Back from the Beach

We got home from the beach last night around 8:30. What a weekend! We had a great time and it was so relaxing. As a matter of fact, if I'd have been any more relaxed I'd have been dead!

Seriously, we did have a wonderful time of family time. Kendall went with us and that was just an added blessing. That gave Kayla someone to play with and, of course, Kendall fits in just like she is one of the family. The kids all played so hard! Tyler was a maniac and kept us laughing all weekend. This boy has never met a stranger. He made friends everywhere he went. He actually dumped a bucket of water on some poor strange man's head. The guy seemed to have a pretty good sense of humor so I don't think we'll be facing any assault charges or anything like that! We spent most of our time at either the beach or the pool, but did get out a couple of days to do the Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum, the Ripley's 4D theatre, and, my personal favorite, the Ripley's Mirror Maze. Can you say claustrophobic? Seriously, I sometimes forget that I don't like to be too enclosed or feel like I can't get out of spaces. Well, the memory comes back real quick when you are in this room that you have no idea how big or small it is, it is full of mirrors and you can't tell which way to go and there are NO exit signs. I told Craig to "get me out"!!! They had an emergency exit door that warned that "if you push on this, an alarm will sound". Thank God! I hoped to goodness that when the alarm sounded that lights would also come on and point me to the way out!!! Okay, we didn't actually have to sound the alarm, my husband has a wonderful sense of direction! That is one of those things like tubing down the Chattahoochie river in Helen - did it once, don't ever need to do it again!

I joked with a friend of mine that I was going to do a 4 B's of the Beach post, but I guess I will just include it in this one. The 4 B's of the beach; please forgive me for my crudeness, but, honestly, people, somebody needs to go here! The 4 B's of the Beach are:
1. Bellies
2. Butts
3. Boobs
4. Butt Cracks
I just have one question - what happens to people when they hit the beach? It is like they suddenly go from a size 5X to a size 2! I don't get it. Do they not know that they have hang over in the front? or that their equator is showing? And, how is that even comfortable? Now, listen, if you got the body and you want to wear your bikinis and your thongs then by all means, go for it. Maybe this just comes from being extremely self conscious, I don't know. I think for years to come though, that when I go to the beach I will no longer worry about how I look because when you are at the beach I really don't think anybody cares! Honestly, there were several times that I wished for several extra sets of hands and arms so that I could cover mine and my family's eyeballs! I will never forget the year that we went with Craig's family to Daytona and I was hanging out on the beach in my comfy beach lounger watching the people walk by on the beach. I almost fell off of my chair when this man ran by wearing a bikini thong! I mean it was sparse in the front but when he ran by and there was only dental floss on the back side it was almost more than I could handle. BUT, he had the body for it - there was not an ounce of fat on his body. Now, I mean, the fact that he was, like 60, was a little disturbing, but hey, to each his own!

Okay, enough of this. I'm probably being terribly judgmental and I will probably feel guilty for posting this later and go back and delete it, but I just felt like somebody needed to say what all of America is thinking! I feel like Paul Harvey! Good day!(My dad and brother are probably the only ones who got that, but, I hope the rest of you have been blessed enough to hear at least one Paul Harvey broadcast in your lifetime!)

Weekend Recap

Well, it is before 7a.m. on Monday morning. I have been up since 5:30 - I'm ready to go back to bed! I have been doing this for a few weeks now where I get up before Craig leaves for work and go out and walk. When you live in the south and it gets up to 100 degrees + in the summer, if you want to exercise you better do it really early or really late. I am not a morning person, but I have to say that I have really been enjoying this time in the morning. I have been having my prayer time while I walk and it has been awesome. At that time in the morning there are NO distractions. A lot of mornings that I walk I don't even see any cars out and if I do it is usually only one or two. There is not even much to think about that early in the day because nothing has happened yet, so it has been a sweet, sweet time with the Lord. By the time I get home I'm ready to sit down with my coffee and my Bible and, wow, God has been showing me some great things. I do have to confess though that there are many morning when I go back to bed after my quiet time!!! The older I get the more I realize how much I love to sleep!

