Jealous of My dog!

It is true. Right now I am jealous of my dog. It is just hard to see how easy it is for even my dog to give birth. Right now my Gertie girl is HUGE! Tomorrow is her due date and she is starting to get skittish and show early labor signs. She could have her puppies any time now, in the next couple of days. Her belly is so big, and when I put my hand on her, I can feel the pups kicking and moving! She is starting to "nest" in her little "puppy bed". There is this conflict in me. How can something so natural, be so hard for me to achieve.

I am so very happy with how God has worked in my life. I love my children and am so grateful that I have them! I am grateful for the fact that I was not able conceive and that because of that I got my precious Ben and Hannah.

But with the kids, God did not take away my desire to conceive and give birth. And right now, even though I know it is not anything more than a dog having puppies, watching Gertie, is a little tough.

I am excited about the puppies, and she always has such cute ones. So I will be keeping a close eye on her, stay close to her and being as close to the "birth" experience as I have ever been, and still pray that I will have my turn, one day.

(here she is, tired, huge and uncomfortable)

Would you like to meet my kids?

They are so different, in good ways. I marvel at how God has made these babies and what a WONDERFUL job He did!! I got some pictures of them the other

day. These pictures show who they are, their personalities and

dispositions! So I will stop the writing...er...typing and let the pictures do

the speaking. So here are my children! I AM SO BLESSED!

HANNAH

BEN

Hannah

BEN

Hannah

Need I say more??? :)

Making my kids WORK!

Today we started the "CHORE CHART!" I have been wanting to start one with the kids, but had to decide just how I wanted it done. I knew they would not be able to read, I decided to pick what chores they are able to do and do the chart with all pictures. Here is the finished product.

They also picked out their own "buckets" to hold their money in. (they do not know they are little trash cans...kinda symbolic of "throwing your money away") They decorated them with stickers.



The chores are -cleaning your room, using the sweeper on the carpet, feeding the dog, helping with a load of laundry, cleaning and sweeping up back porch and helping mom clean the church. Each chore has a picture and then a picture of what they will earn. The kids were so excited to "EARN MONEY".
I thought we would have each child choose one chore to do. But the kids were so excited, they wanted to do more. (I am sure in a few days this excitement will wear off) Hannah did 2 chores, and was done. Ben was all about making the money!! He did all the chores he could until they were all done, INCLUDING cleaning his sisters room! It was so great to hear him say "mom I want to clean my room!!!" Here are my little worker bees!






Here is Ben and Dad looking to see what he earned.
And Ben checking out his money!

It takes a Weft!

With a 2 1/2 yr old and 3 yr old, it is never a boring moment around this bouncing house. All the funny things that come from their little mouths are my favorite!! So thought I would share one about my boy. Ben will say, "my sick is back" which means he needs to go poo poo! LOL, And when he is done, he will say "my sick is all gone". He is talking about how it makes his tummy feel sick before he has to go!!! We think it is pretty cute. (but that is not my cute story, just a little background to set up the cute story)

In class at church, it was snack time. The kids were sitting enjoying their pretzels, and Ben was sitting in the chair directly right in front of me. I was reviewing the lesson as they ate and when there was a pause, he took his finger and traced down the front of his chest and over to his hip. He said "mama dis where my pwetzles go". I said no it goes straight down. I took my finger and traced from my mouth down my chest and straight to my stomach and told him "this is where your pretzels go, down to your tummy" He shook his head no and started tracing with his finger down his chest and as his finger was turning and going to his hip he says " then it takes a weft" (left). I was laughing by this time... thinking about his pretzels "taking a left" on their way down. Then when his finger reaches his hip, he says "and then it goes here and makes me sick".

Yeah, he's pretty cool! So the next time you eat something, think about your food "taking a weft" and have a good laugh!

Proof Of Adoption!

My last blog was about my girl. And this one is about my boy!! What a great blessing he is to me! So loving and sweet! In my opinion, he looks like me. We both have the brown hair, the blue eyes and his face is similar. I am not the only one who thinks this. There have been MANY comments about how much my boy looks like me. The great thing is, that there are no shared genes, just an Amazing God who worked it out that way!(just so I am clear, he could have come to us with blue skin and it would not have mattered at all! I love that boy, no matter what or who he looks like) But there is one trait that our son has, that CONSTANTLY reminds us that he MUST be adopted!!! He is our little "neat freak"! I say that in a very loving way! He LOVES to be clean. He does not want sticky or dirty on him ANYWHERE (he is getting better about playing outside and getting dirty, but MUST be cleaned when he gets back in the house). Dan and I both are not this way. We are too far in the opposite direction! We don't need to have a place for everything, and everything to have a place. But our boy sure does. I like it!! It is neat to watch that part of him, and see how God made him!!! So the other day I set up his train track (it had been taken away for a few months, because he was not treating it right) so he was soooo excited to play with his train tracks again!! (oh and before you think we paid a fortune for this huge train set...let me say we found this whole "TOMY" set, just like Thomas, but not, with two motorized trains, on sale for $45!!! Score!!)

Take a CLOSER look! Yep, those are his trains, parked nice and neat and in order. He had come out of his room and said he was done playing with his trains. I went into his room and found how he had neatly parked his trains off to the side. He is a three year old, who LOVES organization!

Yep!! He is so adopted, and I LOVE IT!!!

