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Rebecca's Baptism

Rebecca just being baptized

Rebecca and her cousin Maggie were baptized this past Sunday. Rebecca's was so ready, she had been asking me for a while when the next baptism would be. So when it was announced that a baptism was coming up, Rebecca looked at me and said, "Sign me up!" You gotta love it when young ones are ready to publically proclaim their faith! The video is not very clear, but you get the point.

I'm really gonna try!

Well.....it's been a long time since I've blogged, but in light of a friend of mine that will soon be moving, I'm going to try and blog regularly again. If any of you are even checking my blog at all to see if I've come back to the blogging world, then go check out my friend Kim's blog. I've got her listed as "Keeping up with the Joneses". A lot of you might know her. Kim Jones is her name and she's lived here for a while, but almost a year ago her husband was transferred to Hawaii and her and the kids are now leaving to go be with him. Kim is one of the main one's who has helped me with homeschooling. She is a homeschool pro and if I ever needed anything she was there for me. I'm really going to miss all of her advice and insights, but most importantly, I'm just going to miss her and her family. We love the Jones' and are sad to see them leave, but at the same time, we are happy that they are going to be reuniting with their husband/daddy. So, as I say goodbye to Kim, I'm also saying hello to the blogging world again! I'm hoping her and I both blog regularly so we can keep in touch. I love you Kim and am going to miss you to pieces!

New post

I've requested the help of Mandy, the computer guru, but even she can't figure it out! I finally did post something a couple of days ago, but it won't show up as a recent blog. So I'm hoping this silly post will! Maybe it's because I haven't blogged in such a long time...hehe!

Whirlwind of a Week

Jimmy and I have been married for 9 1/2 years. When we got married he was working at an alluminum plant and I was working at a local bank. Four months after our wedding, on the day of Tina and Jamie's wedding to be exact, we found out we were going to have a baby. We were both really excited! As the pregnancy months went on we started looking at our different options for childcare. The thought of leaving my baby in the hands of someone else tore my heart to pieces. For as long as I could remember I've had the desire to stay home and raise my children. Even before I was married I had this desire. However, we weren't sure at the time if we could afford for me to stay home. So as the pregnancy drew nearer to the end, we started looking harder for a daycare provider. It wasn't until I came home from the hospital with our little girl that we decided to give it a shot. I think it took seeing her, holding her, and bringing her home to make us decide that she made it worth trying. So, with hubby and baby in tow, we went to my work and gave my boss my resignation letter. I felt good about this! The desires of my heart were being fulfilled! Within the next couple of days Jimmy came home from work with devastating news. His plant was shutting down.

I knew in my heart that it was God's will for me to quit my job and stay home. I knew it because if it wasn't, He would have reversed the days. Instead of me quitting and then Jimmy losing his job, we would have found out about his job first. I don't know anyone that would quit a job to stay home to raise a family if you just found out your husband was losing his job. But I knew it had to be God to do it in the order it was done. We had peace of mind. Jimmy, being the hard working man that he is, worked side jobs until he got a new job at the paper mill. It didn't take long. And before that next year was up we were buying our first house and planning for baby girl number two! It was hard, especially for Jimmy. There were times that he was working one fulltime job and two part-time jobs to keep us afloat, and he did it for us, our family. He has worked hard for years to allow me to stay home with our (now 3) girls. When Hannah was 6 months old I started babysitting and did that for years. Homeschooling my girls was a desire, just recently in the last few years, put on my heart and when I eventually quit babysitting I started homeschooling. We are now in our second year of homeschooling.

On Thursday we, along with countless others, heard again devastating news. His plant will be shutting down. Again. Deja vous. Round two. With good reason, I was very upset initially. But I had my little pity party and have since moved on. I don't know what exactly this means for us and the girls. I don't know what our future holds. Jimmy has to start all over, again. But he will, and he will work as hard as he can for our family. Will he find a job close to home? I don't know. Will I eventually have to go back to work? I don't know. But I feel strongly that this will work out better for us in the long run. I have an amazing, loving, healthy family, great friends, and I'm holding on to God's promises. I know that greater things have yet to come, and greater things are still to be done...!

There are a lot of people that will be affected by this shutdown, and I am praying for them. I can't imagine those who both the husband and wife work there, or those that may be in the process of building homes. How about those who may not have family to lean on for support? The trickle effect will be tremendous for our small area. Please be in prayer for all of the families affected.

