On the Road Again!

Posted by cokelady

We'll be leaving tomorrow morning for Colorado! Our District Convention is in Craig this weekend and we are soooooooo excited. They've got a terrific District Overseer up there ;-) and I can tell that he's put a lot into this function. If we can wade our way through the snow (wa-hoo!!!) and make it all the way up there, I expect it to be a great Convention! Since Craig is about 16 hours from Andrews we'll be driving part way tomorrow, then finishing our trek on Friday.

Things here have been good. Yesterday I loaded the kids up and headed to Midland in search of school desks. (The kids drive me crazy when we're trying to do school at the kitchen table--sitting this way and that, legs hanging off the side of the chair, up on their knees, then back down again, then just standing because it's a better height for them when they're trying to write--it's quite a fiasco.) I had contacted a Christian School down there (the public schools are too "regulated" to be able to sell you a desk--crazy!) and they told me to come take a look. The maintainance man led me to a storage room off of the gym that was stacked high in old, banged up school desks. I picked out three that didn't have old wads of gum welded to them (ga-ross) and he loaded them up for me... for free! Is that great, or what?!

We did some more running around, then came home, scrubbed the desks up real good, and whipped out the paint. I let each kid pick what color he wanted (of the ones that would match my office, that is), then they each got to help me paint their own desk, Sam first, then Joe, then Kate. There's no way I would attempt an everybody-paint-at-once party. You'd have to be totally insane. I wondered about my sanity allowing even one at a time to help. No, they actually did great--even Sam. In fact, he did a lot better than Joe. Poor Joe. That kid is such a slob. All of my efforts went into trying to smooth out the blobs of paint he left in is wake. In the end, they turned out great! They were pretty beat up, but now they look nice and fresh and clean. ~aahhhh~ Feels great. And just think--it cost us nothing but a little drive to Midland and some painting time! The paint was all left over from different painting projects here at the house, so that was perfect. Katie has window-shutters red, Joe has Mom's-office-walls gray, and Sam has living-room-wainscotting blue. ;-) It was a very long and exhausting day, so I ended it with a nice, hot bath. ~ah, yes~ It's amazing how great that feels! I should do it more often.

I don't want to take the time to write out all the details and I'm sure you don't want to take the time to read them all, so let's just say that I waged war on those dopey desks all morning long. It had something to do with trying to adjust the adjustable (ha) legs on them and it included lots of hammering and clanging and banging and grunting and groaning and twisting and pulling and shoving and even praying... That was all before I gave up and tried to fix the problem that I had created. It went downhill from there. My salvation was this nifty little clampy wrench thing that I found out in James' shed. (Yes, it was bad enough I dared to enter--insert dramatic sound effect here, then use your best Mystery Theatre voice--James' shed). In about ten minutes I had the desk back to how it was before I so cleverly decided that I could improve upon it. The grass is always greener, you know? Anyway...

Rats. I'm racking my brain trying to come up with a kid story... I made mental notes of several dopey little things they did today, but apparently I can't read my own mental handwriting. Oh well. You're in luck--I'll cut this short.

Everybody have a great weekend and please remember to pray for the Colorado District Convention. The theme is "Fervent Charity"--I think it's going to be great. :-) We plan to be home Tuesday night. Until then... (or perhaps a day or two after then--you never know!)

~Becki~

1 comments

Fringe Benefits

Posted by cokelady

Aren't they great??? As any self-respecting Veggie fan is aware, the newest episode, "Mo and the Big Exit," is to be released this coming Saturday. But one of the glories of having a husband who works at Mardel is that you sometimes get a headstart on the rest of the world. James brought the demo DVD home from work on Saturday for us to "preview" it! It was sooooooooo great!!! Highly recommended. :-) We made chocolate chip cookies that afternoon so we'd be all set to celebrate. We scarfed down our dinner so we could all rush into the den and start the party! The show is TERRIFIC!!! Possibly the best ever. I remember saying that same thing when Little Joe came out a few years ago, so perhaps it's just the whole western thing. Maybe other people won't get as much out of it as we Texans... Nah, I can't imagine anybody not enjoying this show!!! Hilarious. Don't miss it!!! Of course, the rest of you sorry ninnies have to wait until the end of the week... (HA!)

