The check in the mail

Elle wasn't feeling that great after the Hoop Shoot last Sunday. She woke up with a low fever Monday so she went to school with me. I took her to the doctor that afternoon and she had strep! Steven stayed home with her Tuesday and she was feeling much better after a few doses of antibiotics.

I'm trying to be consistent with exercising again and I won't list my excuses for why it's hard to find time. But my little buddy, who I share my afternoons with, LOVES to exercise and encouraged me by doing an "Insanity" workout with me this week. Mommy was ready to quit half way in {and I did!}, but he kept going strong until the end. Granted, he doesn't quite do all the exercises the correct way which may contribute to his stamina to get through the whole thing. At least that's what I'm telling myself. And the carpeted living room floor is also not ideal for a workout. But now I'm listing my excuses....

 

My sweet aide at school has a daughter who has been in India for 2 years serving as a missionary to women and orphans. She comes home Tuesday!!! So last week, while Mrs. Beasley was out for a day at her home with flooring being installed and painters painting, the kids made a "Welcome Home" banner for her daughter. It's been sweet to see the Lord cultivate their hearts for her as we've prayed for her every school day this year. We can't wait for her to visit and tell us all about her time in India!

Saturday was so beautiful, we took the kids to Troy University here to check out the bike/walking trails behind the campus. It was so fun! It was a little challenging at times for Reese, who is still learning how to work the 'ole pedal brakes:).  It was a great trail, very woodsy but well maintained and not crowded at all. I'm sure we will be back for more trail rides!

The Lord did another one of His surprise provisions for us over the weekend. I remember I used to listen to Frank Barker tell incredible stories of how God would provide for their needs and I would be so encouraged but also convicted. Did I not have stories like that because I didn't have faith like that? But, the Lord has done some miraculous things for us over our almost 15 year journey together and they are things that must be written down so I don't forget His goodness and grace and mercy.

Our church does their financial pledging for the upcoming year in December so the members have the opportunity to commit in faith and the church can get an idea of the budget for the year. I knew God wanted us to increase our giving for the year and so I made the pledge in December honestly not knowing where it would come from. Yesterday I checked the mail, and there was a letter from our mortgage company. We had to do some adjusting to our budget last year because both our mortgages' monthly payments went up a considerable amount {we still rent our house in Calera}, and we had just signed a year lease, so we weren't able to increase the rent we were receiving. Anyway, I sat down to show the letter to Steven:

Steven: "Is that a bill?"

Me:  "Just hold on a second." {I was reading to make sure I understood the letter.}

Steven:  "You know a bill does not help me on a Sunday."

Me:  "Just hold on."

So I show him the letter and a huge smile spreads over his face. "What is this?" It was a check for an overage from our escrow from last year and our monthly payment would now be lower. The amount lower was almost the amount I had increased our monthly giving in pledge. Our tenants signed a new year long lease with an increase in rent that will make up the rest of the amount! Needless to say, I was greatly encouraged and humbled at how God chose to provide for us to be able to give what we said we'd give.

A little more "umph", a little less blurting

We made it through our first week back at school and in a routine. Grady was dressed and ready at 6:30 AM Tuesday morning. But I have to say, I would choose that option over having to wake him up and drag him out of bed. They kept those good attitudes all week, thankfully! Elle and Grady brought home report cards on Wednesday--all A's for both of them. Grady's report did have a "still needs to stop blurting out" from his music teacher. We're working on that self-control:). Reese occasionally grows a mustache while he's at school.

We spent Saturday morning at our friends' farm. Grady really enjoyed the fire {i.e. putting sticks in and catching the ends on fire and then not being aware of people as he slung lit sticks around}. He and Reese did help gather some kindling and took turns with Steven swinging the ax. We had an awesome brunch of pancakes, deer sausage, eggs, bacon, fire-percolated coffee and fruit. It ended up being a beautiful morning and not unbearably cold. 

I've started teaching the 3rd/4th grade Sunday School class this semester. Last Sunday was our first time to teach, but it kinda snuck up on me and I didn't have our lessons. So we had Krispy Kreme and played Bible Blurt. And I won them over:). We began today studying the gospel of John.  It's a fun group of boys and girls and I'm looking forward to this time with them, although I will miss the time with our SS class. But to everything there is a season!

After church and lunch at a Mexican place with the McClurkins, we all rode to my old high school for Elle to compete in the "Hoop Shoot" competition.  She won for her age group at her school and moved on to the city wide competition today.  This was one of those random things we didn't even know about. She doesn't even really shoot basketball that much. They were asked at school if they wanted to try and she did. We were proud of her for trying something different. She did not win today, but I think she had fun!

 

 Warm-Ups for the 8-9 year old girls

She had great form, just not enough "umph" to make it to the goal.

