The 29:11 Promise

A rose....

2011-12-09T10:35:00.000-05:00

"God gives us memories so we can have roses in December." My Grandma had this quote written in the front of her Bible and it has rung so true for my family. My Uncle Richard shared this story at the memorial service & I wanted to share it here. It's such a powerful story that I want my children to know about it for years to come.
At the age of 8, my Grandma lost her mother. Her life after that was not easy, as she & her siblings were sent to live with various family members. Eventually, my Grandma met my Grandaddy and they married. (Another post for another day!) They left Colorado and moved back to my Granddaddy's hometown of Atlanta, Ga.
After moving to Atlanta, my Grandma began having this reoccurring dream. She would dream about her mother. She & her mother were outside and her mother would be on one side of a fence and my Grandma was on the other. Her mother was singing a beautiful song and reaching out to her. My Grandma would try to get to her mother but would always wake up before she reached her. My Grandma didn't know the song that her Mom was singing but in the dream, she always sang the same song.
At some point, we're not sure when, my Grandma found out that the song was the old hymn Whispering Hope.
Sometime in the 60's, my Grandma took a trip back out west to visit some of her family. While there, she shared with her Uncle Victor, her mom's brother, about the reoccurring dream. It was then that he shared with my Grandma that he had played Whispering Hope on the violin at her mom's funeral.

Now we have complete understanding of why this song meant so much to my Grandma.
When she was in the hospital, my dad sang the song to her, and when it came to the chorus, she sang along with him. And at her memorial service, my sister Laura & a family friend sang Whispering Hope.

"This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil. Hebrews 16:19

My hope now is that my Grandma has been reunited with her precious Mother & together they are in the presence of Jesus.
Love y'all dearly!

My Sweet Grandma

2011-12-02T09:16:00.000-05:00

Lydia Olguin Fitzgerald

March 25, 1925 - December 2, 2011

Fall Festival & Halloween

2011-11-03T21:02:00.000-04:00

Last Wednesday, our church had a Fall Festival & Trunk or Treat in conjunction with Awana. At some point during the evening, my camera went missing & is still lost. So all my pictures are what I took with my phone.

Throw a pie at the pastor was a big hit!

I forgot to take a picture of my trunk but instead of decorating it with the typical Halloween/Fall decor, I decided to go with a UGA theme. I took everything UGA we had in the house & even downloaded some UGA music to have playing while the kids came by! I don't know what everybody else thought about it, but I loved it! I may or may not have continued to listen to the UGA music throughout the week.

On Halloween, we were looking forward to trick or treating in our neighborhood. Emma dressed up in an 80's outfit & volunteered to hand out candy. Dougie didn't dress up but wanted to walk with the little boys & help Asher carry his basket, which was his UGA helmet. (Dougie's idea!)

I tried to get a video of Asher going up to a door & saying "tick-a-teat!" but it was really dark & you couldn't really hear him. =(

When we got back to the house, Emma told us how she had run out of candy & had to resort to handing out gummy snacks. Good thing I'd just bought a bunch of them!

We had a really good time & made some great memories! Love y'all!

Jr. Pro Football 2011

2011-10-19T13:36:00.000-04:00

Our school offers a football team for 3rd thru 5th grade called Jr. Pro. Dougie played when he was 3rd grade but didn't play in 4th grade because he chose to be on a travel baseball team. But I think he really missed playing football & couldn't wait to play this fall. He mostly plays on offense in the running back/wingback position.
I want to be able to remember what this season was like for Dougie, so I've tried to remember what he did in each game.
Game 1- vs. Briarwood 28-6 W Dougie scored 2, 2 pt. conversions & a touchdown.
Game 2- vs. Brentwood 14-0 W Dougie scored a 2 pt. conversion
Game 3- vs. Bulloch 12-6 L
Game 4- vs. Bulloch 6-0 L
Game 5- vs. Briarwood 34-0 W Dougie scored a touchdown & a 2 pt. conversion
Game 6- vs. Thomas Jefferson 26-6 W Dougie scored a touchdown
Game 7- vs. Thomas Jefferson 36-0 W Dougie scored a 2 pt. conversion & he made a touchdown saving tackle on defense. (Yes, I realize that every tackle could qualify as touch down saving but this really was! Ok, so I'm a proud momma!)
Here are some pictures that my friend Kristy took at game 6. It was our last home game.

Here are all the 5th graders. I can't believe this is their last year of Jr. Pro & next year they'll be middle schoolers!

It was a great season & Dougie, we so enjoyed watching you play. Thanks for the memories!

Traveling in a foreign land.

2011-10-03T11:14:00.001-04:00

If you hadn't noticed, I've been away for a little while. Last Wednesday, Steven & I were able to go to Gatlinburg, TN with a group of Senior Adults for a conference called Jubilee. We left early Wed morning but not before starting the day at Cracker Barrel. From breakfast on Wed morning until lunch on Friday afternoon, we didn't pay for a meal. That group sure did a great job of blessing us & even spoiling us. We had so much fun laughing, eating, hearing great preaching, eating, hearing some great music & eating some more! I have to be honest though by Thursday evening, I was beginning to feel like a traveler in a foreign land. If you've ever traveled overseas, you'll understand what I mean. When you're overseas & all you hear is a foreign language and then suddenly you hear someone speaking your native tongue, you're immediately drawn to that person. There is like an immediate bond. That's how I felt when I would see someone who was not a Sr. Adult. We would make eye contact & kind of speak an unspoken word of encouragement to each other, like "hang on sister, I'm sure you can listen to a Chris Tomlin song on that phone you've got in your hand!" Because inevitably, every young person I saw had their phone in their hand!
Seriously though, we had a great time. I'm so grateful to my mom & dad for keeping the little boys for us so we could go on this trip! It's always nice to come home to a house & van that's cleaner than when you left it!

Love y'all dearly!

Learning to say no...

2011-09-22T21:32:00.000-04:00

Now you're probably thinking this is some post about a pastor's wife learning to say no to church members who constantly ask her to do this or that. Well it's not.It's about Asher.
Now he mastered the art of saying no a loooong time ago.
But this happened last night, so I just had to blog about it.

Being the youngest preacher's kid & the fact that he is absolutely adorable, as soon as Asher gets out of the car at church, people are vying for his attention. Usually, he makes a bee line to his daddy. And after he sees him, then he begins looking for his other buddy, Jonathon. Jonathon is the teenage son of our music director and he & Asher have developed a very special friendship. Jonathon plays the guitar & since Asher loves music, it works out great! In fact, they have a routine. Jonathon will play this little diddy (can't believe I just used that word) and Asher will dance & play his air guitar. Jonathon then slaps the guitar strings to abruptly end the music & Asher will say one of two things,
"do dat tang." (In Asherian, Do that thang!)
or he will say,
"do gin Jonfin!" (Do again, Jonathon.)
In fact, because of Asher, our family now says "Jonfin" instead of Jonathon, not to his face, of course.
Last night, after Awana, I was trying to round up my kids to head home. Asher, of course was with Jonfin. I finally got all 4 of them headed out the door & when we got outside, Jonfin was behind us headed to his car. He came up behind Asher, pretending like he was going to pick him up & when Asher realized what Jonfin was doing, he firmly said,
"No Jonfin, I goin home!"

And that's when Asher learned to say no. =)

Love y'all dearly!

A Whole Hand!

2011-09-19T23:08:00.005-04:00

It's hard to believe that Caleb is 5 years old today!

Caleb,

You bring so much joy & laughter to our lives. Almost daily, I'm amazed at the things you say or do. You have a memory like no other. It's almost scary how you remember people and places. As everyone who knows you knows, you love to watch tv and/or movies. I'm afraid that I've taught you that the library is a place to get movies, not books. You also love to play on the computer.

You do like to play outside but you're such a hot natured kid, you can't stand to be outside if it's real hot. You have mastered riding Dougie's scooter & you like to ride your bike too! You love to climb & jump. You worked & worked until you learned how to skip & you know how to write your name. Just the other day, you asked me to show you how to tie your shoe, so I know it won't be long before you have that mastered too!

Even though you were old enough to start Pre-K, Daddy & I wanted you enjoy being home for a little while longer. So now when people ask you if you go to school, you tell them, "I'm home schooled." You came up with that on your own!

Caleb we love you so much & can't wait to see what you accomplish during your 5th year!

But because my servant Caleb has a different spirit and follows me wholeheartedly, I will bring him into the land he went to, and his descendants will inherit it. Numbers 14:24

That kid....

2011-09-12T15:59:00.003-04:00

I've been posting some funny things that my kids say on Facebook & since I want to be able to remember them, I'm going to share them here.

Last Friday morning, as Dougie was getting out of the van to go to school, I told him, "do good on your tests." From the back seat Caleb yells, "Make us proud!"

We were at Walmart buying a new shower curtain rod & I was letting Caleb carry it. As we're walking through the store, he points the curtain rod towards the sky & yells, "FOR NARNIA!"

We were at Dougie's football practice & I made the comment that I didn't know which one was Dougie (they don't have #'s on their practice jerseys) & Asher says, "big bubba right dere, in da white hamet (helmet)." Thank you, Captain Obvious.

Today we were walking into the bank & Caleb says to me, "let's pretend we're bank robbers." I immediately told him that was a very bad idea!

Lately, whenever Asher is tired, he comes to me with some kind of toy or stuffed animal & tells me that it's tired. It goes something like this, "Momma, my do-eee's (doggie's)tired. He need to yay (lay) down in my bed."

I'm sure there are many more that I'm forgetting but as you can see, life is never boring with these guys!

While they were sleeping...

2011-08-23T16:59:00.017-04:00

As you may remember, we moved into a house, that we are renting, this past January. When we first moved in, there were 2 rooms that I made some changes to immediately. I'm trying to link to the old post but it's not working, sorry.

But since then, I haven't really done anything. Although I have lots of ideas of things I'd do if this were our home but since it's not, it doesn't make a lot of sense to put a lot of money into it. But the other day, I was in the kids' bathroom and I noticed that the wallpaper was beginning to peel in several places. And I thought, "I could take down the wallpaper, use the paint I have left over from the dining room & be done with it. Easy peasy." Famous last words...

Here's some before shots~

As you can see, lots of brass and lots & lots of flowers. The thing we ALL hate most about this bathroom is the shower curtain rod. It was here when we moved in. It's plastic & brass with grooves & the hooks are suppose to slide through the grooves except that they don't! So to open the curtain, you have slide each hook individually! If I change nothing else, that curtain rod is going!

I started Monday morning by removing the wallpaper. If you follow me on twitter, you may have read my mid-morning tweet asking, "Is it common to wallpaper directly to the drywall? Sure makes it hard to remove." Yes, the wallpaper was directly on the drywall & it was not coming off easily. After several responses to my tweet, @HisHollySmith gave me some tips to help it come off easier. While the boys were napping, I was able to get the rest of the wallpaper off. My original plan was to paint immediately but because of the lack of primer on the wall, I knew I'd need to prime it first. When Steven came home Monday afternoon, I waited for him to see the bathroom but since he rarely uses this one, he didn't see it. So I decided I'd see how long it took for him to notice.

On Tuesday morning, I primed the walls, taped & painted the trim. I decided to spray paint the hardware with some rubbed oil bronze spray paint that I already had. I was too chicken to try to take the light fixture down, so this is what I did~

So professional.
I knew that if I got any of the spray paint on the wall, I could use the primer to cover it before I painted. See, there is a method to my madness.
While the boys were napping, I got the paint on the walls. Steven still didn't notice the bathroom.
On Wednesday, I painted a 2nd coat & did the touch ups.
After~

Here's the breakdown:
paint- free, already had it
spray paint- free, already had it
2nd can of spray paint b/c I used all of the other can- $3
tape- $2
new shower rod- $10
shower rings- already had but they got a coat of paint
Grand Total- $15

On Saturday night, Steven came into the bedroom and (jokingly) said, "there's something different about the bathroom?" Ha! He couldn't believe that I'd done it without him even knowing.
One more side by side before and after~

Aaaaahhhh, so much better, at least I think so.

First Day of School...

2011-08-08T08:56:00.009-04:00

Today was the first day of school for Emma & Dougie. Emma is starting to 8th grade and Dougie is starting 5th grade. Would someone please tell me how we went from this~
2007 4th grade & 1st grade

to this 2011, 8th grade & 5th

What's even scarier, this time next year Emma will be starting HIGH SCHOOL! OMW!!

If you need me, I'll be on the couch in the fetal position!!

Love y'all dearly.

South Georgia Sand...

2011-07-29T21:32:00.005-04:00

Earlier today, my sister texted me this picture, along with the message, "Thought of MaMa & PaPa!! Wish I could send the scent through the phone. ;)"

When we were kids, we spent a lot of time each summer at my MaMa & PaPa's farm. We would help out working in the tobacco fields, even though it sounds like something you would dread, we loved it because we got to be with our cousins. And even though the days were really hot & long, we always made it fun. Anytime we headed back to the house, we always had to make a stop by the water spigot in PaPa's barn to wash up. PaPa always had a bar of Lava soap for us to use. One thing I will never forget is him telling us to wet our hands, rub the soap on our hands and then take our hands and get a little bit of sand on our hands and then scrub away. I guess the sand worked like an abrasive because our hands would get soooo clean!

When I replied to my sister's text, I asked her if she remembered rubbing the sand in with the soap? I told her that it was a memory I'd never forget.

A couple of hours later, I got a text from my older brother. I guess my sister had sent him the picture too and he was replying to it. He said that he had bought some Lava soap a while back but that it "just doesn't work without that south Ga. sand in it."
It's amazing the memories that can be brought back just by the sight & smell of a bar of soap. My precious PaPa went to be with Jesus 20 years ago this past April but his memory is alive and well in his children & grandchildren.

11 years old!

2011-07-26T15:19:00.005-04:00

Today Dougie turns 11!

Last night around 11pm, I was putting some dishes in the dishwasher before heading to bed and my mind went to 11 years ago. I was getting ready for bed at right about 11pm and I had my 1st contraction. I didn't have anymore until about 3:30am. At that time, they were coming regularly and we headed to the hospital. By 7am, July 26 (his due date!) Douglas Neil Englund had entered into this world!

This birthday is different because I'm not able to wish him happy birthday. Dougie is away at camp for the very first time and he is celebrating his birthday with them. It's a little weird but I know that he is having a great time. But I do miss him.

Happy birthday Dougie! You are such a great kid and I love being your mom!

Hey, who light?

2011-06-28T14:37:00.005-04:00

I know that my last post was about Asher but his language is (finally) developing and changing so much, that I want to write down the things he is saying before I forget.
You have to be fluent in Asherian to understand some of what he says, so I'll translate for you!

ice shream- Ice cream

hibby doo- Scooby Doo

I on seep in bubba bed- I want to sleep in bubba's bed.

choky mook- chocolate milk

Big bubba/Dou-EE- Dougie

Lil bubba/Cayub- Caleb

Da-EE- Daddy

top art- pop tart

mamawpap (all one word) -Grandma & Paps

One of the funniest things he started doing is closing his eyes really tight and the yelling,
"hey, who light?"

I'm sure there's many more that I'll think of later.

Love y'all dearly!

Help da baby!

2011-06-18T22:35:00.005-04:00

I shared this story with some family this weekend and realized that I hadn't blogged about it. And since it's something I definitely want to be able to tell Asher about, I better write it down!

Thanks to the picture info on my phone, I know that this took place on April 26th, 10 days after Asher's 2nd birthday. At this time, Asher wouldn't say his name but would refer to himself as baby.
So Asher had started a new game. He would throw his baseballs or any other kind of ball above the sofa and loved when they fell between the couch and the wall. There is enough space that he could crawl back there and retrieve his balls, just to do it all over again.
On this day, I was in the other room and I heard him crying. I came into the family room and I didn't see him but I heard him crying. When I called his name, he cried out, "I stuck!" When I realized he was behind the couch, I bent down and this is what I saw-

When I asked him if he was stuck, through his cries he said,
"Help da baby!"

And yes, I took the time to grab my phone and snap a picture. Just think, if I hadn't, I wouldn't know when this happened!

Love y'all dearly!

Stop growing....

2011-06-15T09:03:00.005-04:00

Last night we had a first in our house.

