It's been a while...

Over a month since my last blog post to be exact. Not much has been going on but things are starting to speed up around here. We are excited to be starting this new homeschool year. I love homeschooling so much!!! I am so thankful God directed us down this path because I couldn't imagine my family any other way.

We are trying to organize a homeschool co-op in our town and I will also be helping out with a class in another co-op AND I'm teaching a Sunday school class AND planning Wednesday night youth meetings at church!!! So YES I will be busy busy busy and I am really looking forward to it. The last one isn't really a big deal right now because we don't have much of a youth group on Wednesday nights. My job is to change that ;) So wish me luck and remember me in your prayers.

A Wonderful Sunday!

Just when I start getting in a slump God does something truly amazing to get my attention once again and show me that he is still working all around me. I was amazed this past Sunday at the outpouring of Gods Holy Spirit. We had ten people baptised! One of them was my nephew Devin!!! I've been praying for that little guy and I feel like a huge weight has been lifted. I know there are so many more people who need salvation and I'm not trying to trivialize that fact by saying how blessed I am to see him saved but praise God I am so happy for him.

Another young boy who was baptised Sunday was saved the night before! God had special plans for this Sunday and he worked it all out and I am still feeling giddy from the huge blessing I got from being privileged to witness this event.

Part of the crowd gathered to witness the batptism.


The smile on Chloe's face is just beaming. I love this little girl!


Emily is super proud her cousin is soaking wet! She prayed hard for him. She really loves him.



Mother and son!

Mom's Back WHOO HOO!

My Mom and Ken (stepdad) finally made it back from Hawaii. They don't have any of their things shipped over yet but it should be soon. We went for a visit yesterday. It was the first time Chris had seen their house. I love that they are so close. Only 46.8 miles from my driveway LOL. It was a fun visit and I'm thankful to have them back.

Me and my Mom

Me and Jake

Me & Emily goofing off.

This is a whole nother subject... I have siamese twin squash... Isn't that the weirdest thing you ever seen? LOL I didn't know squash did that.

I Feel Blessed!

Sunday at church the preacher made a comment about how we should take time each day to be alone with God. I thought to myself that this is something I NEED to make priority. An average day for me began to play out in my head and I was mentally trying to think how I could fit this in somewhere. I thought about how I couldn't do it in the mornings because I have to be moving around for a good hour or so or I'll get all sleepy again. Then I thought about how I couldn't wait too long after I woke up to wake up the kids and blah blah blah. Finally I just prayed "God make me do this!" I knew I couldn't sit there and promise God I was going to do this because I knew better. I knew I would be too busy and things would be too hectic and I just wouldn't be able to be as strong as I need to be. So I just asked God to make me do it!

I know this is just the second day of the week LOL but God works that fast! Yesterday I told the kids I was going in my room to talk to God and I didn't want to be interrupted. I got a good ten minute chat in with my Lord and I can't tell you how big a difference that made in the rest of my day! I am once again amazed at how great God really is!

I started reading a book last night that I have been trying to read for like six months. Every time before that I've opened this book it just didn't mean ANYTHING to me but now I am reading this and am amazed that I didn't realize what it was saying before! It's called "The Pursuit of God" by A.W. Tozer. I am so excited to be seeking God. I just wanted to share that and anyone reading this who doesn't have a personal relationship with Jesus should think seriously about getting to know him. He is the closest friend you can ever hope to have and he will never leave you no matter what. I'm thankful God is forever faithful and there when I seek him.

Now this is off topic but we harvested these from our garden this morning. Another blessing! ;) A yummy one too!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HANNAH!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOUyouyouyou! HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOUyouyouyou! HAPPY BIRTHDAY HANNAH BANNANA!!!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOUyouyouyou.

Happy Birthday Emily!

She's nine years old today... Hard to believe!

A Day With Dad!

Chris took the kids on a hike the other day. Taylor and I stayed home because the hike down to this cave at Bennett Springs is like three miles in so like six miles round trip and I didn't feel up to dragging Taylor along right now. Well they took the camera so I have some cool pictures and cool stories about their adventures. They really had fun and I'm glad they got to get out and explore.

Emily Brett & Logan in some sort of hollow.

This is not the same hollow spot as the one above. Logan was the only one who climbed up to this one. He is like a monkey. Chris said he just took his shoes off and shimmied up the side and into the hole. Of course I was freaked out when I heard Chris let him explore a "cave" by himself. Chris said Logan got up there and said he could see the back wall and there were lots of flies in there LOL

Logan sittin' proud after his climb.

Logan climbing back down. It's a lot steeper than it looks in the first picture.

This is the little creek inside the tunnel cave that they hiked to. I guess the cave is open at both ends with a creek running through it.

One of the openings of the cave. A view from inside.

Logan found a friend along the way.

This is a video of the kids playing in the creek in the cave.

More storm video's...

We had another strong thunderstorm yesterday. It was during the day so we thought we might catch a tornado... well Chris is the brave one. There were some really strong winds at one point it was scary. I was amazed that there were no warnings for our county during this.... We were listening to the radio since the power was off and no warnings for our county... I think we at least qualified for a severe thunderstorm warning.

CHARLIE BIT ME!!! HAHAHAHA!!!

Ok this is the FUNNIEST video ever!!! Me and the kids can't stop watching it and laughing!!! I love the way that little boy talks and the baby is just cute and funny as can be. You'll love it!!! Just wanted to share it.

My Baby Boy!

