Good Friends

My good friend Krista and I have worked out a deal where one week I watch her son Zachary and the next week she watches Micah and Lucy.  What do we do when we aren't watching each other's kids?  We take turns volunteering in our kids' kindergarten classrooms or anywhere else we might be needed.  It's worked out pretty great so far, because we moms get to know the friends that our sons come home talking about and Zachary, Lucy, and Micah learn all about being good friends to each other.  And good friends they are!  Today we read "Where the Wild Things Are" and "the Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear."  We played cars and we enjoyed some of the beautiful day outside.

 Good Friends

Micah is looking at Lucy's hard hat...

Don't mind if I do! (of course Micah said please and thank you since they are such good buddies)

How do I look?

I'm outta here!

She is so cute!

ball!  ball!  ball!

Look at me!

The fun we had yesterday

Here is a look into the fun we had yesterday...

Micah being a goofy goober.

Hannah had her first flute practice on Thursday and she has been so excited to practice since!  Here she is showing me some notes she learned.

Here she is showing me her wonderful posture

Last night she was in her room practicing and it was so precious.  It was so fun to here the missed notes and how she was struggling to blow into the flute and make the right sounds.  It might sound crazy but I really enjoyed listening to her practice.

Timmy and Kenan stayed home from school because they weren't feeling well.  Their "resting" turned into massive fort building

Micah and Lucy were hamming it up yesterday.  I tried to get Micah to sit next to Lucy, instead he sat on her legs.  It doesn't seem to be bothering her though.  They are buddies!

So that is a day in the life of our family!

P.S This is my 100th blog post!  I can't believe I have kept it up!  I really didn't have any idea how much I'd like blogging.  I've really enjoyed learning about blogging, and reading other blogs such as:

O My Family

MckMama

Kelly's Korner

Matt Logelin

The logical Mommy

5 minutes Please

for the mini mckinney

and my sister's blog:

Sarah explains it all

I blog mainly for the fun of it.  I like journaling and documenting our life and it will be fun to look back on.  I have no idea how many if many people read my blog but that's not why I do it.  It's just for fun.  I love to scrapbook and this help take it's place when I can't don't have the time to pull out all of my supplies, and lay them all out and make a page or two before putting it all away again.  Someday.

Overwhelmed with love

Tonight I was giving Hannah a hug goodnight and as I started to pray for her, I couldn't finish.  I was so overcome with emotion that I just sat and hugged her.  I told her how proud I was of her, and how happy I was being her mommy.  She is such a blessing and I need to remember to keep affirming that in her life.

So much fun!

Today I volunteered in Kenan's kindergarten class and oh my word, was that fun!  These kids are so little and cute!  My jobs for the day were to do an assessment of each kid on the five senses and to put up a core knowledge bulletin board.  I also got to be the V.I.P reader for the day!

For the assessment I asked them 15 questions and wrote down their answers.  Some of the answers were the same like what the five senses were and what you used your eyes, ears, mouth, nose, and hands for.  Then I asked them to name something salty, sweet, bitter, and sour.  For sweet, the answers were mostly candy, and lemons (really?) one kid said honey and one said sweetarts.  For Salty the answers were pretzels and chips, salt, and crackers.  Sour was mostly lemons.  We had one lime and one sour patch kids. Yes, those are good answers too, I said.  Bitter, I think every kids said salad.  Oh, except Kenan who said broccoli.  Blankey's were a popular answer for something that is soft.  My favorite question was name a danger sound.  A couple kids said a siren or fire alarm.  Most kids would growl, roar or howl instead of actually telling me the word, which was fine.  Made for a pretty entertaining time.  The last question was why do we need our five senses?  Most every kids said something to the effect of "they keep us safe" or they help us to know to stay away from bad things and close to good things."  I thought that was the hardest question but they all did really well.

I got to decorate a bulletin board for the core knowledge subject about plants and how they grow.  That was fun because I got put on my creativity cap and put it up however I wanted.

When I was V.I.P reader Kenan was able to sit in the special green chair and I sat in the rocking chair.  We read Olivia and the Missing Toy.  Oh, and we read through Kenan's pirate sticker book.  He insisted that I read that today.  He even tried sneaking inside the Olivia book.  I told him he could put it in his backpack.  He showed his teacher and then wouldn't let me forget to read it.  So we read it.  Kenan was happy.

