Playing Catch-Up

I'm going to try and play catch-up, which seems to be what my blogging experience is lately. These pictures are going to work backwards, so get in rewind mode!

Do you really need to see any other pictures??!!!....... This picture was taken at the Ft. Worth Zoo this past weekend while we were riding the train. You can see the admiration in Hannah's face. I think I'm going to keep this picture and pull it out when they are 17 and 13 and they are arguing about something!


Here we are standing by the eagle at the zoo. We had a much-needed getaway this past weekend.

At the zoo they have parakeets that you can feed and even let perch on your finger. The boys loved this exhibit. Hannah just kept crinkling her little nose out of excitement every time a bird would fly by.

Enjoying all the animals. We had perfect weather - about 75 degrees and the zoo was not crowded at all.

We stopped by to see my sister in Ft. Worth and had fun playing with the cousins. Adam and I even went out on a little date - another much-needed excursion!

Hannah enjoying the slide! She has NO FEAR! This is not a good combination for a baby that follows her climbing, energetic brothers everywhere. She is going to be a tough one - which I love about her!

Jonah had to dress up like a Nursery Rhyme Character at school. He chose Humpty Dumpty. Here he is wearing his character well. I actually got to see him ham it up and perform his Nursery Rhyme in his class - he is SO much like his daddy in that way. He just lit up when the class laughed at his dramatic interpretation.

This is "crazy face"! Hannah began making this crazy stressed out looking face a couple of weeks ago and now she'll do it on cue when you say "do crazy face".

I threw this picture in just for my Dad! He picked this dress out and bought it for Hannah, so I wanted to show him how precious she looked for church wearing it!

Caleb dressed as Woody from Toy Story at the petting Zoo at our annual Lightfest. We had an awesome year - we had about 1200 people, awesome drama, and a man got saved! You could totally sense the Lord's presence there the whole night, which is so awesome for Halloween night.

Jonah dressed as a Karate kid and climbing the blow-up Rock wall. Jonah has just shot-up taller these past few months. The other day he ran out of the bathroom from taking his bath and excitedly informed me , "Mom did you know I'm a lot taller when I'm naked!"...you learn something new at our house every day.

My mom and dad came up to see LightFest - It was nice to have the help, because it's a little hard to keep up with 3 mobile kids with 1200 people around and Adam is always busy keeping everything going smoothly at LightFest.

The cutest little bumble bee!

Dad and the boys went up to Halloween on the Square to pass out Lightfest tickets. Of course the boys had to dress up, along with Adam dressed up as Captain Lightfest! I don't think my husband will ever grow up...which I love about him!

This Gus and Max our friends. We went to their house and played some games and had a little Fall Party. Here they are decorating cookies, which actually entailed Caleb dumping as many sprinkles as possible on the cookies!

This is a picture of a puppet show that my third grade class did about a month ago. They each made their own unique puppet and we turned a story into a play, decorated the scenery, made invitations and performed the play for parents and other classes. I have such an amazing class, they make it so fun and rewarding to teach!(you don't hear that much?) It's such an awesome feeling to be so exhausted, and have crazy schedules, and not get enough sleep most of the time...but still know your are right where the Lord wants you. I feel so blessed to do something that I absolutely love and contribute to other children, and still get to be a major part of my own children's education and upbringing...so blessed.

Jonah and Caleb dressed in their Tae Kwon Do uniforms.

Jonah belt tested and received this new belt. This is his Tae Kwon Do instructor, Andrea Williams. She is also our principal at our school...don't mess with this principal!

This is a picture of my thirtieth birthday scavenger hunt. And yes, I'm wearng a diaper! My husband organized a scavenger hunt with some of my wonderful friends - who took me around and tortured me! It was all out of love...and to get to laught at me!

This was one of the stops - Chik-Fil-A french fry eating contest. The worst part was that I'd just finished a big mexican meal, so eating french fries was not that enjoyable. This is my friend Andi who came up for the party. I'm dressed like an old lady (since I did turn 30)! Andi "won" the contest, but I'm actually contesting the results because I was looking at the video and I ate about twice as many fries as she did! Andi - I want a rematch!

This was another stop...the Halloween costume shop. My husband specifically asked that they make me try on this costume. I think it was called Funky, Groovy something. I had to put it on and do a dance in front of everyone.

I also had to pick out a cake at Sam's and read the ingredients in a loud, annoying voice. I had a crowd gathered around watching me...now don't you feel bad for me?

Here is the actual surprise party at a a restaurant. I thought we were just going out to eat with a couple friend, but we ended up at the restaurant with 45 people! I was so taken aback by all the people who came to wish me a happy birthday. What a fun time!

Some more of the friends....