In other news, we took a trip over to Merkel to be in service with them again yesterday. As always, we really enjoyed it. The Lunas are good people and it's always so nice to be with them. I know they must get desperately lonely over there. They've been getting lots of pressure from the Naborhood (am I allowed to say that on the blog, James?) and are so weary of it. But they're doing really well. We had a real good service and then a real good meal afterward! Sister Luna always insists on cooking for us and she always has enough to feed an army, but she must've tripled her efforts this time! She gave me (just for me--nobody else!) a plate with 6 enchiladas on it (!!!!), then brought in two huge tacos for me (the homemade, greasy kind that are soooooooo good), along with the large brisket she had cooked and several other huge bowls full of beans, rice, fajita meat, homemade tortillas... You name it, she had it. I did my best, but there was just no chance of eating it all. I made it through the tacos and three and a half enchiladas, but that's the best I could do. I didn't even sample the other food on the table--I was too full. You always feel bad leaving anything uneaten at Sister Luna's house ("What, didn't you like it?," she'll say), but I just couldn't do any more or I was going to be sick. The kids ate with a passion, so that helped in the don't-offend-her-by-not-eating-enough department. Two or three tamales (ah, yes--she made those, too) apiece--Joe may have even had four. And James put his whole heart into not offending her, I assure you. ;-) Everything was soooooooooooooo good. Faye, this is so scrumptious!

When we left her house I told James that we were going to stop at K-Mart in Sweetwater--not necessarily to shop, but to be able to just walk a little bit of our dinner off! We ended up shopping, however. Boy, oh boy, did we shop! Came out with a cart crammed full of bargains. That particular store never fails to disappoint. We got 5 pairs of shoes (some to grow into) for either $3 or $5 apiece, 4 pairs of jeans for the boys ($3.50), some polo shirts ($3?), a Quantum Leap Pad for Katie to use in a year or two (regular price: $40; price we paid: $10), and I can't remember what all else. It was crazy. I told James that there are always so many good bargains there we always end up spending a fortune! "We can't afford to save money like this!!!"

Sam and Tammy came over to help assemble the regional paper last night and brought with them... fajitas for dinner! Ha! They, of course, didn't know about our noontime feast. We figured we'd been exercising gluttony all day already, so why stop now?! The fajitas were great. ;-) After we finished the paper we played our usual game. Tammy won this time. Wow! That never happens. It's not as good as if I were to win, but still a lot better than letting Sam win. ;-)

Guess that's about it around here. Mom will gripe if there aren't any kid stories. Hhmmm... I don't know if this counts, but the other day I overheard Katie telling the boys, "Mom wishes she was an octopus 'cause then she'd have 8 arms and she'd be able to hold 8 switches and then even if she had 8 kids she'd still be able to switch them all at the same time..." Ha! This is only vaguely familiar to me, but I'm sure that the original conversation (when I apparently told her all of this) took place at least a year ago--maybe two. The things kids remember, I tell ya'...

Well, I've gotta get to the Post Office and mail the Western Skies, then stop off at Tammy's for a minute. Have a great day! And get busy blogging, you bunch of slackers!!! ;-)

~Rebekah~

11 comments

Been a While!

Posted by cokelady

How come it's not as easy to blog as it used to be? I post something on my page and then look up and *wham-o* it's been almost a week. How did that happen?! And with so many fantastically entertaining things to write about!!!

Okay, so that last line was a little bit of a tease. I actually can't think of anything great to write about, which is probably why it's been nearly a week since the last post. No inspiration. Mom called this morning and asked if I'd whip up a poem for an old friend of ours whose birthday is today and who they'll be seeing tonight. It's so hard to come up with anything worthwhile unless you're really in the mood and feeling it, you know? I can't just sit down and write. I have to be inspired. My greatest source of inspiration usually comes in the form of a certain Williams over in North Carolina. As soon as I see him--or even just hear of him--I begin to wax poetic...in a rather sadistic sort of a way. Oh, but what fun it is!

Let's see, what's been going on around here... Our visitors were back on Sunday and then again last night. Praise the Lord!!! PLEASE pray for Kenneth and Clovis--we want to see them won to the Lord and to The Church of God! Also, I have a distant cousin (my Dad's cousin's son, if you can figure out what that makes him to me) who lives here in Andrews and my Aunt Sue has been in contact with him a little bit lately, even been babysitting his little girl this week. We're praying for God to make this into an open door and perhaps see this family start to come to church as well.

I got new glasses this week. Dumb ones. I always think I do well... until I go pick them up. I put them on and gasp, "What was I thinking?!" No, it's really not that bad, but they're pretty dumb. I'd just like to know how you're supposed to pick out decent frames. You take your real glasses off (the ones that actually enable you to see), put on the trial frames with normal lenses (that are always so smudged up it looks like somebody set off a smoke bomb in the building), then lean in until you're 6" from the mirror to try to see yourself clearly enough to know if the frames look good or not--like you'll really be able to tell that close up. Who set it up that way, anyhow?! Dumb. Anyway, I have knew glasses (dorky though they may be) and they--for the time being--are free from scratches and pits, so I'm a happy camper. :-)

I've been working on the regional paper this week, as well as the WMB boost I gave at Church last night. I think I've got the paper all finished now. I need to proof it one more time before we begin printing. I'm always so burnt out with it after staring at it for all those hours, I just dread having to read through the whole thing again. Isn't there anything else around here I can read instead?!

