Hello my name is Grady and I like to do Drawings

We were doing a little school work this morning. Since he has stopped going to Mother's Day Out, Grady has been working with us for about 30 minutes each morning. I gave him a blank sheet of white paper and asked him to draw a person. I thought this was a fairly simple, age-appropriate request. He did not. Those of you who know Grady can imagine his exasperated face, hand to forehead, "I can't do it Mom. It's too hard." {I used to get this same response when I asked him to color:). I'm happy to report he is now a coloring machine. It's amazing what a few months will do!} But, he was not ready to master drawing a person. So I asked him if he thought he could draw a super hero. This is what my 4 year old drew:

100 points if you can guess who it is! 100 more if you can tell me where the title of the post came from {Donna, I'm counting on you}!

A New Beginning

Tomorrow is the big day. 

We are so excited. 

And a little nervous.

(Well, just Steven really.)

We felt the need to celebrate.

We went out to Longhorn tonight for a big, juicy steak for Steven.

Elle made a sweet card for him.

(And it's fitting that it's "yella".)

It's a new chapter.

We are so very thankful for what the Lord has done for us.

It was a beautiful picture of the church working together for its members.

Calm in the storm

I hope to sit down soon and write about God's faithfulness to us in these last weeks as we decided to stay here and face potential unemployment because we know this is where God wants us. The encouragement from friends and family, endless prayers on our behalf, more interviews than we had hoped for, and two great job offers so far. We are humbled and so thankful at God's goodness to us during this process of stepping out on faith and trusting Him to lead, guide and provide. It's seems as though most nights I am too pooped to sit and write. I'd rather climb in to bed and read a book {or watch Downton Abbey-our new favorite show!}. It usually takes me about 3 minutes to fall asleep. Our days are full with life. A 6 year old gnarly-toothed beautiful first grader, who never takes a breath. A 4 year old imaginative ball of energy that explodes in great ways or no-so-great ways, depending on the day. A snugly, big-eyed, precious 2 year old who sometimes still pees in places he shouldn't and doesn't always remember to use his "normal voice". Homeschooling keeps me busy, especially now that all three are home every day {We took Grady out of Mother's Day Out at first for financial reasons, but now because he's interested in doing school with us}. And then I still have that side job of "managing" a small tshirt operation in my friend's absence...

Our beautiful Easter lambs:

Springtime Things

We spent a Sunday afternoon at a family friend's farm a couple weeks ago. We went to retrieve a fishing rod Steven left and she graciously allowed us to fish and roam while we were there. She has some cows too and they gave us a good showing with their mooing and fly swatting. I was showing the kids the udders and the conversation went something like this:

Grady: Well, they are all girls.
Me: Nope. There's one bull.
Grady: (pointing at the BIG bull) But that one has udders too.
Me: Nope.
Grady: Well what is that?
Me: His boy parts.
And then there was much giggling...

I may have caught a fish or two.

Please notice Reese's hands in the air in the picture above. We've been around several puppies and he always does the same thing. He puts his hands out to try to stop the puppy from licking and nipping, and the dog ends up doing just that--licking and nipping his hands. And he cries and is paralyzed with fear. We've tried to tell him he doesn't have to put his hands out like that when a puppy comes up to him. We told him to hold his hands up. So... there was a lab puppy out there and he walked around with his arms raised, even when the puppy was nowhere near:). 

It's hard to see through all the pollen around here. It's even harder to see when your mask covers your entire face. I think he enjoyed the ride regardless...

I don't have the energy to write everything out but just for the record, Steven found out from work that we have to make a decision between moving back to Birmingham or him losing his job with Victory. It's been a tough, but great process and we are already seeing the Lord do some great and amazing things and give us Peace.

It's been awhile

It's been a month since I've posted but we've been rolling right along. Some highlights since I was last here, not in any particular order {with only camera phone pictures?!}:

• Our Missions' Conference at church - This was the last week in February. We got to hear from Neal Vinson, a friend of ours from our time with Campus Outreach and our time attending Grace Presbyterian in Clanton. We also got to be encouraged and challenged by Dr. Frank Barker, who lives out the gospel in everyday life. We got to hear from Wallace and Barbara Pouncy who lived in the jungles of South America. Amazing stories and pictures! Steven did some worship leading. Our Sunday School kids brought in change for a local missionary we'd been praying for and they presented him with $55 in class! 

• Grady stopped sucking his thumb!! I could just repeat this statement over and over, I'm so excited and proud of him. He was rewarded with some Star Wars paraphernalia and M&Ms that he so kindly shared with us all. 

• My cousin Jessica's wedding in Point Clear, Alabama - This was over the weekend of March 3rd and it was a really beautiful wedding. My aunt and uncle (and I'm sure lots of other helpers I don't know about?!) worked hard to make it a special occasion for the bride and groom as well as all of their guests. We stayed in a house on the bay that was awesome (thanks Mom!). Steven got to play golf. I got to help with the bridal party breakfast Saturday morning. We hung out with family and Reese got the dance party started at the reception. 

