We are having a relaxing vacation with the husband’s family here in Taos.  I took tons of pictures today and planned on sharing them with you.  What I did not plan on was for the internet connection to be iffy.  Well, I actually didn’t count on having connection here at the cabin so I was thrilled when the little inn down the road offered us their wifi.  Of course they were unaware of their generosity. 

We are heading down to town in the morning and I know of a keen little local hangout that has wifi and yummy ice cream.  Not sure what my kids will be doing as I explore bloggyland.  Eating homemade organic ice cream can only entertain the munchkins for so long.

The gal on the right is my SIL.  She is standing next to her husband and their little guy.  He keeps us laughing with all his two year old antics. 

We took a ride up the mountain on the ski lift today and then the Husband, Pumpkin, and I walked back down.  It was a long walk - but some breathtaking views!  The 70 degree weather made it quite a pleasant outing. (Please, no envy from my Texas friends where today the temp is certainly near the century mark.)

Cool weather, tall mountains, pine trees - no, we are most definitely not in Texas.  What a nice change!

Welcome to my bloggy world!  I am tickled that you stopped by even in the midst of a big makeover (Oops!  I just spilled the beans to my 11 regular readers). 

Blogging is my new hobby and it tends to keep me busy.  Scrapbooking is my first love but it has taken a backseat to blogging. 

I love the Lord, my husband (who I profusely brag about), my three silly children, and LIFE.  I love people, esp the little ones.  I teach part time at a Christian school.  I enjoy relaying tales from the trenches of mothering three and teaching 18 first graders.  I also aim to encourage others in this journey called marriage.  I know my marriage is not near perfect (although my husband is close) but I have been blessed with a partner who glorifies God, honors me, and loves others.  He actually does all three to everyone. Have I mentioned how I like to brag about him?

The husband is in the ministry, serving orphans around the world.  We have a heart for ministry, esp. orphans.  My current passion is for the children in Guatemala.  I will head down that way in a few weeks. 

In the spirit of loving the God we serve and the children around the world, if you leave a comment, I will enter you into a drawing for a prize.  I will warn you that this is unlike any contest you have ever entered or party you have attended.  You see, you won’t really be winning a tangible item, just the inner joy of helping give to others.  My husband’s main task is to get shoes to millions of kiddos who are parentless.  In order to stay in the theme of missions to orphans,  I will donate a new pair of shoes in honor of the person who is my WINNER.

What better way to party than to give to those who need it more?  In fact, my husband (really his organization) is promoting birthday parties that encourage attenders to donate a pair of shoes.  We did that at our daughter’s first b-day party and had a grand success - over 65 pairs of shoes at a ONE YEAR OLD’S party.  Can you imagine the impact if we all did this just once?!?!?

Visit this specific site for more information about the Birthday club.

Happy Partying To You!

Thanks for joining my “Let’s Help Orphans” party.  I bet you have never attended such a cyber party.

If you want to know a little bit more about moi, you might want to visit here and here.

Oh mylanta!  This is something new for me.  Check out Pensieve for details about this party.  I guess I will cancel my normal wild Friday night plans and join in.  Wanna come? 

Hop on in with many other bloggers tonight 9pm (central time) for a cyber party. 

I must confess I am not quite certain what to expect besides meeting other bloggers.  Can’t go wrong with that.

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This little gal makes me smile all day.  Funny how she can make me want to pull my hair out one minute, then have me wrapped around her little finger the next.   Tonight was Rodeo Night at VBS and Little Miss thoroughly enjoyed being a cowgirl.  She hilariously combined a model’s walk with a cowgirl fashion statement. Oh how I wish I had my video camera handy.  Now that got a HUGE smile out of me.

I went shopping without the kiddos.  Don’t be too jealous, please.  It was for two hours at the big teacher supply store.  Today was the big 20% off all educational supplies sale, so I didn’t want to miss it.  Apparently, neither did the other 100,003 teachers in this county.  It felt strangley similar to shopping the day after Thanksgiving.  I am glad my mom helped me out a bit so I did not have to fight the crowd AND three impatient children. 