The kids are well. I guess. Sam has been a constant source of amusement this week. I made brownies a few days ago and was letting Katie and Sam polish off the batter that was left in the bowl. Sam was being a creep and not wanting to share with Kate, so I set him down from the table and told him he was done--"If you're not going to be nice, you're not going to have any." He pondered the brownies that were presently baking in the oven, then said, "Mom, when it's brownie time I'm gonna be good." Then, after a pause, "...I think." I cracked up. At least he knows himself well enough to assume that there's a great probability that he won't be good after all. Made me think of Romans, chapter 7 (is that where it is?) where Paul was talking about his pre-sanctification troubles. "That that I would not, that I do," etc. Poor kid. Ha!

A few nights ago I heard Joe hollering for me after I'd put everybody to bed. I went to see what the problem was and Joe said that Sam had been shooting his rifle in bed. (Of necessity, we have a "no guns in bed" rule around here.) I looked over and, sure enough, Sam had two rifles and a pistol in bed with him. I started confiscating them and asked if that was all. No, there was one more under the bed, he informed me. I never have taken time to count how many guns these boys have, but if I packed 10 away I'm sure they'd still find more to sneak into bed with them.

Yesterday they were all out playing and Katie started in on a "somebody just did something bad to me" scream and before I had a chance to even look out the window Sam was barging in through the back door. "Joe hurt Katie, Mom--not me!" He wanted to be sure there was no mistake--he was innocent this time. He gets enough blame for the things he actually does that I guess he wanted to be sure he didn't get blamed for Joe's badness, too.

Okay, I've gotta run. I'm gonna lay the runts down for a little while and see if I can get some things done around the house. James asked me last night, "So... is the vacuum cleaner broke or something?" HA! I guess I'll take that as my cue. Sad that it had to come to this, I know. Don't know why, but vacuuming is right up there with ironing on my list of things to procrastinate. Once I get started (with either one) it's no big deal, but for some reason I just have a terrible time getting motivated. ANYWAY, I'm outta here! Have a great weekend everybody!

~Becki~

P.S. -- Joe just came in the back door crying and rubbing a knot on his head while pointing at Sam, who had followed him in. Sam was covered in mud and explaining away, "Mom, dirt jumped on us! A bunch of it! All that bad dirt, it just jumped on us!!!" still giving no reason why Joe had been clunked in the head with who-knows-what. It's always somebody else's fault as far as Sam is concerned. He was blaming Katie the other day for something bad that he had done and it sounded eeirly reminiscent of Adam in the garden, "The woman that you gave me--she made me do it!" Sam never would have been bad if somebody else hadn't forced him into it. And we wonder why I'm going gray.

6 comments

So What???

Posted by cokelady

I decided I was going to slap a new post up here, but when I tried to pull up my Blogger account something went awry. (Is that spelled right?! What a crazy way to spell a word...) There was a short man with dark sunglasses, slick hair, and a suspicious lump on the left side of his pinstriped suit. "Hand it over, lady, and nobody gets hurt," he said. "Huh???" was my intimidating reply. "Your password. The boss wants your password and Google information and he wants it now. And don't try anything clever, lady. Just work with me and we'll have you on your way."

So here I am, signed up with the New Blogger, whatever that is. So my question is... so what??? What is the difference? How exactly is this different or improved from what I had before? There seems to be a little more jibberish on my dashboard page, but otherwise it looks eerily familiar. So the stick-up was... for practically nothing??? I was forced to switch over... why??? No matter. I'm here now. Hope you all can find me and don't have any trouble making it past the bodyguards. Dumb.

The reason I was going to post initially, was to report what a great husband I have. (I get distracted easily, thus all of the above.) I just got to feeling rather guilty, reading everybody else blogs about how great their husbands are or what they did for Valentine's Day. Didn't want mine to feel taken for granted (not that he has time to read the blogs anymore, but just in case...), so I figured it was only fair to let the world know that my husband isn't so bad either. ;-)

Our 7th Anniversary was on February 5th. Boy, does time fly!!! God's been sooooooo good to us and when I stop to really think about it, it's nothing less than miraculous that we are where we are today. I know that sounds pretty dramatic, but you have no idea! God is sooooo good and I'm sooooo thankful to have such a good husband, one who loves me and loves our kids and, most of all, loves God.

