An Interview with Liam from justabunchofcharacters on Vimeo.
What a lovely way to end a week! God bless all…see you on the other side of a very busy weekend…well, I won’t see you, I’ll be blogging to you. Whatever…goodnight!
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So, Saturday of our Kabining trip was waaaay hot for the middle of April. To remedy that, we hit the local Wal-Mart and picked up enough water guns for a whole trip of campers. Fire Away! The afternoon was full of cool water fights.
No, I’m not referring to our friends as old…it goes along with the last post…”Make new friends, but keep the old..” Moving along…
Last weekend we met up with most of the Transue clan in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Turns out that’s the halfway point for both our families! And, that’s also a place with plenty of KOA Kampgrounds.
This was our first stay with KOA and while we thoroughly enjoyed it, I believe our camp hosts were a little worried about having so many children. We all survived and I think they were pleasantly surprised. They invited us back at least.
We stayed in a Kabin and it was super nice and way easier than transporting a tent. We did, however, have to bring all our camping supplies to eat and we had to do the community bathroom thing (which was pretty good trek with the kids each time and if we had to go during that night. That was the not so fun part).
Mr. James. Poor little man had a hurt arm but it just slowed him down. Didn’t stop him though.
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| Where to next??? |
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We had the privilege and excitement of hosting this young, Young, family (hahaha), the weekend of our mission conference. The Youngs are missionaries with Biblical Ministries Worldwide and will, by God’s grace and timing, be going to Scotland to work with church planting there.
We were thrilled to host this family and their fun children. Their two little ones just fit right in and Nathan and Krystal (the mom and dad) didn’t seem too disturbed by our plethora of children. Mark and I were thrilled to have them in the home and talked with them late in to the night on two occasions, not even realizing what time it was.
These are all the missionaries who attended and spoke at our church’s conference. I’d love to get the videos for the Louks up, but I can’t figure out how to embed it in here, so I’ll just point you to their website and tell you, you must go see what they are going to be doing in Romania starting this summer!
And if that isn’t enough jabber, one of the reasons we were thrilled about having the missionaries in our home was because of the great influence they can have on our children. It is our desire that our children seek to serve Christ and to bring Him glory through all they do, whether that is living in a hut in Africa or working inner city missions or a “regular” job in the states. We also want them to be aware of the great needs that are both here in the US and abroad. Hosting missionaries for a brief time gives them faces to the names that they hear so much about.
Yep, we did it again. This time we brought captives…
It just so happened that PJ Day was the same day as Ceili Rain’s birthday. I would like to think that Bruster’s knew about CeiRai’s birthday and chose that day for PJ day purposefully to help us celebrate.. She thought so at least. Papa and Grandmere were able to come up for the weekend. They opted out of the PJ day and chose to actually buy their ice cream. Who knew that people actually do that still!
Bryant gave up trying to get his ice cream and settled for a sock. That’s what you get if you don’t wear your pjs! We don’t buy ice cream on PJ day!
Some people in our family like to wear their ice cream with pride. It’s like a symbol of pure yumminess.
and cuteness!
So, Josiah got some “Purple Dinosaur” ice cream on his shoe. I didn’t realize this and the next day he was getting them on and showed me his purple on his shoe. Being the wonderful mom I am, I started in lecturing him about the reason we don’t write on anything but paper. He smiled and quietly said, “It’s from my ice cream. I have a purple dinosaur shoe.” I had to shut up then and just giggle. That was too cute!
So, yes, we celebrated Ceili Rain’s birthday this month. I still don’t think she had a clue what was going on. But now she associates things with her “biffday.” You know, important things….chocolate cake, chocolate icing, ice cream, presents. She’s going to have a tough time when we get to others birthdays and she’s not opening presents. But she did have a wonderful day. No massive party. I’ve learned now, to save those for when they ask for them!
I’d like to say that after my elephant fondant success that I ventured in to ladybugs and made the cake topper. But that would be a lie and I try my best not to lie. But, I did find it at an extremely reasonable price on Etsy at a great shop by KidsCakes. I ordered it about three weeks in advance and it got here the day before her birthday! The owner was amazing to work with and customized the colors to match the plates and napkins I had bought (on sale mind you). Ceili Rain loved it. We used the leftover polka dots from Tracy’s shower to finish off the decorating. Zoe and Ceili Rain did those.
I have my eye on some adorable robot designs for Bryant’s first birthday! I love that you can get their name on there….and she even fit Ceili Rain on her topper!
That’d be a chocolate cake with chocolate icing for our chocolate lovin’ princess. And guess what…she only ate a little bit of it! That’s alright…more for me. It’s justified…I did all the work to get her here.
Okay,s o she had a little pre-party taste testing for the icing. That may have contributed to the no-need-for-awesome-chocolate-cake time.
Check out the waves in the hair! Yep they’re back. I’m not at a spritz, gel, and scrunch method. It’s wavy and a little curly and it works (no, I’m not pregnant).
Happy Second Birthday to our littlest princess!