Caleb and Dougie had made a plan that they were going to sleep together in Dougie's room. When it came time to go to bed, Asher was not too happy that his big & lil bubba were going to be together and he was by himself! So when I took Asher into his room, kicking & crying, I asked him if he wanted to sleep in lil bubba's (Caleb) bed. He immediately stopped crying and said, "eesss." So we put him in Caleb's bed and he slept there all night and didn't get up once! I snuck in this morning and snapped a picture using Steven's cell.

So I guess we'll be taking down the baby bed soon and moving one of Dougie's bunkbeds upstairs. ***sigh*** My baby's growing up!

Love y'all!

What day is it?

2011-06-13T23:20:00.004-04:00

Well, Summer is in full swing and we have been enjoying every minute. We were joking tonight because we were all confused on what day it was! Other than Sunday, our days are all pretty much the same.

Eat breakfast
Play outside before it gets too hot.
Come inside because it's too hot.
Watch D*sney, N*ckelodeon or Sp*rts Center (if Dougie has the remote)
Eat lunch
Take naps (usually just the little boys, but sometimes Momma too!)
Play board games
Play on the computer
Eat supper
repeat any of the above activities!
Go to bed waaaay tooo late!

We sure do miss not having access to a pool. But some friends in our church have offered theirs, so the kids and I are going tomorrow to swim! Yay!

Tomorrow night we are taking the kids to an Augusta Greenjackets game. They are running a special this week, buy 1 ticket get 1 free! I think I enjoy going to the minor league games more than the big leagues.

Later this week, we're going to ATL for a few days. Of course, we're all looking forward to that!

I guess that's about it for now. I'll leave you with this picture. we actually did something productive today and cleaned out the van and washed it! Asher even helped out and yes, he's in his pajamas. It IS summer, y'all!

Love y'all! Go eat some ice cream!

Shannon Bailey Fitzgerald

2011-06-01T09:18:00.004-04:00

March 7, 1972 - May 30, 2011

This is Shannon, wife of my cousin, Chris and mom to Mackenzie and Elliot. On Monday, May 30, 2011, Shannon unexpectantly went home to be with her Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Please pray for Chris, Mackenzie and Elliot, not only tomorrow, as they bury their precious wife and mother but in the days, weeks and months to come.

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. Psalm 34:18

Love y'all dearly and thanks for praying.

Get Up, Grandma!

2011-05-18T10:36:00.011-04:00

Last Monday morning, I called my Grandmother to see how her Mother's Day went & to just catch up. I knew that she had planned on going with my mom & dad to my sister's church for my nephew's baby dedication. She shared with me how her legs had really been hurting her for several days and by Saturday night, she'd pretty much decided not to go. She didn't want to be a burden to others because she would be getting around slowly. But when Sunday morning came, she got up, decided to move around a bit and see how she felt. She went into the living room to watch her favorite Sunday morning show, The Gaithers. But when she tuned in, she realized that her show had already gone off and that another show was on and Chris Tomlin was singing. Her words to me were, "I just love Chris Tomlin."

*I love the fact that my 86 year old grandmother loves Chris Tomlin!

So she decided to watch this show. As some point during this show Chris sang, "I Will Rise" which is an amazing song. And as my Grandmother listened to this song, she knew that despite how she felt or the fact that she might be moving slowly, she had to "get up off her rear and go." (Her words!)

There is so much to learn from this example that my Grandmother has set for me. When I first decided to write this post, I was thinking about how she is an example of someone who is willing to embrace change, especially in the area of music. But as I typed this, I realized that there's a deeper lesson to be learned, with me being the first needing to learn it.

My heart and mind are now churning over all that I am sensing the Spirit speaking to me about in my life.

Sometimes I just need to get off my rear and go!

When I grow up I want to be just like my Grandma!

Another 1st....

2011-05-11T19:33:00.000-04:00

When Emma started 3rd grade at the private school, which she still attends, we began hearing about "social" classes. I was completely uneducated about this but after asking around I found out that it didn't start until middle school. But I can honestly say that by the end of their 4th grade year, Emma and Landon had already committed to being social partners!

In 6th grade, they offer a manners class and at the end of the year, they have a formal dinner, where they get to put into practice everything they've learned.

But in 7th grade, you get to go to "social". Twice a month, you attend a class where you learn different dances, hence the need for a partner. In December, there is a Christmas dance but it's just your age group. Then there's a Father/Daughter dance in February. But in May, it's the grandaddy of them all, Spring Formal. And it's some 2000 students, from 7th grade up to 12th grade, from all over the Augusta area! Since this was our 1st time, we weren't really sure what to expect. We were blown away! It was so much fun! We were thrilled that my Mom & Dad drove down for this event. It really was nice having another female to oooohhh and ahhh over all the different dresses with me!

Before the dance~

Emma and her brothers, who stayed with friends, which I'm so grateful!
With Grandma & Paps right before going in.

The Grand March~ in my simple-mindedness, I thought they would just march around the outside of the floor. But no, they did this weaving in and out pattern, which really enhanced the dress watching! :)

The next few shots are of Emma dancing. From the blurriness of the photos, you will see that my camera stinks, or it could be my lack of skills but whatever.

And finally, a picture of Emma & Landon after the dance!

Here's a video of part of one of the dances. It was so neat seeing the whole group move!

Untitled from Cheryl A on Vimeo.

A first!

2011-05-10T21:30:00.005-04:00

I have been such a terrible blogger. I'm so far behind, I still need to post about spring break, Asher's party and I'm sure many other things. But something happened Monday night that I want to document. Hopefully, I'll catch up on the others soon!

I haven't really talked about Dougie's baseball season. If we're FB friends or Twitter friends, I've mentioned it some. But to be honest, it's been a hard season. At this point of the season, we're 0 and 8. And that's all I'm going to say about it. But at Monday night's game, it was the last inning, our team was down by 6 runs with really no hope of coming back. Our first 2 batters got out and guess who was up? You guessed it, Dougie.
With 2 strikes, 2 outs and nobody on, Dougie hit a line drive that went right between 1st and 2nd and ended up rolling all the way to the fence. As soon as he rounded 1st, I knew that he could make it all the way. His dad was coaching third and waving him on, as well as all the fans on our side! He was running his hardest and even though the other team made a throw to home, it wasn't even close!

So on Monday, May 9, 2011, Dougie hit his first homerun!

I am so proud of you, Dougie. Not because of the great hit but because even in the face of a hard season, you are playing your best, keeping a good attitude and being a great example. But it was fun seeing you hit that homerun! =)

Yabba Dabba Doo...I'm 2!

2011-04-21T09:14:00.012-04:00

It's hard to believe that this past Saturday, Asher turned 2! Remember way back when, I found out I was pregnant and this happened? And then remember how Asher decided to make things difficult as he entered into the world? Where has the time gone?

At 2 yrs old, you weigh about 26 lbs and I have know idea how tall you are because you won't stand still long enough for me to measure you.

You define the saying, "all boy." No one has ever had to force you to throw a ball. You love any kind of ball! Earlier this year, we were visiting Grandma & Paps and you, Paps & Max played basketball together. From that moment, you have associated basketball with Max & you renamed him, "Max-ball." It's so cute, that pretty much everyone in our family calls him that now!
You also gave your cousin Mia a new name too! When "baby Duuz" (Cruz) was born, you started calling her MiMi. I wish I could type the inflection in your voice when you say it. I guess it comes out like "ME!ME!"
Your vocabulary is coming along slowly but surely. Some of the funny things you say are~
Yabba-bla-bla-bla- you're trying to imitate Caleb & say Yabba Dabba Do
lelow- yellow. To you, any color is yellow & you also call any writing utensil a "lelow."
lelow truck- any car or truck that we see on the road is a lelow truck
wack wack- is your name for a duck. In fact, for all animals (that you know), you only say their sound not the name of the animal.
apple- any fruit. But the funny thing is that you and Daddy have an ongoing game between what's an apple & an orange. You are so into this little game, that when we showed you an orange crayon, you said, "it's not orange, it's apple!"

Just a couple of mornings ago, we could see the moon out one window and out the other window, we could see the sun coming up. You love to see the moon & you pointed it out to me. Then you looked out the other window and said, "look Momma, it's lelow moon!" And there was no convincing you that it's the sun, to you it's the lelow moon!

While we were at the farm, you slept on an air mattress with Chaz & Caleb. You still sleep in your baby bed at home, so you didn't do too good the 1st night. Aunt Laura found you like this:

Your two best friends- dog and baby
You love to read, especially the choo-choo train book!

Like I said earlier, you love to play with any kind of ball but you have such a love for baseball. It's amazing how this seems to be so ingrained in you. Here's a video of you hitting the baseball off the tee. When you swing, you hold your hands as if you're going to bat left handed but then you bring the bat around and hit right handed. I've tried to get you to switch your hands on the bat but in true Asher fashion, you want to do it your way! You also step into your swing and hike your leg when you throw the ball. It's pretty amazing because we've never shown you how to do that!

Untitled from Cheryl A on Vimeo.

Asher, we love you so much. Life with you is fun and challenging. You make us laugh and sometimes you make us feel like crying! But I wouldn't change anything. You are a blessing! We love you so much!

Do it Lord....

2011-04-12T15:22:00.005-04:00

This time last year my mom & I attended this event. My mom & I sat together with some friends, one of my mom's sister & her daughter were sitting several rows behind us and my sister and her friend were up in the balcony.
Before the event began, I kept looking around the sanctuary trying to locate our other family members and basically people-watching. It seemed like every time I turned around, I made eye contact with a lady who was a couple of rows behind us. To me, it got to the point where it was awkward because I didn't know this woman. She didn't look familiar to me but every time I turned around, she would look at me.

When intermission came, my mom and I went to look for my sister. As you can imagine, with 6,000 other women, it was a little crowded. As we're walking through the crowd, I realized that my mom was not right behind me. When I turned to look for her, imagine my shock when I see that she is talking to the woman that I kept making eye contact with earlier. As I'm trying to make my way back to her, I'm even more surprised to see my mom embracing this woman and I'm thinking, "who in the world is this?!" When I walk up, my mom says, "Cheryl, this is {insert name*}."

I'm choosing not to share her name because sometimes things happen in a family that happen to one or two family members but it inflicts pain on the extended family. The hurt may not be as deep as it is for those who are directly involved but it still hurts. I can't and won't share the details because it's not my story to tell but I'm part of the extended family and I believe God allowed us to cross paths with *her so that we can watch a story of forgiveness and redemption unfold before our eyes.

You can just imagine how utterly shocked I was. I hadn't seen her in a really long time. Within a few moments of this re-introduction, my sister walks up and my mom tells her who this woman is and in true Laura fashion, she hugs her and begins crying. After a few moments, we walk away, still in shock. When we walk back into the sanctuary, we see my aunt and cousin and we share with them who we just ran into. I would give anything to have a picture of their faces. Mouths literally dropped open! We see *her walking towards her seat so my aunt & cousin go to see her.

When Travis & the worship team come back, the first song they sing is "Do It, Lord." I knew the song and had heard it many times but was blown away by the words, they were so timely for what we had just experienced. I began crying and praying when we sang these words~

I see the brokenness of families brought to wholeness
I see the prodigals running home to You
Father's hearts now turning toward their children
And the children's hearts turning toward their father's

And even though we were scattered around the sanctuary, my mom, my aunt, my sister, my cousin and myself were singing these words as a prayer to our God, begging Him to do this for our family members.

It is a moment that I won't soon forget.
And to top it off, when Beth began her teaching, she focused on forgiveness.

Over the past year, we've seen God working in this situation. It's not what we want it to be but it's so much better than it was.

Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another Forgive as the Lord forgave you. Colossians 3:13

We need a break...

2011-03-31T13:59:00.006-04:00

Aren't you glad that next week is Spring break? I sure am! We are at such a busy time in our lives. Here's a breakdown of our typical week. I know you probably don't care but I just want to write it down so years from now, I can remember all that we used to do! Now remember, Emma & Dougie attend a school that is about 30 minutes away and all of their extra curricular activities are either at school or in that general vicinity. Hold your horses.....

Monday- Emma has track until 4:30. The boys & I usually go to the park until she's done. Dougie has baseball practice from 6:15-7:30 and Emma has Social from 7:15-8:15.

Tuesday- Emma- track til 4:30. Emma's been involved in a youth girls Bible study from 6:3-8.
Wednesday- church

Thursday- Emma- track til 4:30. Dougie has baseball practice from 5-6:30

Friday- NOTHING, unless it's rained during the week & they reschedule ball practice. ugghhh! Whew! It doesn't look that bad when you see it written down but when you factor in cooking supper, a 4 yr. old and a (almost) 2yr. old, it can get a little crazy.

This past Thursday, Emma had her 1st track meet and it was an hour and a half away! But it was worth it. She did pretty good. The one event that she does that amazes me is the hurdles! I can't hardly believe my baby girl is jumping those gates. She cleared them all! I'm still without a camera so I didn't get any pictures. Her next meet will be after Spring Break, so hopefully, I'll get some then.

Thankfully, we'll get a much needed break next week.
Love y'all dearly!

A 1st for me....

2011-03-20T14:31:00.018-04:00

I've never been a crafty person and I'm certainly not artistic, so what I'm about to share is waaaay out of my comfort zone. If you've spent anytime looking at any home decorating blogs, you'll see that decorative signs are everywhere. And lots of very talented people make them and they look so cute in their homes. So it got me to thinking, I wonder if I could make one? When we moved into our home, the previous owners left a bunch of wood in the shed. I sorted through and found one that would be a good size. Then I began thinking about what I wanted to put on the sign. I wanted something Spring or Easter related. I decided to use "He makes all things new." because it describes what happens at Spring and what Jesus did for us at Easter.

The first thing I did was paint the board with white paint. The paint was some that we had already. It's a basic white paint that you would use on the trim in your house. I did a couple of coats.(no picture)
I knew I wanted the letters to be green, so I used an acrylic paint, "green grass."

Next is when I had to get creative. I don't have one of those neat vinyl cutting machines to cut out the words but I knew I needed something to stick to the wood so I could paint over it but be simple to remove. I definitely didn't want the 'stenciled' look. So I created the phrase in a font that I liked on my computer and then printed it out on contact paper. I then had to cut out every.single.letter.by.hand. Oh my, it was a little trying.
Then I placed the words on the board.

You can see that some of the letters are black and some are white. That's because the ink never completely dries on the contact paper. I looked like I'd been finger printed by the time I finished getting the letters on. I ended up taking a wet paper towel and wiping the ink off the letters once they were in place. I didn't want it to mix with the paint.
Next, I painted it again with the white paint. I was gentle around the letters because I didn't want them to come off. (no picture) It took a couple of coats.
When it was dry, I couldn't wait to pull the letters off and see what it looked like.

As you can see, the paint bled underneath the contact paper. Which is ok with me. #1 I'm not a perfectionist and #2 I like that it gives it a little character. You can definitely tell it's homemade and I'm ok with that. And I also knew that I wasn't done.

The next thing I did was to "age" it a little bit. I took some wood stain, again, I used what we had in the shed. I'm glad I practiced on the back first! I used a rag to wipe the stain on and then used a WET paper towel to wipe it off. If the paper towel's not wet, it leaves too much stain. Trust me, I know! Sorry, I forgot to take a picture of this step.
The last step was to sand it. I used 80 grit sand paper and was surprised at the amount of sanding it took to get the look that I wanted.

The finished product~

When I get my mantel all decorated for Spring, I'll show you.

Then He who sat on the throne said, "Behold, I make all things new." And He said to me, "Write, for these words are true and faithful." Revelation 21:5

Love y'all dearly!

I'm linking up to:

The Circus

2011-03-15T16:00:00.003-04:00

A couple of weeks ago we took Caleb & Asher to the circus. This was the 1st time they'd ever been. Caleb was so excited. We didn't tell him that we were going until we were in the car on the way to the arena.