I made out with a dozen red roses and a box of chocolates for our Anniversary. I wrote a poem for James. (I'm hard pressed to get out shopping nowadays!) On Valentine's day he came home with three more roses (the yellow and pink ones that are so pretty) in a nice vase with baby's breath. I wasn't feeling very well that night and fed the kids hot dogs for dinner. I was giving Katie a bath and had just started rinsing the shampoo out of her hair when James called for me. I thought he must be wanting help with the latest Sam catastrophe, whatever it might be, but when I came to see what he needed, he was waiting for me at the kitchen table. He had cooked a homemade Italian dinner for me, complete with candlelight! WOW!!! I don't know if it was ziti or penne, but it was really good. And so very thoughtful!!! Of course, Katie was still in the tub getting chillier by the minute and the boys were in and out of the kitchen a dozen times or more asking the usual kid questions. ("What are you doing?... Why?... How come we're not eating, too?... Is it good?... Can I try a bite?... How long until it's time for our bath?... Katie's been in the tub for a long time, do we get to stay in that long?...) This is romantic as it gets when you've got kids, I guess, so I'll settle for it. ;-)

Then a few days ago when Tammy was keeping the kids for me I decided to go on over to Midland so I could actually look around at Mardel. The kids have always been with me before and there's not the liberty to spend the time I'd like to spend combing through the whole place front to back. I went to Hobby Lobby first, just for the fun of it. Then spent the longest time at Mardel. I met James' boss--seems like a really nice guy. I had been there for an hour or more and James said, "Hey, why don't you just stick around until I get off and we can go out for dinner!" It was almost an hour until he would be getting off, but it was worth the wait! We went to a nice steakhouse and split a ribeye and a half rack of baby back ribs. Yum!!! And it was so nice for just the two of us to go. Rarely happens, you know. One of these days we're planning to leave the kids with Tammy (she's the absolute bestest!) and drive over to Carlsbad Caverns. But even if that never works out, it's been a great Anniversary/Valentine's celebration around here!

That's it. Seems like there's so much more to talk about, but I'm sooooo tired and having a hard time getting my brain to work with me. I've done all I know to coax it into remembering what was on my mind earlier, but to no avail. Just as well. I'm reaching the "this post is long enough!" stage already.

Until next time...

~Becki~

4 comments

The Birthday!

Posted by cokelady

This past Tuesday was Katie's 6th birthday and Joe's 5th. Amazing. Where does the time go?!

James had the 12-8:00pm shift at Mardel that day, so that necessitated a morning party. Strawberry cake just an hour after the cinnamon rolls we had for breakfast. Crazy. The kids loved it, I assure you.

Tammy came over to join us. We sang to Katie and let her blow out the 6 candles on the cake. Then we removed one candle, relit the rest and sang to Joe. Ah yes, this is the way to have birthdays! I only wish Sam had been born on February 13th, too, so we could do all three kids in one whack--it's so great!

The kids, of course, had a ball. Katie had spent the previous days making decorations for her party, so there were construction paper Bobs and Larrys and cards and letters and even a 6' length of paper chain she had made. The kids loved all of the presents and Sam handled things amazingly well, I thought, being the only one not opening anything.

I said the kids loved the gifts. That's not entirely true. My Mom figured a cowboy can't have too many guns, so she got Joe a new set of cap guns with a holster, a new badge, and 2,000 caps for the guns. (Yeah, you read that right--2.000.) Joe, although possessing an abundance of guns, has never used any with caps before. (I stash them in a drawer and let him use the guns capless -- to cut back on at least a little of the chaos around here.) Well, he was very excited about his new cowboy stuff...

...until I loaded the caps into his gun and fired a few shots. Cowboy Joe quickly transformed into a yellowbellied sissy. He went screaming and crying out of the room and absolutely refused to come back. I finally ordered him to get back in the living room. He slowly peeked around the corner and then promptly disappeared amid sobs upon seeing the gun still in my hand. I should clarify. The gun was dangling loosely upside down between by thumb and index finger. No matter, it was still in my hand and therefore was surely going to go off again. I made Joe come and sit next to me on the couch while I tried to talk some sense into him. I called Mom and Dad to be sure they could share in the joyous moments they had caused. Dad laughed heartily, but then instructed me to remove the caps and give the poor kid the gun. "Tell him he's just a little cowboy now, and when he gets to be a little bit bigger cowboy and he thinks he's ready for them, you can put the caps back in for him." Pitiful. But I just wasn't up to the battle of making him shoot the thing with the caps. Joe's smile quickly returned once he'd heard Granddaddy's instructions. He agreed wholeheartedly. "Yeah, that's a good idea, Mom. Then when I'm older--like 15 or something--I'll be ready for the caps." I tried to encourage him that it might not take quite so long, maybe he'd be ready sooner than that. "Yeah. Maybe when I'm 14 like Jacob, hu?" Ha! As tramatized as he was, it may actually take that long after all!!!

