Moving, Moving, Moving....

In case you haven't heard, we're moving!
We've known for awhile that we were going to have to move out of the Brady Bunch house and have been trying to find a home to lease.
Looooong story short, it has been a serious roller coaster ride and like I told my sister the other day, I'm ready to get off and head for the carousel!
We are moving about 30 miles north of where we live now. It's closer to Emma & Dougie's school and much closer to the church where Steven is serving as interim.
So if I'm not around the blog in the next few days/week, you'll know why. Not that it's an excuse for my previous absence, actually it is, remember the rOLLer COasTEr?

Thank you for riding. Please gather your belongings and exit to your left.

Gladly!
Love y'all dearly!

She's got her Momma's smarts, NOT!

Tomorrow, something big is happening at our house. Well, actually, it's not taking place at our house but anyway.
Emma is taking the SAT.
Yes, you read that right. My 13 yr old, who's in 7th grade, is taking THE SAT, at Georgia Southern, with high schoolers!
What in the world, you ask?
Back in the Fall, you received a letter that stated because of her scores on a standardized test, she qualified for the Duke TIP Program. Part of this program gives 7th graders the opportunity to take the SAT. Her scores won't count for anything, it's just the experience of it all. Being part of this program may or may not lead to some scholarships & other educational benefits. Emma's response to all was, "I'm not going to some smart kid camp in the summer." So you can see, she's really into it all! ha!
And we've taken the no pressure approach to it all too. We are soooo proud of Emma. She is one smart chick.

Ice Storm 2011

As most of you know, last weekend, it was predicted that the south would have a serious snowstorm. Because we Southerners are ill prepared, just the mention of snow causes the masses to head to the grocery store and schools to prematurely close.
Last weekend was no exception.
Before we left church Sunday morning, it was decided that our evening service would be cancelled. Later that afternoon, I received the call from Emma & Dougie's school that there would be no school on Monday. So I joined the others and headed to the grocery store that afternoon.
When we woke up Monday morning, we didn't have any snow but we were covered in ice!
Emma & Dougie got home pretty early Monday morning, it was predicted to get worse as the day went on so I asked their dad just to go ahead and bring them home. Throughout the morning, the power flickered but kept coming back on. Since we didn't have any snow, we just hung out inside.
Then about 2 o'clock, it happened. The power went out and didn't come back on.
We weren't too worried, we called the power company to report it and they said it should be back on about 6pm. We were good with that because as long as it was on by 8:30 so we could watch the BCS Championship was all that mattered to us.
In the meantime, we played the funniest game of Twister. I've never seen 2 people get so tangled up like Emma and Dougie did! Later, we all bundled up and walked around in the yard. We had to stay out from under the pine trees, seriously. Branches that were weighed down with ice were falling like crazy.
We were thrilled to see the power company truck working just across the street and were positive we'd have power before the game.
Then all of the sudden, we heard a LOUD boom!
A fairly large tree, fell onto part of our driveway and with it took down power & telephone lines. It just missed taking down the power pole. The power guys ran over to check it out and said they would be on it as soon as possible.
As the sun began setting and tummys were growling, we decided to roast some hot dogs and cook a pot of canned chili over the fire. Thank goodness for the fireplace! For dessert, we roasted marshmallows.
The closer it got to 8, it was obvious that we weren't going to get our power back anytime soon. So we got sleeping bags and settled down for the night. We scrounged around until we found enough D batteries to power a radio. And it was just like the olden days, the kids laid around on the floor and we listened to the game on the radio. One by one, the kids fell asleep. Steven was so good to get up throughout the night to keep the fire going. We knew the kids didn't have to go to school the next day, so we weren't worried that we didn't get a good night's sleep.
As I laid there and watched the kids sleep, I couldn't believe how blessed we are.
We were fed, we were warm and we were together.

God is so good.

Visiting Santa

Before we get too far into 2011, I figured I better get my Christmas posts done!

Because of our schedule with Emma & Dougie, we have to be intentional about when we take the kids to see Santa. We had planned on taking them to the mall in Augusta one evening. But since Steven doesn't get home until 5, the thought of driving an hour and then facing the crowds just didn't appeal to any of us. So we decided to take the kids to the much smaller mall in Statesboro. As a bonus, the Chick-fil-A was offering free chicken sandwiches to everyone wearing a Santa hat, so we enjoyed some yummy, free food before seeing Santa.

When we arrived at the mall, there was NO ONE in line. Seriously, we walked right up without any wait! We were all bracing ourselves for Asher's reaction. I was sure this would be the year that he would be screaming in the picture. You can't really tell in this picture, but when Emma tried to put him in Santa's lap, he went stiff as a board.

Santa sweetly recommended putting him in big brother's lap. I didn't really expect Emma to be in the picture this year but she told me she wanted to, which made me so happy.

Since we were the only ones there, Santa took his time talking with the kids. And instead of having a chair, he had a kind of love seat so all the kids could sit and chat with him. Notice Asher is doing the "if I don't look at him, he doesn't exist" tactic.

Yep, he's still there.

I love this. Caleb so enjoyed talking with Santa. He really understood it all this year. So precious!

And when it was all done, we had a beautiful picture without anyone screaming and lots of precious memories!

Happy New Year

He has showed you, O Man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8

This is my 2011 New Years verse and it's also my first entry in my Siesta Scripture Memory Team notebook. SSMT is a challenge to memorize 2 scriptures a month and by the end of the year, you will have put to memory 24 verses. Why don't you join us?