Been a good one today, although it got off to a rather slow start. The kids and I didn't even have devotions until nearly 11:00! That's so bad. Afterward we loaded up and returned all of our books (due today) to the library. We didn't get anything new because James has been bringing home so many great kid books from Mardel that we've got a whole slew of them that we haven't had a chance to read yet! (Once stuff hits 75% off he starts combing through it. --He gets an additional 15% off of that price. If it hits 90% off he brings it home no matter what it is--it wouldn't matter if it was a pink elephant with a feather boa. "I just couldn't pass it up--it was such a great deal!!!" Ha!) Anyway...

We took lunch to Stacey (she was working Aunt Sue's store today) and visited with her for a little while, then ran to pick up a loaf of bread before heading home.

I spent the afternoon working on laundry and cleaning house. After a while I sent Katie out to clean up the toys in the backyard and had Joe cleaning up the living room. Sam wanted to help me clean the bathroom. I didn't know what I was in for. That kid never used to make a peep. He never shuts up now. It made me think of what Emilee was telling me about Abbie this past weekend and how she's turned into such a chatterbox. "I used to really like Abigail," she told Jon, "but she's driving me crazy!!! She talks all the time!" Ha! It's the same thing around here with Sam. He hardly took a breath the whole time we were cleaning. He was pretending to be Super Sam and using his best heroic voice the whole time. He was there to save the day, he kept telling me. "I'm strong! And I'm going to get all of those germs!," he'd say, while sloshing a wet rag across the floor. "Stand back, Mom! That's a da-a-a-a-a-a-a-angerous germ over there... I'll get it!!!" And on and on it went. I never knew that superheroes took such great interest in ridding the world of germs, but considering the task at hand, Super Sam found it appropriate. When he finally tired of of the killing-the-germs speech he burst into song... A lively rendition of "rocky a soul in a boogie of Abe-a-ham." Don't ask--I don't know. He's the only one of my children to ever sing it that way and I still can't figure out how it got started.

Sam finally tired of the bathroom project and went to find other adventures. Within minutes he was standing right outside the door, jabbering up a storm again. "I ate half a bad coconut, Mom--it was so bad!!! I ate half of it and it was yuck so I spit it out. It landed on my boot so then... [blah, blah, blah] ... it was my dessert, but...[blah, blah, blah]" Where is the duct tape when you really need it??? I finally decided that the "coconut" must've been a pecan from the back yard. He crushes them with his cowboy boot, then picks the pieces apart and eats the nut. He must've got a piece of the shell, thus the bad taste. I don't know when or why he started calling them coconuts.

Then there's poor Joe. He's been banned from cowboy stuff for the rest of the week and had to do without balls or weapons for the rest of the day today, too. I've found that it's more effective to take away favorite things than it is to spank, in some situations! However, nothing seemed to work very well today! He didn't really do anything all that bad, it's just the attitude he gets. I'm hoping that tomorrow will go better than today and he'll forsake the I-will-not-be-conquered attitude that we've been contending with.

Katie read her first "real" book on our Colorado trip--one without any pictures, just pages full of words. 56 pages, I think. So I got her a 100 page book to try--20 chapters. She started yesterday and she's on chapter 11. Wow. I must've been 10 or 12 years old before I had any interest in things like that! Crazy kid!

I finished up the 8th and final book in the series tonight. I've found that I can read a book easily enough in two nights if I want to. We've been watching very little tv lately and I've been doing so much more reading. I intend to lay off the novels for a while and do some more "spiritual" reading now. I've enjoyed these books and even been blessed by them, but I think I need to dive into some non-fiction for a while. It's felt so good to spend liesure time reading instead of watching the tube. We did, however, watch a Beverly Hillbillies episode tonight. (James brought home a couple of them from Mardel today. They'd gone on sale--what was he to do?!) It was great. The kids laughed and laughed and laughed. It's soooooo much fun to watch it with them!

Okay, I'm done rambling. Oh, I almost forgot--we went to sing at the nursing home tonight. Brother Sam was sick with a high fever (say a prayer for him, please!) and didn't want to take that to the nursing home and James didn't make it back from Midland in time, so that left just me and the kids and Tammy and Aunt Sue. We did our best and sang our hearts out (James is the one who usually carries us through any music around here!) and God blessed. We had Katie sing several songs tonight since she's the most talented among the bunch and that went well. It was good.

Wa-Hoo!!! I'm The Good One. ;-)