Then there's Katie. She got her very first journal from Sister Tammy. She is sooooooo excited! This is what it says so far:

FEB. 13

I HAD A BITHDAY TODAY I HAD CAKE IT WAS A STRAWBERRY CAKE IT WAS GOOD AND VERY SWEET I GOT A NEW BOOK THE TOW NEW BOOKS WERR FOR MY LEAP PAD TOY AND I GOT TO BLOW THE CANDOWLES OWT I TERND 6 TODAY MY BROTHER HAD A BITHDAY TODAY TO HE TERND 5 TODAY AND HE GOT A GUN AND HE IS SCARED OF IT NOW IM GOWING TO BED AND WENN I FALL ASLEEP I WELL DREEM ABOUT WATT I WELL DO TOMOROW AND HAVE FUN GOOD NIGHT

FEB. 14

I WENT TO A VALENTINS PARTY AND HAD A SNAK AND LUNCH THEN I PLAYD GAMES WETH MY NEW FRINS THEN I WENT TO REST AND HAD A DRINK THEN I WENT AND PLAYD GAMES AGEN THEN I HAD ANOETHR SNAK THEN I PLAYD I GOT A NICE BITHDAY CROWN FROM THE LIBREY THEN I WENT HOME AND HAD A NAP I WOKE UP AT 1:00 THEN I HAD DINNER AND A BATH POGOMOS AND I WENT TO BED.

FEB. 15TH

I WENT TO SISTER TAMMY'S HOUSE TODAY AND I WACHT A MOKEY SHOW THE SHOW WAS FUNNY AND THE PAPA GURELU WAS RELY BIG AND STANLEY WAS THE BEST HE IS SKARD OF THINGS HE IS SKARD OF A LITTE BABY CAT HE IS SO FUNNY I LAVE AND LAVE AND LAVE AND THAR AR BAD MEN IN THIS SHOW THAT EYT OTHER PEPLE. GOOD BY.

Ha! Could you die?! My 6 year old is keeping a journal!!! Yes, yes, I know--we've got some serious work to do in the spelling and punctuation departments. Still, it's amazing to me that she's actually doing this! Crazy. And to clarify that last entry, the kids stayed with Sister Tammy yesterday while I went running all over Odessa and Midland (it was sooooooo great!!!) and she let the kids watch Africa Screams--you know, the old black and white Abbott and Costello movie. That's the monkey ("mokey") show she was talking about. Last night Joe went running up to James to tell him all about his day. "We watched a show at Sister Tammy's house with a bunch of bad people who were eek [naked] and wore jewelry and they ate people!" James swung around and said, "What in the world have my kids been watching?!?!?" Ha!

Okay, I gotta get. I've rambled far too long, as usual. I will leave you with a picture of Sam, since he didn't show up in the birthday shots earlier.

6 comments

Company & Convention

Posted by cokelady

What could be better? Sister Marcia Brooks called last week to ask if she and Sara and Aaron could spend the night with us on Thursday on their way to Convention. Then they would be on their way to spend the week in Arizona and be at Grace's graduation party! Fun!!!

I was so thankful to have company. For starters, it got me motivated to pick up where I'd left off on that thorough house cleaning I was doing about a month ago. I never did make it to the bedrooms (I burned out after my office...), so this was the nudge to get me going again. I started at Katie's ceiling fan and worked my way down and voila -- a perfectly clean room!!! ~aaahhhhh~ Feels so good. The company wouldn't have really known the difference, but I know. It's a grand and glorious thing. ;-)

A clean room isn't the only benefit to having company, of course. I actually enjoy the company itself, believe it or not! :-) We get far too little of it since moving to West Texas, let me tell you. Sister Marcia and family (minus Jimmie--the bum) got here Thursday afternoon in time to do some relaxing and give me a chance to whip up a nice, home cooked dinner before church. Sister Marcia preached for us that night and we sooooo enjoyed it. Our visitors, Kenneth and Clovis, were back and seemed to enjoy the service as well. Afterwards we invited Clovis (the 15 year old son of Kenneth) over to the house to play games for a little while. We mostly just ate (I had made cinnamon rolls that afternoon), but we eventually squeezed in a game before he had to leave. It was great to have him join in the fun and I think he enjoyed it. Sam took him home and then went on home to study, but Tammy stayed and played games with the rest of us until way too late. It was great!

