I don't know how this happened?! How has it already been almost a week since I blogged?!?!? CRAZY. I guess I just wasn't cut out to be a good blogger. I used to think so, but I just keep proving myself wrong!

Sunday. Hhmmm. I think Sunday was good. Our pastor preached about not throwing in the towel and about the fat lady singing. :-) It was very, very good. That night we had Sam & Tammy and Aunt Sue and Uncle Jerry over for brisket. Sam's birthday brisket! :-) (He turned 41 on Monday.) We also had fresh, homemade rolls and baked potatoes and corn and left-over turkey and I don't know what all. And some of Emilee's great hearthside cider (yum!) and the second half of the Thanksgiving punch that we hadn't mixed up on Thursday. It was all GREAT! I also made a big pineapple upside-down cake for desert. It was all way too much and we were stuffed. But it was fun! We visited for a while, then after Sue & Jerry left we still had time for one game. The birthday boy blew us out of the water, which made him very, very happy. We were even happy for him. But ONLY because it was his birthday. :-)

The next day we went over to Sam & Tammy's for a little while to visit with Scott & Angie, who were staying there for the day. It was nice to see them again. Then we came home and I got busy on the Regional paper--we were way late getting started on it because of Thanksgiving and everything else going on and I HAD to get to work on it! I stayed up late that night working on it and finished it up the next day. That was Tuesday. Hhmmm. I can't remember anything else about Tuesday.

Wednesday we had THREE house showings! Wow!!! How exciting! I took the kids to the library for story time and we picked out a bunch of Christmas books. We got several for them to read on their own, and I got "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" to read to them. We read the first four chapters that day! I also got a Dee Henderson book for me. I stayed up and read the first half of it that night. ~sigh~ It was great!

Yesterday I woke up in need of a long, hot bath. So I took one! With my book, of course. ;-) I was feeling pretty lousy throughout most of the day, so all I really accomplished was some school with the kids, a game or two with them, and some more reading. All in all, it was a great day! (Every now and then you need a day when you're feeling too poorly to accomplish anything--it makes you slow down and take a break, you know?!

Then last night we had ABM and Home Missions service here at our house. That was sooooo nice. I just love having people in my home and I love opening it up for services. It's been AGES since we've had one here, so I enjoyed it extra. :-) We had a good devotional, then a good time of prayer for the needs throughout the region and beyond. Afterwards we had lemon bars and some more hearthside cider. Sam & Tammy stayed and helped James get the Regional papers all put together and ready to go. It was late by the time everything was finished, but everybody was up for a game. I had talked James into buying Balderdash a few days earlier because it was a good price--and it's one of the very, very few games that he actually LIKES and is willing to play on occasion! So that's what we played last night. It was sooooo fun! Do you know who Marta Espina was? She's the 75 year old woman who was killed by a poodle who fell (or was thrown?) off an apartment balcony and hit her in the head. FOR REAL!!! We were sooooooo sure James had made that answer up (you know, the whole, "Today we're teaching poodles to fly" bit--one of his favorites), so Tammy and I ended up choosing whatever lame thing he had written up AND he guessed the poodle one, so he pretty well took the game with that one. It was a lot of fun. Made me think of the good old days when I was a teenager and we used to play that game on occassion. Frank, Jr. ruled at Balderdash. And Jon. They can come up with the dumbest (therefore the best) definitions!

After Sam & Tammy left I stayed up another 45 minutes or so to finish off my book. ~sigh~ It was so great!!! I wish I had the self-control to allow myself to read books regularly. I could so easily read a book every week if I would allot myself one hour each night to sit and read. But I can't do that. Once I pick it up I just can't put it down! Next thing you know it's been 3 hours and I'm halfway through the book! I don't think I've ever read a book except that I've done it in two days or less. THAT'S why I don't do it very often! I can't afford the sleep deprivation it causes me!!!

