And ...........the rest of the story

The ladies retreat was WONDERFUL and so refreshing. We went to Eureka Springs! We got there right about noon on Friday so we ladies were hungry. After scouring part of the town and finding some.........interesting eateries........we settled on a burger joint of sorts. Three of us had gotten nachos that were HUGE, we could all three have split one, and they were definately unique ;)  So here are the ladies with me chowing while I was picking mine up at the window. 

Ashley thought her daughter would get a kick out of her being on the Trolly so we took a great pic. 
This was me and Ashley's sister Britinee.
Our group of three musketeers for the weekend. 
Melody and I a few minutes before service started. 
It was a GREAT weekend and I came back sooooo refreshed! Already looking forward to the next one ;)

2 days with Daddy

Our church had a ladies retreat this last weekend that I was able to attend so David had the kids all to himself. I left Friday morning about 7am and had arranged friends to keep the kids while David worked so the fun began for him about 6:30pm :) He took the kids to the Will Rogers and Gun museums in Claremore than after naps they went to play putt-putt while waiting for me to get in. The kids had a blast and of course think that things must always be this cool when only Dad is home! LOL 

The kids on the tank in front of the Gun museum. 
Since Micah couldn't get in on all the tank climbing he decided it'd be fun to spin on a poll :)

The kids on the rock statue of the Will Rogers museum. 
Brianna got to do a puppet show...... and Micah wanted to get in on it too :)



All the kids in front of the cave at the miniture golf club. Ethan insisted dad take this picture as "mom took one here" :) LOL 

I made the comment only Dad would have them all sit on the ground for a pic like this and he promply told me that they were waiting for the group in front of them to finish the next hole ;)

Needless to say they all had a blast!! Everyone was fed, dressed in matching closes and happy, what more can I ask for? I have a GREAT husband!!

Early risers

So it's 7:20am and my two youngest boys are up, eaten breakfast and Caleb is dressed for school! Now mind you we had church last night and they didn't get to bed till about 9:30pm.......I guess they'll take good naps huh? Since they were up and ready to go I let them watch t.v. (I usually don't do this in the morning) so here they are laying together in my bed watching JoJo.

Me and the Boys

With Brianna at a birthday party and Micah at home napping (with a friend watching him) the boys and I were headed to a playdate for boys.... well that was the plan anyways. We called the host mom since we were going to be running a bit late. She informed us that no one had ended up showing up so maybe we should arrange it another time.........so the dilemma was what to do since they boys had been so excited. We decided to head for ice cream and see if we could figure out what to do from there. Well we decided on Putt Putt :) I think they had a great time despite the looks on their faces when we started. They were indeed excited and were just ready to get to playing rather than taking pictures :)

Field Trip

We have been studying government/politics so we took a fieldtrip to the local Election board office. The kids and I both learned alot. Until then I never really thought about all the behind the scenes work for elections. The kids learned about registering to vote, who's eligible, and a little about absentee ballots. 

After an explination about how the machines here in Oklahoma work the kids got to fill out a sample ballot for entertainers here. 

These were the bags set up with materials for each poll location in this district. It's really amazing how much they have to store in between each election and the level of organization they have to maintain.

Tired of the zoo yet?

Well, if you can't tell we've made alot of trips to the zoo lately :) Between having perfect weather and having a zoo friends pass (making it free to get in) it's been a great source of entertainment! LOL So I won't give a bunch of narration, just some pics :)

Mmmmm good!

Well, after she stayed with Nannie and PawPaw this summer for 2 weeks, Brianna has been wanting to cook some of the recipes she was given to bring home with her :) She got to make one item one night when we had a sitter here but she'd REALLY been dying to make Nannie's famous banana pudding. I've been very skeptical and nervous about it as not being a very experianced cook and LOVING Nannie's I just didn't know if we could make it as good ;) Well we had "Keeper of the Faith" on Monday night so we decided to attempt making it.

Brianna mixing the vanilla pudding for the dish.