 

A New Year

We have enjoyed the first few days of 2015. Steven was able to take Friday off and so he had a four day weekend. As we were taking all our Christmas decorations down on the first, Steven made a passing comment about painting our living room {We've been in the house for 1 1/2 years and ALL of it needs repainting, but we've only done a couple of rooms so far...}. The next thing I knew, all the furniture was in the middle of the room, pictures and nails were off the walls, and he was taping the 36 window squares. 

So, we spent the second day of January painting. But we had some great helpers that only increased the paint time by a few hours:). Seriously, Reese is a hard worker and always wants to help us with whatever "work" we are doing around the house. Several weeks ago as he was recovering from the flu, he literally asked me if he could pick up pine cones in the yard. I had to make him stop and come in!

The second also brought about "second Christmas". We had a few presents that didn't make a December 25th arrival, so Elle got to open her gift.....

Good news is she's very excited. Bad news is, she had it for one day and then we had to take it to the shop. Only because she decided she DID want to play it left-handed, so Steven needed a little help with that process. We are looking forward to some great tunes on the mandolin! 

 

In other major news, and thanks to a big roll of bubble tape in the ole Christmas stocking, Grady learned how to blow a bubble. And cross his eyes. And look at the bubble he blew with his eyes crossed at the same time. Major talent here. And I think Reese is doing a headstand on the couch.

We ended the our Christmas vacation with a little bowling with friends. Who could all be siblings. Who I look at and think, who are you and what have you done with my babies? I'm back to school tomorrow for a teacher work day. Then all the kids come back on Tuesday. It's been a wonderful break!! Happy New Year!

Happy New Pets!

Elle won a goldfish several months ago at the National Peanut Festival. He came home in a little bag with a little tank and we prepped her for his certain short life span. I didn't invest much more than some goldfish flakes, some gravel and a small artificial plant for his tank. Speedy surprised us all and survived many more weeks than we anticipated. So for Christmas, Aunt Rhonda and Uncle Luke gave Elle a beautiful 3 gallon tank, complete with a pump and a heater. We invested in a little more gravel and set the tank up. It even has a light! 

As we prepared for Speedy's move to the penthouse, we thought he was nearing the end and we debated transferring him to the big tank. The knowledgeable sales associate at PetSmart assured us he was probably fine so we made the move. He died two days later...

I'm not sure if it's because we had prepared Elle so well, or that she doesn't have much compassion, but she was not greatly affected by Speedy's passing. We had a small service, similar to The Cosby Show's when Rudy's Lamont passed. And then Elle asked when we could go get a new fish.

We have a friend with a huge tank at his office and he begged us to get some from there. We went with the intention of getting three fish, one for each child {now that we had this penthouse tank!}. And we came home with 6 guppies and a snail.

I'm proud to introduce: Yellow, Mellow, Jello, Spotty, Q-bert, Charleston and Sticky!                                                 

Not that you can really see them but they are there and much more active than Speedy ever was! I never saw Speedy eat once and these guys swarm to my hand whenever I come close to the tank and they gobble those flakes in a matter of seconds. And just for the record, the breakdown is:

Elle: Yellow, Mellow, and Jello

Grady: Spotty and Sticky (the snail)

Reese: Q-bert (the biggest with a black spotted fan tail)

And Madison named the runt Charleston!          

Stone Mountain Sickness

Steven was scheduled to work for several days in Conyers, Georgia and it happened to fall during Elle's Fall Break from school. We decided to make a little family trip out of the business travel. My mom and sister drove up and we met in Atlanta for a long weekend. The kids were all a little under the weather before we left. I'd taken Reese to the doctor and she said it was "just allergies" so he was on his third week of a wet, terrible sounding cough. Grady had some allergy driven coughing. Elle was beginning to get some congestion and cough, but the normal symptomatic medicines we do were handling it. Off to Atlanta we went! 

We planned to visit Stone Mountain since it was on the east side of Atlanta close to the hotel in Conyers. We got to Atlanta mid-afternoon on Saturday. It was a beautiful day. The sun was bright but it was definitely chilly and windy in the shade. We rode the cable car up the mountain and explored the top:

We ate dinner in the park and prepared for the spectacular laser light show. Elle was feeling pretty bad at this point and just generally not acting like herself. The laser show kind of made me feel bad too:). It was not quite as spectacular as advertised, but the adults got some serious laughs out of it! Elle and Grady planned to stay with Mom and Maddie at their hotel in the park, but because she was feeling so bad, she left with us, and Grady {since he was the least sick!} got to spend some one on one time with Mom and Maddie. 

