First 48-Hours

Praise the Lord! We closed on our new home Monday afternoon! We are just amazed to see how the Lord has worked. I apologize as I have not been focused on taking pictures, but below are a few glimpses of the first 48-hours.

As we prepared to go over after dinner Monday evening, we suddenly realized that there was a whole bunch of stuff to take over just for cleaning and such that we hadn't thought about beforehand!

Monday was very rainy, but that deterred no one! :o)

I suddenly realized that I will probably be doing a LOT more laundry! :o)

My wonderful husband immediately launched into the rather ungainly bushes, rain and all!

I've been cleaning . . . bathrooms, kitchen counters, floors, etc. :o)

The kids have been having a blast just running around--with no furniture or other stuff there's almost nothing off limits--a child's paradise! :o) And yes, we brought jammies over so that they could change before we left and go straight to bed when we got home. So much for schedules! :o)

Tuesday was dry and beautiful, so we got to do a bit more outside. Chris replaced bulbs in the outside lights, and I worked on cleaning out a few of the flower beds. Once the sun went down, we went inside where Chris cleaned the basement and installed some lights while I vacuumed all of the carpets and cleaned the downstairs bathroom which had not seen the underside of a papertowel in a VERY long time. Eeek.

I am SO excited about all of the bulbs popping up! I can identify most of them (Thank you, Grandma LeClair!), but I'm going to have to enlist some help with a few. I'll post more flower pictures in a few days. :o)

Phlox is one of my favorites, but I've never enjoyed the privilege of having it in my own yard--now we have it in abundance!!! :o)

I'll try to get a few more pictures, especially as we get beyond cleaning to painting. :o) We're definitely looking forward to having some reinforcements join us in the next few weeks. Just a couple extra blessings though . . .

1. We found a white side-by-side fridge, 2 years old, on Craig's List for less than we paid for our top-bottom fridge 4 years ago!

2. We found a nice pedastal sink to replace the rather nasty one in the downstairs bathroom for less than you'd pay for a dinner for two!

Lessons from a Yellow Balloon

Monday morning's ear-to-ear grin was a direct result of a little boy's incredible unselfishness Sunday evening!

After the church service they were giving left over balloons from a baby shower to the children in the foyer. Peter and Hannah were each one of the blessed recipients, and they eagerly held on to them as they headed out to the van with laughter and huge grins.

Unfortunately, as I turned to open the door, Peter's balloon slipped from his grasp and floated away. Surprisingly, as I picked him up, he didn't cry, but he just watched it float away with a rather sad, puzzled expression as if he was wondering what had happened and when Mommy was going to get it back. As we stood there helplessly waving bye-bye to the blue balloon, a little six-year-old boy who had watched it happen came over and offered Peter his yellow balloon. Of course I said thank you, but then told him it was okay and he could keep his balloon. And he immediately with a big, genuine smile said some of the sweetest words I've ever heard, "But I want to give it to him." WOW! I nearly cried!

What a lesson in kindness for our whole family, particularly my nearly four-year-old who would definitely not be so ready to give up her balloon for a younger child at this point. And what a challenge for us as parents to be laying the foundations of kindness and unselfishness that they'd be so ready to share with someone else. And what a lesson for me personally . . . how often do I really want to show kindness, or am I just doing it because I know I'm supposed to???

"Be ye kind one to another."

Ephesians 4:32

Words!

I love being a mom! It's so incredible to watch your children learn. Hannah has a definite interest in letters and words, so I've started unofficially helping her learn to read. I'm sure I'm breaking all the rules of how you're "supposed" to do it, but that's okay. We're both having fun! :o) Lately we've been working on sounds and recognizing and spelling simple words. Well, the other afternoon she was playing with her magnet letters and spelling different words like "cat" and "hat," etc. I was multi-tasking with the laundry pile, and when I returned she had obtained the Eucerin out of the bathroom cabinet and spelled out "lotion" by copying it off of the container. I realize that copying a word isn't overly impressive, but considering that I've never told her that L-O-T-I-O-N spells "lotion," I was rather amazed to have her tell me that she had spelled "lotion." And for the record, "lotion" is a very non-prominent word on the Eucerin bottle! :o)

Happy Birthday, Grandpa!

We love, you, Grandpa H.!

Hope you have an extra special day!