Caleb helped out by spreading out the bananas and nilla wafers :)
Wahlah! Despite the fact that neither Brianna nor I had ever made meringe and really had no idea what I was doing it turned out pretty darn good if I do say so myself!

More zoo fun

Monday morning I had decided to take the kids to the park and play some before we got to our school work. Well we went to the park by the zoo but things were all wet so we decided to head to the zoo since it was opening in a few minutes. So here are a few pics from the park.

Ethan and Brianna are always wanting to climb on this statue of the lions and take pictures but it's usually busy and sometimes with a line. This morning since we were so early there was no one in sight........in fact we were the first ones in the zoo :) This was our first time going in the bird exhibit and I'm NOT a bird person. Every since I had to read "The Birds" by Hitchcock in highschool I've been afraid of birds :( But I braved it for my kids and the nice lady took a picture of me :) Micah wasn't really sure what to think of all the birds flying around so closely.

Video of the kids with feeding the birds.

Micah wanted to sing Jesus Loves Me, I'm not sure if that was supposed to be WITH the birds, or FOR the birds :)

Here are the kids on the earthquake simulator.


The polar bear was out and swimming around and it was totally coincidental that I caught him in this shot!

We missed having Caleb apart of this adventure, but boy did we have some fun.

Good ole fashioned fun!

We were invited to a back to school barn party for homeschoolers in the area. It was so fun, we all brought finger foods to share. They provided drinks, worship music, and even a caller so we could learn how to square dance! The kids had a great time. David and Micah came and only stayed for a short while so they could get home for bedtime since we had church in the morning :) Micah felt right at home...... David talking to Kim, whom we got the invitation from.
Ethan, Brianna, and a friend Bethany.
Doesn't Brianna look the part?!?
One of the highlights of the night for Brianna were the bathrooms in the barn......creative stalls huh :)
And of course this night in blog wouldn't be complete without video of the square dance!




So all in all it was a GREAT night and we all had a blast!

hmmmm, interesting

This is GREAT!!

oh sweet sleep :)

Well, sleep to me seems to have been one battle or another with my littlest man. When he was a baby we had issues till we figured out he just needed to sleep from 6pm to 6am, then the daytime rest fell into place. Then when he was going from 2 naps to 1 we had some really rough weeks figuring out the details ;) Lately the problem has been that he'd wanted to wake up sooooo early and many times not take a long enough nap on top of that! But praise the Lord who give us wisdom when we ask Him (James 1:5) I think we're on a roll!! I've not been letting him get up in the a.m till at least 6:30 (dispite his desire to sometimes start his day at 5:30am) and putting him too bed about 8:30. Then today I even had to wake him up from his nap at 3pm after having gone down at 12:40pm!! Praise God for answers and guidance!!

Sorry, I know the posts with pictures are much more exciting but I just had to share this news, that to me was sooooo wonderful, before I burst!!

Post "labor" day survey

I saw this on another blog and thought it was neat idea :) She post a bit about each of her labor and deliveries and the kiddos.

Child 1 Brianna

I gained about 28lbs, and was 10days late when I was induced. I had a female doctor as I never thought I'd be comfortable with a male doctor. They had brought me in Thur evening and were going to start the drip slowly overnight to get things going since it was my first birth. Well my body kicked in and of course they didn't want to have to call the doctor on call for and induction so they stopped the meds and let me sleep overnight. When they started things up in the a.m. my body kicked right in and since I was trying to go without the epidurl they gave me some staidol to help with the pain..............that made me sick as a dog and I was vomiting almost through delivery. Needless to say I ended up getting the epidurl. I was only in labor that morning for about 4-5hours. When it was time to push, having never delivered a baby before and not being able to feel things with the epidurl, I wasn't pushing right and the doctor (who wasn't my dr but actually was her husband) was getting worried because the cord was rapped around her neck and there was meconium in utero. So unbeknownst to me there was a team of about 10 doctors streaming in to prepare for an emergancy c-section...........just then David explains to me what I'm doing wrong and how to correct it and a couple pushes later she was out. She weighed a whopping 9 lbs 1 oz!

