Our Family's First Camping Trip

We went on our first camping trip! YAY! We went to Turkey Run State Park. It was sooo much fun, a lot better than we had expected it to be, not saying we were thinking it was going to be horrible or anything, we just didn't know how all three would handle a whole weekend in a tent. THEY WERE GREAT! They enjoyed every minute of it. None of us were ready to leave when the time came. We saw some of the most beautiful areas.

All the pictures to come very soon...lil' sneak peek here.

Eating breakfast together.

Our lovely campsite. Kason was actually really excited to be there, just caught him in a slump...literally.

Going over the suspension bridge.

The girls

He said this was his seat

Kason climbing up the waterfall

A lot of my pictures are taken from behind. This is because I can rarely get them to all look at the camera at the same time, so I take what I can get.

I'll show you what I mean.... See? It just hardly ever works. They usually just end up getting ticked at me for trying to make them smile. hahaha

Dear, Kenner & Sash Came to Visit

We had so much fun while they were here visiting with us! We went to the Dunes one day, here is some of our adventure... I've gotta get Kenner to send me all of her pictures.

Making new friends with Dear

She thought it would be a good idea to put her whole face down in the sand...and afterwards...still thought it was funny.

Little Mr. just hanging out

The three amigos.

Checking out the scenery

Shaving With Daddy = Fun Times!

Kolton loves to imitate everyone in our family! This was one of his moments...

POOP

We had poop in the tub today. Awesome.

Easter

We went over to a friends house for the day to play and she took some amazing pictures of the kids!! Had to get some in their precious Easter outfits! Here are just a few of them!

Thanks Joanie!!

A Little Bit of Kason's 4th!

We had his birthday party at a place where the kids can act like jumping beans!! They have around 5 different huge moonwalks inside this place. They loved every minute of it! I will post more pictures as I get them. My camera was actually dying that day, so some of my friends at the party took some more. I'll try and get them soon, so you all can see just how much fun we were having!

He's so proud of this new pole. Can't wait to try it out with Daddy soon!

I don't know why this one turned out red like this, but it's still such a cute picture!!

Happy Birthday Kase! I can't believe you're growing up so fast! We love you and are so proud of who God is creating you to be!

Bath Time with Kolt

So this is probably his most favorite part of the day! I just happened to catch him on camera today being such a character, tricks and all. Even an upside down photo. What fun we have at bath time!

Question of the Day

Kason came up to me this afternoon and said, "Mommy, who is Jesus?" "And Mommy, who is Heaven?" Funny that he thinks Heaven is a who. So I was so excited that he was curious after all the stories and prayer times that we have with them each day! Yay! I took the time to share with him what I know about my Jesus and now am just hoping and praying that one day he will decide that it is the right time to pray and ask Jesus into his heart. I told him, "Whenever you are ready for Jesus to come and live in your heart you just ask me or Daddy to pray with you. Did you know that Jesus will come and stay with you forever if you just simply ask him?" "And when you do that you will be able to live with Him forever in Heaven...and yes, you can play all you want in Heaven. It is going to be an amazing place!" So after asking him those questions and discussing a couple of other things, he had a kind of bewildered look on his face. His answer was an, "uh-huh."..."but mommy, can Jesus just come to my house? I think He would like to come to my house instead of my heart." So sweet, he wants to invite Jesus over to our house. ...We'll keep working on the understanding part. ;) I'm sure to a four year old somebody living inside your body doesn't sound to appealing.

WOW...God is good!

Throw a few kids into the mix of that email...and whammo, there's our house during the day!

I decided to post this today, after my glorious morning (it last about 30 minutes), because for some reason the day didn't go as smoothly as I had planned.

Here are some of the reasons that I think may contribute to the way my house funtions:

1. God is just putting these trials in my day, just to see how I handle each situation. If I handle them correctly I may get a prize...God in His majesty already knows how I will handle them, so He doesn't feel threatened to offer something grand as my prize.

2. My day isn't hectic enough, so my kids decide to throw a few crumbs on the floor during lunch so I will have to mop the floor for the 4th time today. Let me tell you though, when I say "a few crumbs", what I mean iiiiis, every single last smidgen of anything they have left on their plate, so that when I sweep it up I have to fill the dust pan up TWICE! I'm wondering if they are trying to tell me something?

3. God is punishing me for what I did to my parents when I was younger and is getting a kick out of watching me go through the same thing. Saying, See this is why I said, Children obey your parents in the Lord for this is RIGHT!

Please, forgive me if you think I am mocking the Lord in any way, because I am totally not trying to do that. He knows what's going on and I talk to Him all day about it, so it's nothing new for Him. I think it's funny because, I pray for patience and strength and wisdom to get through each day with my children and He knows what He's doing when he puts these certain things in our day! It's up to me now to make the decision on how to handle this chaos. Thank you Lord for loving me and my family and for keeping us healthy and safe enough to have crazy days!

My All Time Favorite Email...Wins the Award Right Here

This is me in a nut shell. I don't quite know if I qualify for the "age" part yet, but someone can correct me if you think that I am wrong.