This story of absence is nothing short of well, interesting…
It all started when I requested that Papa and Mark work on the front flowerbed while they were visiting a couple of weeks ago. They obliged…somewhat happily. However, they didn’t have time to finish it completely because we were celebrating some special little princess’s two year birthday.
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| The Before: That pile of rocks is our altar. We really need to get into the New Testament during family worship time! |
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| Papa “working” hard! |
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| The Helpers! We chose this project because we knew that everyone could pitch in…and they did! |
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| This is the side of the house that connects to the front bed. |
So, that left the finishing touches to be completed by us the next weekend.
We got to work bright and early on Saturday morning. Everyone really pitched in. We saw a ton of lizards (yay, they eat mosquitos…the more lizards the happier I am…as long as they don’t come inside), frogs (they eat bugs too…stay on little frogs…outside), and a snake.
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| Trust me. He’s in there. |
Yeah, a snake. Just lounging around in one of our azalea bushes in the front yard. One of the azalea bushes in the azalea bed that we were clearing out and Mark was throwing lyme (lime? whatever…the acid neutralizer stuff). Mark threw some lime and then jumped back a few feet. We got out our handy dandy google and realized we weren’t dealing with a poisonous snake. Just a little garter snake. However, they eat lizards. I like my lizards (outside), so I knew we were probably going to need to kill him. But first, I wanted the kids to see him.
So, after several attempts, Mark was able to pin him down with the shovel while I picked him up. Whether we were going to kill him or not was not questioned after that as we realized he was hurt in our jaunt to get him out of the bush, so after letting Ceili Rain touch him (the only one who wanted to), Mark took him off to the side of the house to give him his final resting place. (Sorry Jacie…but it was better than letting him suffer)
It just so happens the place Mark took him was where our cable line was buried. Just so happens that cable line is the same cable line we use for internet and our landline phone service. Just so happens that it’s not buried very deep. And, as you can guess, it just so happens that when Mark sent the snake in to utter darkness, he sent our internet and phone in the same direction. And, we learned all of this on Monday when the cable repair guy came out and found the cut line.
Oh well! He was super nice and did a quick great job fixing it up. He greeted Mark at the door telling us he liked our bumper sticker (about abortion being wrong and such). That was a nice visit!
And now you know why I did not post on Monday!
But hey, we got a nice cleaned up low maintenance flower bed…and I got my azalea bed cleaned out and mulched up.
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| A side view. I’m going to add a couple of more plants to even it out but that won’t be until the big nursery near here has a warehouse sale and I can get them for dirt cheap…haha..dirt. cheap. I’m so funny. |
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| Ahhh…what a little landscaping fabric and mulch can do for a yard! |
Psst: I made her hat! My second attempt at crocheting!
I couldn’t stand it anymore. Our streak of beautiful comfortable weather has just continued and continued. So, one day last week, we escaped for lunch and a trip to the locks. Where we live there is a man made canal. There’s a beautiful area that is where the locks are and the gatehouse for the canal. It really is truly beautiful. There’s a bike/walking trail that runs from the gatehouse to the end of the canal too. k We’ve never biked it all the way, but we have gone down some of it. It’s truly gorgeous. The kids enjoyed being able to breathe fresh air and play on the playground and I loved the scenery.
Proud Mommy Moment: The kids are outside playing while I get some things done in the kitchen (aka my office). I have the window open should a need arise and I can hear them singing at the top of their lungs:
“The joy of the Lord, is my strength. The joy of the Lord, is my strength.”
They make it through two verses and then pause and seem to have some kind of discussion. During that pause my heart swelled. I was so proud. My children are remembering and singing the hymns we sing each night during worship. Wow! Look how “holy” they are! I’m just the best mother in the…wait, what are they singing now…
They belt out with, “He tells me funny jokes and I laugh Ha Ha. He tells me funny jokes and I laugh, ha ha.”
Proud mommy moment deflated.
Now, this verse is not in our hymnal and, after sharing with Mark, learned it is a variation from a verse Mark taught them, “He fills my heart with laughter and I say haha.” Yep, I’m proud again…
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Josiah can be particular about certain things. Shoes and socks are one of those things. He’s been learning to put on his socks by himself and his shoes too. However, it’s been quite distressing for him. One day he came up to Mark looking all perplexed with his socks in his hands.
“Daddy, I don’t know which sock goes on which foot.” He announced. And he was serious.
We tried to tell him it didn’t matter, but to him it does. So, now, when he asks us which sock goes on which foot, we examine the socks, and then declare which one goes on which foot.
And one day that backfired, because he forgot what I told him. And then when I told him it was the opposite foot from my previous statement he got all confused. So, then I had to go back and “reexamine” the socks and change my answer again.
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Speaking of socks. Mark was giving the announcement to get socks and shoes on to go to church one evening. Josiah was running around searching and searching. He finally came to Mark and announced, “Daddy, I don’t know where my socks are!”
Mark looked down and informed Josiah, “They’re on your feet dude.”
Josiah smiled, and said, “Oh!” and then went and found his shoes.