My Baby Boy Taylor will be a one year old tomorrow! It's amazing how fast children grow. I don't remember growing this fast!!! Taylor has been such a blessing to our family. I'm sure having an eight year old daughter to help me out has been a big part of how easy things have been. I also think the fact that Taylor is the happiest baby ever has a bit to do with it as well.

ANGRY!!!

This morning Emily was helping me get ready to go to Chris's parents house for our annual Memorial Day Fish Fry. We were loading food and stuff in the van, making trips in and out of the house. On one of the trips Emily took Taylor out and was buckling him in his car seat. As she was doing this our neighbors pit bull started barking at her and chased her. She slammed the van door and ran to the house.

We have had constant problems with our neighbors dogs. One is a little dog that uses our yard as a toilet and gets in my garden. The other is a half grown pit bull. As it gets older it is getting more aggressive. So I was of course furious. Luckily Emily had gotten Taylor buckled into is car seat before this happened so he didn't get hurt.

I called the police because our city doesn't have a real dog pound that will deal with dogs, I don't think they're even open on Holidays... Anyway the police officer pulled up and I explained what happened and that we've had constant problems with these dogs. The pit bull is not full grown but it's still scary for an eight year old and this town has a leash law. The officer looked at me and asked me, "so what do you want me to do?" I thought that was odd and I asked her, "what can you do?" The officer proceeded to tell me there was a leash law and that she could ticket them but it probably wouldn't do any good. She said she's been to their house over their dogs before and they say they're always leashed. Well we were standing in the road and the dogs were roaming around in another neighbors yard so the officer obviously could see they were not leashed. I sarcastically said, "so it's going to take someone getting bit before you can do anything?" The officer looked at me and replied, "pretty much yea."

So basically I'm supposed to hope as this dog grows into a full grown pit bull that it won't attack my children or someone else. When it finally does then we'll be able to take action??? That is the most screwed up thing I have ever heard. I am so mad I don't even know what to do.

Pictures For Mom!!!

My Stepdad Ken is visiting for a few days from Hawaii. He has to come check out the house he and my Mom are moving into in a few months when they move back. Well he came bearing gifts so we took pictures for my Mom who wasn't able to come with him.

Emily with her journal and pen. She is the queen of doodling and drawing she loves it.

Brett got some bug glasses.

Brett trying his bug glasse on.

Logan with his bug glasses.

Logan trying on his bug glasses.

Taylor is turning a year old next week so he got a fun birthday present. A leapfrog bug. He loves it and it makes lots of noise.

Taylor really likes Ken they're pals.

Taylor playing with his bug.

This was totally funny! Chris left for work before Ken woke up so they didn't see each other today until about 7pm and LOOK they dressed the same!!! Haha :p They didn't want me to take their twinkie picture! TWINS!!!
And last of all we have the video of Taylor playing with is bug! He was dancing.

Just call me the plant lady....

I love plants. Every Spring and Summer I think I learn more and love them more. I was out in the yard enjoying this beautiful spring day and decided to capture some images to share on my blog. I've seen a lot of flower pictures from other blogs and such but I've never taken any of my own. So here are some pictures of my roses. I love roses. My red and purple roses have not bloomed out yet so I don't have any pictures of those. I also took some more pictures of my tomatoes. Yea I'm proud of them I can't help it. This is the first year I've had good plants and I'm just so excited! I put some pictures up from May 5th to show how much they've grown.

This is out in front of my house. My goal is to get the roses to grow over the entire trellis and mix together. One side is darker pink so it'd look cool if they were all mixed together. The bush on the right is two years older than the one on the left.

This is a picture of the tomato plants on May 5th 2009
Tomatoes on May 5th 2009

Tomatoes on May 19th 2009

Tomato plants on May 19th 2009

Long Awaited Treasure Hunt

I forgot about the pictures I had of the kids treasure hunt. Chris sets up a hunt for them every Easter and they use the GPS to go find their treasures. When I say treasure I mean boxes full of candy... Anyway we had to keep putting off the treasure hunt because of RAIN. It rained every Sunday since Easter. It even was rainy last Sunday but there was no way we could put it off again, the poor kids would have had a stroke. So this is Emily, Logan and Brett and their two cousins Damon and Devin hunting treasure!!!

OFF TO FIND SOME TREASURE! Brett forgot his coat he had to borrow Grandpa's ;)

Emily working the GPS

This way to treasure!Okay maybe not this way time to back track!

Treasure Hunter #1

Treasure Hunter #2

$5 Footlong!!! mmm Subway

Treasure Hunter #3

And the battery on the camera died so we don't have any pictures of them with their loot! :(

May 8th Tornado 2009

I was reading my cousin Tiffany's blog the other day and she had a post about how she liked to watch lightning. When I lived out West I used to like to watch the storms move in too... Then I moved here and have learned that lightning brings much scarier storms. We had one last Friday and as I was watching it all I could think of was Tiffany's blog and how I really don't like the storms out here LOL. I took some video with my camera out my back basement door. The wind was coming from the North and my back door faces South so it was relatively safe. There was a point I got scared and retreated to the kids room where they were all huddled listening to the tornado sirens.

It was pretty scary and the worst storm I think I've been in. We didn't have any damage and I'm so lucky the wind was coming from the North because our house blocked the wind from destroying my tomato plants. Other's were not so lucky. Chris got stuck in the storm on his route and had to take shelter in someones house. Chris's Dad lost his hay barn and had a tree land on one of his other buildings. It missed the house though praise God for that! We were without power for almost two days but things are back to normal now. I just hope the rest of the storm season is quiet.

This video was probably the worst o the storm. You can see the sky darken in just a few seconds.