Friday we drove on over to Alamogordo for the Arizona, New Mexico & West Texas District Convention. It was such a blessing. The first night especially was just so very, very good. Such a wonderful spirit and good preaching of God's Word and--as always when we're with the Spanish people--such wonderful worship. I have never been in a service with our Hatch or Alamogordo people and gone away not blessed. Even the ones that know little or no English, thus inhibiting our communication, I just love them soooooo much. When they sing and worship and I don't know what they're saying, my spirit knows and I can feel the love and worship welling up within me. They are so wonderful.

The VanDeventers and the Clarksons made the long trek from Colorado to join us in Convention and give their auxiliary boosts. What faithfulness! And, as always, we enjoyed their company as well. After the Convention ended on Saturday we all (Marcia and family, the Clarksons, the Vans, Sam & Tammy, the Shulers, and our family--22 in all, I think) went out to Denny's... for a few hours! It was so much fun!!! Brother VanDeventer came down to our end of the table to visit for a while and I so enjoyed his company. I've always loved him so very much, but rare are the times when I get a chance to actually visit with him. He is just so loveable and admirable in every way. So honest and even blunt sometimes, but it never feels harsh or stabbing--everything he says and does comes from pure truthfulness and genuine love. Oh, to have a thousand more Virgil VanDeventers! :-)

I'm rambling. I really don't have time for that tonight. Tomorrow is Katie's 6th birthday and Joe's 5th. They requested a strawberry cake just like Sam had on his birthday, so it's in the oven right now. James has to work 12:00-8:00pm tomorrow night, so that means any birthday party will have to take place before he leaves at 11:00am. We're shooting for 10:00.

Back to Convention, it was sooooooo good to be with the Shulers. I wish we lived closer and had more opportunity to be with them. It's amazing how much those kids are growing up. It's just WRONG, really (!!!), but kind of neat, too. Grace isn't a kid at all anymore (you did GREAT on your boost, Grace--by the way!) and Jacob is turning into quite the manly man. (Although if anyone tells him that I'll have to deny it--he's going to have enough problems with his ego! Ha!) He's a bit of a ding-bat, though, so that's good. He's not all muscles and deep voice... yet! And Philip. I've always loved Philip so much! That kid is one in a million -- and soooooooo cute. Sara and Megan are getting so grown up and are a lot of fun to be around. And Tommy... to tell you the truth, I never saw Tommy! I mean, only for a moment here and there throughout the weekend. He was just never around. But I'm sure he's great! ;-) And, of course, it was great to be with Aunt Kay & Uncle Colin, too. I always enjoy our time with them and just wish we could have more of it. What a terrific family. I'm glad they're part of mine!

We stayed over in Alamogordo Saturday night and James preached there yesterday morning. We went to Golden Corral with the Coyazo's afterward (the usual routine!) before heading home. We actually stopped at K-Mart on our way out of town and are soooooo glad we did. James was able to get Joe's birthday present for half price! Wa-Hoo! We made it home at about 8:30 last night, I think.

Today has been a good day, however not very productive. Just can't seem to get things in gear! Maybe I'll be more successful tomorrow. After our 10:00am birthday party, that is. I've got a mountain of laundry waiting for me and it's sister mount of ironing will be growing yet more as the laundry comes to an end... ~ugh~ I hate it when I let it get like this. I guess that's about it from here. Oh, I finished up the 4th book of the Love Comes Softly series on the drive to Alamogordo. Sooooooo much better than the movie. Actually, it baffles me how they can even name the movie after the book. The only thing they had in common at all was the names of the characters--and only some of them, at that. Weird. Anyway, I'm outta here! At least my next post should have some birthday pictures instead of a bunch of boring rambling. (Or perhaps along with a bunch of boring rambling...)

G'night All!,
~ Becki ~

3 comments

The latest

Posted by cokelady

I can't recall anything at all about Friday or Saturday aside from cleaning, so I'll skip those days. Sunday was great, though--we had two new visitors in Church! Say a prayer for Kenneth and his 15 year old son Clovis who came to join us. We're hoping and praying that they'll be back again this coming Sunday. How exciting to have new people!!!

Monday morning was another field trip with the home schoolers. We went down to the fire station here in Andrews and it was terrific! The Fire Marshall is the nicest guy in the world and was sooooooooo good with kids. He taught a class, of sorts, about fire safety and answered lots of questions and just generally humored the 12 or 15 little kids. Then he took them out to show them his gear and let them climb around all over--and inside--the fire trucks and ask lots more questions. Then he drove one of the trucks out back so all the kids could take a turn spraying the hose. They thought that was fantastic!!!

The kids were so excited to get their picture taken with a real fireman, much less the Fire Marshall, himself! Ha! It was a blast.