ANYWAY... today we got up and got everybody bathed and the house all cleaned up (good thing--there was another showing today!) and headed to Odessa for haircuts. Stacey chopped on all of us but James--he had gotten a haircut a few days ago. Then we went to lunch with her, then ran to Hobby Lobby in search of the perfect Christmas gift for Little Miss Crafts (Katie) and got some good ideas, then to Wal-Mart for some grocery shopping. Came home and had a message on the machine from the realtor. We've got an offer on the house! Wa-Hoo!!!! PRAISE THE LORD!!! It is, of course, much lower than we'd like to accept, but it's just so exciting to HAVE one, you know?! So we had a good prayer earlier and asked God to give us wisdom. I was thinking about it the other day and felt like we just really need to PRAY over whatever offers may come our way, regardless of how much they're for. You know, when we look for houses in Albuquerque, we usually plan on offering a great deal LESS money than what folks are asking and we hope the Lord will bless us with a really good price for a really good house out there. Well, other people are in need of a house just like we are, and who's to say God doesn't want us to be a blessing to them by giving them a really good house for a really good price?! If He lays it on our hearts to accept a "lower" offer because it's the "right" buyers (I'm sure He knows who needs this house and all the details that we don't), then I can only assume He will bless us on the other end and meet our needs for a house out there. Right?! It doesn't really make sense logically, but it seems to make sense to my spirit. So we're just PRAYING about this offer and a possible counter offer and all that. Help us! More than anything, we just want God to direct this whole thing. We're still trusting Him for the RIGHT BUYER at the RIGHT TIME for the RIGHT AMOUNT. :-)

That's about all the excitement from here for today. Actually, I'm sure there was more to share, but I can't seem to think of anything else. I'm going to try to get some ironing done tonight (it's been piling up for almost two weeks now!), but I thought I should blog before I reach the ONE WEEK WITHOUT A POST mark and get attacked by NARR. Oh wait, I run NARR! I'm in the clear, either way! ;-) Hope all is well out in Blogland. One of these days I'll start really making the rounds out there again. Probably the same day I actually start posting faithfully again! Ha! Have a great night!!!

~Becki~

I really can't think of much to write, but I don't want to get several days behind again, so here I am.

Mostly I've just spent the past two days trying to get the house cleaned up and put back together after Thanksgiving and all of the Christmas decorating. Haven't accomplished that little goal yet, but I've sure been trying! James was gone most of the day yesterday--Black Friday shopping. He did, indeed, get that little $199 camcorder and I tried it out for a few minutes tonight. I think we're going to be happy with it. If it'll just not break down I'd say we're doing good! The thing is so TINY, though! That's going to take some getting used to.

He also brought home a pair of boots for me ($20 black ones!) and a really adorable Christmas sweater and a to-die-for denim jumper from Christopher and Banks with gingerbread stuff all over it. What a guy! Unfortunately, the boots were the only things that fit! Ha! So James decided that the whole family would load up and he'd drive BACK to Midland to swap the clothes out for the proper sized. Put a definite kink in my plans to get anything done around the house last night, that's for sure! But we were able to get the right sizes, so now I have some new and very festive clothes to wear. We had a good time, too.

Today has been more of the same: clean, clean, clean. Actually, that's not entirely true. I keep TRYING to clean, but I've been very easily distracted and I've had very little oomph. Just can't seem to stick with it for very long. (Take right now, for instance--I'm supposed to be cleaning my office. Instead I'm blogging in it!) Tammy called this morning and asked if she could borrow Katie for a few hours. It seems Sam had to go take play-off pictures over in Monahans today, leaving Tammy to deliver the papers all by herself. She thought it might help to have an extra set of hands--even little ones! So Kate got to spend some time with Sister Tammy and loved every minute of it. Tammy even took her out for lunch afterwards. James took Joe with him to run some errands--and get lunch--so that left me home alone with Sam for an hour or two. I don't know if that's EVER happened before! I took him to his bedroom and we decorated the "cowboy tree" in there, then we played a few hands of Uno and a couple rounds of a Cranium game before sitting down to watch his choice, The Grinch, of course. Sam hasn't been feeling too good today, but seemed to be okay during our mother-son time. Tammy brough Katie back in the afternoon, then stayed long enough to chat for a few minutes. And do my dishes! What a pal!!! She's amazing. :-)

Tonight we loaded everybody up and went driving around Andrews to look at Christmas lights... in the snow!!! That's right, it's been snowing again!!! Wa-Hoo!!! Sooooo pretty. Not very many people have decorated yet, but one family has gone ALL OUT. I would try to describe the light show they have at their house, but it just can't be done. I will say that they have their own radio station set up! You tune into it and watch the light show that has been choreographed to the music. VERY, VERY COOL.