This is the only picture I have and I took it with my phone. I left my camera at my SIL's a few weeks ago & haven't gotten it back yet. We bought a disposable camera (yes, they still make them!)& took more pictures but who knows when I'll get them developed.
Asher wasn't really into the circus, he would watch some things. He was more interested in flirting with the little girl sitting in front of us who was sharing her popcorn with him!
Caleb, on the other hand, enjoyed most of it. There were a couple of times when he was bored but to be honest, I was too! He really enjoyed the clowns and really got their humor. In fact, that was his favorite part.
The funniest part of the night was towards the end of the show. The ringmaster/magician put his assistant inside one of the lion cages, locked the cage and covered it with a cape. He did his magic and when he pulled the cape off the cage, the lady was gone and a lion was in the cage. We all clapped and cheered. Caleb watched as they began to roll the cage, with lion in it, off the stage. He looked and me, all worried, and began yelling, "They gotta turn her back! Aren't they gonna turn her back?!?"

Overall, we had a great night. The only thing that would've made it better is if Emma & Dougie could've been with us.

Love y'all!

I'm-a baaack!

2011-03-03T14:45:00.004-05:00

If you have any form of Super Mario in your home, you've no doubt heard Luigi say,,"I'm-a baaack." Since Santa brought our Wii for Christmas, it was not long after New Year's that Asher picked up that phrase. He would just randomly say it, and we would all laugh and get a big kick out of it.
Well, today, Asher turned a corner.
This morning, Caleb was playing Mario in the Wii room (formerly known as ~~Prince~~ I mean, the formal living room.) He yells (as he does a 100x day), "Mom, Asher's pushing the buttons on the Wii TV!" So Steven walks in there to find out what's going on. He sees Asher trying to reach the other Wii remote that's on top of the tv. Caleb tells Steven that the batteries are dead in that remote, to which Steven realizes is the perfect solution. Asher can hold the remote, think he's playing and it won't mess up Caleb's game. As soon as his Daddy hands him the remote, Asher, triumphantly stands by Caleb, looks at his brother and yells, "I'm-a baaaack!"

Love y'all dearly!!!!

Pantry Makeover

2011-02-17T15:03:00.013-05:00

I was so excited when we moved into our new house because it has, not one but two pantries. I had recently seen some blogs where others had done some amazing pantry makeovers so, of course, my mind was envisioning what mine would look like.

Well a few weeks after we moved in, here's what my 2 pantries looked like. This is the smaller of the 2. It's right in the kitchen so it makes sense to use it for food storage. Niiiiiice! See the box on the floor of the pantry? That's where all my spices and stuff were being kept. Nothing like having to dig through a box when you need some garlic powder!

And here's the larger pantry that I thought would be a good place to store small appliances, paper products, extra stuff. Not exactly how I envisioned it. Pretty sure the dangling cords are a safety hazard!

So after several hours of work, here's the reorganized pantries.

You're probably thinking, how much did you spend on containers?! Well I already had most of the plastic ones. And since I knew I wanted to organize the pantry, I'd been keeping my eyes out for some cheap ones. The glass containers w/the silver lids came from Dollar General. I found a set of 3 plastic containers at Wally World for $3.50 per set. The silver tins and glass jars on the door came from Goodwill. The tins had Christmas pictures on them so I just painted over them with some chalk paint. I already had the brown basket. I made the labels for the plastic containers on the computer and just taped them on. I'll probably have to use a stepstool to get anything off the top shelf, so I figured I'd just go ahead and stack the containers on top of each other. We did buy the door shelf at Home Depot & Steven hung it up for me.

Here's the other pantry:

This is pretty much how I envisioned this pantry. Steven & I have gotten in the habit of drinking instant coffee,(don't judge) so that's why the coffee pot is in there. Last summer we hosted a fish fry & Steven bought an abundance of peanut oil. Maybe by 2020, I'll have used it all up! Any suggestions on how/where to store the oversized grilling utensils would really be appreciated! Right now, they're hanging out on the second shelf. The tub holds napkins, plastic silverware, styrofoam cups, etc. I may end up moving my flour & sugar containers to this pantry, we'll see.

So there's my pantry, all clean and reorganized. Oh yeah, one more thing I had to add to my pantry:

because one little boy, who shall remain nameless, loves to get in there and help himself to a snack!

Love y'all dearly!

Still speaking....

2011-02-15T22:11:00.007-05:00

Tonight, we decided to drive to Steven's Mom & Dad's to have dinner with them. At some point during dinner, Steven's mom started talking about her grandmother. Her name was Annabelle Hawkins Adams. It's a little strange that she married an Adams and then years later, her granddaughter (Steven's mom) married an Adams too. But back to the point. Steven's mom was sharing that her Grandmother lived with her family and that her Grandmother shared a room with her & her sister. Steven's mom said, "I can still hear her voice. Every night as she was going to sleep, she would quote bible verses until she drifted off to sleep."
What a precious memory.
What a precious legacy.
This is part of the reason I'm participating in SSMT. I want my children to see me working to memorize scripture, not just for the sake of rote memorization but so that it will become part of who I am.
And who knows, maybe someday my grown granddaughter will be sharing precious memories about me with her daughter in law.
I also wanted to share this story, so that someday my kids will have this memory about their great-great-grandmother.

And by faith he still speaks, even though he is dead. Hebrews 11:4

We're In!

2011-02-07T20:38:00.010-05:00

Well, we got moved in and we've been settling into our new home. We already love it. Most of the boxes have been emptied, and it's really starting to feel like home.
Even though we're renting, the owners have given us permission to do any painting/changing to the house. So I took it as long as I could before something had to be done about the dining room and kitchen.
Here's the dining room before:
"Hello, this is 1992 and I want my wallpaper back." Just in case you didn't get the full effect of the zigzags.
And here is the after:

I took this picture at night and the lighting makes it look more gold than it really is. It really does match the valance that is hung up in the window. Here's a pic with all the furniture in the room. We're not using it as a dining room but more like an office. Excuse Steven's desk, he's been so busy, he hasn't had a chance to get it all put away. Unfortunately, we can't do anything about the green carpet. Again, bad lighting, it really bugs me that it looks so gold.

Here's a pic of the kitchen before:Yes, you are looking at it correctly. The border ran around the base board and the wallpaper is on top of the chair rail. It bugged me, so I took down the border and painted the area below the chair rail. I left the wallpaper above because if you saw how much there was, you would completely agree! Here's the after:So that's all the DIY for now. My next project is to get our TWO pantries organized!
Love y'all dearly!!!

Moving, Moving, Moving....

2011-01-24T22:41:00.002-05:00

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!

2011-01-21T09:22:00.004-05:00

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

2011-01-17T20:00:00.004-05:00

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

2011-01-08T22:29:00.009-05:00

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

2011-01-01T20:53:00.002-05:00

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?

A little Christmas fun

2010-12-13T10:35:00.000-05:00

Turkey report

2010-12-11T09:22:00.002-05:00

I have been such a terrible blogger lately. Lately, I don't seem to have the time or desire to write but I'm going to push through this bloggy funk and hopefully, it'll get better!
Well I'm sure all 2 of you who still check my blog have been wondering about how my turkeys turned out, or not.
I decided to use the Reynolds cooking bags for the turkeys. For one of the turkeys, I made a compound butter with some liquid smoke, garlic powder and some other spices that I can't remember now. I rubbed the butter under the skin, which is something I won't soon forget. Not really gross, just weird.
One of the birds had a pop-up thermometer and I put a meat thermometer in the other. I put them in their bags and put them in the oven. I had read that the meat should be between 170 & 180 degrees. So since I have a fear of undercooked poultry, I let them cook until the thermometer read 180. Amazingly, when the meat thermometer registered 180, I checked the other turkey and the pop-up thing had popped too.
I can't believe I didn't take any pictures. They were brown and gorgeous!
After they rested, I let Steven taste a bite and his exact words were, "Girl, you hit a home run with that!"
WOO-HOO!!!

We had plenty of turkey on Thanksgiving and everyone enjoyed it.
So overall, my first cooking the turkey experience went really well. Next time, I think I would cook it on the same day because there's nothing like turkey that has just been cooked.

No pressure....

2010-11-23T22:47:00.004-05:00

I mentioned in my previous post about being a little stressed about Thanksgiving. So, I thought I'd share with you the source of my stress. Since Steven and I got married, our Thanksgiving tradition is to have lunch with his family and then either later that day or on Friday, we get together with my family for a couple of days. Now when I came into my husband's family, they had a pretty well established Thanksgiving routine, meaning this person always makes this and this person always makes that. So the first year of our marriage, when I asked what I could bring, the response was something like why don't you just bring a dessert. So over the past 5 years, I have taken my role as the dessert maker very seriously. I have done my best to make a variety because for some strange reason, not everyone loves pumpkin flavored desserts!
How un-thanksgiving!
Anyway, last week, Steven tells me that he is getting a free turkey from his bus driving job. He calls his brother to see if they have bought a turkey yet. He tells Steven that they haven't and then he asks Steven, "why don't y'all just cook the turkey?" And Steven says, "sure WE'LL do that."
Y'all...even though my sweet husband used the personal pronoun WE, it really means SHE!

OMW!!! I just went from being the dessert maker to the turkey cooker, HOLY COW!

And since the free turkey isn't big enough to feed everyone, I'll actually be cooking two.
I've been a little freaked out by this responsibility. I've called my mom, been reading all kinds of websites, talking to complete strangers and did y'all know that there are about a million different ways to cook a turkey? To brine or not to brine, baste every 30 minutes to don't open the oven at all, rub butter under the skin to don't put anything on the skin...blah..bla..gooble..gooble..gooble! The sweet little lady in Wally World told me (yes, I told you I asked complete strangers!)that she completely wraps the turkey in aluminum foil and cooks it all night! But did you know that the FDA doesn't recommend cooking turkeys at a low heat for long periods of time because of the possibility of bacterial growth?
You can see my dilemma, I've over educated myself on this!
So tomorrow, I'm going to go ahead and cook our two turkeys. I'm doing it early for 2 reasons, we have to be at the in-laws around 11am so if I waited til Thursday, I'd have to start cooking ridiculously early. Secondly, if I totally mess them up tomorrow, I have time for a do-over!!!

At this point, I don't think I'm going to ask for any of your advice. It would probably do more harm than good. If you think about it, say a little prayer for me. And I guess if things go really bad, we could always just show up with some packets of ketchup.

Hope you have a very blessed Thanksgiving!
Love Y'all!

Survival 101

2010-11-23T21:38:00.006-05:00

Have you ever had one of those days when you think, "you can't make this stuff up!" I had one of those days last week. It was a typical school morning. Steven leaves around 6:30, so I get the kids ready for school. Usually, I let the little boys stay in their pj's but on this day, my plan was to go to Wally World after dropping Emma & Dougie off, so I had to get them dressed. Caleb was kind of grumpy about putting his shoes on, so I told him to bring them and we'd put them on when we got to the store. I couldn't find Asher's shoes, so I assumed they were in the van because that's where he takes them off.
So we left for school, we weren't running late and it was overall a pretty good morning. We drop off E &D and as we're pulling out of the school parking lot, I mention to Caleb that we're heading to W*l-M*rt, to which he says, "but I don't have my shoes on?" I tell him it's ok, we'll put them on when we get there to which he informs me, "I didn't bring them." Oh great. At this point I debated about going home(remember WM is 30 mins. from my house), but I really needed to go, so I told Caleb, "well at least you have socks on, you can just ride in the back of the buggy."
In the short ride between the school and the store, Caleb was begging me to stop at any & every place we passed that offered any kind of food. I think his exact words were, "puhleeeeze, Mommy, I'm starving to death!" Now realize that he had eaten a bowl of cereal before we left the house, so I knew that he wasn't actually starving.
When we finally got to the store, I went to put Asher's shoes on and you guessed it, they were not in the van. Once again, I debated on just going home but I was kind of stressed about what I needed to get in preparation for Thanksgiving (more on that later) so I opted to take my 2 boys and their socked feet to the store.
And of course, we saw several people we know, including a man from our church, who lives 30 mins. north of this store but was making a delivery. He just laughed and told me how his wife couldn't get their kids to wear their coats that morning.
So our shopping experience went smoothly and about half way home Caleb out of the blue says to me, "Don't worry about it, Mommy." When I ask him what he's talking about, he says, "I'm not hungry anymore." Oh, ok, why not? "Well, I ate some ketchup." WHAT? "Yeah, I found this little packet and I sucked the ketchup out of it."
And you know how I responded?

"You didn't spill any of it, did you?"

Love Y'all!

Such talent....

2010-11-17T22:19:00.004-05:00

Yesterday was a rainy, kind of cold day. So after taking Emma and Dougie to school, Caleb, Asher and I came home and just chilled. As you will see in the video, the boys pretty much stayed in their pj's and played all day. At one point, Caleb started playing with a 'carmonida' otherwise known as a harmonica. When Asher started showing us how well he could play it too, I just had to get it on video. He has quite a knack for playing the carmonida, I mean harmonica!

Untitled from Cheryl A on Vimeo.

This is embarassing.....

2010-11-16T13:03:00.008-05:00

I can't believe it's mid-November and I'm just now posting pictures from Halloween.
Oh well!
Every year at Emma and Dougie's school, they have a big costume parade for the students and I mean from the Kindergartners all the way up to the high schoolers. Every year, students try to come up with the most clever costumes to win the contest. Dougie and his friend Cole were the cheese and evaluator from the Cheez-It commercial. Since all the 4th graders dress up, the competition was pretty tough and they didn't win.

Emma and 3 of her class mates dressed up like Ginger, Mary Ann, Gilligan and The Skipper! Since most of the 7th graders ~~are too cool~~ chose not to dress up, they won the competition for their age group. Although, I believe they would have won no matter what! They were too cute!

As you know, Halloween was on Sunday, so after our service, our church had a fall festival. The kids wore their costumes and played some games.

Here's Caleb, aka Buzz Light Year and some of his buddies.

And here's Asher, as a little boy in a UGA jersey. Great costume, don't you think? My plan was to have him wear a cute little skunk costume that Dougie wore when he was this age. But when I attempted to but the furry cap on his head a week before Halloween, he was having no part of it. And to be honest, since it was 80 degrees that day, I think he would have been a little hot in that! So I just put his jersey on him and called it a day! Lame, I know.

So that was our Halloween. I can't believe I didn't get a picture of the kids together. Maybe next year!

Isaiah 55:8

2010-11-10T09:40:00.004-05:00

2010-11-09T06:04:00.000-05:00

Please say a prayer for our family today.
Thanks!
Love y'all dearly!!!

Cheerleading 2010

2010-10-27T10:46:00.009-04:00

Emma has just wrapped up the 2010 football season. Here are some photos of her cheering.

This was their first pep-rally, or as Caleb says, pep-A-rally! Emma is a base for the middle group, she has her back to the camera.

This is one of my favorite pictures ever. About an hour before this game, we had a huge rain. But amazingly, the rain stopped about 15 minutes before gametime. So all the cheerleaders cheered in their rainboots! I wish I would have gotten a picture of the whole squad. It was too cute!

Don't be jealous of my awsome photography skills. But if you squint your eyes it doesn't look blurry at all!! This is a picture of the banner that Emma helped design. The opponent was the Crusaders and instead of using the typical "Crush the Crusaders", they came up with "Sack the 'Saders."

It was a great season and we look forward to many more to come!

18 months!

2010-10-21T10:20:00.006-04:00

So sorry I've been absent from the blog. For some reason, our home computer won't open my blog. I don't know what the deal is! I've deleted some things off my blog that I thought were causing the problem, but it still isn't working. I'm using Steven's laptop, so my pictures are limited. Anyway......

Last week, Asher turned 18 months.

Here's his stats:

Height- 30 3/4 in.

Weight- 23 lbs.

Head circumference- 19 in.

On October 8, 2010, you took your first steps, finally! You were standing at the toy box and were so excited to show Paps your toy, you took 2 steps toward him. I was sitting right behind you and Grandma was sitting on the couch, so we all got to see you take those steps. Since then, you've been taking some steps, but in typical Asher fashion, you are taking your time.

You have 10 teeth! Four on the top front, 3 on the bottom front and 3 chompers in the back.

Your speech is coming along slowly but surely. When we went for your check up, the Dr. asked if you were speaking 20-30 words, to which I answered no. But since then, Daddy and I have realized that you do know more words than I realized. You love music and love to sing. Some of your favorite songs that you try to sing are, Twinkle, twinkle; This is the Day; Bingo and you even sing the theme song to Sp*nge B*b! It comes out: bun-ba-bar-pan, the words aren't clear but you definitely have the tune and beat!