TOMBOY/PRINCESS

My daughter is such bundle of SPUNK!!! I love love love her!!! On Saturday, my dishwasher quit. This dishwasher is over 20 years old, and I knew I was lucky that it had lasted this long. Dan has done wonderful, resurrecting it time and time again. This time though, seems to be the end! Now I am not going to go into how it will add to the work load to wash the dishes by hand, that is how life goes. I want to share about my GIRL coming into the kitchen after her bath and helping Dad try and fix the dishwasher. I came in to see her using a wrench. I looked at Dan and he said she seemed to know what to do on her own. He did not show her anything, she put the nut on the screw, got the wrench and started to tighten it!!!!!!!!! Yeah, she has talent!!! A tool GENIUS! LOL!!!!! She was so proud and so was her daddy!!!! Where was his strapping son? On the couch watching TV . HAHAHA. So mom got the camera, that seems to be on it's last leg too :( and got some shots.

The great part is that the very next morning she was in "Princess" mode. Loving getting all dressed up for church and getting her hair done!!! I LOVE THIS. She seems to be the PERFECT combination! She can for sure get dirty and rough and tumble, able to take care of herself, but still loves the frills and girly things!!! I was proud of her hairdo this morning. It took a little time, but it came out pretty! (I am a tad bit biased)

Thought I would throw in a pic of the kids in Sunday School! There is my BOY with his big smile. And my pretty girl in her PINK!

Getting "showed up" by my husband

I am not a cook. Well okay, I am not a great cook. I can cook your run of the mill dishes. I can keep my family fed, and do it in a way that they enjoy, but I am NOT a good cook. It takes me two- three tries to get a dish right and even then, I some how manage to burn it or drop it before it can reach the table. So I stick to what I know most of the time. Knowing that we do not have the money for me to "try" new things!

We have pot luck at our church every Sunday. Yes you heard it right, EVERY Sunday. Talk about a little added stress to someone who can't cook that well. It is a good schedule for our church, and it works. But to add to it, the church is full of ladies who CAN cook, and VERY well. And no matter how much I know that I can't cook, I find myself "wanting" to keep up with these wonderful dishes that pour in every Sunday.

Last night I worked hard and made dinner. I had bought chicken, some for us and some to make for Sunday potluck. I made, BBQ chicken, steamed Red potatoes, tossed green salad, and some peas (the kids LOVE peas). I thought it was pretty good. Hannah ate TWO chicken legs all on her own.

So today while I was folding and putting away laundry, my husband came in and asked what he could do to help. (yeah, he's cool that way). I said that I needed to come up with a good way to cook the chicken . He said "you are not gonna do the BBQ?" and I answered "that is kinda boring" (in my mind I finished the thought with "up against the first class cooks at church", but he was not privy to that little add on.)

I am a woman, and must say that I was setting my husband up. Yup, I was setting it up for him to say "honey, your BBQ chicken was awesome last night! You should make it like that, I know I would like it!" Okay ladies....is that too much to ask for????????????? I really did try hard last night to cook the chicken so it tasted really good. I can't blame him, don't want him to fib or anything, but it would have been nice, a little pick me up.

So I continued to fold the clothes and he went into the kitchen. Not 5 min later he comes back into the laundry room and says, "I found a recipe for some sweet and sour chicken that looks good and we have all the stuff for it" !!!!!!! I can't complain. I DID tell him that it would help if he found a good way to cook the chicken! I told him that I would mess it up if I did the recipe, to which he said "no you wouldn't" ....(with a pause ;) He so knows me!

So now I am sitting here, with this scrumptious smell coming from the oven! The chicken is laying in a bed of garlic, pineapple, red onion and the most delicious looking sauce in the WORLD!!!

(Little side note... he just came in the kitchen and found the meat thermometer I "accidentally" melted last night. *sigh*)

So, it DOES help to have the chicken done. BUT tomorrow when all those first class cooks look at it, they will say things like "wow did you make that?" (they know me too ;) and I will have to say, like SOOOOOO many times before "no Dan did!"

I sure love that guy, but does he HAVE to be SOOOOO good ALLLLLLLLLL the time? (lol)

"Lashes, Come Forth!"

My children humble me. I have taught Sunday School for years. Taught mid week

classes for pre-teens, and always tried to do my best to make the lessons fun and

to get the Word of God into the kids minds and hearts. I have always LOVED teaching. But now that I have my own children in my Sunday school class, I have been humbled into what a responsibility teaching really is. They may only be 3 and 2 1/2 (can't believe my little baby girl will be 3 in 4 short months!!!!!) but they soak up the lesson

s like little sponges. So teaching the right stuff, in the best way I can, has become more important to me. I know that my children have taught me something I will carry into all the classes I teach from here on out. To do my best and to strive to do better. So when I am cutting out 52 "bees" for the "Be-Attitudes" lessons,

(I still have a lot of cutting to do!)

or making 6

giant flowers for the walls in the classroom,

or free handing cars that are driving along the "pathway to goodness" (no picture, sorry)...it is a good work to do, because these little precious minds are worth all the work. What a privilege it is to teach about our Lord and Savior. Especially to children, helping them to grow up in this world with HOPE!

A few weeks ago, our Sunday School lesson was about how Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. I told my mom I would be doing a blog with pics and she has been waiting to see...so here you go mom!! The story pictures showed how Lazarus looked with burial clothes on, so I thought that a good way to help them learn the story would be to act it out!!! I brought my camera!!!

Here is my girl! Ben was not sure about the TP!

So he told sissy to go first so he could watch her do it!!!!

Ben had a hard time saying "Lazarus", but he did his best. He said "LASHES, COME FORTH!"

Then it was Ben's turn. Hannah did not say a word. She pointed, but did not say anything!!!

She did help her brother out of the TP!