Came home, had devotions, put the kid-o's to bed, then did a little bit more cleaning. I got the front half of the house vacuumed and collected the MOUNDS of laundry from the hampers to sort while James and I watched a Christmas movie. Don't ask what it was called. It had Steven Curtis Chapman in it and it was actually not nearly as sorry as I had expected it to be. ;-)

I did a little more cleaning and got stuck blogging. I also got some Chritmas gifts wrapped up and boxed up to head to Pennsylvania. I got a brisket ready to go into the oven at 6:00 tomorrow morning. If I remember to set my alarm clock, that is. Otherwise we'll be having a very late dinner. :-)

Seems like there were other things I should have said, but I just can't think of what they were. Oh well. Pray for Sam. He's been feverish for most of the afternoon and evening and he woke up crying a little while ago. Took a sip of 7-Up and was back out again, snoring like a pro. (He's our best snorer around here.) His eyes have looked sick all day--just droopy and puffy and not at all mischeivious like they usually are. The one perk to Sam not feeling good is that he's soooooo cuddly! He's about to get too big to cuddle, so I've made sure to take plenty of time for it today. :-) But for his sake, pray that he's feeling better tomorrow!

Guess that's it from here. G'night all!

~Rebekah~

Everybody else has been so good about blogging lately, even on Thanksgiving. I'm not sleepy enough to go to bed, regardless of the late hour, so I figured I should blog. Good of me, isn't it? ;-)

Let's see... last time I blogged was on Sunday night. Here are some pictures of the Church signs we were working on on Saturday. The first is the sign out by the road (the one I was sticking letters onto when the bulldog came plowing into me!)--there is another sign identical to this on on the other side of the church. The second picture is of the lighted sign above the door.

We spent the day Monday roaming all over Albuquerque to do some "drive-by's" (ha!) for some houses we'd found online. 18 houses, to be exact. There's no sense calling a realtor until you've actually driven past a house in person. Pictures are very deceiving--and they tell you nothing of the neighborhood! Anyway, we contacted a realtor that afternoon and he hopped in the car and took us to the 3 houses we had decided would be worth looking at. Really liked the first one--definite possiblity. It's too modern or contemporary (or whatever!) on the inside for my taste, but it would accomodate us well and I would do my very best to countrify it and make it into my home. :-) Anyway, the realtor asked lots of questions and I was amazed at how quickly he was able to size us up--by 8:00 that night he had come up with 5 other houses that are "our type," right down to the bricks (I hate stucco and adobe stuff--and 90% of what's in Albuquerque is just that! Ha!), we want a nice, quiet neighborhood where we can feel "safe" with the kids, we want a fenced yard for them, and I want grass--something else that can be hard to come by in Albuquerque! (Lots of rock and gravel landscaping.) Anyway, the guy took us to see two more houses the next morning, one of which is a possibility as well. I know God will open the right doors for us when it's the right time. Like, when our current house sells! It's great to have found a realtor who actually invests the time and interest in our business and is actually WORKING for us! Wow! I should bake him a pie. ;-)

Side Note: On the way home--at about 6:00 in the evening--we stopped for dinner. Joe went into the bathroom and came out giggling. He had discovered that he was wearing TWO pairs of ghandi's. I had tossed fresh ghandi's to both boys at the motel that morning and simply said, "Put 'em on." Talk about obedience! Ha! That little dork didn't think to take the old ones off first. The most hilarious thing of all is that he'd been wearing two pairs of ghandi's ALL DAY and never realized it (and we had made several bathroom stops) until 6:00 that night! Ha! Ha! Ha! He is SUCH A GOON!!!

We got home late Tuesday night. Yesterday was spent unloading the van... AGAIN. ~sigh~ I'm so tired of that!!! I just want to stay HOME for a while, you know? Spent the day getting unpacked and everything cleaned up, then I crawled (literally) to the back of the shed to retrieve the way-too-many boxes of Christmas stuff we have acquired. We got it ALL out and stacked it all over my office. I found the outdoor lights and climbed onto the roof and got them hung while James ran to Odessa to do our Thanksgiving shopping. (We usually plan better than this, but we've had way too much going on this year!) I fed and bathed our three smelly children, put them to bed, then started in on the Thanksgiving prep: deviled eggs, pea salad, frozen orange-pineapple punch, mandarine orange jell-o salad stuff, and pumpkin pies. I then drug out the Christmas greenery with lights and got busy stringing it at the ceiling line all around the living room. I HATE THAT JOB. That's why I did it last night. Just wanted to get it OVER with! It is such a pain to get it to stay up and not sag and not come crashing down. Took me 2 or 3 hours. Ggrrr.