Your favorite thing to play with is any kind of ball! If you can pick it up and throw it, you will! Last night, you had Caleb's little Louisville Slugger bat and you took it over to the toy box and began whining and pointing in the box. I walked over to see what you wanted and you were pointing to a baseball. I handed you the ball and you were thrilled. You sat down with the bat and ball and began trying to hit the ball! But since you were sick (you've had a fever since yesterday), you decided to just lay down on the floor holding the bat in one hand and the ball in the other! So sweet.

This picture was taken after you took a nap in your carseat! Check out that hair! You have blonde hair and when you get hot, it gets so curly. I know it's time for your first haircut, I just know that once we cut those curls, they'll be gone forever!

I took this last night. Like I said, you've been running a fever since yesterday and last night you were feeling pretty bad. You finally fell asleep, so I laid you on the couch. You weren't sleeping very soundly and if you stirred, you would pat yourself on the chest. It was about the sweetest thing I've ever seen!

Asher Jordan, you are such a blessing to our family. Mommy, Daddy, Emma, Dougie and Caleb love you so much!

Twinkle, Twinkle

2010-09-29T21:00:00.001-04:00

Asher's favorite song is Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.
Here's a video of him singing the song. Unfortunately, you have to hear me too!

Twinkle, Twinkle from Cheryl A on Vimeo.

A 4th Birthday!

2010-09-28T20:59:00.004-04:00

Well as the saying goes, better late than never!

On September 19th, our sweet, funny, adorable Caleb turned 4.

The statistics:

Height- ?

Weight- 36 lbs. You now weigh yourself everyday on Mommy & Daddy's new scale. The first time you did, you were so excited to tell me that it said you were 3 lbs. When I asked you to show me, I realized that it was flashing E, which was a relief because I was pretty sure I was going to have to return the scale if it said you only weighed 3 lbs.

We go next week for your 4 yr. check up and I'm praying that you don't have to get any shots. You can tend to be a little over dramatic lately. For example, the other day you cried for 30 minutes when I told you that we were out of frozen waffles. When I told you either eat some cereal or go back to bed, you gladly ate your favorite, Reese's "Pups". It always makes me smile to hear you say that.

You are a child of the 21st century. You love to play games on Mommy's phone, or on Emma's phone or on Dougie's ip*d. You've even made this statement before, "I need a cell phone."

Not long ago, I introduced the concept of the speed dial #'s on my phone. I had no idea what I was doing, because you now make calls & have conversations with family members without me even knowing that you have my phone! The other day, you called Grandma and Paps' house and talked with Paps. When he told you that Grandma wasn't there, you told him, "I'll just call her on her cell phone." Paps asked if you knew her number to which you answered, "yes, she's #4."

You have really started to enjoy playing ball. Football, baseball, basketball, it doesn't really matter. This summer, we spent many a mornings(before it got too hot!) out on the back patio playing baseball. Thanks to your big brother, Dougie, you've learned the concept of slow motion. So now, every time you make a catch or a hit, you'll say watch what I did in slow motion!

I know that there are so many more things I could share, almost everyday you do something "blog worthy." But I sometimes think, do I really want to stop what we're doing so I can put it on the blog or do I just want to enjoy the moment and savor it? Lately, I'm choosing the latter. These days are going so quickly and I don't want to miss anything!

Caleb, Daddy and I love you so much and we pray that you follow in the steps of your namesake and wholly follow the Lord.

Happy Birthday!

Radical

2010-09-14T11:20:00.005-04:00

Have you heard about this book? Have you read it? I can't remember exactly how I heard about it but I almost bought it for Steven for Father's Day. I ended up buying him something else. Then sometime this summer, he asked me if I'd heard about it. He said that several of his pastor friends were reading/recommending it and that he wanted to get a copy. So he picked up a copy and it took him a several weeks to read it. He doesn't read as fast as I do. I don't mean that in a negative way, Steven is just a v.e.r.y. deliberate reader. So he finished it and told me he wanted me to read it. By this time, I had found out about Marla and that she was going to start a book club through her blog to read this book and discuss it weekly. (The group can also be found on facebook, it's not too late to join our group!) I told him that I was definitely going to read it but that I was waiting until Sept. so I could be a part of this group.
So this post is supposed to cover Chapter One but to be honest, I've already read through Chap. 7. It's not that it's a "can't put this down" kind of book. Because honestly, at some points, you might actually want to throw it down! It's just that I've been so challenged by it that it spurs me on to keep reading. When I read a book like this, I like to underline and write thoughts in the margin. So for today's post I thought I would just share some of the things I underlined in Chapter 1. (In some instances I may not have underlined a complete sentence, so I'll share the page # also.)

....we have a choice. p. 3

You and I can choose to continue with business as usual in the Christian life and in the church as a whole..... Or was can take an honest look at the Jesus of the Bible and dare to ask what the consequences might be if we really believed him and really obeyed him. p. 3

But if Jesus is who he said he is, and if his promises are as rewarding as the Bible claims they are, then we may discover that satisfaction in our lives and success in our church are not found in what our culture deems most important but in radical abandonment to Jesus. p. 3

....that somewhere along the way we had missed what is radical about our faith and replaced it with what is comfortable. p. 7

....making it clear from the start that if you follow him, you abandon everything-your needs, your desires, even your family. p. 10

....certainty for uncertainty, safety for danger, self preservation for self-denunciation.
p. 12

These statements convict me, challenge me, and inspire me. I want to know more, be more and do more!

If you've not read this book, let me encourage you to grab a copy and join us in this journey!

The first time I ever heard David Platt preach was in June 2009 at the Southern Baptist Convention in Louisville, Kentucky. He stood before the convention and asked this question-

"Are we going to die in our religion or are we going to die in our devotion?"

Some things to think about today.
Love you dearly!

The Newest Food Stars!

2010-08-19T15:14:00.007-04:00

Emma and Dougie have always loved helping out in the kitchen. A few weeks ago, Emma and I were talking about the ~~duty~~ joy of cooking supper. I shared with her that some friends of ours have each of their teenage children be responsible for one supper a week. Well, Emma thought that was a great idea and asked if we could do that, to which I responded, "SURE!"

So this past Saturday, we were doing basically nothing. I was napping in my our room and Emma came in and asked what we were having for supper. I think I mumbled something like, "I have no clue." and then rolled over. Then she asked if she and Dougie could cook something and again I mumbled, "sure."

After a few minutes (I think), they came back to tell me what they had chosen. They would be making Parmesan chicken, spaghetti and a fruit dessert. At this point, I realized that they were serious about this so I gave a quick lesson on cooking with chicken safety. They informed me that they had the chicken thawing and everything was under control. I went into the kitchen to make sure they had enough chicken for all of us. Once I heard them put the chicken in the oven, I peeked in to see how things were going. Emma was opening some packages of ramen noodles. When I asked why, she informed me that we didn't have any kind of spaghetti noodles or pasta, so they were going to use the ramen noodles without the seasoning. I thought that was pretty inventive! After that I was banned from the kitchen, which you can see from the sign on the door.

Within an hour, dinner was served!

Parmesan Chicken (that's a tomato on top. Notice the noodles!)
Garlic breadsticks!!!
They even went out in the yard and got some fresh flowers! So sweet!

Everything was so good! The chicken was cooked to perfection and tasted so good. Emma told us that the recipe called for italian bread crumbs but we had plain bread crumbs. So she just took some different spices and seasoned the bread crumbs. My girl is definitely not afraid to cook!

I forgot to take a picture of the dessert. We were all given a choice: blueberry, peach or strawberry. (Because that's what we had in the freezer.) They took your choice of fruit, put it in the blender with a little bit of sugar and blended it. They placed it in a bowl and put it back in the freezer. It was soooo yummy, light and refreshing!

It was a wonderful evening and I was so proud of Emma and Dougie. We will definitely be letting them cook dinner again, soon!

Here's the recipe for the Parmesan chicken:

4 chicken breast

4 tsp. Italian bread crumbs (not sure what spices Emma used)

1/2 c mayo

1/4 c parmesan cheese

Combine mayo and cheese and spread on chicken. Then sprinkle on bread crumbs. Bake at 425 for 20 minutes or until thoroughly cooked.

First Day of School 2010-2011

2010-08-09T10:00:00.004-04:00

Emma and Dougie started back to school today. Emma is going into the 7th grade (I can't believe I just typed that!!) and Dougie is going into 4th. They were both a little nervous this morning. Emma was nervous about being in the "high school" hall. At our school, 7th -12th are on the same hall. Dougie was nervous about having the "meanest" teacher in the whole school! ; )

Dougie wasn't happy that I made him take a picture without his cap!

But Emma helped him turn his frown upside down!!
Hope you have a great day!!!

St. Augustine 2010

2010-08-04T11:41:00.029-04:00

Warning there will be A LOT of pictures!
We had a great time at the beach this year, as we do every year!

Asher loved bonding with my cousin's new husband, Jacob. Not sure if he was overwhelmed by the trip but we sure had fun getting to know him better!

The kids had a little too much fun riding in the raft....oops!
Hanging out on the beach.... Learning to boogie board..... Loving the boogie board........ Catching sea critters...... Eating snacks...... Sharing secrets....... Reading and relaxing.......Smiling........Family pictures........ Getting spoiled......... Loving.......

Surprise baby showering..............

Feeding sea gulls......

Running from sea gulls.......

Eating ice cream........

Posin'.........
Eating sand................. Building sandcastles........Loving the water...on the LAST day......
Playing in the waves....... Eating....can you guess what? sleeping......... Entertaining........laughing.......

One last sunset........

And making memories that will last a lifetime!

St. Augustine Light House

2010-08-03T16:29:00.011-04:00

Sometime earlier this summer, Caleb began talking about light houses. I don't know where he learned about them but all he talked about was how fun it would be to go to the top of one.

Then when our beach plans had to be changed, one of the positives of St. Augustine was the light house. I was so looking forward to taking him to visit it.

We decided to go first thing in the morning to beat the heat. Emma, Dougie and Asher didn't join us. It was just Steven, Caleb, my sister Laura, b-i-l Phil, Chaz, Cole and myself.

Caleb was beyond excited as we saw this

We all walked in the gift shop, so excited about walking the 216 steps to the top of the light house. As Steven walked up to buy our tickets, the lady at the register informed us that there was a height restriction. Anyone who goes up the light house must be at least 44 inches tall.

As Caleb walked over to the measuring stick, my heart was sinking because I knew that he was no where near 44 inches tall. It took Steven explaining it to him before he understood. Notice that he even wore his stripped shirt because it looked like the light house! Poor baby! :(

Laura, Phil, Chaz and Cole went up and we went into the museum. This is them at the top. I don't have a very good zoom on my camera.After they came down, then Steven and I went up.
Once Steven and I came down, Caleb was pretty much over it. He and Chaz were playing and having a good time. They did give us a free pass to come back when he's taller but I think we'll make a trip to Tybee instead.

You won't believe where I took my kids pt. 2

2010-07-24T08:00:00.000-04:00

If you haven't read part 1, go here.

So Steven leaves to go to the auto parts store and the kids and I head into the liquor store. The wife invites the kids to watch tv, which is conveniently located behind the cash register/counter area. Nice. They are more than willing to sit there and enjoy an episode of Sp*nge B*b. For the first little bit, everything was ok. I was just standing around, holding Asher, the wife had resumed her work on the computer. Since she was working on an online class assignment, I didn't want to interrupt her by making small talk.

It was so awkward when a costumer would come in and my children would be sitting right there by the register, watching their transactions. But I took the opportunity to pray for each person that came in.

Did I mention that I happened to be wearing my JC 4 JC tshirt? For those of you who don't know our community just hosted a county wide crusade, Jenkins County for Jesus Christ. I made of point of turning around so the costumers would see the back of my BRIGHT orange shirt!

Not long after we got in the store, my sister sent me a text to see how are trip home was going. I briefly stated, "van broke down, we're in Savannah." She called me after getting my text and amazingly, they were only about 20 miles from us. We needed them to come because if we couldn't get the van running, we wouldn't be able to fit all 6 of us in a 4 door car! When she asked where we were, I kept saying, "we're at this store." "You'll see our van in front of this store." As soon as I hung up, I sent her another text that said, "we're in a liquor store. seriously. lol"
She responded, "ROFL!"
Within a few minutes, here comes my sister, brother in law and their son, Chaz. The liquor store is getting crowded!

Back outside, Steven and the gentleman are having trouble getting the right belt. Steven has to go to the store 3 different times. After the last time, the man decides to ride with Steven to help him find the right belt.

Back in the store, the kids are getting restless, especially Asher. I was completely stressed that he or Caleb was going to break some $50 bottle of liquor. I kept thanking the lady for letting us hang out in there and she kept reassuring me that it wasn't a problem. One of the funniest moments was when Phil asked the kids if they wanted a drink. (There was a cooler with cokes and juices.) The look on Dougie's face was one of complete shock and he immediately looked at me with a look that said, "Momma, Uncle Phil's offering me alcohol, what do I do?!" I assured him that Uncle Phil meant one of the cokes and NOT the alcohol. We all got a big kick out of that! After being there for over an hour or so, I decided it was time to get out of this lady's hair. We vacated the liquor store and moved to the Mexican restaurant next door.

After we ate a light meal, Steven and the man had fixed the van. It wasn't until later that night that Steven and I realized how God had worked throughout this circumstance.

*What if we had decided to go downtown? We would have had to call a tow truck and we never would have met this couple.
*Since I didn't have any trouble with the steering before lunch, we figure the belt must have broken right as I parked. What would have happened if I had been on the highway when that happened?
*Although Steven tried to talk with the gentleman while they were working, it wasn't until he rode in the car with him, that he really opened up to Steven. This man wept openly about his life and problems to Steven. Steven was able to share the gospel and the man assured him that he had given his life to Christ years before. But he knew that his life now was in turmoil and he needed to get right with God.
*And because I moved our large group to the Mexican restaurant, Steven was able to go back into the store and, in a customer free store, talk with the lady about her salvation as well.

When we left the restaurant, we all gathered back in the liquor store to thank them again. And before we left, Steven asked the couple if we could have a word of prayer with them.

So there we stood, with our children, in the middle of a liquor store, praying and thanking God for His protection, His provision and for His divine intervention in our lives.

This is a day that I won't soon forget. God is at work, we just have to open our eyes and be willing to see it.

My Grandaddy

2010-07-23T09:53:00.003-04:00

Charles Franklin Fitzgerald

January 12, 1921 - July 23, 2010

You won't believe where I took my kids......

2010-07-22T10:21:00.006-04:00

I know you all are anxiously awaiting the posts about our recent trip to St. Augustine. And those will be coming soon but I wanted to share something that happened on our trip home.

Because Steven had to be in Savannah early Saturday morning to take the Ga. Teacher Certification exam, we took separate cars on vacation. He left St. Augustine for Savannah about 4 am on Saturday. Then the kids and I left later, headed for home.

We were south of Sav., when Emma and Dougie needed to make a pit stop. I pulled off the highway and made our way to a gas station. I let the kids run in and stayed in the car with the little boys because we still abide by that whole never wake a sleeping baby rule, even if they're 1 and 3! When we got back on the road, I noticed that the AC wasn't blowing cool air. In fact, I realized that the faster I drove, the hotter it was getting. So I shut it off and we rolled down the windows.

Now you may or may not know that back in May we had a brand new air compressor put on the van to the tune of $900 and a few weeks before vacation, we were still having trouble. I don't know exactly what but the mechanic fixed it at no charge. So you can understand why I was a little aggravated that it stopped working again but I was thankful that it hadn't happened while we were in FL.

Not long after the kids and I had gotten back on the road, Steven called. He had finished his test and since it was close to lunch, we decided to meet in Savannah for lunch. We talked about meeting downtown but then decided to find something right off the highway. We got off at an exit where there wasn't really a lot but we found a new shopping center that had a hamburger place and a Mexican restaurant, we went for the burgers. As we parked and got out, Steven noticed that their was a weird smell coming from the van. I told him about the AC. We chalked it up to overheating and hoped that it would cool down while we ate.