• Elle lost her first top tooth - Steven was out of town and she came in my room early one morning saying her tooth was just dangling. She crawled in the bed with me and she wiggled it until I woke up then I wiggled and out it came! No blood! I've aways been a bit leery of the awkward snaggle tooth phase, but she looks cute as can be:).

• The kids continue to be 'sick' - I took Elle and Reese two weeks ago but they had no "secondary infections" at the time and we came home with some cough medicine. They have coughed and hacked for almost 4 weeks now. Reese now seems to be back to normal. Elle and Grady are still struggling with cough and runny nose junk, but it is better.

• Reese had a major regression in potty-training and obedience for about a week - This happened around the wedding and I attributed it in part to his sickness and the medicine he was on. But for some examples, I told him to go use the bathroom when we were getting ready for bed. He went in to the door of the bathroom and proceeded to pee all over himself. He also peed on himself at the rehearsal dinner so we had to leave early. I finally put him in pull-ups, mainly for my sanity, and he would get to the bathroom in time when he was wearing them. As soon as I would take it off for a time, he'd pee all over himself. I know those of you who know Reese think I am probably making this up, but I have witnesses! He was defiant! And not just with going to the bathroom. Anyway, I think we are past it all now {till the next time, you sweet little sinner!}.

• Elle and Grady started a company - The kids were outside playing last Friday and informed me they had started a company, PCP. Not to be confused with the drug from the 70s, Plant Caring Planters helps people care for their plants. Thankfully, they were available to help us on Saturday. They assisted us with picking out plants at Lowe's and then with the actual planting. It was fun and hilarious at the same time. 

Friday Fun with Grady

Grady and I went to see a traveling theater's production of Henry and Mudge on Friday. There were LOTS of school kids there. We were able to squeeze in on the fourth row since our group only consisted of two. A few first graders were sitting in front of us. One little girl turned around and asked me when the play was going to start. I picked up my phone from my purse to check the time and told her, "Oh, pretty soon now. It is supposed to start at 10:00 and it's three minutes until ten." 

She said, "Do you have games on your phone?"
I said, "Yes."
She said, "Can I play them?"
I said, "No, I don't think so."

I won't start a long tirade here, but I am amazed at our constant need for technology and entertainment, as young as six {and honestly, probably a lot younger!}. I think our phones and advancements in technology are a great thing and have great potential, but they are very swiftly becoming our idols, and taking the place of real relationships and responsibility. And that's all I'll say about that:).

We had a great time and enjoyed the play. After it was over, and we witnessed a small wreck coming out of the parking lot, {probably somebody texting while driving! I won't start on that either, but I see at least 5 people a day texting while driving.} we went out for lunch at Firestone. It was a fun morning with Grady and even better to be able to spend some one on one time with him. **I'm including myself on this phone stuff, not just pointing fingers. I want us all to make an effort to remember that there was a time when we did survive without having a phone and the internet available 24 hours a day:). **

In other Grady news, he is hard at work putting an end to his thumb sucking. We did this with Elle and it worked. So far it has been a success with Grady as well. We made a chart for the month of February. Each day he goes without sucking his thumb, he puts a sticker on that day. We keep a band-aid around his thumb so if he puts it in his mouth, he's reminded to get it out! Grady has gotten very interested in Star Wars lately, so his big reward at the end of the month is the Millennium Falcon he's had his eye on since Christmas. We borrowed the very first Star Wars movie (Episode IV) from a friend and watched it last night. This was sort of a "half-way point" reward. I can't describe the joy I feel every time I look at him and see him without his thumb in his mouth and his finger up his nose. Truly.

Colds

We were all a bit under the weather over the last week or so but thankfully seem to be coming out of the Kleenex fog. We had a box strategically placed in every room of the house because we literally could not go more than 5 or 10 minutes without blowing a nose. Fortunately, the kids are all good nose-blowers which, in my opinion, is a very important life skill to learn.

We laid low all last weekend and had a friend to graciously sub in our Sunday School class. Another friend showed up unexpectedly with dinner and that was a sweet blessing. Grady stayed out of school Tuesday but our colds weren't bad enough to shut the Salter Academy down. We press on even when we're sick around here:). Now, we're down to a few lingering coughs and the occasional nose blow, but again, we are thankful it was just an aggravating week of colds and nothing more.

On a totally different note, I wanted to post this link for any of you who might want to take an hour to be challenged in your faith and encouraged like crazy. I posted about them years ago, but two of our college friends' lost their 4 year old daughter unexpectedly one night, in July 2008. This is Hope talking about Alaina's death and how God saw her through that tragedy. We serve a mighty God!