This morning I started at 7:30 on the hot rolls. Had some time to watch a bit of the parade before going back to work in the kitchen, so that was nice. In the end, we had all of the above mentioned stuff, plus the turkey, stuffing, potatoes, gravy, sweet potatoes, and green bean casserole. Way, way, way too much of all of it. But that's how it's supposed to be, right?! Here's a picture James took before we dug in and messed up the purtiness of it all.


Katie in her best layered hobo look--with Hershey showing off his "good" ear. (I did some work on the bad one tonight, cutting out some matted hair and such from around the wound--he's going to look dumb for a good long while! Ha!)

Joe enjoying the snow

Santa Sam enjoying Thanksgiving dinner

Because I've only got a little bit of Internet time left! We're at a Motel 6 in Albuquerque and they don't offer Internet service (in this day and age--can you imagine! Ha!), so James subscribed to 24 hours of T-Moble or some such thing. That was last night, but I don't remember what TIME last night. So I'm going to post quickly, just in case!

Ladies' Retreat reports will have to wait. Actually, I've done that really bad thing where I've waited too long to write about it and now I'll never be able to recall all of the grand and glorious things I would have written about had I taken the time to write right away. ~whew~ That was a mouthful! Ha! So we'll just say that we had a FANTASTIC Retreat in every realm! Emilee did a terrific job directing again and we all sooooo enjoyed having Sister Bishop and the crew she brought with her. And of course, my Mom. ;-) Although my Mom and Sister Bishop remind me of a couple of bickering preschoolers most of the time! Ha! They have fun, that's for sure. As did the rest of us! The pajama contest was great. The winners included, "Most Layered Hobo Gypsy Look" (Tayde), "Most Completely Worthless Slippers That Are So Cute They Somehow Manage To Make Up For It" (Jamey and her cushy flip-flop slippers), and "Most Time, Thought And Effort Put Into The Dog Ugliest Pajamas Anybody As Ever Seen." You can guess who won that one. ;-)

After Retreat we took the Bishop (as she's affectionately called! Ha!) and company on Skyline Drive (THOUGHT SHE WAS GOING TO DIE!!! -- The road rides the ridge of a "mountain" with steep drop-offs on both sides), then to Royal Gorge. Or vise versa. Anyway, it was fun! Then we ate at a 50's diner kind of place before splitting up. Mom and Emilee and I got back to Em's house at 7:00 or 8:00 that night and heard lots of great stories about Dad & Jon's weekend with 8 children ages 1 to 8. Ha! I'm so glad we were at Retreat!!! :-)

James flew into Denver the next day (he had been in Albuquerque for the weekend and it was cheaper to fly to Denver than back to Texas--perfect!) We had a birthday party for Caleb that night--his 7th birthday was the next morning. Sam got a late gift or two, as well. The best part of the night was the spider cupcakes!!! I'll have to post a couple of pictures of that when I get back to my computer at home. It was fun!

Jon & Em and Mom and James and I played Quizzard that night. Sooooo fun!!! That's a game we used to play back when we were teenagers. We laughed a lot. Especially at Emilee and her silo full of pigs!!! I would explain, but I'm pretty sure it's one of those things you just had to be there for.

The plan was to leave at 8:00 the next morning. It was a good plan. We didn't pull it off, but it was a good plan! You see, as we were loading the van, we realized that my car keys were missing. Hhmmm... We looked and looked and couldn't find them ANYWHERE. Then we realized that the dog was missing, too. Ah yes--I left that part out! We left 8 children AND a dog with Dad and Jon for the weekend! Ha! Anyway, the gate had been left open the night before by a kid who, naturally, isn't used to having a dog around and Hershey had been gone for probably an hour or more before we'd realized it. I ran up and down the neighborhood, hollering and whistling, but to no avail. I finally went back to the house and called Dad (they had left early that morning to head back to Tennessee) to ask if he might know where my keys were. (He had them at some point, I remember.) Nope. But Mom did! In her purse, of course! ~whew~ What a relief!!! I asked if there was any chance the dog was with them, too! James had his keys (thank the Lord!!!), so he and I got in the van and drove all over the place looking for that dumb dog and I was beginning to lose hope. It's a terrible, miserable feeling to lose your dog in a place like Denver. We went back to the house and I called the vet's office in Andrews JUST IN CASE somebody might have found him and called the number on his license. And they HAD!!! Whoa!!!!! I was sooooooooo relieved!!! I called the lady up and it sounds like Hershey had been having quite a little party. She found him in her front yard, took him inside and gave him some water, pet him and loved on him while she was making the calls to Andrews, took him for a ride in the car (had to take a daughter to school), and then Hershey was sitting on the top of the couch looking out the window. Not exactly proper punishment for running away from home, but what can you do?! Ha! I was just so, so, so, so, so happy to have him back.