Tammy came over for a little while to hang out and play games that afternoon, so that was fun too. It just happened to be James' and my 7th Anniversary, but we're waiting to really celebrate until we have a good opportunity! As for that night, I cooked fried chicken for dinner (James didn't even show up for dinner that night.... ahem!!!), made his favorite dessert (brownies) and wrote a poem for him. He had brought me a dozen roses and chocolates a couple of days earlier. One of these days we'll leave the munchkins with Tammy and at least go out for a nice, quiet dinner.

Yesterday I took Katie and Joe to an art class for little kids downtown. I found out about it through the home schoolers and thought we'd give it a try. It seems silly to take such young kids to such a thing (surely I could teach them anything at this level, right?!), but they had a blast and did sooooooo good! (Sam and I stayed to watch.) The lady had them practrice drawing different lines and shapes, then declared that they would now be able to draw anything since everything out there is made up of these types of shapes. The kids were thrilled and proceeded to copy the teacher's version of a horse, constructed of the shapes they'd just gone over. Katie did great and her horse looked almost just like the teacher's... except the legs. I asked her about it later and she said that the teacher's horse had pointy legs but she didn't want to give her own horse pointy legs because she didn't want it to fall over! Ha! What an "artistic" way of looking at it! We'll try this class a few times and see if it's something we want to stick with or not. Kate and Joe both LOVED it yesterday.

Today is library day and we'll be leaving shortly. Although we don't really need to get any more books at this point. James has brought home a whole bunch of new books from Mardel the past few nights--stuff that had gone on sale and (coupled with his discount) he was only paying pennies for. Cool!

Kid stories, kid stories... Mom said I need some on here. I'm thinking. Let's see... Oh, Katie has been amazing me again. We missed our devotions the other morning and when I walked into the living room later that day she was sitting on the couch with my devotion book (a read-the-Bible-in-a-year book that tells you which portion to read for the day) and her own Bible in her lap. She had found the correct page to go with that day's date and had found the right place in her Bible and was reading our daily devotion all by herself! That was amazing enough, I thought. But then I remembered where we were in our reading... Exodus! She was reading about all of the dimensions of the tabernacle and how many cubits the curtains were supposed to be and how many sockets were to be in them, etc. !!! Crazy kid. Makes a Mama mighty proud, though. :-)

Then there's Joe. He's a beginning reader now and doing pretty well. He writes things frequently and I can always tell what he's trying to say because he sounds things out perfectly. But that often means that there are no vowels involved, because he just doesn't hear them when he says the word. The other day he made a sign that said, "NO GRLZ ULOWD" or something similar. He taped it to the door and then said, "Hey, Mom, does that say 'no girls allowed'?" "Not exactly," I said. As he was walking casually out of the room he said, "Well, that's what it says to me!" Ha! I guess that's all that matters!

And then, of course, there's Sam. He's just been doing the usual. Yesterday I found him in the kitchen banging a hollow plastic toy on the floor trying to knock something out of it. "Come out of there you Ramen noodles!," he was saying, "I know you're in there!!!" Thinking back to our lunch an hour earlier, I knew he wasn't kidding. ~sigh~

Guess that's it from here. Gotta get the monkeys looking good enough to take to the library! Have a great one!!!

~Bec~

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Blogger's Block

Posted by cokelady

Am I the only one??? Just haven't been able to think of anything to write about. Which is crazy! I just took a trip to Colorado, had a Girl Party, and--of course--there's the endless supply of blogworthy material supplied simply by living with three little people. Guess I just haven't been in the mood. It's a good thing I don't have to worry about NARR. ;-)

The trip to Colorado was terrific! We left when James got off work last Thursday night and got a few hours behind us. We stopped and got a motel room in a little town called Hereford, Texas. I remember because it smelled like a cow. Actually, this was without a doubt the smelliest trip I've ever taken. Driving through Texas is alwasy an aromatic experience, but usually the odors come and go as you pass by beef farms and active oil rigs. Not so this time. The whole state just stunk. Stank? Stinked? Anyway, it was terrible. I don't think Sam is ever going to be the same again. Every time he's seen a cow since then he's sure to point it out. "Look, Mom, it's a cow. Cow's stink. 'At's a-scusting!!!"

Back to the motel. The room itself was very, very nice and I've never been so glad to have my handy scented candle in my overnight bag! It made the room pleasant enough we could uncover our mouths and noses and actually sleep. I even forgot about being in a cowy town until we opened the door the next morning. ~ugh~ The lobby was great, though, and their waffle irons made waffles in the shape of Texas! How cool is that?! The kids thought it was fantastic.

The drive into Colorado was amazing. Just enough fresh snow to make everything look clean and fresh and beyond gorgeous. Besides the cool, crisp mountain air, which I appreciated all the more after our cow/oil infested trip. When I go back there I'm reminded all over again of how very blessed I am to have grown up in such a magnificent place. As happy as we are in Texas, it still feels like "home" when I drive through those mountains and I soak it all in with an appreciation I never could have had while I lived there.