And more... After the party and the scavenger hunt we ended up at a Tanglewood Resort where my friend Tammy did manicures and pedicures and we watched movies and stayed up way too late! I felt like I was in college again. Then the next day, I remembered why I don't stay up until 3:00 a.m....and I felt 30 again! The next day we went shopping and ate at Olive Garden. It was just an awesome weekend. When I got home, my husband had even painted our bedroom and gotten a new bedspread for our bed. He went way overboard this year...but I don't mind! You only turn 30 once right?

Field trip to the Pumpkin Patch

Picking out our pumpkins!

Happy Birthday Princess!

Today is Hannah's first birthday! One year ago today I gave birth to my first girl. I remember when I was about to find out the sex of the baby. I had prepared myself that it was another boy - and I was even excited about the idea of 3 boys! I really didn't think it could be that different with a girl, I thought I would be fine without having any girls. Well, after Hannah Joy was born, I found out that I was so wrong. Having a girl is totally different, and I'm so thankful that I could experience the love and fun of a little girl. She is such a sweet, laid back baby, and always full of smiles. She is such a fast learner - and she's even walking all around the house now, barely stopping to take a break. In fact, in the last 3 days she has gone from taking a few steps at a time to walking across whole rooms and back! I love to hear her say Mama - and more often she calls me Da-Da (but I think it's just my nickname). My prayer for Hannah is that she will be a woman that loves and fears the Lord with all her heart, and that she will always radiate with God's love. I love you birthday girl!

Opening presents! She was especially excited about this little guy! Here she is telling Lilly all about the toy!

Decorations for the party! We had just a small family party with some close church friends too.

Princess Hannah, you're cake awaits you!

MMMM!!! First taste of cake! It was definitely a winner! She kept coming back for more and finished off her whole piece. I'll have to post the pictures from today in her preschool class as soon as her teacher gets them to me!

Three year old Mischief!

This morning I was sending some leftover cupcakes to the Manna House (our church food ministry) workers at our church. Mistakenly I left them for about 3 minutes on a table by the door so they wouldn't be forgotten....Well, they were not forgotten, especially by Caleb. In the 3 minute time span some mysterious things happened to the cupcakes. When I came back in I looked at Caleb with his innocent, but caught look on his face. I asked him, what did you do? His reply: " I wicked 'em!!!" Well, I guess that was a pretty obvious answer. I know I shouldn't have taken a picture of him to encourage the behavior, but it was just too cute!!!

Lesson for today: Don't leave cupcakes in reach of a sweets-loving three-year old boy!

Random Pictures

I thought I would try and get caught up on pictures before Hannah's birthday. I haven't taken that many pictures, considering the busyness. The picture above is kind of strange, but to me it's interesting. We have been getting a ton of rain here. This is a picture of the ants trying to escape the water. What looks like dirt on the wall, is a solid mass of ants moving up the wall. They looked like they were going into the attic - yuck!!
Here is a picture of our first day of school. Everyone is going to school this year, including mom. As I've mentioned before, Jonah has been attending Forerunner Christian Academy, a university-model school. This year, I am teaching third grade. It's a wonderful schedule - I teach Mondays and Wednesdays until 1:30 and then Fridays until 11:30. Caleb and Hannah are in the preschool there at the school, except for on Fridays, when they stay home with Dad (it's his day-off).
It has definitely been an adjustment getting used to making weekly lesson plans for my third grade class, homeschooling Jonah on Tuesdays and Thursdays (while finding activities for Hannah and Caleb), trying to find time to grade papers and make sure my at-home lesson plans make sense to the parents, and still trying to keep my house clean and church duties fulfilled...I absolutely love teaching, I love homeschooling on Tue/Thur , I love my 5 students in my class, I know this is where the Lord wants me - I have no doubt about that. But I am EXHAUSTED! I really would like to go to bed at 7:30 every night! I'm starting to get in a rhythm on some things, the trick is to never get behind on anything! Which is virtually impossible, but I just keep telling myself to take it one thing at a time. It's okay if sometimes the dishes are still dirty when I go to bed, and my children's clothes are not perfectly ironed, and we eat pizza a couple of nights a week, and the laundry gets piled up...I could probably go on and on. Prioritize and live life as it comes! ---- I'll have to give more details about my wonderful class later!

SEEEWWWEEY!!! This is our friend Mark (who is the music minister at our church). Well, that's not him - that's the pig - but you get the idea! This is his new little piglets, they are only two days old in the picture. We took a little field trip to his farm to meet the new little babies. The momma pig was not too happy that he was picking up one of her little ones - I don't blame her.

All the kids loved the piglets. Hannah was especially fascinated. Look at her face in this picture. That's Elizabeth, Mark's daughter, standing next to us. Hannah just kept laughing and squealing, she was so excited! We were surprised that she noticed them so much - she couldn't keep her eyes of of them. She loved watching the goats too! I think we have our animal-lover!