Finally got the luggage, children and DOG loaded up and got on the road at about 9:30, I think. We made it home at about 11:00 that night, I think.

Wednesday we got everybody all duded up like cowboys and headed to Sears to have their annual pictures taken. We've had pictures taken at Sears for years now and have ALWAYS been thrilled with the result. Until now! We had a TERRIBLE photographer and the pictures prove it. She wasn't the least bit interested in what I had in mind and she seemed to think the pictures she got were actually good. ~sigh~ Oh well. You can't win 'em all, I guess.

Thursday was spent doing all of the laundry and ironing again, vacuuming the house, mopping the floors, cleaning the bathrooms--getting everything ready for the Open House the realtor was planning for this Sunday. Actually, that carried over to Friday. We did lots of trip-prep stuff, too.

We left for Albuquerque early Saturday morning, got here, grabbed a bite to eat and made it to the church building by about 1:00, I think. We got right to work painting over the old church signs to get them fresh and white, then stuck on the vinyl letters that James had cut out. We needed to update the signs since this is now The Church of God! How exciting!!!

We had an interesting encounter while we were working. A bulldog was walking it's lady (for real--that's the way it was!!!) and came plowing into me just as I was sticking some of the letters on the sign. Miraculously, they went on straight! The lady was very friendly and assured me that the dog was "nice." We had Hershey chained up outside the church and the bulldog took a definite interest. The lady inquired as to whether Hersh was "nice" too--as her dog was dragging her toward him to investigate for himself. I was still smoothing the letters on the sign and things started out nice enough, but it was only a few seconds before I heard the sounds of angry, fighting dogs followed by painful yelping. Poodle yelping. ~Aaaaaauuuuuuggggghhhh~ It's such a helpless and panicky feeling to know that your dog is getting chewed up by another dog that weighs 4 times as much and who has a jaw powerful enough to snap bones. When I got over to them the bulldog had a serious hold on Hershey's left ear (I'm sooooo thankful it was only his ear!!! At first I thought he had him by the back of the neck!!!) and the lady was pulling hard on the dog's leash--not that she had the strength to do anything. I watched helplessly for a few seconds before I had finally determined to go do the one thing they say never to do when dogs are fighting--kick them! I just didn't know what else to do, you know?! That bulldog needed a swift kick in the ribs and he'd let go, right?! The lady wouldn't have minded, I'm sure--she was panicked, too. But just as I got close the dog let go, poodle fur went flying into the wind, and Hershey finally stopped crying. I grabbed the leash from the lady and pulled the "nice dog" (GGGRRRRRRR!) away. I figured that Hershey would be fine since the dog only had him by the ear, so I just assured the lady that everything was okay and that Hershey would be alright. She felt terrible. We talked for another minute or two and were able to invite her to church, but I couldn't wait for her and her "nice dog" to leave so I could calm my rattled nerves and go really check on Hershey!!! Upon further investigation I discovered that Hershey had a chunck of skin about the size of a dime missing from his ear, several layers deep. It wasn't pierced clean through, thank the Lord. There wasn't really anything I could do at the time, so we just finished up the rest of our work, then picked up some Neosporin to put on the wound before bed. I noticed a little bit of blood on his pillow this morning, but it looks as if it has scabbed over nicely at this point. ~sigh~ That dog has had a rough week! And me too--because of him!!!