AAADD Thank goodness there's a name for this disorder. Somehow I feel better even though I have it!!
Recently, I was diagnosed with A.A.A.D.D. -Age Activated Attention Deficit Disorder. This is how it manifests:
I decide to water my garden. As I turn on the hose in the driveway,I look over at my car and decide it needs washing.
As I start toward the garage,I notice mail on the porch table that I brought up from the mail box earlier. I decide to go through the mail before I wash the car.
I lay my car keys on the table,put the junk mail in the garbage can under the table, and notice that the can is full. So, I decide to put the bills back on the table and take out the garbage first. But then I think, since I'm going to be near the mailbox when I take out the garbage anyway, I may as well pay the bills first. I take my check book off the table, and see that there is only one check left.
My extra checks are in my desk in the study,so I go inside the house to my desk where I find the can of Pepsi I'd been drinking. I'm going to look for my checks, but first I need to push the Pepsi aside so that I don't accidentally knock it over. The Pepsi is getting warm, and I decide to put it in the refrigerator to keep it cold. As I head toward the kitchen with the Pepsi, a vase of flowers on the counter catches my eye--they need water. I put the Pepsi on the counter and discover my reading glasses that I've been searching for all morning. I decide I better put them back on my desk, but first I'm going to water the flowers. I set the glasses back down on the counter, fill a container with water and suddenly spot the TV remote. Someone left it on the kitchen table. I realize that tonight when we go to watch TV, I'll be looking for the remote, but I won't remember that it's on the kitchen table, so I decide to put it back in the den where it belongs, but first I'll water the flowers. I pour some water in the flowers, but quite a bit of it spills on the floor. So, I set the remote back on the table, get some towels and wipe up the spill. Then, I head down the hall trying toremember what I was planning to do.
At the end of the day:
The car isn't washed, the bills aren't paid, there is a warm can of Pepsi sitting on the counter, the flowers don't have enough water, there is still only 1 check in my check book, I can't find the remote, I can't find my glasses, and I don't remember what I did with the car keys. Then, when I try to figure out why nothing got done today, I'm really baffled because I know I was busy all dang day, and I'm really tired. I realize this is a serious problem, and I'll try to get some help for it, but first I'll check my e-mail....

It's a Brand New Day!!

Okay, the sun is shining, the kids are in great moods, it's 7:45 am and we have already completed breakfast...what's going on here? Thank you Lord for new days! Yesterday was another story. Tayah has not been feeling great, some weird fever thing that is part of a virus. You viruses really burn me up...there's nothing you can do about 'em. The doctors say "You've just gotta let them take their course." What kind of advice is that? What if I don't wanna let them "take their course", it is making my child miserable. Stinkin' influenza. Well, since she is not feeling good, she wants to be held ALL DAY. Which is fine, right? Yes, holding my children is wonderful, until they begin fighting over my lap. I'm telling you they fight over EVERYTHING. They would fight over who got to step on which piece of grass if I let them. Anyway, so Tayah wanted to sit there, then Kolton wanted to sit there, then they are both sitting there pushing each other out of the way while Kason is asking me to pull up a game on the computer for him then all at once..."I WANNA SNACK!" Okay, one thing at a time kids, oh wait, they don't work that way. Everything has to be done all at the same time! It's always an adventure in our home. Trying to comfort my kids all day, while making each and every meal, do enough laundry just so we can have some clean towels to take a shower with and have the house looking somewhat decent before Daddy gets home is not my idea of a "great" day. Needless to say, I was pooped yesterday. Shoot, we need a vacation!
Anyway, my Wednesday nights are usually pretty calm because Kason and I get to drive all the way to our church (about 20-30 minutes down the road) for his AWANA's class. That was not the case for last night. I took him to his class then I had to rush to the grocery store to pick up everything that we needed at the house plus, it's my turn to make the food for our Bunco tonight. Then rush back to the church to pick him up and get home. Ordinarily, I would be thrilled that it was my turn to do the food, I LOVE COOKING AND BAKING AND ANYTHING THAT HAS TO DO WITH A RECIPE, but I've had something going on EVERY night this week. Phew!

Buuuuuut, like I was saying today is a new day and I am thankful and we are going to make the most out of this! Hopefully, it will get above 50 degrees outside. ;) Plus, my sweet friend Joanie, gave me a new book that is going to help our family tremendously! It's called Have a New Kid by Friday, by Dr. Kevin Leman. I am so excited to start reading it, I've already heard so many great things about it. Well, we're off to get Kason to school this morning...and our first fight of the day has just broke out, better go referree.

Have a beautiful day everyone!

Picture courtesy of Jenny Hintze!

This is just three of the little blessings themselves! God is sure working in our lives every day! I wanted to start this blog to keep everyone up to date in our lives! ...and also, to have a little fun for myself. Even if it's just venting on this thing. HAHA! We'll see how it goes! I want to share with you some of our favorite things, some of my favorite past times, and all the fun that goes on in our house daily! Trying to stay creative here guys!