Officially Transplanted

I have never felt more "southern" than I do tonight. I have made, for the first time in my life, a Red Velvet Cake. Tomorrow evening we're joining some friends from church for dinner and one of the members of our group is a dear sweet lady who celebrated her birthday this week (of an advanced age which shall remain numberless!) :o) Since I'm bringing the dessert I called to ask what her favorite might be. "Just make a Red Velvet Cake, dear." Gulp.

After some research on Google, I found a recipe which seemed to be a reasonably doable collection of the general ingredients in the multitude of recipes available. Two Tablespoons of Red Food Coloring!! Yikes!

Today was my first time making such a thing and tomorrow will be my first time to eat one. (Please pray that it comes out well!)

From the Kitchen of an Official Southern Transplant

Girls' Night Out

Hannah and I thoroughly enjoyed a girls' night out last evening! :o) Chris has been a bit under the weather, so he stayed home and put Peter to bed while Hannah and I went to BJU's Gold Rush Daze Faculty Body, singspiration, and fireworks display. :o) We had a great time, and Hannah did really well sitting still and quiet for the parts where that was important. :o)

The fireworks display was beautiful!

However, Mommy thoroughly wore her little girl out. She fell asleep nearly mid-sentence as she was telling Daddy about her adventures. She was so sound asleep, we were able to change her into pajamas and put her to bed without waking her up!

Daddy's Big Helper

I couldn't help myself when I saw Peter playing with his toolbox while wearing his "Daddy's Big Helper" shirt!

And this was too funny! I was folding laundry while he played with Little People on the bed. He began urgently requesting me to help him off the bed so he could acquire . . . Corn Squares. Why? Because every baby in a high chair must eat!

And being a good boy, he shared every bite with the baby before eating it himself! :o)

A Window of Opportunity

Why play inside when you can play outside . . .

or why play outside when you can play inside . . .

Let's just take the best of both worlds!

Little Helper

Grandma had a "helper" as she worked on her cross-stitch this visit! :o)

Visits Fly By!

We thoroughly enjoyed a quick visit last week from Grandma and Grandpa M., but unfortuntately, the only time I remembered to bring out the camera was Saturday morning when we took the opportunity to introduce G&G to the art of flying model airplanes!

The batter's cage makes a great spot to watch the airplanes without Daddy having to worry about little ones stepping on the plane!

Even Grandpa tried his hand at flying! (The second box allowed Chris to take over when necessary.) :o)

"Is it my turn next, Daddy?"

Daddy and Grandpa decided to take the "short cut" home. :o)

We love you, G&G! Thanks for coming to visit!

Couch Treaures

So what's under your couch cushions?

I found . . .

1 penny

1 bobby pin

2 raisins

1 cheerio

1 rubberband

1 sticker

1 screw

4 popcorn kernels

1 empty vitamin packet

3 beads

1 Christmas ornament

1 used lipgloss container

1 doll shoe

lots and lots of dust

I think I need to clean under there a little more often!

Happy Treasure Hunting!

Firsts and Not so Firsts

The last week or so has been a bit random with the snow day and some illness, so our schedule has definitely been a bit off. However, we've enjoyed extra time together, so that's been a huge blessing. Just thought we'd share some fun pics . . .

Hannah had her first piece of bubble gum -- notice the blue teeth and tongue. I suspect she'll steer clear of it for a while though . . . she wasn't real keen the blue rasberry flavor. :o)

This was a surprising sight . . . Peter was determined to feed dolly (and has since fed Taggy and multiple other buddies.)

However, lest anyone be concerned, he followed that up by earnestly killing a bug on my behalf . . .

We've been amazed by Hannah's scissor skills. She loves using them and will cut anything and everything she's given permission to cut, so she's developed quite a lot of dexterity with them. We thought her dolly was impressive for a not-quite-four-year-old. She colored and cut it out on her own . . . then she glued it to construction paper and cut it out a second time! God job, Hannah!

And we had fun with new playdough! Yeah for soft playdough!

Peter was obviously very pleased with his creative decorating skills . . . :o)

We had fun making a tent this morning . . . (And yes, Hannah's jeep shirt has been washed--she just pulls it out again EVERY time it lands back in the closet!)

And this picture is especially for Grandma H. . . . Enjoy!