ANYWAY... (Did I say this was going to be a "quick post"?! Ha! Not when there's so much to catch up on!) I spent most of the evening looking at houses online and mapping them out so we can go take a look at some of them tomorrow. This morning we got to church and were surprised to find Joe & Julie Steele there! Julie is a sister to Connie Werkheiser and Missy Hawkins. James knew them from when he attended Lee University and they were pastoring the CoGoP in Fields of the Wood. (Which reminds me--I was asking Sam yesterday if he remembered where he was last time he got bit by ants. It was at Fields of the Wood. He said, "Yeah, it was that place where Sam Houston climbed the mountain and found the Church!" Ha! I laughed heartily. Texas history, Church history--it's all pretty blurry to a 4 year old!) Anyway, the Steeles are with Wade Phillip's group now. They didn't know that James and I were going to be here or that the CoGoP here had come with The Church of God until they talked to one of the members yesterday. I'm sure they were here to "scope things out," if you know what I mean. ;-) It was great of them to come on to service and we really enjoyed having them with us. I'd never met them before, but I really liked them--they're very, very nice. (Not in a bulldog kind of way! Ha! I mean they really ARE nice!) We went to Furr's with them for lunch and had a really good visit. I hope we can see them again some time. They were at service again tonight and we had a really good service. We had communion and feetwashing service tonight and the Lord really, really blessed. We're anxious to get MOVED to Albuquerque and really make this our home!

Anyway, we're back in the motel now and I'm blogging away until I run out of time. :-) I need to make sure I've got my list of potential houses all in order and mapped out in the most direct route so we'll be all set and ready to go in the morning. We plan on looking for houses tomorrow, then going home on Tuesday. There was an Open House at our house today and we're hoping there was a better turn out than last time! Ha! God knows. The right buyer, at the right time, with the right offer. :-) It'll all work out.

Well, I'm gonna go. Sorry I've been slacking again on the blogging thing! I'm TRYING to be better, it's just not working out so well! This will be the last time until I get home because I'm pretty sure James won't be paying another $10 for another 24 hours of Internet! Ha! So until next time...

~Rebekah~

Not really. I'm at Jon & Em's house right now and I would rather spend time with family than blog, but I thought I'd check in just long enough to say HOWDY and let you all know that we had a wonderful Retreat! I'll write more about it when I get home in a few days, but this will have to do for now.

I will, however, post just a couple of pictures for you. They really have very little to do with Ladies' Retreat, but ended up being one of the highlights. ;-) You see, Dustin Hays was ________ enough (fill in the blank with whatever word you feel appropriate) to take this doofy picture of himself with socks on his ears (Jamey says he does this, then chases the kids around--draw your own conclusions), then was ________ enough to leave the picture on the camera that he sent with his wife to Ladies' Retreat. When the picture was discovered, it was just too good to pass up so we used it as the grand finale for our slide show this morning. It was greatly enjoyed, I assure you. ;-) This first picture shows how large it was projected on the screen and the next picture shows the girls actually enjoying the moment.

That's all for now. James flies in tomorrow and then we'll be driving home Tuesday. Some time after that I'll take the time to sit and blog about the Retreat itself and post pictures.

~Bec~

And in the morning, we GO!!! And, at long last, I finally feel ready. As ready as I'm gonna get, anyway! I don't know what the deal was with this class for Ladies' Retreat, but nothing ever would come together for me until tonight. I finally felt like I "got through" tonight and have a lesson prepared that I feel good about. Not great about, but good enough to go with! Ha! I'm still praying and trusting that God will help me. I'm flexible--if He wants me to change any of it it's fine with me! :-)

Although it's not nearly as late as I expected it to be when I finished up on my lesson (which is why I'm taking time to blog!), it's still late enough that I should probably head to bed pretty soon. Got a long drive tomorrow and I think we're going to head out at 7:30. At least that's the story I heard. We'll see how it goes! Tammy is riding with the kids and me, and Sister Marcia and Sister Annette Deitz will be following us, or vise versa.