After lunch, Steven said he would drive the van. So Emma and I got in the car and started to leave. I noticed that after Steven backed out of the parking space, he drove forward but then stopped. I pulled up beside him and asked what was wrong. He said there was no power steering and something was seriously wrong. So we did what everyone who's having car trouble does, we popped the hood and looked at the engine with absolutely no clue what we were doing. I don't mean this as an insult to my husband, he will readily tell you that he is no mechanic.

Within a minute, I'm serious, a man and woman walked up and the man asked what the problem was. Steven told him and when the man looked under the hood, he immediately pointed out the problem as he pulled out a belt which had broken. He told Steven that if we could get another one, he could put it on. When Steven asked him how much he would charge, he said, "nothing." The man told Steven that there was an auto parts store just a few miles down the road and said that the kids and I were welcome to hang out in their store until he got back. While the man was saying this, he pointed towards the store, I looked towards the shopping center to see where the man was pointing and saw the bold letters that spelled out~

L-I-Q-U-O-R S-T-O-R-E

Gulp....

Immediately the inner struggle began. Do I really go in this store? Do I begrudge these people the kindness they're showing us just because of the place that they work? I decided to wait to see what Steven would say and he without hesitation said ok. As I was thinking, "really?" God spelled out another word for me~

O-P-P-O-R-T-U-N-I-T-Y

I told Emma and Dougie that we were going to wait in this store and that it was a liquor store. I had to inform Dougie that it was not a place that sold licorice. But that these people were being very kind to us and we should be grateful that we don't have to wait out in the heat. So as the kids and I headed in,

I began praying.

This was no accident.

I'll stop there for now, this is longer than I realized. Part 2 coming soon!

July 4th on July 3rd

2010-07-09T11:17:00.007-04:00

Our little city had our Fourth of July celebration on Saturday evening. We got to the Rec. dept. a little early so Caleb jumped in the moonwalk.

We had a great time hanging out with some dear friends. Emma and Dougie had fun meeting up with their friends and couldn't be bothered by being with us! Just kidding, when it got dark, Dougie came and sat with us.

As always the fireworks did not disappoint. We weren't sure how Caleb would react. He does not like loud noises at ALL. When they did a test firework before the show started, he freaked a little and jumped in Steven's lap. But Daddy did a good job of encouraging Caleb and within a few minutes he was loving it! The noise didn't really phase Asher except once when several boomed at the same time. So Dougie picked him up and they both sat in my lap!
This is Brandi. She is the daughter of one of my good friends. She is so precious and she LOVES Caleb and Asher. She even used her own money to buy Caleb some popcorn!
On Sunday, since Steven wasn't preaching, we went to his brother's church. Then we spent the afternoon with the rest of his family. It was a great weekend!

Ju....July?!

2010-07-01T12:47:00.006-04:00

Excuse me July, I know that you are an exceptional month filled with birthdays and beaches but couldn't you have let June stay just a wee bit longer?!?

I cannot believe that it is July 1st! Before you know you know it, we'll be heading back to...ok, I can't even say it!

Well, here's an update of what took place during the last few weeks of June.

Dougie played on our 9 and 10 year old All Star team. We had high hopes for our team but unfortunately, they lost the 1st game, won the 2nd and then lost the 3rd game, which knocked us out. Dougie played right field and did well. He caught several balls that were hit to him and he got on base everytime he batted.
Here's a team photo: Dougie is on the front row on the far right.

Asher has started pulling up but once he gets there he doesn't really know what to do. He gets frustrated and starts fussing, so I thought I'd document it because it makes me laugh!

These were taken about a week ago, so now he's figured out how to squat down. He's not cruising yet but it won't be long, well hopefully, but knowing Asher, you never know!

Emma went to church camp last week and had a great time. She seemed to have a clumsy streak and slipped and fell 3 times! She now has the nickname "Splash." She has been such a big help around here this summer. It's so nice being able to run to the store and not have to load everybody up!

Caleb is just being Caleb. He still says the funniest things and cracks us up!

Life is really good and we're enjoying a relaxing and easy going summer. We changed our beach plans from going to the Gulf and now we're going to St. Augustine. I can't wait!!

Hope things are going well for you!

Random photos by Caleb

2010-06-11T12:00:00.001-04:00

My mommy lets me play with her camera sometimes and here are some pictures that I took.

I love my baby brother's feet so I took a picture of them!

"Mommy, Asher's eating my Iron Man's leg!!!" Asher, I'm going to show mommy this picture!

She's coming and you're going to be in trouble!!!

You can run but you can't hide!!!!

Ssshhhh.......Daddy doesn't know I'm taking his picture.......

.....uh........oh........I woke him up!!!!
My silly daddy! I wonder if he knows about the other pictures I took of him?
Is this thing working???
My favorite show saying...........

Have a great day!

Summer Ingenuity!

2010-06-11T08:00:00.000-04:00

On the way home from church Sunday afternoon, the kids started talking about playing in the water. Emma and Dougie are good sports and will even play with Caleb in his little pool. They began talking about different things they could do. After lunch, they quickly changed their clothes and headed outside. I was cleaning up and putting Asher down for his nap and when I finally made it outside, this is what I found!

With Daddy's help, they had hooked the hose above the slide, put the pool under the slide and created their very own water slide!

And since they had the nozzle on the hose, they could change the way the spray came out. Summer ingenuity leads to summer memories!

Fun at the Farm

2010-06-10T16:13:00.009-04:00

A few weeks ago, my cousin's son graduated from high school. It gave us the chance to see some family and spend some time at the farm. The ceremony was Sat. morning and was limited so we didn't attend but we hung out at the farm. Steven cut a little grass using the tractor and of course, Caleb had to ride along with him.

I love Caleb's expression, pure joy!

Asher didn't ride but he liked sitting with daddy on the tractor.

The graduation party was late on Saturday afternoon so we got some of the cousins together to swim at my aunt and uncle's house. They had an absolute blast.
The boys spent most of the time playing catch the ball as you jump off the diving board! Boys will be boys!Haven fell in love with Asher. She stayed by him during the whole party!

These are the wild boys!

Their birthdays range from 12/99 to 2/01 so they're all

very close in age and have a great time being together!

I just realized I didn't even get a picture of the graduate. oops!

The news....

2010-06-04T11:07:00.002-04:00

I'm going to be an aunt again!!!
My sister, Laura is expecting her 2nd child in late January.
To say we're a little excited is a huge understatement.
Asher's just glad that he'll now have a cousin to grow up with and someone to exchange gifts with at Christmas!

Congrats to Laura, Phil and Chaz-man!
We love y'all and can't wait to meet this little one!

1 Samuel 1:27

Helllllooooo Summer

2010-06-03T17:12:00.004-04:00

Well Summer is here and we've been soooo lazy this week!

So let me catch you up on what's going on in our lives, I'm sure you're so excited.

Dougie finished his baseball season! They were 9 and 3! woo-hoo

Dougie was selected for All-Stars, so they've been practicing a lot to get ready. And although I've always vowed that I wouldn't let my child be sucked into the black hole that takes the lazy days of summer and morphs it into a baseball tournament (aka travel ball), we've given in this year. (I heard that! You just called me a sucka!) The coach promised that we would only play one tournament a month, and I'm going to hold him to it! :) Our travel team coach is also the coach for our All-Star team, which is really nice because he's holding off on tourneys until A.S. are done. whew!

Emma's getting ready for cheer leading camp. She's a little bummed because in years past they've attended camp in Jekyll Island. But this year they're going to a college in middle Ga.! :( My girl loves the beach as much as her momma but she can't complain, she's going to get to be at the beach 2 weeks straight in July. One week with her dad and the other with us!

Caleb and Asher are doing great. They are both growing so much. Caleb continues to crack us up with the things he says. Yesterday he told me he didn't feel well, when I asked what was wrong, he said, "my throat's coming back." Last week Steven was preaching a revival at the church where his brother is pastor. On the way to church one evening, Caleb said, "we have to go pass the bible to get there." Steven and I were completely stumped. When turning onto the street that the church was located on, Caleb pointed to the church's sign and said, "see, we have to go pass the bible." There was a bible on the church's sign!
Asher is crawling all over now. And more than once, we've had to do a house search to find him. He's pulling up on things to his knees but won't stand up yet. He finally has a 3rd tooth coming in. But the lack of teeth hasn't affected his eating habits. He gave up baby food several weeks ago. He's been very picking lately, and kind of fussy so I think he must be getting some more teeth.

I got a phone call today with some VERY exciting news (no, I'm not pregnant!) but I can't share just yet.

Hope you're enjoying your summer!

Eat some ice cream!!!

Finally....

2010-05-17T10:47:00.002-04:00

Asher started crawling a couple of weeks ago. Now he's an expert and getting into all kinds of things! :o)

THE wedding.....

2010-05-12T16:00:00.013-04:00

I'm pretty sure I mentioned a while back that Emma, Dougie and Caleb were going to be in my cousin's wedding and if you would have been around us lately, you would have heard phrases like, she needs shoes for the wedding, get measured for tuxes for the wedding, get a haircut for the wedding. I think you get the picture, it's been all about -the wedding. Well the wedding took place this past Saturday and it was absolutely wonderful. The bride and groom are honeymooning in a tropical location and I think we have pretty much recovered from all the festivities. Now for more pictures than you care to see of -the wedding! Ok, that's the last time I'm going to say it, I promise!

Dougie and Max were Junior Groomsmen and Chaz and Caleb were the ring bearers. A few days before the wedding (sorry, it couldn't be helped) Caleb tried to persuade to buy him a ring pop because he was a ring bearer!!

Mia and Emma, Junior Bridesmaids.
The Groom, Jacob with the ring bearers!

Emma and the Bride, Kaylan.

Max escorting GiGi, my grandmother.
The Wedding Party
The Pastor that married them, was the pastor who led me to the Lord. I haven't seen him in many years, so that made it extra special. Ok, I'll stop there. The Wedding pt.2 The Reception coming soon!!!

Monday, Monday.....

2010-05-03T15:44:00.002-04:00

When we were loading up the van this morning to take Emma and Dougie to school, we had a whole morning of plans. Dougie was the last one out the door but he told me, "I didn't close the door." I went back, closed the door and got in the van. That's when it hit me, the keys were in the house!
I immediately tried to call Steven but to no avail. He was on his bus route and I knew he couldn't answer his phone.
We checked all doors and windows and of course, everything was locked. Our back patio has a flat roof that is just under the boys' upstairs bedroom windows. Dougie was pretty certain that his window was unlocked so we got the ladder. Unfortunately, the ladder wasn't tall enough. We were still trying to get Steven, little did we know that his phone was on vibrate!!!
I then got the bright idea to try and pick the lock. As I was trying various tools that I could find to try to break into our house, SNAP! The tip breaks off in the keyhole! No use calling Steven now. Our key ONLY opens that door! The key for the other doors is IN the house. OMW!
I call a neighbor and ask her if she knows anyone who might come help us. she gives me a name and the sweet man came over within 5 minutes. He first attempted to use a credit card to open the door, I knew that wasn't going to work. Then we told him about the upstairs window, so he went and got his ladder and then he and Dougie climbed up on the roof. The window wouldn't budge! Fortunately, it was unlocked and after a few tries, it opened.
After we got in the house, the sweet man tried to get the tip out of the door lock but it wouldn't budge. He even took the doorknob off but it was a goner.
After all that, Emma and Dougie were only 45 minutes late for school and we were able to get the rest of our errands done, including an unplanned stop at L*wes to but a new door lock!

On the way to school, I told the kids we learned 2 life lessons today!
~Always keep a spare key hidden outside!
~No matter how desperate you get, don't ever try to pick a lock! LOL!!!

So long....

2010-04-23T12:22:00.004-04:00

I'm outta here!!!!
Well, not really but we are heading to ATL later this evening. I'm attending this with my mom, my sis and a few thousand other women tomorrow.

Steven and the kids are just going along for the ride. We have a bridal shower on Sunday afternoon, so it worked out perfect for us all to be there this weekend. As a bonus, we're going to Sunday services at FBCW and Travis Cottrell is going to be leading worship!
We've been super busy this week. Dougie has baseball games every Mon and Tues. and Emma has been having cheerleading practice every afternoon. Her tryouts are today. On top of that, 2 different teams have asked us about letting Dougie be a part of their travel teams this summer. I jokingly asked him when the MLB scouts were coming to watch him?
As I mentioned earlier, we are going to get to attend a bridal shower Sunday for my cousin, Kaylan who's getting married in a few weeks. Emma, Dougie and Caleb are all part of the bridal party!! I said all that to say, the next few weeks are going to be extremely busy for us, and I'm sure your family is busy too. I may not be around very much, but I'll try not abandon the blog.

Love y'all dearly!
Have a safe and blessed weekend!

One Year Old!!!!

2010-04-16T06:00:00.003-04:00

**Update**
One Year check up:
weight- 21.1 lbs.
height- 28 3/4 in.
head- 18 3/4 in.

Today, Asher is one year old. On one hand, I can't believe it's already been a year since his arrival but on the other, I can't really remember life without him. Since we were at my parents' last week, we decided to go ahead and have a birthday party. When we started opening his presents, he was so taken with the birthday cards, he would just look and them and laugh. It was so cute.
Grandma made the birthday cake. Asher must really be special because none of his brothers or sister had a homemade 1st birthday cake! When we put it in front of him, he wasn't sure what to do with it.
He started by just picking off the sprinkles.

Then Aunt Dusty, showed him how to smash his hands in the cake. Then he decided to share some with her.

It was a great birthday party!
We go for your one year check up next week, so I don't have all your statistics.

One thing I do know, you're still not crawling!!! You're getting closer, but you just won't move! But other than that, you have met all your other milestones. We're started weaning you off formula, thank goodness! You still eat baby food but you are quickly getting tired of it. We're trying more table food but it's a little challenging because you only have your two bottom teeth. You love to eat cheerios!

Your personality is so easy going. You will let just about anybody hold, even strangers. You smile, laugh and babble all the time. You can say mama, dada, du-dee(Dougie) and e-MA. But you love to tease her and you won't say it when she asks you to.
I know I've said this so many times but we truly couldn't have chosen a better time for you, you are a blessing to our family.
And like I tell you everyday, I love you so much I can hardly stand it!

This doesn't have anything to do with your birthday but this afternoon, you were sitting on the floor, playing and drinking your bottle. Daddy, Caleb and I were just doing things around the house. I looked in the living room to see what you were doing and this is what I saw:
So stinkin' cute!!!!!

Easter 2010

2010-04-13T15:27:00.011-04:00

On the Saturday before Easter, the church where Steven was serving as interim, had an egg hunt. Caleb really understood the concept this year except for one thing. You see, Caleb's favorite color is dark blue. Not blue, light blue or any other shade, just dark blue. He's quite obsessive about it and when he began hunting for eggs, he walked right past any egg that wasn't dark blue. I finally convinced him by telling him that they all had candy in them! As you can tell from the pictures, it was sweltering! Gotta love South Ga., we skip right over spring and go straight to summer! (Except now this week, it's back to 60's and 70's!)

Here's what Asher did pretty much the whole time at the egg hunt.

Since Steven finished his interim position at the church, we were free to attend Easter services with his family. We had a great time and it was really nice to get to be with extended family on Easter Sunday. That's a draw back to being in the ministry and living several hours away from family. It would have been even better if Emma and Dougie were with us.

Here's some pictures of Caleb and Asher before church.

Asher was distracted by Jack, our dog.
After church, at my in-laws house.
This picture cracks me up! Caleb has had enough!
This last picture has nothing to do with Easter, I found it when I was downloading the pictures from my camera. This is from one of those times when I let Caleb exercise his photography skillz!

For some reason when I look at this photo, I keep thinking, "Good grief, Charlie Brown!"

The week after Easter was Spring break so we loaded up the van and headed to my mom and dad's. We spend all week with them. We ate good food, slept in, watched some great movies, visited with family, ate some more great food, the kids camped, some had pink eye, some shopped others fished, celebrated a 1st birthday, ate again, and basically had a super time! It went by waaaaay to fast. We came back home because get what started Saturday? BASEBALL!!! More about that and the 1st birthday celebration later!