Okay, I just have to say that I had an almost 30 year old moment the other day. I was picking up some food that Adam had ordered (in person). The teenage girl asked me "What did your son want on his hamburger?"....Did you catch that - she thought I was his mom!!! She said it a couple of more times too! Not the best of experiences for someone who will only be 29 for about a week more!....watch out, I might be wearing leather and sporting a new Harley on the next picture on the blog!!!!!

I'm back...for now!

Okay, I probably don't have any readers left, but I'm posting this for anyone who is still out there! (Erin...you finally can see something besides Caleb blowing out his candles!) This has been a whirlwind 2 months - more on that later! Just know, if I could I would be blogging more...there just hasn't been time or energy to place into blogging! Here are some pictures from Labor Day - hopefully I will get caught up on more recent pics soon.


We had a campout in the backyard on Labor Day! Caleb and Daddy roasting marshmallows!

This is Caleb, Jonah and his good buddy Ireland. Here they are showing off their homemade bow and arrows made by Dad! They had so much fun showing off their Robin-Hood moves!

Jonah and Ireland and their orange soda! Could you get any more "boy" than this?

Roasting weenies in our backyard...there is a small grill under that fire by the way!

Hannah watching from the window - it seems so sad, but she got to go enjoy too...just not when there was a fire!

Setting up the tent!

This is just a cute pic of Caleb that I wanted to include - doesn't he look all grown up! He says the funniest things right now, this is such a cute age!

My Princess Hannah - she's so much bigger now and it's only been about a month!

Could you get any more girlie?

This is her first taste of a lemon! She actually went back for more after this!

Happy 3rd Birthday Caleb

August 17th marked the 3rd birthday of my little guy, Caleb! I can't believe it was 3 years ago that this little man came into our lives. From the day he was born he was such a relaxed baby. He never really liked to be rocked or cuddled, he liked to do things on his own from the very beginning. He can be a little ball of fire, which goes along with his red hair - but just as quickly as he gets mad he's telling you he's sorry and that he "wuvs you". I remember at his second birthday I was a little worried because he wasn't talking much, well we don't have that problem anymore that's for sure. Caleb always has something funny to say! He loves to irritate his brother, but he also wants to be JUST like him and likes to copy him every chance he gets. He is still in love with baseball and anything related to sports. He likes to surprise you with his knowledge - I worked with him for weeks trying to get him to learn his colors and he was just not getting it (at least that's what I thought) - then out of the blue he can point out all the colors with no problem, count to 15, say his abc's, and who knows what else he has in his pocket! Caleb has a smile and a sweetness that just radiates and infects all around him! Happy birthday my sweet little man!

Here's his baseball cupcakes at his small little party. We just invited a couple of friends to simplify the party, and we all had the best time!

MMMM! Pizza!!

Cameron, Olivia, and Caleb playing on the video games at Jump N Land in Sherman.

Caleb and Gus hoopin' it up!

Hello!! Jonah having a great time on the bouncy obstacle course!

Even Hannah enjoyed the party. She climbed and crawled and tried to stay up with the big boys! She is definitely not afraid to join in on the fun!

Olivia - isn't she sweet?

Caleb & Gus having a conversation - wonder what that was about?

This was a gift he got from Mama Gina and Papa John. It's a SuperHero headquarters. He has not stopped playing with it since. I think he enjoyed looking at the box as much as the toy!

These are the baseball cupcakes for the party! My first try looked like a 2 year old did it - so this was the better version. Of course we had to have baseball cupcakes!