Monday was a good, full day. It was Sam's 4th birthday. Hard to believe my baby is already 4 years old!!! That's so wild. We all went and "worked" at Aunt Sue's store for about 5 hours that day. This coming weekend is the big Open House at all the shops in Andrews and after Merry Marketplace the store is a WRECK. With James out of town and Tammy helping out at the store, too, that left nobody to watch the kids so I could go help. So I just took 'em! And they actually did really, really good. They ended up being lots of help and hauling all sorts of things to wherever they were told. I don't think anybody broke anything all day long. Except Sam--he busted his chin pretty good! Ha! I still don't know how he did it, but when I found him he was laying flat on his back on top of the stool--that was flipped upside down, with the feet up--and his chin was all bloody. How do you bust your chin and then land on your back?! Wouldn't you have to be going forward to hit your chin, not backwards?! Unless he did a complete flip, I guess. Who knows! Anyway, we told him it was his birthday bruise and to be proud of it. ;-)

We left the store at about 3:30 so we'd have time to go buy some ingredients for Sam's cake. Came home and whipped it up. (Don't laugh when you look at the pictures in a minute--it was supposed to be a LEGO! It sounded like a good idea and the picture online looked terrific... Part of the problem was the food coloring--I only had these funky Spring colors instead of traditional red, blue and yellow LEGO colors!) The house was a wreck again when we got the phone call. Another showing. They wanted to come at 7:00. ~sigh~ So I ran like crazy and got the house all cleaned up, dishes done, blah, blah, blah. (I'm so tired of this routine! Ha!) We headed out the door just before 7:00 for a late dinner. I just left all the party stuff on the table, but I was a little concerned what the people might think of the strange looking cake, so I left a post-it not on it: "It's a LEGO!!!" We ran to Sonic, got our food and drove back home. We were gone 10 or 15 minutes and when we got home the lady was already done looking at the house--tells me she wasn't too interested! I hate working that hard and then clearing out of my house for people who really don't care anything about it! ANYWAY, James got home from his Albuquerque trip at just about that time, so we went in for the party.

This first photo didn't turn out too good. Katie was sitting on Sam's lap and I don't think he was enjoying it too much.

Take #2

Blowing out the candles, of course...

And with his new loot! Oh yeah, when we went to the store earlier in the day I let Sam buy himself something with his birthday money from Grandma Wanda (a cabin and some little hunters to go with it) and Katie and Joe each used their own money (I paid them each a dollar for their hard work at Aunt Sue's store) and bought a little something for Sam. Joe got him a dart gun (and had enough money to get one for himself, too!) and Katie got him a dinosaur dig kind of thingie. It was really cool! James had picked out this western set--a new cap gun and a cap rifle, a bandana and something else... Can't remember what. I know what you're all thinking. "Doesn't that kid have enough cowboy stuff?!" Nope! Ha! Everything the boys have has been completely, totally worn out, broken and ready for the trash for weeks or months. I'm not sure they could survive without being cowboys, so more guns are always sure to be a hit! ;-)



And here he is with the hunting stuff he picked out for himself earlier in the day.

It was a good, fun day for Sam and the rest of us, too.

Yesterday James decided we'd get Christmas gifts taken care of, so off to Odessa we went! (He also had a real hankerin' for the Baby Back Bonus deal at Chili's! Ha!) It took us most of the day, but we finally ended up with gifts for all of Jon & Em's kids and for my folks, too. We got back into Andrews and I worked an hour or so at Aunt Sue's store while James took the kids on home. Came home and wrapped up all the loot we bought, then worked on my Ladies' Retreat lesson, but to no avail.


Today I've been packing and cleaning and packing some more, then cleaning some more, and, of course, working on my lesson. Like I said, it finally all came together tonight (PRAISE THE LORD!!!), so now I'm rarin' to go! I'm soooooooo excited about Retreat!!!! It's going to be so great!!!! I'm sure this is the last you'll hear from me until it's over--probably until I get home Tuesday night or beyond. Be praying for our safe travels (the kids and I go to Colorado, James goes to Albuquerque, then flies to Denver on Monday to drive home with us on Tuesday) and for a grand and glorious Rocky Mountain Ladies' Retreat! I think I'm going to to REST IN THE LORD in my BED now. :-)


~Rebekah~

But first--the past few days!

Thursday... Hhmmm... Who knows?! All I remember is fixing spaghetti and chicken parmesan for dinner, running full speed to get the kitchen cleaned up, then zooming out the door with Katie to go to Ladies' Bible Study that night. We had more of a prayer meeting, really, for all of the big needs out there right now--Rob & Missy Hawkins, the Williams family, the Browns, and several others. It was a good service.