Please Pray

2010-03-29T05:22:00.002-04:00

A former student of mine, tragically lost her father and 11 year old brother in a car wreck this weekend. Please keep Madison and her mom, Jane in your prayers.

I'm completely heart-broken and I cannot even imagine what they are going through.

Love Y'all.

10 Things You Might Not Know

2010-03-24T11:02:00.003-04:00

Over at the Living Proof blog, Beth made a list of 10 things you probably don't know about her and she wanted us to make our own list. So here's the list I left as a comment:

1. I love funky praise music! Kirk Franklin and Toby Mac rule and my kids love them too!
2.I can't put an extinguished match in the trash until I dip it in water.
3. I love to read and I'm a fast reader.
4. I love roller coasters.
5. I'm a spelling enthusiast. Seeing misspelled words on signs, church newsletters, etc. drive me crazy! (After posting my comment on Beth's blog, I realized I had misspelled a word. humility is hard!)
6. My husband is a terrible speller, opposites DO attract.
7. I have an irrational fear of alligators.
8. I love chips and salsa.
9. I cannot keep my van clean.
10. I like a little coffee with my cream. And no I didn't get that backwards!

So what about you? What are 10 things that we might not know? Please share!!

Because I want to remember.....

2010-03-04T15:38:00.003-05:00

Because time goes by so quickly, I wanted to take the time and write down some of the things that I love about my kids during this stage of their lives. They're all at very different and unique stages and because I want to remember, I better record it now!

Emma~
I love that you are the exact definition of a 'tween'. I love that you will play Twister all by yourself just so Caleb and be the spinner. I love it when you get frustrated because he says right foot yellow, over and over again. I love the way we can look at each other and laugh about something that no one else understands. I love the way you tell a story and you have to make sure we hear every.single.detail. I love the way you still says, "Goodnight, Momma."

Dougie~
I love the way you love to wrestle and 'tussle' with Caleb. I love the fact that you LOVE to read. I love it that you think Jackie Robinson is a hero. I love the way you love all sports and that you enjoyed watching the Olympics as much as I did. I love it that you think you're still small enough to sit in my lap. I love it when you get up! (kidding, but your tail is so boney!!!) I love that you've discovered bird watching out your window and that you want me to enjoy it too! I love that you want to protect our home with an air soft gun when a strange man knocks on the door! I love that you remind me, "I won't always want to snuggle with you Momma, so you better enjoy it."

Caleb~
I love it when you do something great and you want celebrate, you say, "high five, big hug!" I love it when you ask us a question and we tell you we don't know, you respond by saying, "you better ask me." (instead of you better tell me.) I love the fact that you could eat cereal for breakfast, lunch and dinner!I love the way you say, "I want a whole big" when you want a lot of something. I love the way you want to wrestle with Dougie and Daddy but when it gets too rough, you run to mommy. I love the way you love to sing Toby Mac, especially "Boomin." I love it when you laugh so hard, your face turns red and you drool! I love that just a few weeks ago the thought of not being 3 caused you to lament ALL day long! (I'm not kidding!) But now I love that now you can't wait to be 4. I love that you believe that when you're 4, you're going to be "Super Boy." I love that you don't ever forget anything!

Asher~
What's not to love!? I love that you light up when you see your sister or brothers. I love that you will "carry on" a conversation. You will babble, we respond and then you babble some more! I love that you love to laugh and play. (Although I do wish you'd start crawling!) I love that you are turning into a really good sleeper! I love the way you love to see Daddy and Mommy!

I'm very blessed with wonderful children. Steven and I pray daily that our children will grow up and love God will all their hearts.
Kiss your babies today!

The Brady Bunch House

2010-02-19T15:26:00.013-05:00

Being a child of the 70's, I grew up watching the Brady Bunch. I loved all the drama between the kids but I also loved their house! They had the coolest house, the open staircase, the orange kitchen, I just loved it all. Who knew that some 30 years later, I would live in a house that has some decorating that is leftover from the Brady Bunch era? Like I said earlier, we LOVE our home, it's just some of the wallpaper that is less than desirable. Be prepared for a LOT of pictures because how else can I show you how "Carol" decorated this house!
This is the half bath. The reflection in the mirror is of the laundry room. I don't know about you but I think it was sheer genius to put the half bath in the laundry room. I'm just sayin'.... Doesn't this wallpaper just make you start to sing, "Here's a story..."?
Emma's Bathroom, yes, that's a chandelier...in a bathroom.A close-up of her wall paper. The pattern is raised velvet. When we first moved in, I kept telling my mom about the felt wallpaper. When they came for a visit, she informed me that it was velvet, not felt. OH. Classy, that's my middle name. Anyway..... Emma's room- very dramatic with the faux window covering for the headboard. An interesting combination of peach and green. This is our closet, yes, another chandelier. The wallpaper is the same in our closet and bedroom. Please don't judge me about the burned out light bulbs, between the 8 chandeliers in this house, I'm doing my best to replace the light bulbs!! This closet is HUGE, it's more like a dressing room. To the left are 2 closets. The door ahead leads to our bath room. Have you ever?!?! This is the mirror and lights above our bathroom sink. Checkout that wallpaper! On to the dining room. Again more ~~felt~~ velvet wallpaper. This picture doesn't really do it justice, I wish you could see it in person! Now, hold onto your horses or hats or whatever because I've saved the most unbelievable for last! The boys' bedrooms are plain, no wallpaper, just beige walls. Which leads me to believe, that the previous owners made those changes because who would have left a room beige when you see what they did to the closet and bathroom!
This is the closet, again, huge and more of a dressing room! Again, my picture doesn't give you the full effect of the jungle green and gold shimmery wallpaper, that is not only on the walls but on the ceiling as well!!! There are built in shelves and drawers, that you can see in the corner. It's so much room that Dougie doesn't even have to put his clothes in his dresser! The boys' bathroom is to the left and when you walk in this is what you see~ Marcia, Marcia, Marcia, check out those groovy stripes! It just makes me chuckle every time I go into that bathroom!
Well, I think I've shown you enough. But one last pic, here's our absolute favorite thing about this house~

Y'all have a great weekend! I just deleted my signature thingy.
Love Y'all,
Cheryl
btw, It wasn't my choice to have the animals on the mantle. It's all about compromise!

10 months (and 1 day)

2010-02-17T23:24:00.003-05:00

Asher turned 10 months old yesterday.
I know, I can't believe it either.
At 10 months old, Asher, you weigh right at 20lbs. You are about 29 inches long and are wearing 12 month clothes. The last month has been a rough one for you. Even though you had tubes put in last month, you still keep getting ear infections. You also had pink eye and a terrible cold that you can't seem to get rid of. Through it all, you're still as sweet as ever. You smile, laugh and are very easy going. Your sleep habits aren't the best but it's understandable with how sick you've been. Being sick also took a toll on your appetite and for almost 2 weeks, you've barely eaten and would only take your bottle. But the last couple of days your appetite is picking up. Which is so good to see. Your bottom teeth are getting bigger but there's no sign of any other teeth yet. But it hasn't stopped you from learning how to eat Cheerios!
You are saying Da-da and Ma-Ma. You say e-Ma, which is totally different sounding than when you say Ma-ma. Whenever you make the Ba-ba sound, Dougie and Caleb both claim it as "Bubba."
You're not crawling yet and don't really show much interest in trying. You do not like to be on your tummy unless it's when you're going to sleep. But I'm not worried, I know you'll get there in your own time.
This past weekend, we had some snow and even though you didn't get outside to play in it, you did get your first taste of snow ice cream! Mommy gave you the first bite and then Emma took over. Needless to say, you LOVED it.

Asher, I love you so much! Love, Mommy

Life According to Caleb....

2010-02-05T15:08:00.005-05:00

Sometimes, while uploading pictures, I'll come across some that weren't taken by me. Since the perspective of the picture looks like it was taken by someone who is about 36 inches tall, one can assume that Caleb got the camera and took some pictures. Or maybe out of desperation, it was given to him so that he can entertain himself, but whatever. It always makes me laugh to see what he captures, so I thought I'd share a few with you.

Most of the time, Asher is the subject of his photos. From Asher's look, he's a little scared.

Me feeding Asher. Obviously, he didn't want Asher in the picture. This may or may not have been one of those times when he had permission to use the camera.
Close up of Asher eating and I'm pretty sure he's thinking, "Dude, personal space...."

Trying to stretch his skillz as a photographer......still art, except the photographer couldn't be still because..............

Daddy's coming to take the camera away. Pretty sure this is one of those times he didn't have permission!

Saving the best for last. This is my all time favorite picture that Caleb has taken~

"Bo-Feet" that's Calebese for barefeet!

Happy Friday!

Love y'all dearly,

Hey!

2010-02-03T15:45:00.003-05:00

Hey there. Do you remember me? I used to have a blog, well I still do but I've kind of neglected it lately. And to keep from the awkwardness of you trying to remember my name, let me refresh your memory, I'm Cheryl.
I can't believe it's been 3 weeks since my last post. I won't give you all the typical excuses like; trying to settle into our new home, the stomach bug making it's way through our family and subbing full time; nope, no excuses here, just b.u.s.y, that's the only reason.
What?
What's that you say? I never told you about our new home? Well, let me fill you in!!
If you may remember waaaaay back in Nov. and Dec. we were looking to move out of the parsonage and wanted to find a home to rent. We looked for months to no avail. Our move out date of Jan. 15 was rapidly approaching and we couldn't find anything. We decided that since there are so many homes for sale in our area, maybe we would contact the owners about the possibility of renting. The only problem with that plan is if the owner is still living in the home, they probably don't want to rent it. Then we thought about a house that was just around the corner from us. The family had moved about a year ago and we knew the house was empty. So in late Dec., Steven called the owner and presented our idea. He told us he would need to talk to his wife and get back to us. A few days later, he called and since we'd never seen the inside of the house, he wanted us to meet him there to walk through the house and make sure it would meet our needs. On the day we met him, he told us that he and his wife had never had the desire to rent the home but they'd been praying about our offer and they believed God wanted them to rent their house to us! "My God shall supply all your needs." In a matter of 2 days, we went from having no clue to where we were going to live to having a place just around the corner.
As we walked into the house we were blown away! Now remember, we are a family of 6 moving out of a 3 bedroom, 2 bath ranch house. We walk into the family room and there is a HUGE brick fireplace, I think that sealed the deal for Steven. The next thing I hear the owner say is, "there are 2 bedrooms downstairs and 2 bedrooms upstairs." "Excuse me? Did you just say this is a 4 bedroom house?," I asked. "Yes, and there are 3 and a half baths." OMW!!! "To Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine."
We are absolutely thrilled with our home and although we know it's temporary, we are so grateful for the time we will get to live here as a family. We are already making so many wonderful memories and I hope our children will learn more about God's provision for His children through this experience!

On a side note, for all the wonderful things about this home, the large rooms, the fireplace, the huge yard, the closets (y'all, I can't even begin to tell you about the wonderful closet spaces!) there is one negative. This house was built in the early 70's and y'all, most of the original wallpaper is still on the walls! I know I keep saying y'all, but y'all, if you could see it!!!! It's like the Brady Bunch with a little bit of Austin Powers mixed in! I'm so not exaggerating either! Maybe I'll post some pictures to prove it!

Well, I guess that's enough for now. I hope to be a better blogger and not stay gone for so long. Leave me a comment so I know that at least somebody is reading this!

Love Y'all dearly!

2010-01-13T05:12:00.002-05:00

As you probably figured out, I've been on a little bloggy break. We've been moving and I can't wait to share with you how God provided a home for us.
If you've been praying for us, THANK YOU!!! I wish I could give you a big hug! (((hug)))

Be back soon (hopefully!)
Love Y'all dearly,

New Year's Verse 2010

2010-01-05T08:18:00.002-05:00

If you're not familiar with my New Year's verse, then go here. Here are my verses from 2008 and 2009.
Steven read a quote to me the other day from Adrian Rogers. "A New Year's Resolution is something that goes in one year and out the other."
I thought that was so cute!
As you know I don't make resolutions any more. I've been praying about what verse God would want for me in 2010. I felt like He wanted a verse about how He works, or remembering the things He's done, something along those lines. Sunday morning during Sunday school, our lesson pointed out the different translations of the word "fear". To give examples of fear, as in awe or reverence of God, it listed Psalm 40:3 and Proverb 9:10. We didn't look at these verses during the lesson but I wrote them down because I wanted to look them up later. That afternoon, I used an online Bible website to look up the verses. (I was snuggled up on the couch and had left my Bible in the van!) When I pulled up the verse in Proverbs, the website listed other verses that were related to it. One of them was Psalm 111:10, so I clicked over to read it. When I read Psalm 111, I knew it was my 2010 verse. The whole chapter describes what I've been feeling and verse 10 is what I hope to achieve. I want to be wise and want to follow and understand His precepts. Notice the order of the verse. So many times we want to understand before we will be obedient but the Word tells us to follow then we will gain understanding. The key to understanding is obedience.

I'm going to start working on memorizing verse 10 (it should be pretty easy) and I hope to memorize all of chapter 111.
Happy New year, Y'all!

2009 Flashback

2010-01-01T15:15:00.014-05:00

I don't think I've ever done a Year in Review so I thought I'd try it for 2009. I'm going to choose a picture and a post from each month. I hope I can keep it to just one! Hope you enjoy it!

January
Getting the opportunity to hug Beth Moore's neck and meeting so many wonderful Siestas!

Favorite January Post

February

The children at our church covered Valentine's Day notes all over Steven's car!
Favorite February post.

March

Favorite March post

April

So much happened in April, I can't pick one favorite post!

God's humor, Asher's birth, and Steven's heart attack !

May

Our first family picture.

Favorite May post

June

Favorite June post

July

Favorite July post

August

If you want to read the story behind this pic, go here!
Favorite August post

September

Favorite September post and post

October

Favorite October post

November

Favorite November post

December

Favorite December post

Whew.....that was a lot of work. But looking back over the year in picture and words has been alot of fun. It's amazing to see how the kids have grown and to read about all the things we've experienced this year. It's a reminder of my life verse, Jeremiah 29:11. It makes excited about what God has in store for us in 2010!

As always, love y'all dearly!!!!

G-D-O!!!!

2009-12-29T11:39:00.009-05:00

Last Tuesday, while we were visiting for Christmas, my sister in law, Skye, wanted to take Emma, Mia and myself to the American Girl Store and Bistro. Apparently, you need to make lunch reservations waaaay in advance so we decided to take our chances in hopes that someone had cancelled. Emma and I had never been to the store before and to be honest, I wasn't sure if she would still be 'into' it. Can I just say, whoever thought of the concept of the American Girl dolls is a genius!! I couldn't believe the things they have in this store. Anything you would want for your doll or your daughter, they have it! The longer we walked around, the more Emma seemed to enjoy it. Of course Emma and Mia brought their Julie dolls, so we had to look at all the accessories you can buy for her. Then we let the girls get their dolls hair styled Yes, you can get your doll's hair done and here's a little secret for you~ They use a toothbrush, not the official American Girl brush, to style the hair! They want us to buy a $7 hairbrush yet they use a 50 cent toothbrush! Anyway, back to the day....we checked to see if they had any cancellations and we were told that we could eat in the restaurant but that it would be an hour and a half wait. We opted to eat at Chick-fil-a and then did a little shopping in the mall. Then we headed back to the American Girl store and decided to eat dessert. We sat up at the bar and they put the dolls in little chairs. When they gave us the dessert menu, they placed a menu in front of the dolls too!

Emma ordered the fudge brownie sundae. It was A-mazing! As if the brownie, ice cream, chocolate syrup and whip cream weren't enough, they put some rice crispy treat bits in it too!

Mia ordered the chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwich. It was sooo big but that didn't stop Mia from attempting to eat it all. That girl loves her some ice cream and chocolate!When I ordered, I told the server, "I just want a chocolate chip cookie." They were baking them when we sat down and they smelled sooooo good. Well, I got my cookie but it wasn't a plain old cookie~

Skye didn't order a dessert but she did have the rasberry spritzer drink and it was very good too! If the desserts were this good, I can only imagine that the food is outstanding!