Hope everyone had a restful weekend. Ours was pretty low key. Saturday Tyler had a birthday party that Craig took him to. Normally I do the birthdays, but this one involved water balloons and so I let Craig handle it! Can I just say that Tyler had a great time! He came home with an inflatable sword that he has not put down all weekend. As a matter of fact, all of us have played with it! We have beat each other with it and cut off body parts and just had a blast! Abbie - this was by far the best birthday "treat" that we have gotten!!! Kayla and I did not do anything quite so fun. We cleaned her bedroom. Yikes! Actually we just cleaned out, I have not actually cleaned anything in there yet, except the bedding.I am gearing up for a huge yard sale and a huge ebay sale! It kind of broke my heart though - she got rid of her Barbies and even some stuffed animals. Craig also told me that it is now time for us to get rid of our plastic bowls and plates! I'm not ready for that! Anyway, Saturday was mostly just a "work around the house" day. Yesterday was church and then I spent all afternoon out shopping by myself for myself. Wow! That was a lot of fun! Last night we had a movie night at church and it was really good. We watched "Flywheel", by the same people that did "Facing the Giants". I would highly recommend it. Not your typical Hollywood movie, so it was really very good!

The week ahead is shaping up to be extremely busy. The kids are going swimming with some friends today while I go to work. I have a meeting at a nursing home this morning and I hate those. It is so incredibly depressing. After that I'm going to go into work for a couple of hours. When I get home I have some Graceful Designs orders to fill and AWANA stuff to work on. Our AWANA starts back on August 17, but there is a lot of prep work to be done. For my WABC blog readers, if you are not involved in AWANA and would like to be PLEASE let me know - we still need several leaders who will just come every week and listen to Bible verses. Shameless plug, I know. Other than that the week will be full of getting ready to go to the beach. Yea!!!

Happy Monday everybody!

Looking for a Better Day

It is a new day! I am trying to gain some perspective today. We have had very few bad days this summer, but you probably wouldn't know that by the way I blog! Seriously though, I was talking to a friend last night and we were talking about our kids and how they act the age that they are. Isn't that deep? We have these children who are four and eight and they actually act four and eight and then I get irritated. Where along the way did I lose the perspective on my job as a parent? God expects me to train them up not get mad when they act untrained, although that is often times a very natural reaction, not necessarily right, but natural! I have spent the last couple of weeks really praying about my kids and asking God to give me wisdom and I think he has answered for today - expect my kids to act the age that they are and have the patience and gentleness to TEACH them how and why their behavior is wrong. Please tell me that I am not the only one who forgets to remember stuff like this. I was so irritated last night over the ungratefulness that my children showed after trying to have some family fun, but, honestly, should I expect anything less? I'm not saying that it is right by any means, but gratefulness needs to be taught. I have struggled with this so much since coming home from Mexico. I just want to put my kids on a plane and fly them to a poor and foreign land so they can see how truly blessed and fortunate that we are. But at this point in life I can't do that so it is my job to teach them. It is like I said in a former post that God wants me to train up my children and I have to ask myself am I doing that or am I just disciplining for the moment. I don't know if any of what I wrote makes sense or not, but God has really spoke to me about that yesterday and today. I'm sure that it will be much easier said than done, but that is what I am striving for today.

I'm also striving to spring clean my master bathroom. Ugh! I hate cleaning bathrooms, but, like my room, I'm sure it will feel so good when it is done!

That is it for us for now. Hope everyone has a good weekend and a happy Friday!

Fun and Games

My friend Amanda had this on her blog, and I thought it might would be fun! Copy and paste this list onto your blog, then bold the things that you have done. It sort of like the blog version of "I've Never." Let me know if you added this to your blog so that I can see what you've never done!