I helped get the kids settled for lunch and then I was on my way.  I had so much fun just getting to know each of the kids.  They are so funny and so adorable!  I think my favorite part was when Kenan finally realized I was in the classroom.  His whole face lit up and he just beamed.  I look forward to going back in a couple weeks.

Happy Anniversary!

Today is our 13th Anniversary.
I love my husband because he's there for me.  I love running into his waiting arms for a hug when the day is rough.  He listens to me and is so patient with me.  He loves to cook and usually takes over dinner most nights.  He helps clean the house and does the laundry.  He encourages me and lifts me up.  He is a wonderful daddy!  He faithfully tucks Micah and Kenan into bed at night, he knows how to get through to the kids when I feel ready to give up.  He teaches them and guides them, and loves them unconditionally.  He takes time to talk with Timmy and Hannah and gently lead them to follow after the Lord.
He relieves me when I'm at my wit's end.  He keeps me grounded and makes me whole.
I am amazed at how much we've been through together, yet we are together, forever.  I love him so much!  13 years has brought us many tears, and many triumphs.  It has brought us closer together and deepened our faith in God and our love for each other.  Not every moment has been peaches and cream, but every moment with him has taught me more about love, gentleness, self control, patience, faithfulness, peace, kindness, and joy.
Though it's nothing like the movies, our marriage has had it's share of romance, action, adventure, comedy, drama, and suspense.  We've laughed together, cried together, sat in silence together, and we've loved each other through it all.  I'm thankful for each and every moment with my husband and I look forward to each new day with him!
You are the love of my life.  Always and forever, I will always love you!

My new toy!

My hubby surprised me with a wonderful birthday present yesterday!  He and the kids got me a Nikon D5000 digital slr camera!!!  I love love love it!!!

I immediately started messing around with it and came up with one of many pictures of a birthday cake.  We celebrated Hannah's birthday as well as my birthday on Saturday with family.

Micah playing with his cars, paused to smile at mama, and a sweet smile it is.

An attempt at a close up of some flowers.  Not the greatest shot, but it's all I had to work with at the moment and the recent cold snap has killed off most of the blossoms.

A father daughter moment.  It also was a good excuse to take another picture.

A close up with my 55-200 mm lens

A close up with the 18-55 mm lens from the same place on the couch

This afternoon, it was so beautiful outside, and I was so eager to take pictures of the kids (well, 3 of them anyway).  I brought the camera outside and snapped away.  I mostly mess with the aperture setting.  Here is Micah pausing in the action to give me a sweet sweet look with those brown eyes!

Timmy was loving every minute of me taking photos of him!  He is such a handsome young man!

Kenan finished up his homework and came out to model his cuteness for me and model he did!  When I was finished snapping pictures of Timmy and Kenan, I had what looked like a mini photo shoot.  An amateur shoot, but I think they turned out pretty good for a first time!

All 3 brothers together.  Micah has been known to not want to look at the camera when I'm taking pictures.  You can't tell by today's pictures though.  I was still surprised that he cooperated with a group shot.  What a handsome bunch of boys!

Then I switched the settings to autumn colors and took a picture of the tree in our front yard.  Lovely!

I am loving my new camera!  So much to learn but I'm taking it one step at a time.  Next step is to get a photo editing software so I can have even more fun tweaking the photos!  I've always loved taking pictures of my family and I think that comes from my love of scrapbooking.  I've discovered in the last couple years that I love photography as well.  I am excited at all the possibilities!!

Something I've been pondering

Yesterday I was listening to a podcast of our pastor's sermon from Sunday.  It was about letting your yes be yes and your no be no.  Matthew 5:37 and James 5:12

The very end of the sermon really spoke to me where I'm at right now and when I heard those words I knew without a doubt that God was speaking to me through them and I felt peace about a decision that I had to make.  I don't know if this is a quote from someone that the pastor used or if it's his own words summing up the sermon.  The Pastor said "Let the yes and no of your mouth echo the yes and no of your heart."

Those words really touched me and just because I think I should say one thing because it might make someone happy, that doesn't mean it's what I should say - especially when my heart is saying no, the time isn't right.