I don't know how I missed it but at some point even Julie ordered dessert. ;) She ordered a blueberry muffin.
We had such a good time together. I'm so glad we were able to go. Thank you Skye for treating us! As we said that day, "good times, good times...."

Christmas Eve and Day 2009

2009-12-29T10:49:00.013-05:00

The years when Emma and Dougie have to leave us on Christmas Eve, Santa always makes an early visit to our house. And this year was no different! We awoke Christmas Eve morning and Santa had left lots of toys and goodies for Emma, Dougie, Caleb and Asher! I took more video than pictures, which I'm sure you're glad after the picture overload in my previous post!

Caleb opening his gift from his brothers and sister........

GATOR GOLF!!!!!
Dougie helping Asher open his gift. A baby photo album, now he has one just like his brothers and sister had when they were babies! You can see Dougie wearing his favorite gift, a North Face!

Dougie insisted on taking a picture of me!

I don't know how I managed to miss getting any pictures of Emma. But you can see her hair in the picture of Caleb playing Gator Golf, so she really was there!

The big things that the kids got were:

Emma- an ipod dock and a coat for church

Dougie- North Face jacket and an air soft gun

Caleb- drums and moon sand (you'll see a video soon, I promise!)

Asher- a ball popper toy
After we ate a yummy(if I do say so myself!) breakfast of sausage gravy and biscuits, we loaded up the van(again) and headed to Steven's family. I can't even begin to name all the people who were there, well I could but it would take forever, just know it's A LOT of people. We ate a wonderful lunch and exchanged gifts. Then we spent the afternoon just hanging out, watching tv, playing cards and eating some more! Unfortunately, I forgot to take some pictures until we were ready to leave. But at least we got a family picture!

After leaving my in-laws, we had to take Emma and Dougie to there Dad's. =( It's always hard but we had such a great time celebrating Christmas with them. And as I have to do so often, I focus on the time we have together instead of focusing on the time we don't.

Once we dropped Emma and Dougie off, we headed back to my Mom and Dad's so we could be with my mom's side of the family on Christmas Day. It was a lot of traveling but it was so worth it!

On Christmas Day, we gathered at my cousin Kaylan's house and once again ate and exchanged gifts! It was another amazing day.
Caleb and Mia waiting to open gifts!

This is my Grandmother, the kids call her GiGi. She hates having her picture made so you have to sneak to get her picture. She'd die if she knew I was posting this here!

The family!

We decided after leaving Mom and Dad's on Saturday, not to go to the Farm this year. As you may know, we have to move in a few weeks, so we figured we better get home and start packing. (Which is what I should be doing instead of writing these posts!)

Christmas 2009 was a wonderful time of celebration for us. We are so blessed and give all the glory to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I hope you had a wonderful time this year too!

Love y'all dearly!

Christmas in ATL 2009

2009-12-29T09:55:00.014-05:00

It seems like every Christmas, we spend some time trying to remember what we did the year before. When did we go to your mom's, did we go to the farm and so on. So this year, for my benefit and to your dismay, I'm going to record exactly what we did, so next year I can look back and not have to strain my brain to remember!
This year, we had Emma and Dougie the first half of Christmas, so we did A LOT of visiting from the time they got out of school until Christmas Eve. On the Monday before Christmas, we loaded up the van and headed to Atlanta to visit my side of the family. We got their by lunch time and had a great time just hanging out and letting all the cousins play together.
On Tuesday, the girls went and did something special together(see this post) and the boys stayed at Grandma and Paps'. I hear they did a little hunting and even caught 2 5lb. bass! Too bad I wasn't there to take any pictures but the fish is in my freezer ready to be cooked, so I know they really did catch something!!!
On Tuesday night, my family gathered at my parents house for dinner and gift giving. In attendance was my mom and dad, my brother and SIL and their 2 kids, my older sis and BIL and their son and my younger sis and of course my family of 6! Added all together, there are 16 of us! The kids had so much fun getting tons of gifts from Grandma and Paps and giving gifts to each other. Here are some pics from our time there:
Mia and Emma, Best Cousins waiting to open the presents!

Parents lingering around the dinner table!
Chaz and Caleb opening their gifts!
Dougie's favorite gift, a Dodgers sweatshirt. Dougie's 1st grade teacher is Jonathon Broxton's mother in law, so lots of people in our area are big Dodger fans! Don't you love how Emma strategically placed her gift?

Asher and Aunt Laura. Notice how she has her hand behind her back? Asher kept trying to grab her cup of eggnog!On Wednesday, we packed up and headed home. We were sad to leave because we love hanging out with our family. We know that we are so blessed and we can't wait until we get to be together again!

2009-12-13T22:04:00.003-05:00

It has been so long since I've updated everyone with what's going on in our lives. So here it goes:

~Steven has taken an interim pastor position at a church. We are really enjoying getting to know the people and it is such a sweet church.
~I started a sub position for a teacher on maternity leave last week. I'm enjoying it, it's an adjustment though. The first part of the day, I'm in 8th grade and after lunch I assist in two 9th grade classes. One is a Math class and the other is a Gov't class.
~Caleb and Asher started daycare last week. It's the only daycare in our little town and it's pretty small. There is about 6 kids in Caleb's class and Asher is the only baby. So needless to say, he is getting completely spoiled!! Caleb loves going to his "school" and loves all his new friends. I was pretty conflicted about them going to daycare but I know it's only while I'm subbing and it helps that it is literally less than a quarter mile from where I am.
~Asher had tubes put in his ears 2 weeks ago. He is doing great and like Emma says, "I think the tubes made him sweeter." If that's even possible.
~We will be moving out of the parsonage it just over a month and we still haven't found a house to move into. If you think about, please say a prayer about that for us!

Well, I think that's enough for now. I hope you are enjoying this Christmas season with the ones you love!

Merry Christmas, Y'all!

2009-12-06T18:12:00.006-05:00

Merry Cristmas, Y'all!

Getting to Know You, Christmas Style!!

2009-12-01T19:37:00.002-05:00

My friend, Jen posted this on her blog and I thought it was fun.

1. Wrapping paper of Gift Bags?
Both, depending on the gift.

2. Real Tree or Artificial?
I love real trees but ever since Steven and I got married, we've used the artificial tree that he had.

3. When do you put up the tree?
This year we put it up the weekend before Thanksgiving.

4.When do you take the tree down?
Usually right after New Year's day but this year it will probably be right after Christmas.

5. Do you like eggnog?
Yes, the non-alcoholic kind. =)

6. Favorite gift received as a child?
My red bicycle

7. Do you have a nativity scene?
Yes, a Willow Tree set. I bought the pieces over several years.

8. Hardest person to buy for?
my nephew, he's 14.

9. Easiest person to buy for?
My kids!

10.Worst Christmas gift ever received?
I really can't think of anything!

11. Mail or email Christmas cards?
I usually mail cards but in an effort to save some money this year, I'll probably email them!

12. Favorite Christmas movie?
Oh there's so many!!! I really love Elf, Miracle on 34th St., Christmas Vacation, While You Were Sleeping (not technically a Christmas movie) and of course Rudolph!

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas?
After Thanksgiving but never on black Friday!!

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present?
NO WAY!

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas?
Peppermint bark, fudge, peanut butter balls.....the list goes on and on!

16. Clear lights or colored on the tree?
clear lights on the tree in our house, colored on the tree on the front porch.

17. Favorite Christmas song?
right now, Chris Tomlin's O Come All Ye Faithful but I also love me some Porky Pig's Blue Christmas. I just can't help myself!!!

18.Travel at Christmas or stay home?
travel, Christmas is a time to see family!

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer?
Now you know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen. Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen....but do you recall the most famous reindeer of all? Rudolph the Red nosed reindeer!
Why yes I can!!!

20. Angel or Star on the tree top?
Star

Merry Christmas Y'all!!

Thanksgiving Recap with a side of Christmas Tree

2009-12-01T08:39:00.012-05:00

We decided to decorate our tree the weekend before Thanksgiving. This is the earliest that we've ever put up our tree but I'm so glad we did. We let the kids put on all the ornaments and they really enjoyed doing it, especially Caleb. He's at the age where he really is understanding Christmas and it's so much fun seeing it all through his eyes. With every ornament he placed on the tree, he would exclaim, "Look, I did it!"

Asher was exhausted from all the tree decorating!

I know this post is already long but too bad!

On Thanksgiving Day, we went to my in-laws and spent the day with them. We had so much fun hanging out with everyone and eating so much good food! Caleb really had alot of fun playing with his cousins, Kaylee and Seth. The worst part of the day was having to hear Steven's sister and her husband talk about how Ga. Tech was going to run all over UGA. Well, I guess we all know what happens when you get prideful!!

That night, we headed down to the farm to be with my family. We had so much fun seeing all my aunts, uncles and cousins. Caleb had an absolute blast helping grind the sugar cane, making buddies with Uncle Kirby and playing with Chaz. Of course, Asher was sweet as ever and everyone feel in love with him!

Asher hanging out with Aunt Sandy.

Most of the cousins/great grandkids.

Asher getting in some cuddling with Mia and Hayley!

Caleb and Chaz helping grind the sugar cane to make the syrup!

We had a great Thanksgiving but we sure missed having Emma and Dougie with us. I hope you had a great holiday!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2009-11-25T14:27:00.002-05:00

I just wanted to pop in real quick and tell you Happy Thanksgiving. We'll be heading out in the morning and we'll be going the rest of the weekend! I can't wait to see our families and eat some yummy food! I'm baking a chocolate chip pie, a triple layer pumpkin spice pie and a green bean casserole. If it were up to me, all the desserts would be something pumpkin but my family doesn't have a deep love for pumpkin like I do!

I hope you have a blessed Thanksgiving and remember to give thanks to the One who deserves all our praise!

"Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good. His love endures forever." Psalm 136:1

Halloween 2009

2009-11-21T21:43:00.009-05:00

Halloween at Emma and Dougie's school is a big deal. They have a school wide costume parade and it's amazing some of the costumes you see each year. This year Emma and 3 of her friends were Mt. Rushmore and Dougie was a vampire. I only got one picture of each of them. Here's the vampire but notice the kid behind Dougie? The one who looks like he's a face in a book? See what I mean about the creativity level of these costumes!?

Mt. Rushmore~
They won best costume for 6th grade but more importantly the candy bags!

On Halloween, we took Caleb and Asher to the FallFest that our city does. Emma and Dougie were at their dad's. At first, Caleb didn't want to dress up, he's not a fan of costumes but eventually he decided wanted to. Caleb was a little freaked out by everyone being in costumes but he eventually began having fun and really enjoyed getting candy.

Here they are before we went~
Asher is wearing the pumpkin outfit that has been worn by his sister and both his brothers, I think we'll retire it now!
Caleb tossing the bean bag and Asher just hanging out......
Ok, I think I've FINALLY caught up!

Friends for Life!!!

2009-11-21T20:35:00.016-05:00

Go with me back in time......
It's August 2005. Steven and I are newlyweds, adjusting to being a blended family and less than a month into our first ministry together. Steven comes home from the church one day and begins to tell me about a family he met that day. Our church had a want-ad for a nursery position and a couple came by the church to inquire about the position. This couple had just moved to the Army base that was about an hour a way from our church. I couldn't believe what Steven told me that day. This couple was newly married. The wife had 2 kids from a previous marriage and their daughter and son were the EXACT ages of our daughter and son.
After that meeting, despite the distance, this family became one of the most committed members of our church.
Sean, Dee Dee, Kiara and Jacob are some of our dearest friends. Sean, who was a Chaplain Asst. in the US Army, is a gifted singer and musician and he eventually became the worship leader at our church. (Dee Dee is a gifted singer as well!) We always knew their time at our church was limited because of the Army and Sean's plans to eventually go to seminary so he could move on to the Chaplain program. This past October it became official. Sean was discharged from the Army so he could attend seminary and God opened a door for him to be the Youth and Music Pastor at a church in their home state.
Here's some pictures from a going away luncheon~
Dougie and Jacob Emma and KiaraWhen Sean was released from the Army, he was commissioned as an officer into the Chaplain Program the next day. It was a very informal event but monumental in Sean and Dee Dee's life so we were honored when they asked us to attend. I couldn't understand why he would be discharged one day and commissioned the next but it was such a rare occurrence that the Colonel pictured below had never been a part of an event like this in his 30 years in the Army. Pretty cool, huh?!
The Colonel sharing some words of wisdom with Sean~

The Colonel, Capt. S. and Sean. Sean being congratulated by his fellow comrades. Sean and Steven I can't tell you how much I love this couple!!!!Even though I miss them, I'm so excited that God has started this new chapter in their lives. One thing I learned from Pastor Johnny is that when people follow God's call into ministry and leave your church, you're not "losing" them but sending them out. If we're losing them, then it's about us but if we're sending them, then it's about HIM.

Sean, Dee Dee, Kiara and Jacob, we love y'all sooooo much!

Catching up......

2009-11-21T20:09:00.006-05:00

I'm going to catch up this blog today if it kills me!!
Back in October (is it really almost the end of November?!) we took the kids to the Fair. It was a perfect night, the weather was a little chilly but not enough to make you miserable. This was Caleb's first time going to the fair, I think. Well I know it was the first time that he understood that it was going to be F-U-N!!!
The night we went to the fair, it seemed like all of the kids from school were there, so Emma spent like the first 3 minutes with us and then she was gone! Dougie founds some buddies to ride with too. Emma's on the top row (that you can see) and far left.
Dougie is in the red car and one of his best buds is in the green. Caleb and Daddy on Caleb's favorite ride! And here's how Asher spent his time at the fair! The child can sleep through ANY-thing!

Dear Anonymous, I didn't delete your comment....

2009-11-16T21:42:00.007-05:00

Last week, I promised to catch up on all the exciting things that we've been doing around here and eventually, I will. But last week I received a comment on my Getting Off The Dino Train post that I wanted to share. Here's the comment:

"Anonymous said...
@JenMom: I think you're right to make sure that your kids are only indoctrinated with the things that YOU want instead of those that are supported by silly things like facts and science.

@Cheryl: "The last time I checked humans didn't fall under the same scientific classification as animals." What? What source did you check that last time? Humans ARE animals.

The only basis you have for your scientific knowledge is what the Bible tells you. The problem I (and a lot of other people) have with that is that it's self-confirming source. Scientific sources have to be confirmed by outside, independent sources. The Bible, on the other hand, is right because it's the Bible. Who said that the Bible is right? The Bible.

I know I'm shouting into the wind here, and I know that you'll likely delete my post as soon as you see that I'm questioning your views, but I just had to post. "

November 10, 2009 11:09 AM

Dear ~~Anonymous~~ Friend,
First, let me say thank you for leaving your comment. I was in no way offended by you sharing your thoughts and in fact I appreciate being challenged to defend my beliefs. Secondly, not only did I NOT delete your comment from my blog, (as you assumed I would) but I'm writing a post just for you!
After reading your comment, I did some research on scientific classification (which I didn't do while writing the Dino Train post) and yes, humans are classified in the Animalia Kingdom. Which means we are multi-celled, have a central nervous system, are capable of spontaneous movement and can't reproduce our own food. So in that respect, you are correct. But like you said, "Scientific sources have to be confirmed by outside, independent sources." So next I went to the dictionary, (I'd consider that an independent source) and the first definition was what I stated above but the second definition said: "any such living thing other than a human being." (I added the emphasis on other.)

As for the Bible, it is historically correct and it is scientifically accurate. It's not true because I believe it to be nor is it untrue just because you believe it to be.
It IS the Word of God.

I know I haven't really given you any great bits of information to help you see things from a different perspective. The only way you will know the truth is to search for yourself. I challenge you, as we Christians are told so often, to be open to a different way of seeing things. Read the Bible for yourself. It's not just a book full of stories, it is a love letter from God written just for Y-O-U!

I hope you'll continue reading my blog and you don't have to be anonymous next time you leave a comment!

I dearly love you my friend!

Catching Up.......

2009-11-06T12:00:00.007-05:00

Ok, I am so far behind but I'm going to try and catch up. I may even try to do a couple of post today, ambitious I know, but we'll see!
As I'm pretty sure you know, Dougie played his first season of football this year. It's a league for 3rd, 4th and 5th graders. Most teams play their 5th graders because they're bigger. Our team had only 4 5th graders. Our defensive team was 3 5th graders, 4 4th graders and 4 3 graders. So you can see that we had a very young team! I said all that to say, we didn't have a very good season. We won our very last game and that was our first win. But boy was it sweet!