Pumpkin Flowers and More on Soccer

I will start off by saying that I have the complete opposite of a "green thumb". In fact, I would say that I have a "black thumb", everything I try to grow.....dies. Even my children have made comments when I have purchased plants saying, "Let's see how long it takes for this one to die." Now that's bad! I am pretty proud of myself though. I have a plant that I bought last Mother's Day and it is still alive! Now I won't mention how many times I almost lost it, or how bad it might look right now. The fact is, it's still alive! I'm also pretty proud of the pumpkin plant we have growing in the backyard. Yes, we planted it way too late. And no, it probably won't produce pumpkins because of how late it is. But just look at these awesome pumpkin flowers!
Now on to soccer. Leah's very first day of soccer was this past Sunday. Imagine watching a handful of four year olds kicking the ball around trying to get it in a goal, any goal, even if the goal is on another field on the opposite end! Cute! She said she enjoyed it and can't wait for her next game. Here she is taking a quick water break. Note the big mark on her face? Yeah, she ran into the molding of the bathroom door running away from one of her sisters. It was one of those cries that takes a long time to actually come out. You know, mouth opened but no noise coming out and then....blahhhhhhhhh! Yep, that's gonna leave a mark.

Here she is on the field of her first game.

Now check out Rebecca. Both feet off the ground I mean! Go girl, kick that ball!

A Day of Firsts

Rebecca has anxiously been awaiting soccer season. She loves soccer, a lot of sports for that matter, but she really loves soccer. She started playing when she was 4 and we've always played in the Hertford County league, but this year we decided to sign her up to play in Roanoke Rapids. I started thinking about this last year because we go to church in Roanoke Rapids, so we would leave church on Sunday afternoons and drive slam over to Ahoskie to play ball. The years prior were not so bad because we use to play our games in Murfreesboro, but that changed last year. Now we can go to church, hang out at either my sister's or Jimmy's parent's house until the game starts, and then go home. So today was her very first game of the new season with a whole new league. And to start it off right, she scored the very first goal and it was within the first five minutes or so! Not only that, but she scored two more! Those were her first goals ever! Rebecca said this morning before church that she really wanted to score a goal today so she was thrilled. I wish I had my camera with me to snap a shot of her proud face when she turned towards us with her big ol' smile. I don't know who was more excited, Rebecca or me! She has improved a lot since last year. She can control the ball a lot better, she's not nearly as intimidated to get in there and get the ball away from the pack, and boy is she fast. So to wrap it up, today was her very first game of the season playing for the first time in Roanoke Rapids and scored her very first goal. I can't wait for next Sunday's game! Go Becca!!!

New Project

I'm so excited! There is this "thing" I've been seeing for a long time now in one of the local department stores. Everytime I see it I can imagine it in my girls rooms. I'm in love with it, and I know they will fall in love too. Finally, this afternoon Rebecca and I were in that store and I thought about using my camera phone to snap a couple pictures to show Jimmy. So tonight I showed him the pictures and right away he thought of a way to make it! Ohhhh, I can't wait! It sounds like it's going to be really easy to make and boy will it change the look in their rooms! I'll post pictures when we get to that point.

Where were you?

For those of you on facebook, I'm sure many of you recounted where you were on "that" September day. I know I don't even have to say what "that" day means because we all get it. Unfortunately, we all get it. Eight years ago today our comfortable lives were disrupted, shattered, shaken, changed forever. I'll never forget that day. I read on someone's fb that they could not tell you what they were doing at this exact time last week, but eight years ago today, I bet we all remember where we were and what we were doing. Let's not forget why we have so many troops fighting right now, why we need to pray for our leaders, and to remember all of the many many victims from eight years ago today.

Yes, we're rednecks!

Jimmy has a pellet gun that we like to sit around and shoot. We just sit around sometimes and aim at different things and see how long it takes us to hit it. Jimmy has gotten the girls interested in shooting it as well. This afternoon Rebecca and I were trying to find something to shoot. I told her to go inside and cut some off of our poster board roll and draw a person, that can be our target. We hung it up and went to shooting. We both aren't that great at aiming, but as you can see, the poor girl is tore up! When Hannah came outside and saw that Rebecca had drawn a person, she got on us. Hannah said we should have drawn a deer or something, anything other than a person. lol.

Summer '09 Highlights

Rebecca and Jimmy's birthday

The girls decorating the birthday cake

Plenty of rest

Summer cookouts

More time for rest

A ton of boogie boarding

Many vacation bible schools

Lots of time with cousins

A lil' bit of Elvis

And more boogie boarding

Vacation with family

Awesome Drawings

A young and very talented girl from my church named Katie drew these pictures of my girls. All I had to do was send her a picture of each of them and she went to work. Her drawings are identical to the pictures I sent. I wasn't sure which pictures worked better for her so I actually sent her several of each girl. I was very very impressed with her work and couldn't wait to mat and frame them. Her prices are really good too. They are as follows: 8x10 - 1 person $35, 2 people $40-45; 10x14 - 1 person $45, 2 people $50-55, 3 people $60-65. They would make great gifts too. If anyone is interested let me know and I can get you her info.

This is Hannah

This is Rebecca

This is Leah

Can I get any busier?