Elle was running fever by the time we got back to the hotel and the night was not great. She was having some difficulty breathing, but we had her inhaler and it gave her at least some relief. Her fever broke during the night and she really felt better the next morning. We decided to go through with the original plans and went back to Stone Mountain after a leisurely breakfast and met Mom, Maddie and Grady there. The tweak in the plan was to take it easy, ride the train and do our best to not let Elle get really active and out of breath, literally. 

The kids enjoyed the Camp Highland Outpost that had a low ropes course, rock climbing wall and zip line. Elle wanted to do the "Sky Hike" which was the adult version with nothing low about it?! They harnessed you in and you walked across boards and tight ropes and moving bridges lots of feet up in the air. There were 3 levels but I headed back down to solid ground after level one. It was a little scarier than I thought, but a fun example of "faith"! Elle and Steven completed Levels 1 & 2 and she loved it! 

Mom and Maddie stayed with us Sunday night in Conyers. It was a little worse than Saturday night. Lots of coughing and inhaler taking and crazy breathing sounds. Monday, Steven headed off to work and we were left to find something fun to do around the town of Conyers. Well, sister was not better and the inhaler was not helping and she was struggling to get a good breath. She obviously begins to get lethargic and that's when I know she needs more help than the inhaler is giving her. We found an immediate care place and went in. Thankfully, difficulty breathing is high up on the priority list {especially in a child!}, so we were back in a room really quickly. Mom and Maddie left in the car with the boys so they didn't have to wait with us. The doc came in and listened to Elle and said she had pneumonia. I was very thankful we decided to come to the doctor:). They gave her a breathing treatment and she was immediately much better. Meanwhile, I'm texting my sister that Elle has pneumonia and she sends this back: Reese just threw up all over the car.

Elle and I finish up with her treatment and the doctor. He tells us to come back and see him if we will be in town the next day and to see her pediatrician as soon as we get back home. Oh and if she got worse to go to the ER:). We go outside and Mom has the car parked on the side of the building with all the doors opened, trying to clean up vomit. I had no napkins or wipes or anything in the car?! We drove right up the road to CVS. While we waited on Elle's steroid and antibiotic to be filled, we Clorox wiped seats, doors, etc., etc. I had no extra clothes in the car either so my poor boy rode back to the hotel with a sweatshirt and sock and shoes on. Nothing on the bottom. 

Mom and Maddie were so glad they stayed to spend that day with us! Seriously, I was so thankful they were there to help me. And they were troopers to deal with vomit. After we all got settled back at the hotel, they bolted as fast as they could:). We started Elle's medicines and Reese didn't throw up again. The night was better but her lungs were still really tight. We packed up the next morning and got ready to head home but she was almost in the same position as the day before. I didn't have a good feeling about driving four hours by myself with her like that. So back to the immediate care place we went! The doctor wanted us to go see a local pediatrician. Her lungs sounded a little better but her oxygen saturation was still really low. {It should be 95-100% on room air and Elle's was 87%} After an hour at the immediate care place, we went to the pediatrician's office. He gave her another breathing treatment and her pulse ox came up to 93%. After 2 1/2 hours at various doctor's offices, we met Steven for lunch and then headed home. Her recovery was slow, but thankfully she was out of school and we just took it easy. And thankfully, she did not require hospitalization. The wet coughs are still lingering but I think that's due, in part, to the massive amount of peanut harvesting that's been going on. Hopefully, it's coming to an end and our coughs will as well!!

October

Wow, October. Where did you go? You were a fun, full month. I have to confess that I rarely pick up my good digital camera anymore. The phone is so convenient and I almost always have it with me to capture the moments here and there. And because of that, all of October will be phone pictures with no fancy editing. Here's a recap of the month:

We did a unit on apples in kindergarten and made applesauce while tasting several different kinds. And let me just say here that school is going well. It has a different feel than it did with Elle because they are different children and learn in different ways. He still has a positive attitude towards completing his work and learning. I was voicing some concerns to my mom the other day. She's a great resource for me, being a teacher herself for 30+ years, and I wanted to see if something was age appropriate or not. I know that Elle was a little ahead of the ball game and loved to read, so she's not a great standard for Grady in that respect. Anyway, I was telling mom that Grady seemed to struggle sometimes with picking out similar words on the page. For instance, I wanted him to find the word "tree" three times on the page while we were reading The Lorax. Mom said, "Well, did he find them all?" And I said yes, but it took him what seemed like forever! She said: He's doing great. Stop worrying!

Two days later, I was in my bedroom reading my Bible before the kids were up. Grady came in, climbed up in the chair with me, and proceeded to pick out the word "God" about 10 times on the page. And the print in the Bible is a lot smaller than the print in The Lorax:). And I just thought, Lord you are so kind to do that. It was His gentle reminder saying the same thing my mom did, He's doing great. Stop worrying! 

