear. We had to wear dresses of course, this was a date!!

This is us at the start of our date. (my double chin WILL be gone in a few short months!!!)

Our first stop was at Goodwill. We (she) had great fun playing with the toys. After the toys had been given plenty of attention, we went shopping for clothes!! Goodwill was having a great sale. We bought an empty, HUGE bag for $25.00. We were able to fill it with whatever clothes we wanted. Amy and I packed about 30 articles of clothing in our bag. Great items from Gap, Old Navy, Christopher and Banks, and I can't remember the rest, but everything was in excellent shape. We got about seven pair of jeans (one was BRAND new), several pair of wind pants, and fifteen or twenty shirts. We started out with an empty bag in a cart and finished with a bag so full we couldn't get it out of the cart!! It was SO much fun!!

Finally we went to eat! It was very special to sit and eat with my grown up little girl. She looked so beautiful to me. I couldn't get enough of her. We talked about many things. On our way out the door, I turned to Amy and said, "Thank you for asking me out on a date." Amy's reply, "Thank you, Mommy for coming!" My heart just melted. This has got to be one of my favorite dates of all time!!



Later today Emily wanted to make brownies. She asked Joel to help her. These are pictures of Joel "helping". I have a great video, but it was taking too long to download. Maybe I will try again later.

Buddies!

The cutest thing has developed in our house recently. Amy and Joel are becoming great friends. They have been playing together for two days now. As you can see in the pictures, they also make a huge mess while playing! I don't mind the mess though, as long as they are getting along and having fun!

They are better than me

Lauren , Amy, Daniel, Emily and I decorated cookies the other day. They did better than I did!! I enjoy putting frosting on the cookies, but I don't care much for spending all that time decorating them. We had a great time together seeing what new ideas they could come up with.

We went out today to deliver some of those cookies, but we didn't give many away. At the first delivery, the man was not home. I drove right by the second delivery, I figured we could just deliver them on the way home....wrong. Third delivery, yes finally someone to give them to. Fourth delivery was never made either, but we plan on trying again tomorrow.

In the midst of our cookie deliveries, we went shopping to buy gifts, to give away, from Life Action. We had a blast buying things, but while we were shopping the roads got very ICY!! People were sliding off the roads. I do not like driving in the snow, but I hate ice even more. If I had known that it was going to be icy, I would never have left my house!!! On our way home from shopping, I slid through TWO stop signs and many other places. One of those slips was a miracle that we did not crash. I was going (sliding) as slowly as I could down a steep hill, at the bottom was a stop sign. I never did stop, not even close to stopping. I was headed straight for a truck crossing in front of me. I was totally calm though, a huge God thing!! I needed to turn the corner at the stop sign and it was as if God gently guided our van around the corner and we somehow slid up right behind the truck, without touching it!!! I hope my angels are getting their rest in anticipation of our commute to church in the morning! Jeff will be driving, Lauren will be in my seat in the front, and I will be in the back with the children where sight of the road is pretty much impossible. You know...what you can't see, can't hurt you!!

GOD, I WANT TO MOVE SOUTH!! In fact, my whole family wants to move south. Could you please move us SOON?

We are eating WHAT?

Tonight for supper I had cooked up a couple of bags of Italian blend mixed vegetables. The kids were having fun naming all the different types of veggies that they were eating. Cauliflower, Lima beans, snap peas, and carrots to name a few. When Jeff mentioned that the green stuff was zucchini, we all got a great laugh out of Amy's response. Amy said, "Zucchini? That's a two piece bathing suit!" I will be sure to keep her away from the vegetable aisle the next time we go shopping for swim wear!!

Joel is covered in red marks, blisters and scabs, but doing fine. Not sleeping well, but pretty happy most of the time. Three days down...not sure how many more days to go.

He asked me to do it

I am not one of those parents who thinks all has to be fair in regard to my children, but Daniel asked so nicely I had to do it. He asked me to please take his picture while he was sleeping and post it on the blog like I did of Amy! I went into his bedroom lastnight and took a couple of pictures. I hope you don't mind me posting another picture and making my son happy. He will be thrilled to see it on here.
The weather is getting warmer here. Well I haven't actually been outside recently, but I assume it is warmer because the ice is off my windows!!
Amy is working on getting another tooth loose enough to be pulled. I don't think we had one loose tooth last year. This must be the year of the TOOTH!
I said that I would keep you posted about the weight lose, I will also keep you posted on the weight gain. I don't know how, but I gained a pound. I wanted so badly to be able to read my book this weekend, but I won't make it to five pounds by tomorrow. I will keep working at it though. I am going to win this battle!
Joel has dropped his morning nap. We are now down to one nap a day! I really like it this way. He sleeps one long nap instead of two short naps. He is getting so big. Any of you that know me well, know how excited I get when my children are no longer babies. I love watching Joel learn new things and become more independent! Life is good today!!

He keeps us on our toes!

Here are some pictures of different things that Joel has done recently. The first one is a picture of Joel stuck in the lid of our kindling box. The next one is him playing in the laundry basket. Emily giving Joel a piggy back ride is the next one. They have so much fun together. Amy is the sleeping child with the hat on. She wore that hat all day and didn't want to take it off lastnight. The last picture is of Joel finishing his breakfast. We thought he was done. I got him out of his highchair and let him go play. I forgot about him until I heard one of the children yell, "Look at Joel!" He was sitting on the floor feeding himself. I guess he wasn't done! I hope that I am not boring you with all these photos. It is just so hard for me not to share them with you.

I have a great diet plan to tell you about. I find it very motivating. I am in the middle of an excellent book series. It is the kind that you just can't put down once you start. Well I have told myself that I can not move on to the next book until I have lost 5 pounds! I have been working on it since last week and I am down 4 1/2 pounds already. I am following Weight Watchers and exercising four days a week. I can't wait to get that last 1/2 pound off, I have the book loaned from the library and just sitting on my counter waiting for me!! I will try to keep you posted. I want to lose a total of 15 pounds.

Haircut anyone!

Today was the day for haircuts in our house. I cut about four inches off of Amy's head of hair. She is now wearing a cute little bob (uneven, but still cute). Jeff and Daniel are looking handsome once again. I love it when they get their haircut. They both needed a lot cut off, but no where near Amy's four inches!
It was also tooth pulling day. Emily requested that I pull out one of her teeth for her. All I can say is that when you are a mom you do almost everything imaginable at some point in your "career"! The many jobs of motherhood are different than I ever dreamed of. Worth it...just different!

Snow much fun!

This is Emily and Amy out having fun in the snow. I sure wish that you could be here to play with us. I say "us" because I actually went out and played the other day and I had the time of my life. As long as it is not cold and windy, I really enjoy the snow. There is one more stipulation for me to enjoy the fluffy white stuff...it needs to be OFF THE ROAD!!

Toothless Amy Jo

She was so excited to get that top front tooth out. She had me tug on it at least 8 different times. For losing her tooth she was able to go to the Snack Shop to buy an item of her choice. She chose Peanut Butter M&Ms.