01. Bought everyone in the bar a drink
02. Swam with wild dolphins
03. Climbed a mountain
04. Taken a Ferrari for a test drive
05. Been inside the Great Pyramid
06. Held a tarantula
07. Taken a candlelit bath with someone
08. Said “I love you” and meant it
09. Hugged a tree
10. Bungee jumped
11. Visited Paris (not yet, but one day!)
12. Watched a lightning storm at sea
13. Stayed up all night long and saw the sun rise
14. Seen the Northern Lights
15. Gone to a huge sports game
16. Walked the stairs to the top of the leaning Tower of Pisa
17. Grown and eaten your own vegetables
18. Touched an iceberg
19. Slept under the stars
20. Changed a baby’s diaper (dugh!!!)
21. Taken a trip in a hot air balloon
22. Watched a meteor shower
23. Gotten tipsy on champagne
24. Given more than you can afford to charity
25. Looked up at the night sky through a telescope
26. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment
28. Bet on a winning horse
29. Asked out a stranger
30. Had a snowball fight
31. Screamed as loudly as you possibly can
32. Held a lamb
33. Seen a total eclipse of both the sun and moon
34. Ridden a roller coaster
35. Hit a home run
36. Danced like a fool and not cared who was looking
37. Adopted an accent for an entire day
38. Actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment39. Met someone famous
40. Visited all 50 states
41. Caused a car accident
42. Had/Have amazing friends
43. Danced with a stranger in a foreign country
44. Watched whales
45. Stolen a sign
46. Backpacked in Europe
47. Taken a road-trip
48. Gone rock climbing
49. Midnight walk on the beach
50. Gone sky diving

Family Fun Day Gone All Wrong

Well, it's time for another episode of Churchill Family Drama! Buckle your seatbelts folks, it's going to be a very bumpy ride!

Okay, I'm probably way too angry to even be posting so let me see if I can give today's update and spin a little positive light on it even though I feel like saying bad words. So - we were supposed to get out of the house today for a little family fun and I had some things planned. We were going to go to the movies, the library, out to lunch, the jumpy thing...fun, fun, fun. Yesterday I noticed that Kayla was wheezing. She has had this ongoing cough for about a week and the past couple of days it has gotten pretty bad. I called the doctor first thing this morning and they gave us an appointment at 10:05 - the movie was supposed to start at 10:00. I decide that, okay, this is not a problem. We'll move to plan B. This is where things get complicated and drawn out. You see, I have this insane addiction to pharmacies. I love them! Mostly why I love this is because you can basically earn free money. I had already searched and found a coupon for a gift card with a prescription only it was at a pharmacy that is not my fave. Not a problem - my pharmacy (CVS) will take competitor's coupons. Let me back up for a minute and tell you what we found out at the doctor's office. Kayla was wheezing! Dr. B told me that I had done the right thing by bringing her in and that she needed an antibiotic and an inhaler. Wow! I was just hoping for some high dose cough medicine. So I go off to my CVS and pull up to the drive thru and, well, they wouldn't take my competitor's coupon. Great. Being the cheapo that I am I took all of my stuff back and left. We went out for lunch and went to the library and were having a wonderful time. We came back home and I searched for another coupon and came up with nothing. I ended up driving out of my way to the pharmacy that I don't like to get my $30 gift card. Then I took the kids to this park that we have that has a walking path and big water fountain to play in. I told them that they could ride their bikes while I walked and then they could play in the fountain. That lasted for about 10 minutes. I let Kayla take Tyler to the fountain while I finished my walk. The fountain is visible almost all the way around the track so I felt pretty safe letting her do that and she actually is very responsible at this sort of thing. I got pretty much finished with my walk, took their clothes to the car, and grabbed the towels. As I turned around to head back to fountain I could hear the crying. You know a mother just knows her child's cry and whether it is a for real cry or a fake cry. This one was for real and it was Tyler. Kayla was hauling him across the field. He had slipped and hit his head. Yep, and I wasn't there. Mother of the year award right here - I will be nominated again! At that point I decided it was time to head home. Tyler whined the whole way home. Came home and got him to bed. I gave Kayla her meds and her breathing treatment. I started cooking for a family that I was taking a meal to. At this point, I have brownies in the oven (more on that in a minute), green bean casserole half put together, meat frying in one pan, and water on to boil in another pan. Kayla begins this coughing fit and pretty soon she starts crying and telling me that her tongue is burning and feels like it is pulsing and swelling. Of course, I'm thinking allergic reaction. I have tried every cough medicine in my cupboard on her this week which included the last little bit of Benadryl that I had on hand. Yikes! It's 4:10; the doctor's office closes at 4:30 so I put a call in. Sure enough, she had basically gotten a "burn" from one of the agents in the inhaler that is used to help push the medicine out the end. So now the doctor is calling in a medicine. In the meantime I turned off everything but the brownies so that I could sit with her and get her calmed down. Crisis is over. Meal is back on. The brownies, well, let's just say that you can, in fact, mess up a box mix of brownies. That's all I'm going to say about that.
So, we get the meal delivered and then we are off for an evening of free jumping, free pizza, and free coke. We get to Jump City and realize that it is, indeed, packed to capacity and beyond. We stood in line for probably thirty minutes for one piece of pizza each. The kids didn't want to jump because there was too many people. Literally, the announcer from the radio station announced about ten times in the short time we were there that there was a missing child. And it was always a different missing child. How scary. We decided to run far away from that place and ended up going to McDonald's thinking we could get ice cream and let the kids play. Suffice it to say that after sitting down to our after dinner snack of cheeseburgers and ice cream, my children expressed a very ungrateful interest in the food that they were partaking of, SO all of the ice cream got thrown in the trash and we left with two crying kids. The good news is though is that my favorite pharmacy(different location) accepted my prescription coupon and the new prescription. So, while I spent an unplanned $40 on doctors visit and prescriptions, I made $60 in gift cards!