Yesterday was my day to work Merry Marketplace! Wa-Hoo!!! Sooooo much fun!!! I'd post pictures, but my camera is underneath the drivers seat of the car parked at the airport in Midland. Long story. We did pretty well, I think, but there wasn't quite as much business as I remember there being last year. Still, it is sooooo amazing how much $$$ is made in just a few short hours in a place like that. And the booth still looks like it's bursting at seems! How is that possible?! Anyway, it was great. I love being there. I love writing tickets and running the register, I love spending the time with Aunt Sue and Stacey--it's always a barrel of laughs--just the whole sha-bang. One of my favorite days of the year. :-) I hope they did well today.

James and the kids met me in Odessa when the Marketplace closed down and we went to Denny's for dinner. That's Joe's new favorite restaurant because he can order a hot chocolate. They have a terrific kid's menu (best one that I've seen) and on Tuesday and Saturday nights the kids eat FREE! Although last night wasn't a Tuesday OR a Saturday. Hhmmm. Don't know how that happened!

Today has been a pretty good day. James flew to Albuquerque this morning so he can be there for services tomorrow. Southwest Airlines has some really great rates if you book 'em early enough, so that's what he did. He drove around and looked at a few houses there this evening, just in case we ever actually move there! Ha! I hope they have good services tomorrow. He'll be flying home on Monday.

The kids and I have had a good day. I got on a cleaning binge, of sorts, and sifted through all of our VHS and DVD's. What a mess it has been. Driving me nuts. So I sorted through them and created a pile of give-away or garage sale items. ~whew~ Feels so good to clean it out a bit!

I came across some old videos of when the kids were really little and they were dying to watch them, so we did. I'm amazed!!! They were soooooooo good! We were watching tapes of when Katie was almost 3 and Joe almost 2 (Sam was just a month or two old) and every thing they were told to do they just DID--immediately--and they were just so cheerful and happy! I don't know how, but I never remember my kids being that good! I mean, they're better than most (no offense! Ha!), but I was just amazed watching these tapes how extremely good they were. Who knew?! And what has happened since that time?! Ha! Most people talk about the "terrible two's" and how bad toddlers are. Apparently, my kids were very nearly perfect at that age (Sam excluded, of course!), but we seem to have lost our handle on things since then! This is where the "small wonders" title comes in though.

We got to talking about the videos and how very good the kids used to be (I think they were pretty impressed with how good they used to be, too!) and how in all the video that we watched, nobody ever talked back to me or argued or slumped their shoulders--they just did what they were told to do without even thinking about it and they were HAPPY when they did it! We discuss regularly how important it is to do just that, but until seeing the videos today I'm not sure they really believed it was possible for them to be that good! But they must have been impressed because they have been soooooooo good since then!!! I went and worked in the back yard for an hour or two today and they were all right there with me, working hard and playing with one another and being nice and cheerful and trying to help me and share with each other and on and on. Then tonight I came into the kitchen to see Katie at the sink washing the dishes, Sam sweeping the floor, and Joe scrubbing the floor with a wash cloth. !!! Whoa! I love these kids! Ha! It's great that they were cleaning, but better yet was their attitudes. They were all cheerful and chattering on and singing... Just like the kids in the video's. If only I would have known, I would have sat them down and made them watch those tapes months ago! Ha! Anyway, it's been so nice today. It's strange, but those tapes have renewed my vision for my kids and made me realize that, yes, they really can be "that good." And apparently it had the same affect on them. Let's hope it lasts!!! I've really been praying for God to help us all and to give us a happy, joyful home full of love and good times, not anger and strife. So was it an answer to prayer that I felt that strange impulse to clean out the video cabinet and happened to run across the documentation that good Horne children really are an achievable goal?! :-) It's been a good day.

So good, in fact, that I told the kids they could stay up late tonight and watch a show. Sam picked Dumbo. So that's what they're doing right now. I thought this would be a good opportunity for me to blog, so here I am. Once they go down I'm going to try to get a few things done here around the house, then hopefully make some headway on my Ladies' Retreat lesson!!! (I'm running out of time!!!) I need to get the house looking good because we might have another showing tomorrow. The kids and I were home all day today, but apparently the realtor called while we were out back. The message said somebody wanted to see the house at 2:00 today, but nobody ever came--and I never heard the message until 7:00 tonight! Maybe they'll come tomorrow. We've had LOTS of showings lately and the realtor said that one of the couples who looked at the house this last week "loved it," so we'll see what happenes. Still praying for the right buyer at the right time! And trying to not be anxious, but REST IN THE LORD. :-)

~Becki~