I continued to run errands after fetching the young’ns.  They were marvelous.  A comment was made in Target about how grown up the children were acting and I smiled.  Amazing what a Coke & popcorn combo can do for a momma on a mission.

I redeemed my Gymbucks today.  I will confess that Little Miss has had issues with keeping her jammies on throughout the night.  I bought her these fancy jammies under the condition that she WILL keep them on.  We are going on a family vacation next week and do not want her flashing others. 

Of course I made a few more purchases at Gymboree…but really half of it was free.  Kind of sort of.  At least that is what we want the husband to believe. 

What joy I had seeing the delight on my son’s face when he asked the ever-so-familiar question as we marched into Target: “Can I get a video game?”  Imagine his surprise when I replied, “YES!”  I have NEVER bought him a video game (he has received a few from family members on special occassions) so he and I both knew the question was a longshot at best.  Not today.  The husband and I decided to allow him to choose a game for our roadtrip.  His birthday is the following week so we justified it.  The Lad was tickled!  He is not so tickled, however, about our stipulation that he wait until we are pulling out of the driveway on our roadtrip to play it.  He is now vigorously campaigning for us to leave at 6 or 7am the morning of.

I love VBS!  I had supper alone with the husband tonight…again!  I could get accumstomed to this.

A friend is out of town and will return the day I leave.  We have been texting back and forth a few times but I broke down and called her this morning.  Her sweet spirit brightened my day.

The Lad came to me and sort of stared at me.  I asked him what was wrong.  He said, ” Nothing, I just want to hug you. “  :)  Not that he has to ask. 

Pumpkin took it upon herself to be the producer of Little Miss’ photo shoot (the cowgirl with the horse pics).  It was way too cute to see her model poses.  I love seeing the sisters in action.  I only had a stinky big brother. 

And now for another happy bit of news . . .

 My new coffee pot arrived today!  I received a spiffy new coffee pot for my b-day - one with a timer thingy, hotplate temperature adjuster, etc.  (I had been using a $9 pot from Wal-mart so I was thrilled to have one with a few bells and whistles.)  The only un-spiffy thing about it was that it didn’t work!  When I was pretty sure it was not just a case of operator error (the five people from my small group who also unsuccessfully tried to get it to work helped convince me of that), I finally got up the guts a couple of weeks later to call customer service, expecting a long ordeal of filling out forms, shipping it back to them, and waiting months for (maybe) a new coffee maker to replace it.  Instead, I was very pleasantly surprised, first with the kindness and efficiency of the Mr. Coffee representative, and then with the response she gave me.  The sweet lady told me exactly what to do: remove the decanter and water filter and set them aside.  Get some scissors and cut the cord.  Throw the coffee maker in your outside trash receptacle.  Wait 7-10 days for your new coffee pot to arrive.  “Happy belated birthday, ma’am. ”  The end.  That simple.  (Wouldn’t it be nice if everything were that way?)

Had lunch with my mother.  We won’t see each other for 8 days.  As she was hugging my kiddos goodbye and saying, “I need lots of lovin’ because I won’t see you for more than a week,”  I chuckled and said something about how we once went months without seeing each other and now we are teary-eyed over a week.  I am so thankful for being close to our families.  Not just in a physical sense but in a relational one as well.

Today was the second day in a row my husband has come in from work and commented on the clean house.  I keep a rather clean house but this summer has presented me the challenge of having it picked up when he walks in the door.  He also appreciates supper on the table.  I am happy when I meet his needs. 

Last but not least:  I am in the midst of receiving a very special treat.  I have it on good authority that it might make you smile too.  Any guesses? 

Oh Mylanta!  I am about to burst with excitement.  But for now, please take a moment and consider all the things that have made YOU smile today.  Feel free to leave a comment and share one!

The husband and I have gone way beyond our normal spending this summer in providing a variety of acivities for our children.  I have started to feel a bit guilty about how we are not being as frugal as I know we once were. 