We were able to visit with Dad and Jon for a little while up at the Men's Retreat campground before the kids and I headed on to Denver. We got to Emilee's house at about 8:00, I think. We let the kid-o's play for a while, then put them to bed and started the girl party! We spent most of our time sipping on flavored cocoas and looking through my old photo albums, per Haley's request. I don't remember what we did after that, but it must have been enjoyable because we were up until 3:00am!

The next day Haley's cousin Laura came over to meet the Master. Emilee, that is. You see, Laura is just getting into scrapbooking and brought her book over to show what she's done so far and receive some pointers. Emilee is amazing and had helped her make a few improvements and filled her mind with lots of ideas and inspiration before she left a couple of hours later. Laura is a really, really nice girl and it was fun to be with her.

We made hearthside cider and a pumpkin roll that day. Uummm... ordered pizza for dinner... I'm thinking... I know we didn't do anything with the kids and rarely even saw them. They just hung out in the basement the whole time. Watching videos most of the time, I'm afraid! Oh well, it was a party, right?!

That night we girls stayed up and played games. I Buy, Clue, Memory Madness, Yatzee... And talked. And laughed a lot. Although I can't seem to recall anything specific that was actually funny, now that I think about it. Oh well. That's what girl parties are all about, right?! We lasted until 2:00am that night. I was at Emilee's house for a total of about 36 hours and we slept all of about 6! Ha! Maybe just a little more... ;-)

The next morning I loaded the kids up and headed back to the Men's Retreat campground. James rode with Jon and Dad rode with me so that I'd have at least a little while to visit with him. We went out to eat in Salida, then visited at Chris & Shanda's house until church time. We had a good service and Dad preached a really, really good message on sanctification. Wow. I was so blessed. Afterward, Jon and Dad left for Denver and we stayed the night with Chris and Shanda. It was so great to be with them! I still miss the time we used to spend with them when we lived in Salida and it's sooooooooo good to have a taste of it every now and then!

We drove back to Texas the next day and it seemed like a very, very long trip after our weekend of very little sleep. It was fun, however, as it usually us. The kids didn't get restless until the last hour or so, so I tried to come up with things to keep them occupied. We sang for a while, then I started up our own Memory Madness type game. I'd give them a category and they'd take turns giving an answer until somebody couldn't come up with one. We started with colors and then animals. Then Katie said she wanted to pick the category. Her choice? Bones. Do you know how embarrassing it is to have to play a game like this with your 3, 4, and 5 year olds and you're giving answers such as "ribs" and "pelvis" while your kids are saying "clavicle," "phalanges," and "metatarsals"? One of Joe's answers was "cervial vertibrae." Dumb Leap Pad. Those things were only created to make parents look stupid. Do a pretty good job of it, too.

It's been a good week since we got home. I got unpacked on Tuesday and got the house straightened up. I've been doing lots of school and kid-related things since we've been home. Got both nasty bathrooms scrubbed down, shining, and smelling strong of cleaning chemicals. And I have half of the kitchen floor scrubbed to a shine, too. The other half comes today.

I took the kids to Midland on Thursday and we did big shopping at Wal-Mart. (It had gotten so bad around here that the night before we had had peanut butter and jelly sandwhiches... on hamburger buns (!)... with Ramen noodles... for dinner!) We met James at Mardel, then we all went out to dinner together. Afterward, James took the kid and grocery laden van back to Andrews and I took the car over to Odessa for Ladies' Bible Study at Stacey's house. Afterward, Stacey lent me a couple of books from her vast collection of Christian fiction. I went home and read the first one (Love Comes Softly) that night (only took me 'til 2:00am -- I'm so dumb!!!), then the next book in the series last night (done by 12:30am). It was so great!!! It feels so good to be caught up enough on things to actually spend some time reading. It's so much better than watching a movie--even a good one. Just seems like it's good for your brain or something. Anyway, it's been great.

Aside from that, we've had the general kid craziness around here. Joe had a personal weapon ban for a week after he shot Katie in the face with one of his dart guns... twice. I made him go around and collect every piece of weaponry in the house and I stashed them all away. That was a long week for all of us. Joe does little else nowdays than shoot guns, bows & arrows, slingshots (even if it's just a stretchy lizard he has) and slash things with swords or makeshift knives. He spends most of his days in the backyard now and I'm thinking it's a good thing.

Enough rambling. I was just trying to make up for the week+ that I took off. ;-) Hope all is well with everybody -- and I hope we see some activity out there on the blogs sometime soon!

~Becki~

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