                                   

Steven and Grady went on a camping trip with some other men and their sons from our church. This was Grady's first ever experience camping and he was ecstatic! I politely asked Steven to please not give Grady more than a day's notice in the future about things of this nature, because the boy was beside himself with excitement and couldn't quit talking about it or asking questions about if it was time yet. There were lots of manly things involved like squirrel hunting, campfires, shooting guns at a shooting range, eating oatmeal out of a recycled water bottle with a hand carved wooden spoon. I texted Steven to send me a picture that night and this is what I got:

To which I replied, "Not of a squirrel head! Of my boy!!" (Just a disclaimer that the squirrel in the picture was eaten and not just killed for sport.) It really was a fun time for both of them and I'm thankful for a husband who wants to invest time in his kids. Fathers are so important for both sons and daughters and they are able to meet needs in children that mommies just can't. 

Elle participated in Fire Prevention Week at school. She wanted to turn in a poster. She worked hard and came up with the majority of the idea by herself. I really tried hard not to give any directions and just ask questions to get her to think. I did make her draw it first on a sheet of paper and make whatever changes and adjustments on there. And I made her use a ruler for the outline of the house. Other than that, she was on her own. She said something about the possibility of winning and so we talked about how many people would be entering and how it was fun to just participate and the chance of her winning was very slim. (**This picture was about 6:45 the morning she had to turn it in!)

You can imagine my surprise when her principal called a week later to tell me Elle's poster was chosen to represent her school in the city wide contest!! She received a hand written letter from the principal, a $15 gift card to Wal-Mart, had her picture featured on the school website in front of the firetruck and had her poster on display at the mall. She didn't win the overall contest but we were so thrilled and proud of her! 

Reese is convinced this is a Jedi robe. Grady got a dress-up Jedi robe back in August for his birthday and Reese came up with a creative way to play with him by wearing Elle's old pink polka-dotted fleece robe:). He gets on kicks where he will wear it non-stop for a day... or two... or three. Even to sleep in!

After CBS one Wednesday, we went out to the Botanical Gardens with a few friends to see the scarecrows and have a picnic lunch. I always forget about the gardens but they are so pretty and have so much room for boys to run and explore! And it's free! 

That's all I can manage for now. Hope to be back soon with our Fall Break fun and sick-filled week plus Halloween costumes!

Labor Day Beach trip

The past couple of years, we've been able to take a week's {or almost a week} vacation around Labor Day and spend it at the beach. This year, with Steven's job change and the fact that we had one in public school, we couldn't do a whole week. But we did manage to get away for the long Labor Day weekend for our summer family vacation. Even though this year's time was shorter, we treated ourselves to staying on the beach! We've never before been able to stay on the beach {since having kids and paying for things ourselves} so this was a very special treat for us. And we had a blast!

The weather was perfect, even though we worried earlier in the week what Hurricane Isaac might do. The water was beautiful without any seaweed or other potentially harmful sea creatures. Our place was not modernly updated, but it was very clean and nice and had two balconies with nothing but the white sand and water in view. I spent many an hour sitting out there...

Steven was out the door about 7 AM Saturday morning getting our beach stuff in the "perfect spot", least any of the other 20 people on the mile stretch get it. {**See the five colorful chairs and umbrella? That's ours:).} The kids loved the water and the sand and played hard. We came up for lunch and nap time while Steven and Elle went out for more beach time. The Maddoxs were down as well as our engaged friends, Tommy and Sarah. We enjoyed a little pool time that afternoon too. For dinner, there was a group effort to cook the meal at the Maddoxs' condo. I say group, but I really helped by not bringing my kids until almost time to eat, thus keeping them out of the kitchen and the way and by supplying the movie. It was delicious!

Sunday was similar with Steven getting up and out there a little later with our stuff and also moving our "perfect spot" down about 1/2 mile. We gave him a hard time, but it really was worth the hike because it was a spot where the water was very shallow for a long way out and the kids could play out in the water without waves knocking them down. Or without us having to stand right beside them! That night, we went out to dinner with the Maddoxs to a Mexican restaurant right down the road in Rosemary. The sun was down when we got back, and we let the kids go on to the beach with their headlamps and some glow sticks to play and search for crabs. I know we are terrible parents, but I think that is the first time we've ever let them do that (and we've made at least one trip a year to the beach since Elle was a year old?!). We love early bedtimes:). 

Monday we got out there early, but the kids were running out of steam. About 11:00, they were ready to call it. We had planned to stay until the afternoon, but they didn't want to stay down at the beach or go to the pool so we packed up. Steven was not out of steam and the blues hit him. The leaving vacation, back to reality, going home blues. I'm sure you know them. He pushed through and we said goodbye to the beautiful white sands. It wasn't as hard this year because my mom's family is spending Thanksgiving at the beach so we'll be back in a couple months!!