To end the season, our team plays in a Jamboree. In one of the games at the jamboree, Dougie scored his first touchdown!!!! Woo-hooo! I just happened to be videoing some of the game and got it on video. I wish I could upload it here but then again, you probably don't want to hear me hoopin' and hollerin' in the background! :) Dougie was so cute after he crossed the goal line he turned and ran back out towards his teammates and had his arms spread wide with the ball in his hands. I told him he looked like Knowshon!

These pics are from the jamboree, it pretty much rained the whole time and it was freezing!!!

Dougie always stayed by the coaches while he was on the sideline!

I snapped this picture of Dougie in action, he made an awesome tackle! He was 1st team defense!

Dougie getting his trophy from the coaches at the awards banquet.

Even though it wasn't a winning season, Dougie really enjoyed it and I think it solidified his love for football. (He almost always sleeps with his football, don't tell him I told you!) And since our younger boys got alot of playing time this year, they will be even more ready for next season!

GO BIG RED!!!

Treasure Hunting.......

2009-11-04T20:36:00.003-05:00

I have been such a terrible blogger lately and didn't even realize how bad I've been until I was flipping through the pics on my camera and realized ALL the things I need to blog about. I've at least uploaded the pics and hopefully will get them here soon but I've been sidetracked by a challenge......

Lisa, The Preacher's Wife, has suggested a scavenger hunt for the minister's wives on her M2M blogroll. It will be a fun way to get to know each other and since it's a scavenger hunt, there is a prize involved. And since I've been known to be a wee bit competitive, ok lots, I really want to win!

So if you're not here for the scavenger hunt, just enjoy this post (or not) and we will return to our regularly scheduled blog posts after I ~~beat~~, I mean, meet the other pastor's wives. ;~)

The Treasures

1. First Name. Cheryl

2. State and Country of Residence. Ga., USA

3. Husband’s Ministry Title. Pastor

4. Length of time in Current Ministry Location. {IMPORTANT: There are several of you who may not be in a current ‘official’ pastorate/ministry, etc. That makes you no less a minister’s wife! You play along, girlfriends, and let us pray for you!}
We resigned this past August from our current church. We were there for 4 years.

5. Children? If yes, give gender and ages.
girl- 11 although she would say 12 in 25 more days.
boy 1- 9 yrs. old
boy 2- 3 yrs. old
boy 3- 6 months

6. Number of unique homes in which you’ve lived during your marriage.
Just one! We were married in 2005. Now if you're new here, after reading the previous question, you're probably thinking, huh? The 2 older kids are mine from a previous marriage. Like Lisa, I am NOT the typical pastor's wife!

7. Cook Sunday lunch or eat out? Over the past year or so, we would eat lunch with a dear family either at their home or we would all go out. I soooo miss our Sunday lunches with them. :(

8. Typically on time for Sunday School or not? typically on time.

9. Favorite TV Show. LOST but I also love HGTV, Food Network, TLC. Don't really watch alot of network shows. Just realized that I named a bunch of channels, not really shows, oh well!

10. Something you watch/like/do that you would never tell the church people. (Except now you just did…lol) I really like chewing tobacco....I'M JUST KIDDING!!!!!

11. Most annoying church-related pet peeve. People who don't tithe. *gasp* oh yes, I just did!

12. One thing you need to throw away but can’t bring yourself to do it. my husband's many boxes of cassette tapes from other preachers. Wait, I have tried to throw those out, he just keeps catching me!!! There are very few things that I hold onto that would make you say, "you really should just throw it away." I'm the one usually making that statement.

13. The one food you can not live without. chocolate, preferably dark

14. Parsonage or have your own home? parsonage at least til the first of the year, after that...?

15. Freak when the doorbell rings or always ready for a visitor? well somebody stopped by the other day and they caught me still in my pj pants and a tshirt and no makeup. I told her, "come on in, we're still in our pj's around here, the house is a mess but oh well!" She came in for a few minutes and we had a good visit. The best piece of advice I got before I married my preacher husband was, "Cheryl, you just have to be yourself. You can't try to be something or someone you're not." And that's what I do!

If you're a Pastor's wife, or if you're not, and you struggle with people placing their expectations on you, remember this verse (it only reads like this in the KJV):

"My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from Him." Psalm 62:5 (KJV)

Thanks for stopping by and don't feel bad about losing the cookbook, I'll post about all the great recipes that I'll be cooking for my family! ............just kidding, y'all!

Love y'all dearly!

It's tiring being this cute....

2009-10-27T21:20:00.002-04:00

Asher has a new bouncy seat, exersaucer thingy that we borrowed from a family member. He loves sitting in it because he sits upright and can see everything that's going on. Yesterday, we noticed that he was nodding off so I grabbed the video camera. It's kind of dark but it's so cute to watch him wake himself up each time he bounces. Poor baby!

Such A Sleepy Baby from Cheryl A on Vimeo.

Getting off the Dino Train......

2009-10-22T10:46:00.005-04:00

*Update*
If you found this post as a result of a search engine search, please read this post, after you read the one below. Thanks for stopping by.

I usually don't use my blog to express controversial or political views and probably after you read this you'll think, "that's not really controversial, or a big deal." But to me it IS a big deal.

We generally love PBS Kids and the shows they produce but when they began advertising a new show called, Dinosaur Train, I was a little hesitant about letting Caleb watch it. I knew that their perspective on the age of the earth and dinosaurs would not line up with what we believe. Once the show aired, he watched it a couple of times but didn't really seem to care for it. So I didn't really think about it anymore.

Today, when I returned from taking Emma and Dougie to school, Steven, Asher and Caleb were on the couch watching tv(pbskids). I sat down with them and we were just all relaxing. When the show Caleb was watching went off, Dinosaur Train came on. I didn't really think anything about it so we all sat there and watched the show. The cartoon part of the show was cute and nothing was said that made me cringe. But at the end of the show a man comes on and says, "I'm a paleontologist...." And then he asks questions based on the show's topic. Today's topic was bipeds or dinosaurs that walk on 2 legs. The Paleontologist asked the question, "Can you name any animals that are bipeds?" Girl #1 answers, "kangaroos." Girl #2 answers, "humans." To which the paleontologist answers, "that's right!"

***Did you catch that?***

What animals are bipeds?

Humans.

The last time I checked humans didn't fall under the same scientific classification as animals.
Now you may be thinking, big deal, is your 3 year old really going to pick up on that? No, he probably wouldn't but it's subtle teachings like this that slowly begin to form a person's way of thinking (and obviously the evolutionist influence is attempting to start before he's even in school.) If I just let this slide, I won't have to worry about what he may learn in a science classroom because he'll already believe what most textbooks teach as fact anyway.

I want my children to know that:

they are created in the image of God, which is not the same as animals. Genesis 1:27
and
they are more valuable to God than even the animals He created. Matthew 6:26

So we turned the channel and found a different show to watch. It may not make a big difference but I'm going to do all that I can to protect my children. And as they grow up, I don't want to shield them from different perspectives but I want them to be able to learn a biblical worldview so they will "always be prepared to give an answer." 1 Peter 3:16

Something to ponder~

Why are we so quick to question a preacher and the word of God but we willingly accept whatever is printed in textbooks and taught in our children's classrooms?

I'm just sayin'........

6 months old!

2009-10-16T05:00:00.002-04:00

**Update**
We went for Asher's check up:
Weight- 17.8 lbs. (50th %tile)
Height- 27 1/4 in. (75th %tile)
Head Circumference- 17 1/2 in. (75th %tile)

6 months old from Cheryl Adams on Vimeo.

I saw a quote the other day on another blog that said something like: Days go slowly but years go quickly. And that pretty much sums up how I'm feeling. Asher is ALREADY 6 months old!!!

So here's what he's like at 6 months:

Eating: You started eating baby cereal and some fruits. You're getting better at eating baby food and you love sitting in your high chair. That way you get a good view of Emma, Dougie and Caleb!

Sleeping: You sleep most nights from about 11pm to 7am. Some nights you still wake up and want a bottle but as you've always done, you go right back to sleep.

Growing: Not sure about your weight and height. Your check up is next week. But my guess is you're about 20 lbs. You are wearing 6 to 9 month cloths.

Doing: You love to babble, laugh and smile! You have the cutest little crooked grin that charms every one you meet. You are rolling back and forth from your back to belly all the time.

Changing: Although you've changed alot in the past 6 months, your personality has remained the same. You are so laid back and easy going. You are such a happy baby and love to be around people.

As I've said before, your name means Blessed but I am the one who is blessed to be the mommy of such a precious son!

I love you so much, Asher!

Mommy

Because I have to have a title.....

2009-10-13T22:36:00.004-04:00

I'm sure you must have thought that I was so proud of my banana oatmeal bread that I would just keep that post up forever but I promise that's not the case! Last week was so busy, I just never had the chance to sit down and blog. Not to mention the fact that I didn't really have much to blog about! But now it seems like I've got lots to blog about, it's feast or famine when it comes to the blog!

This morning, Caleb was chasing Jack (our dog) in the driveway with a ball air pump. Jack was loving the attention from Caleb and only stopped running when Steven came out. Jack ran to Steven and was standing in front of him when Caleb came up behind Jack. (I'm sure you know where I'm going with this but...) While Jack was looking at Steven, Caleb started to put the needle of the air pump in a place that Jack would not have liked. After scaring the bejeebies out of Caleb when I screamed his name, he turned to me and said, "but Momma, I just wanted him to get big, big, big in the sky." OMW! I don't think Jack wants to be the new float in the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade.

On another note, this past weekend was my 20th high school reunion. Yes, you read that correctly. I cannot believe that I've been out of high school for 20 years! We went to the homecoming game Friday night, which we dominated! Lots of people from my class were there and we spent the whole second half of the game socializing instead of watching the game. Then on Saturday we had a family picnic. Not a lot of people came to the picnic but it was still a great time. We chose not go to the Saturday evening event mainly because of the cost and we're just trying to be really frugal right now. But it was still a great weekend and thanks to facebook, I get to see everyone's pictures and it's a good thing, cause I only took ONE picture the whole weekend. oops!

So how was your weekend, anything exciting? Seen any unusual floats in the sky? lol!

Love y'all!

Banana Oatmeal Bread

2009-10-01T12:39:00.008-04:00

I don't know what it is about Fall but something in me clicks and I have a desire to bake bread. I woke this morning and I thought, "I'm going to make some homemade bread." Maybe it was because it's the first day of October but I'm pretty sure it was the 3 ~~rotting~~ over ripe bananas sitting on my counter. I didn't want to make plain old banana bread so I first searched my new favorite blog. The entry she had for today was very tempting, but alas those bananas were begging to be ~~thrown away~~ used! So googled banana oatmeal bread and this is the recipe I found. It was on cooks.com but it is now officially mine!

1/2 C softened butter (I used real butter)

3/4 C light brown sugar, firmly packed (I used dark, it's what I had)

2 lg. eggs

1/4 C milk

2 to 3 med. very ripe bananas, mashed

1 1/2 C flour (I used half white, half wheat)

1 Tbsp. baking powder

1/3 C old fashioned oatmeal, uncooked

1 tsp. ground cinnamon*

*The recipe didn't call for cinnamon but I had my mind on these, so I just threw some in!

Heat oven to 375. Grease and flour bread pan. In a large bowl, with electric mixer at med. speed, beat sugar and butter until creamy. Add remaining ingredients, beat until batter is smooth. Pour into bread pan. Sprinkle some oatmeal flakes and brown sugar over top. Bake 40-50 minutes until toothpick comes out clean. Cool at least 15 minutes before removing from pan.

My photography skillz are lacking to say the least. I tried to get a picture of the bread in the pan because it looked soooo good but my pictures didn't do it justice. This is a recipe that I'll definitely use again. It made enough to make 1 very large loaf so I put part of the batter in a smaller loaf pan and made 1 small and 1 medium loaf. Caleb and I ate the small loaf for breakfast, while it was still warm and it was yummy! I split the medium loaf and put part of it in the freezer for later.

Let me know if you try this!

Love Y'all!

Well................

2009-09-28T13:54:00.004-04:00

I don't really have anything to share but I'm just tired of the Gerber baby post. Not that I'm tired of Asher by any means, it just reminds me of how I've been slacking when it comes to my blog!
So here's some random points, in no particular order:

* We attended a great church yesterday. It was nice just to walk in and enjoy the service.

* Caleb enjoyed his class so much at this church, he literally refused to leave the room when Dougie and I went to get him.

* I think it stunk that the UGA game was on a station that our cable service doesn't carry! So we went old school and listened to it on the radio. Until a friend on FB sent us a link to watch it streaming online. No more old school.

* Speaking of FB, what's up with all the RI-di-culous quizzes. I mean seriously, I don't care how what color converse shoe you are or which Twilight character fits your personality best or the ever popular How well do you know your friend? I mean come on, do you really think it's wise to take a quiz on FB to find out how many kids you should have?! Why not just pull out the good old 8 ball? I know, I know, I can just hide the quizzes (and I do) but when you have one for everything subject under the sun, I feel like I'm constantly doing it! BTW, I don't hide my friends, just the silly quizzes.

* Wow, that was a soap box I didn't know I was standing on!

* Friday night, Asher went to bed at 11:30pm and didn't wake up until 9:30am Saturday morning! Someone shout GLORY with me! I think we've finally turned the corner. He slept just as well Saturday and Sunday night too!

* We are still waiting on God's direction for us but I'm in the midst of a bible study that couldn't be better suited for where we are in our lives! It's called One in a Million by Priscilla Shirer and it is phenomenal. If you have the opportunity to do this study, DO IT!!!

Well I think that's enough randomness for today.

Happy Monday!

Love Y'all dearly,

Gerber Baby!

2009-09-21T21:27:00.008-04:00

Asher turned 5 months last Thursday and this weekend, he got his very first taste of baby food. Of course it was just some bland rice cereal but he seemed to like it! He got the hang of it pretty quickly and as soon as he saw the spoon coming, he opened his mouth. I'm pretty sure we've got another good eater on our hands.

When he got tired of eating, he couldn't stop staring at his daddy. It was sooo sweet!

Love y'all!

3 years old!

2009-09-19T09:08:00.007-04:00

1st Birthday2nd Birthday

3rd Birthday

Caleb turned 3 years old today!

We celebrated his birthday last Saturday with a party. Grandma, Paps, Chaz and Mia came from Atlanta and Grandmomma and Grandaddy, Uncle Ben and Aunt Bonnie came too!

Although it's hard to believe that your 3 today, it's hard for me to remember life without you!

Caleb, you are the funniest kid. You are constantly making us laugh with the things you do and say. But you can also be very stubborn. You know what you want to do and you don't want anyone to tell you any different! You love to sing, dance and play the drums!

You love your mommy but you are definitely Daddy's boy!

Our prayer is that you will "wholly follow the Lord." Just as your namesake did.

Happy Birthday, Caleb!

A first......

2009-09-15T12:58:00.004-04:00

Today I attempted to pickle some okra. The okra came from my dad's garden. This is my first attempt at pickling/canning anything. I bought the jars, pickling salt, garlic and dill. The recipe called for dried red peppers but I substituted some banana peppers, which also came from my dad's garden. I didn't want the okra to be real spicy so I thought the banana peppers would add a good flavor. Of course I won't know how they taste for a couple of weeks. The jars sealed properly so I think I did everything right.

Except I did make one booboo. As I was mixing the ingredients, for some reason instead of using the pickling salt, I used sea salt. I don't know what I was thinking. I even had the box of pickling salt sitting on the counter where I was working! Sometimes I can be so ditzy!

Anyway, I already had the jars in the 'bath' when I realized my mistake so I googled, "can I use sea salt in place of pickling salt when canning?"

The answer I saw on several sites, stated that "you may see a slight discoloration in your food but other than that, it shouldn't be a problem."

WHEW!

So in couple of weeks, hopefully we'll have some slightly discolored but tasty pickled okra.

Love Y'all!