Miscellaneous Updates

Well, let's see - what has been going on? I finished spring cleaning my bedroom today! Yea me! I have the cleanest bedroom in town. I'm having open tours of my bedroom tomorrow so come on by:) Seriously, doesn't it just feel good to finish something? I love it! I cannot stand to see little dust particles hanging from my ceiling or seeing the dust accumulating on my fan. Don't tell anybody, but I also pulled everything out of the bottoms of my closets so that I could dust and vacuum the baseboards! Okay, yes, I'm probably a little bit of a fanatic, but, what can I say, my mother taught me well!

Tyler is still doing so good with the potty. Although for some reason, last night he wet the bed. I'm not sure what that is about. He hasn't wet the bed in I don't know when. I'm beginning to be less and less surprised by the whole pooping thing. It is so cool - he just goes in there and does it. While I might be less surprised by it, it really does still fascinate me! Does anybody know how long I have waited for this? I will probably continue to be fascinated for awhile!

Craig has been working like a maniac in the kitchen this week. We have Kayla's birthday in a few weeks and family coming and everything. So, hopefully, we will have paint on the walls before too long. Last night he hung the new closet door. Tonight he was doing some caulking. The walls are looking really good, um, even though they are still PINK! But, as far as the dry wall repair work that he did it looks great!

We leave for the beach one week from tomorrow and I am so looking forward to getting away for a few days! The kids are really excited. Speaking of the kids, I am taking them out for a little fun tomorrow. They have been cooped up in the house too much this week. So tomorrow we are going to probably head to the free movie, do a little lunch out, and maybe go to the library or something. My children LOVE the library. Tomorrow night we are going to a jumping place, you know, with the inflatibles. Our christian radio station is hosting a free jump night so we are definitely going to jump on that one.

I guess that is it. I'm trying desparately to get into bed before 11p.m. tonight. That seems to be our bed time of late. It makes for an ugly morning! I need my sleep or I get grouchy! Goodnight everyone!

The Mind of a Four Year Old

Do you ever wonder how the mind of a four year old works? Yea, me neither, except on mornings like this when Tyler says something that just makes me think, "where did that come from?"

Tyler was getting ready for school this morning and he was sitting on the floor in my bathroom putting on his socks when he points at his big toe and says, "Mom, this is my specialest toe, and it will never fall off, but if it does we are going to throw it in the trash and it will never come back again."

Okay, where did that come from?