With summer in full swing it seems we've only gotten busier. The girls have done two VBS's so far, and there are two more that they want to do sometime this summer. Hannah and I have been working on her 4-H presentation for several weeks too. The big day for her is tomorrow. We have to get up pretty early and head out to Hyde County (wherever that is). Tomorrow also begins Rebecca's art lessons, so Jimmy's mom is coming to watch Rebecca and Leah and take Rebecca to her class. Along with my summer job cleaning cottages on the weekends, I've also picked up a part-time job during the week. I'm planning on using my money to pay for all the curriculum I want to order for the girls next school year. There are a couple of things I want to get that are a little pricey. I ended up having to work both Saturday and Sunday this past weekend so I missed out on spending time with either my dad or Jimmy. But all was well because my dad and mom went camping for the weekend and Jimmy took the girls to the beach. Jimmy decided Friday night that he wanted to take them somewhere, somewhere fun. After coming up with different ideas he finally decided on the beach. So Saturday morning he called to book their room for Sunday night. He went to spend the day with his dad on Saturday and then Sunday morning he and the girls left for the beach. They had a great time! He took them to Jockey's Ridge, they swam at the beach and the pool, they played putt-putt, he took them out to dinner and icecream, and they went souvenier shopping! They even bought me a pretty coffee cup! Yesterday morning they went out on the beach again for a while before they had to return home. He sent me the sweetest message on my cell phone. It was a picture he had taken of the girls on the beach and under it he wrote, "We miss you mommy!" I loved it! In a way I'm glad I wasn't able to go because it gave them some really good quality time together, something that they don't get too much of. It was a Father's Day that they will always remember. Well I'm off to get ready for work now. Hope you all are doing well!

Summer's Begun!

We've already enjoyed several days swimming in the pool, and yesterday I got some really cute shots of the girls and Jimmy. He throws them pretty high and they love it!

Hannah being thrown by daddy

Hannah was trying to pretend she was "having tea" while being thrown.

Now it's Rebecca's turn to fly.

Leah doesn't like being thrown, but she loves to jump off the side.

Daddy is giving Leah a ride on his back.

This one is the funniest to me. Hannah went sideways and she has an "Oh crap!" look!

Hannah's Campout

Saturday night was Hannah's campout. I couldn't decide when to have it because I was not sure when I would start working. Finally I just scheduled it for Saturday night because Jimmy was off and he was fine with handling things in case I got home a little late. I told everyone to be there around 5:30, and wouldn't you know I didn't get home until after 8:00! Jimmy didn't mind a bit. Him and a couple of his buddies got everything set up for the night and kids started arriving about 6:00. By the time I got there they had already eaten dinner and had the campfire going. So as soon as I got home I showered and we started the smores. Those kids ate until they couldn't eat anymore! Some of them ate so much they had tummy aches later. Around 10:30 Jimmy and one of his buddies set off fireworks. It was 12:30 when all the girls finally fell asleep, and of course they were up when the sun came up. When we all got stirring Jimmy cooked breakfast outside so it was like we were at a campground. I'm thankful to my friend Kim who was there most of the time and took pictures for me since I missed the first couple of hours. She hasn't sent me those pictures yet, so these are the very few that I did get.

I hate I didn't get a picture of the whole set-up. Jimmy had a big tent for everyone to sleep in, then he set a small one up for me (which I ended up sleeping with all the girls). He also set up our canopy tent right in front of the big tent with a picnic table under it. This is a picture of the campfire next to the tents. I took this Sunday morning.

The girls are roasting their marshmallows for the yummy smores.

This was also taken Sunday morning. Mr. Charles drove all the girls around on his golf cart. Jimmy told me that he came by Saturday night and drove all 12 girls on the golf cart at one time! I wish I had a picture of that!

Jimmy's Kittens

Jimmy, the one who doesn't care for cats, has now found a new love. Last week I told him that we ought to be having more kittens soon since the other cat was pregnant and looked like she would soon be having them. His response surprised me, and it surprised the girls too when I told them what he said. "Well good. I'm ready for some more kittens around here." I couldn't believe it. So I guess he got his wish when Saturday morning he woke up to three kittens and one more that came later. I started cleaning again this weekend, and when I left Saturday morning she came up to me meowing like crazy. I thought right away that she was going to have her kittens and I hated to leave. But later I forgot all about them while my friend and I chit chatted all the way to the beach. I called Jimmy when we got there and he told me all about the sweet things. As soon as he saw she had the kittens he started taking care of her. He moved her to our porch to keep the dogs away and started feeding her and giving her warm milk. Jimmy and the new mama cat have formed a bond! He makes sure he rubs her goodnight before turning in and checks on her first thing when he wakes up. She had four kittens, three orange and white and one black with a little gray and white. I think we have all agreed that if we keep one it will be the black one, so we have three more if anyone would like one! If so, let me know.