So yesterday as I stood in Wal-mart looking at the plethera of school supplies on sale, I was a bit hesitant to begask the husband if I could splurge and buy each child a box of crayons.  Looking at that huge bin of crayons brought back a wave of memories.  I love the smell.  I love the bright colors.  I esp. remember the one time my mom bought me the jumbo pack with a built in sharpener.  Oh I was truly Miss High Falutin’.

I am pretty certain the husband saw a bit of childhood in my eyes so he said YES.

To these!  Three boxes of brand new crayons.

I’m still trying to get over the guilt of spending a total of sixty-six cent on these treats. 

My guilt started fading as I pulled the surprise out of the Wal-mart bag this morning.  Fear of my children being disappointed in the treats loomed in my heart.  (I told you we have been spoiling them big time this summer so I was sure they would laugh at my attempt.) 

What did I hear? 

JOY! 

Even the Lad gave me a great big “Thanks, Mom.” 

The girls were yelling, ” Look, Sis!  Crayons!  My very own NEW box.”  They found paper and sat at the table for an hour drawing magnificent creations.

Here are a couple of their finished works:

Artwork by Pumpkin (age 8)     

Artwork by Little Miss (age 5)

So what about you?  What is a simple childhood pleasure you had?  OR what have you discovered that brings simple joy to your children?  It might be an item like a box of crayons OR an activity such as my recollection of my mom taking my bro and me to the park and allowing us to completely bury her under the leaves.  I loved it! 

THIS IS WHERE YOU INTERACT WITH ME. 

 I would love to hear from you.

What little things bring joy to your life?

Nothing

I sat down to write some inspiring post.  All that came to mind was Nothing!  Of course that sounds a bit boring so I turned to my genius husband and asked him for another word for nothing. 

He casually shared Nechevo (pronounced knee-chee-VOH).

Are you impressed? 

So am I.   I am glad the husband speaks three languages. Fluently. 

I can’t even speak my native one. 

A side note to the topic of the husband being a linguist guru: he announced to me last week that he is seriously considering working on his doctoral degree.

Oh mylanta! 

I won’t even begin to share what all that might entail.  That would certainly not be under the category of “nechevo.”

But for now . . . nechevo about sums up my contribution to bloggyland.

At least you now know a new word in Russian!

Spakoina nochi . . . good night!

The husband pulled out our passports last night to complete some paperwork for our upcoming trip to Guatemala.  Before he could finish the tasks, we had to put the kiddos to bed.  In the process, Little Miss came into our room and spotted the blue “books” sitting on the computer desk.  She opened mine and said,  “Oh Mommy! You were very very little in this picture.  Were you 20?”

  I wish. That would have been many, many years ago and passports only last ten years.  Not sure what she really meant.  I did continue to explain to her that at that very moment the picture was taken, she was pulling on my leg and throwing a huge fit.  She looked at me very confused and said, “But that was a long, long time ago because you look so little.”

The sad truth?  That passport photo, which you know turned out lovely, was taken almost three years ago.

For more tiny talking, head over to Not Before 7.

Tonight the kids started a week-long VBS at a church down the street from our house.  I have never been a big fan of VBS at night due to the kids staying up way too late and it cutting into our family time.

Well, I now have a new love - sitting at our dining room table ALONE with the husband SLOWLY eating supper.  It was pure contentment.   We were able to carry on a decent and somewhat meaningful conversation.

One topic we covered was my schedule (or lack thereof) this summer.  I made a comment on how I STINK at making and keeping my own schedule.  As soon as those words flowed out of my mouth I laughed nervously.  My very own statement jerked a bit of conviction out of my heart. 

You know what?  God wants me to not even try. 

Ahem. 

This made me contemplate how God is concerned with everything in my life, even my calendar.  I know the Lord wants me to let go of everything - not just what I put on my planner - and trust him.  This summer, without a plan, I have realized that my dependency on the Lord is sporadic but absolutely necessary.  My desire is to have HIM as my ultimate planner b/c in all honesty He IS in control and even knows the number of my days. 