God: the Ultimate Provider

Today has been a good day. You won't understand how good unless you know a little bit of background.
Two years ago when Jonah was 3 years old, Adam and I began praying about what kind of schooling we wanted to do for our kids. We discussed homeschooling, public schooling, private schooling, all the usual models. We both come from public schools (I taught in public schools) and feel that both of us received a good education from public schools, but we felt that God was calling us to do something different educationally with our kids, but what? We agreed that the "ideal" situation for us would be a school that had a challenging educational program, a chance for frequent socialization, but still have more time to spend as a family and instilling the values that we desire for our kids to grow up with. This sounded ideal, but we had never heard of such a thing.
As I began researching school models, I came across a model called a University Model School. I spent hours looking up different schools. It was a relatively new idea that developed about 15 years ago in Arlington, TX. The model involves the best of all the educational worlds. Kids go to school and receive instruction from a trained teacher 3 days a week in a Christian environment and the other 2 days they are homeschooled and receive one-on-one instruction based on lessons that the teacher sends home. As they get older they move to more of a college type schedule and mindset. As I read about all of the successful schools, this model intrigued me but most of the schools were in large cities so I just put the thought aside and just prayed about what the Lord wanted us to do.
When Jonah was 3 we went to visit a local preschool, but just didn't feel like that was the direction we needed to go. One day we were getting our oil changed at a local Bonham Quick Lube and there was a sign advertising Forerunner Christian Academy. It was a new school in Bonham and I grabbed the flyer and told Adam we should check it out. We laughed about how it was probably a bunch of crazy people and how could a good Christian school ever pop up in Bonham. Oh ye of little faith. I went to the website and it looked pretty good so we decided to attend a parent meeting.
Skeptical, we walked into the parent meeting, which at that time the school was being held in an older church in Bonham. The people were so nice, we left feeling good about putting Jonah in preschool there.
Jonah started preschool there almost 2 years ago. We just fell in love with the ladies who started the school and their heart and passion for what they could see this school growing into. It was such a leap of faith for them - all 3 founders had very small children and growing families but they listened to what the Lord told them to do. Since then they, and many others, have spent countless hours, unpaid might I add, to make our school what it is today. Adam joined the board back in January and we have been so blessed to be apart of watching God bless our school in countless ways.
One thing that makes our school such a challenge is the heart that we have that no child should not be able to come to our school because of lack of money. Most of the students in our school (their parents) are on a Work-Study program working off hours to pay for tuition. Many teachers volunteer their time. We still have to pay many positions out of necessity, without much money coming in each month. Many months have been a step of faith, praying and seeking out the funds that we were in need of - and lo and behold a check would come in randomly or someone would help us out in some way. God has kept us going and God ALWAYS provides.
So now we come to about 6 weeks ago. Our school has been meeting in a local church and we were informed (8 weeks until school started) that we could no longer meet there. They were very clear that it was nothing that we had done, they just had some internal problems in the church that were making it impossible for us to be there. We were stunned and wondering, what was next? We were too big to fit in most of the churches in Bonham and really did not have much of an option from there. After leaving that deacons meeting, the board decided not to go and try to fix the problem, they decided to be silent about the situation and pray for 7 days before talking about it. And they did.
At the end of the 7 days of prayer, one of the founders of the school, randomly remembered a building that someone had told her about two years before. She called up the board and asked them if they wanted to go and check this building out. They walked in this vacant building and it was amazing! It was like it was made to be a school - classrooms already set up, an abundance of space to grow, gym space, cafeteria space, it seemed too good to be true. Then we were told that the building was owned by a very prominent Christian man in town. Maybe he would give us the building or let us use it for free. This had to be it, so they set up a meeting.
The next day they met with this man - and he informed them that he would be glad to help them with the building,---- if he only owned it. He had sold it several years back to GE and he pretty much said good luck with that one. This was crushing news, the board was sure that this was where God was leading, what now?
They went to GE immediately and thought it wouldn't hurt to ask them about it. Amazingly the man they talked to seemed pretty open to the idea and said to put in a proposal and he would have to push it through to the CEO's. This was GE!! We just kept praying that God would provide for our needs, whatever the outcome.
Three weeks went by and we had still not heard anything. We had placed a proposal for GE to allow us to lease the building rent-free or for them to donate the building to us. -- In the meantime, we find out that the man we had been in contact with from GE had actually looked into our school at one point and come to a Parent Meeting. He was really impressed but his family had chosen to homeschool. God placed him in the right place - and he was pulling for our school. This has been such a test of faith, more than you know. We pushed school forward two weeks as we waited for the news. Our whole school and extended families had been praying that God would open the door.
Today we get a call from GE saying that the CEO's had approved for us to use the building rent-free!!!!!!!!! We are still waiting on the paperwork to get all finished, but God had favor on us and in His lovingkindness provided this school for us. We have been praying at home for this for weeks now, when we got the news today Jonah's immediate response was "Isn't God a great God!" And He is. He would be a great God even if He had not provided this for us, but out of His grace and mercy He showered blessings on us! I wish you could understand what a relief this is for our family and to know that we have an awesome space for Forerunner Christian Academy to call its own. This will also open up doors for our school to grow in numbers, being in our own facility and able to fulfill some of the educational dreams that we have all envisioned. I could go on for days about the vision that we all have for Forerunner, but that's another day.
I just wanted to praise God and share with you my testimony of His provision. I have to admit that there have been days that I didn't know what God was doing this time, but I just kept hearing Him whisper in my ear, "Trust Me". And now we must trust God - with furnishing a building, paying for utilities each month, paying teachers, and much more. We are in the process of some major work on establishing a donor base and getting the funding that our school needs. It is a daunting process, one that none of us has ever even attempted, but we KNOW that God is with us and has set this school here for a purpose! We have a huge list of things that we need in order to furnish the school and we have 3 weeks in which to do it and no money! We know that God provided this building, so we are going to trust Him and work very hard to glorify Him in our efforts. Please, please, please pray for us in these next few weeks and year to walk in obedience and honor Him in our school.
Okay, I'll stop rambling - I feel better now! If you want to check out our school go to www.forerunnerchristianacademy.org !