Look at this cute kitten all spread out! It looks like she just dove into her mama looking for milk.

From Caterpillar to Moth

Several weeks ago Hannah found a caterpillar in the yard, so we fixed up an old jar with leaves and twigs and put it in the jar. The very next day the caterpillar formed its cocoon! We kept an eye on the cocoon everyday wondering when and if it would turn into a butterfly or moth. Finally one day Leah came into the house telling us that she thought the caterpillar was now a moth, and she was right. Hannah was thrilled! The picture below is her holding the moth on a stick while it dried its wings. After a little while it flew away.

Grade Promotion Ceremony

Weekend before last our homeschool group had a grade promotion ceremony. It was the first time this group did a big thing at the end of the year like we did, but I'm sure it will be something we continue. There were lots of people who came since we all invited our family members and some of the people from the community that worked with us and helped us out during the year. Every family chose a different country and we cooked foods from that country. Since the girls and I studied Colonial America a bunch at the beginning of the year we chose the good ol' USA. Every family had a table set up to demonstrate some of the projects that we worked on throughout the year. First we all ate, then we watched a dvd that one of the mom's made for all of us. It was a collection of pictures that were taken during the year from all of our different fieldtrips, meetings, and so forth. That was awesome! Next some of the children performed for everyone. Some played the piano, one girl played the dulcimer, and Hannah chose to read a book. THAT was a big accomplishment! Reading is something Hannah despises. She loves for me to read to her, but hates to read herself. BUT, she did so incredibly well! I told her afterwards that I would love for her to read that great for me. I was very proud of her. Then at the end, all of the children received certificates for completing this school year. Even Leah got a certificate for being the biggest helper...lol!

This was a poster we made about the USA the week of the ceremony. Leah colored the Liberty Bell...can you tell?

This is Jimmy's mom and dad (Grandma Trudy and Grandpa Andy).

Chuck E. Cheese & Holly the Hamster

Boy have we been busy! We're wrapping up the end of the year and are ready for summer. Last Thursday was, of course, Hannah's birthday and the one thing she wanted from us was a hamster. She started telling us back in January that she wanted one, and we have been telling her that she needed to show us how responsible she is in order to get one. Jimmy and I were going to get her one, but just hadn't yet. I knew I had time since her party isn't until this weekend, but Jimmy called from work Thursday morning to tell me that I should take her to go pick one out. He wanted her to have it on her actual birthday, so I headed to Rocky Mount with one excited little girl! Well actually three excited girls! They were all anxious and thrilled that Hannah was going to get a hamster. Since it was lunch time when we arrived, our first stop was Chuck E. Cheese. We stayed there for about two hours then headed to the pet store. Hamster: $9.99....everything that goes with the darn thing:$100.00! Did you know that they put them in a box like you get chicken in when you go to KFC? Hannah was holding the box on the way home, and all of a sudden the girls started screaming. The hamster was making a hole in the side of the box and trying to get out! They were screaming and it was freaking me out so I had to pull over quickly. I would not have been able to handle that thing getting loose in my car. So I pulled over in an abandoned parking lot on the side of the road, and there just so happened to be a cop checking traffic there. My plan was to put the cage together so we could put Holly the Hamster in there for the rest of the ride home, but then I remembered that we bought a ball for her to roll around in so we got that out instead. I opened Hannah's door and peaked in the KFC box but was way too scared to pick the hamster up and move her. Hannah was too scared also, so what were we to do?? Of course! I walked right over to the policeman and told him how desperate I was. He looked at me like I was crazy, but he politely obliged. Out of his car was this 6'4" man in uniform coming to move a hamster from a chicken box to a plastic ball! It was funny! He was very polite and helpful, and he saved my life because I know that if that thing got loose I would have wrecked..lol! So now we have a new addition to our family.

Happy 8th Birthday Hannah!

Today is Hannah's 8th birthday! How can that be? My first baby already eight years old! We started the morning with our traditional icecream for breakfast. After we do some school work today we will go to the park. She decided on a sleepover for her birthday, but not just any old sleepover, instead a campout! Because of other things we have going on, we will have her campout next weekend. We are going to set up tents in the backyard, have a fire pit, roast hotdogs, and make smores. My plan was to find a dvd projector, hang a sheet from Jimmy's barn, and we could watch a movie outside when the sun goes down. But I cannot find a projector! I've found some online, but they are really expensive. I saw one at Christmas that I could kick myself now for not buying. So I guess we will have to skip the movie.

This is a picture Mrs. Lowe did for us. I think Hannah was about two months here.

Hannah at age one, blankie in hand and fingers in mouth....not much has changed!
Hannah's very first dance picture! She was two years old here.

Hannah in pre-k

And this morning....with her bowl of icecream for breakfast! Happy Birthday Baby!