Child 2 Ethan

This time I gained about 35 lbs and I believe it was about 10 days early that my water broke in the middle of the night. This time I was still induced as I wasn't contracting :( And of course this was after they'd had to stop my labor 2 times due to car accidents! I now had the same male doctor that had delivered Brianna and we were comfortable/familiar with each other. I once again was in labor for about 4hrs but had a harder time pushing due to his broad chest. He however only weighed 7 lbs 9 oz :)

Birth 3 my surrogate baby

I think I gained about 35 lbs once again, and I was also induced as I was having problems with high blood pressure. I believe her birth weight was 6 lbs something, but I'm honestly not sure. I was also in labor about 4hrs. I had a WONDERFUL labor and delivery nurse as well as the nurse that cared for me in my room afterwards. And I had also used the same male doctor again.

Child 3 Caleb

He was a month early as my body hadn't really had time to recover from the previous birth (I got pregnant only about 2 months afterwards.) I had gained about 30 lbs and he weighed 7lbs even :) I don't remember why I was given pitocin.....maybe my contractions wouldn't pick up?!? I was in labor about 3-4 hours. I had the same male doctor. The neat thing was that the same nurse........I sooo wish I could remember her name..........happened to be there and was able to attend the birth with me! AND the recovery nurse heard I was there and popped in to see me too :) That was a neat special touch for me.


Child 4 Micah

I gained about 27 lbs with this pregnancy. My labor would stop and start alot and of course every time I'd go in to get checked I would have dialated but then things would just stop :( So finally after walking around dialated to a 4 for 2 weeks we went ahead and induced yet again....this time I was only in labor for about 2hrs start to finish!! I'd had the same male doctor and that same labor and delivery nurse!! She was just going off her shift but she went ahead and stayed and we had such a fun delivery. We laughed right up till the end :) I got an epidurl again, but was so upset because I always get a migraine as it's wearing off, then I delivered with in MINUTES of getting it.........I so could have made it only that much longer!! Then the big joke was as the doctor and nurse were leaving they said "we'll see you in a few years!" I told them this was it, we were done.........and she reminded me that that's what I said with my surrogate baby and why I had done it, yet here I was ;) LOL

wow, powerful

I've been waiting to post this hoping I could find a video clip but I just couldn't wait any longer. I experianced a powerful illustration at church on Sunday and just had to share. It was communion Sunday and since we are a medium size church the pastor and his wife along with the assoc. pastor and his wife, and one other couple stand at the front and serve us communion as we make lines and file up to the front. This alone was neat to me (we are fairly new to this church) but what hit me so hard was when Pastor Mark asked if all had been served......

Someone stood up, and with a strong accent proclaimed "We have not been served, I represent the Commonwealth of Independent States, the former Soviet Union, my people have not been served and there of millions of souls waiting to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ."

Pastor: "Could you please serve them?"

one couple: "Yes, we'll serve them"

Pastor: "Now has everyone been served?"

Another person in the crowd, in spanish states (with interpretation) "We have not been served. I represent the latino and hispanic people of the world, and we have not been served, we need to be brought the gospel."

So yet again the pastor asked someone to serve them and they were served. And once again the pastor asked if everyone had now been served. Someone in tribal wear stood up and proclaimed " We have not been served, I represent the people of the nations of Africa, and we have not been served. There are people here who have never heard the name of Christ, we need to be served."

So they to were served and again pastor asked if everyone had NOW been served.

"We have not been served" said someone else through interpretation. "I represent the Nation of China and we have need of the gospel to be shared with millions, we need to be served."

So once again they were served and pastor asked if everyone had now been served........

And again, someone in the crowd stood up, covered almost head to toe......."We have not been served, I represent the Nation of Islam and the muslim nations of the world, and we desperately need to be served."

I couldn't find an example picture here without having to pay alot of money for it, but I'm sure you know what I mean.

This illustration left me in tears for the souls of the world and aching to do more either by send out missionaries with donations and prayer, or to go on my own. Please stop for a moment in your busy days and say a prayer or do something to help all the lost souls of the world.