What Has Been Going On?

I have been slack on my blogging lately - sorry. Life has been insane since we got back from the beach and I'm just now beginning to get caught up. I spent Monday night, all day Tuesday, and all day today doing Graceful Designs stuff as well as sorting and pricing yard sale stuff. But the majority of my time has been taken up by ebay. I just listed a ton of stuff on ebay and, while, it is good money it is also very time consuming and exhausting and addictive, and...

In between all of that I have been trying to get caught up on my laundry and I spent the morning with Kayla yesterday as it was Tyler's last day of MDO. Tomorrow I will be working all day and then on Friday I leave for my girl's weekend. Yea! I haven't even had time to get excited about it with all the busyness of the week. But I am so ready!

For a kitchen update - I have paint!!! The kitchen has one rolled coat of burgundy paint on it. Yes, I said burgundy - it is dark and I love it!!! It is exactly what I had envisioned. We still have pink walls up above the counter tops in between the counter and the cupboard because that is where the back splash will go and we can't do the backsplash until we get the new countertops. One thing leads to another, you know how it goes! I have to take a moment and brag on my husband. He deserves more than a moment, but... When we got done with that wallpaper, the walls were a mess. He has puttied and sanded, and mudded and sanded and painted and sanded, and now - the walls look fabulous! They are as smooth as a baby's butt!!! I'm so impressed with him. He is already talking about next year's project. Yikes - one at a time. I love you babe - you are amazing!

Alright, it's past my bed time --- Goodnight!

Sayings and Such

So my kids have been cracking me up with some of the stuff that they have said this week and I had to share.

First of all, Kayla went to a swim party tonight and apparently they had tons of dessert and a little bit of dinner, at least that is what she ate! We were on our way home and she said, "oooh gross, you know how when you burp and you kind of puke up a little, well, I just did that with my hot dog". Gross, but funny!

Tyler is into "buddy" this week. His new name for Craig is "buddy", so everything is "buddy this and buddy that". He also got this very cool dart gun while we were at the beach. It was the highlight of his vacation - just ask him and he'll tell you. I used to be very anti-gun, but I find that a boy can make a gun out of everything whether you want him to or not so I figured if you can't beat them join them. Don't freak out, I'm not buying him a machine gun for Christmas or anything crazy like that. He has one gun and honestly, it is the best $3.99 I have ever spent. He has played with it non stop since buying it. The funny thing is though is that he can't say dart, he says darc! "Where'd my darc go". It cracks me up!

Along with "buddy" Tyler has also gotten very serious about his prayer life lately. I know you shouldn't laugh at the things that your kids pray, but, come on, you know God has a sense of humor. For Tyler, it has become a contest. He tells me now, "this is going to be the best prayer"! So, he begins by thanking Jesus for EVERYTHING!!! And I do mean EVERYTHING, sometimes several times for the same thing! So, tonight he says, "thank You Jesus for all of your hard work". Oh, that made me melt. So sweet!

There were a hundred more things, but I just can't remember them all - I need to start carrying a tape recorder with me. Do they still make tape recorders? Maybe an IPOD with a voice recorder??? I don't know - I'm electronically challenged!

Pictures

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