Psalm 33:11 (New International Version)

Something about His plans standing firm comforts me while I live a rather impulsive life at times.

Wouldn’t I be rather clever if I just let it go and allowed Him to have my life and mold me into the woman He so wants to create in me!?!?!?  I long to have more meaningful days, even moments with and for my children.  I want what we do to not only glorify God but to serve as steps in the process of God’s calling on their lives.  In order to do this I need to be sensitive to HIS plans - not just make my own.

The husband and I are about to embark on a mission trip to Guatemala in the next few weeks.  My prayer request for the trip?  (I had to think about it because it’s one of the questions on the application!)

“My prayer request is that I can be okay not knowing what to expect and not being in control (I like being a planner and the one who calls the shots!). I pray that I can let go this week and allow God to use me as He desires.”

Not just a good prayer request for my trip - a good one for my life!  Easier said than done . . . I need to remember to keep working on it!

Maybe I’ll go put it on my calendar . . .

The husband has been dropping hints lately that he would greatly enjoy a cruise.  Option 1: A Disney Cruise.  Option 2:  An Alaskan Cruise.  While they both sound inviting, I have a strong feeling the first one involves taking the children whereas the second one possibly means it would be husband and wife minus three children.  Call me crazy but one alone sounds nice.  And for some reason he didn’t mention a tropical paradise.  Guess I will never meet the Carribean. 

Anyhoo…I have been contemplating this idea for a few months now.  Not only am I trying to figure out what bank to rob but how I will keep myself from puking aboard ship. 

I really have a fear of stepping onto a grand cruise line then being in a constant state of dizziness/queasiness for the entire trip.  How fun that would be.  Especially chasing three kids chasing Mickey.  I will for sure be at the heart of every cruise memory. 

If you know me, you are probably aware that I HATE car trips.  Especially ones that require you to, well, move.  Adding kiddos into the equation never helps. As a kid, I avoided tire swings, video games, and merry go rounds.  I still stay far far away.  I have to sip ginger ale on a plane and sit on the wing.  I won’t tell you what happened when I sat in the VERY back row of a plane when I was 7 1/2 months pregnant.  I am sure the poor business guy sitting next to me recalls that moment quite well.  He even joined in on my puking activity.  Such fond memories.

So thinking about making myself vulnerable to 6 days of perpetual motion sort of terrifies me.  The thing is I want to go.  I love to be in the sun and I crave fun times with the fam.  I was about to commit to the idea of one day going with the husband on a maritime excursion until today.  Until I about lost my vittles watching a 3D movie with the family. 

Pathetic.  I truly got sick sitting in that dark theater.  There I was with those classy black glasses fighting off the urge to puke.  Oh Mylanta.  It was pitiful.  I thought I would have to leave. 

Fortunately, my head remained on my neck and my stomach stopped flopping so I stayed. 

Then I got up.  I had to reteach myself how to put one foot in front of the other.

Nope.  Don’t think I have a mature enough vestibular system to handle such fun.  Well, only if you call watching momma walk like she is drunk and barf everytime she turns her head. 

Not my idea of a vacation, thankyouverymuch.

We took advantage of free food at Chick-fil-a tonight.  It was a nice family outing once the kiddos got over being embarrassed.  We got lots of laughs when we walked in and that seemed to spur on more tears and hiding of faces.  We ordered over $27 worth of food and paid nothing.  I guess that is worth a few tears. 

The huband thought it would be silly if we put the chicken costume in good use tonight.  It definitely got a few chuckles. 

Eating like a cow:

As we were leaving, the husband looked at me and said, “That was a nice family time.”  I think the chicken and lemonade caused temporary memory loss.  But that is just like our family - to have a rough time then turn it into a laughing session.  We just often forget we are supposed to have fun and then we forget that we forgot to think we are to have fun.

Now, how was that for a weird sentence?!?!? 

Hope you all gathered some free feed for your herd today too.  Even though Cow Appreciation Day is officially over, I dare you to dress your family up like this and take them to Chick-fil-a.

What . . . R U chikin?