Encourage others and yourself! Share a scripture, quote, devotional, lyrics, or anything that has blessed you and strengthened you in your faith. Don't forget to copy and paste this and to link back to Sheryl's post.

"God wants you to move through this day with a quiet heart, an inward assurance that He is in control, a peaceful certainty that your life is in His hands, a deep trust in His plan and purposes, and a thankful disposition toward all that He allows. He wants you to put your faith in Him, not in a timetable. He wants you to wait on Him and wait for Him. In His perfect way He will put everything together...see to every detail...arrange every circumstance...and order every step to bring to pass what He has for you."

I receive emails from Dayspring and this was written by Roy Lessin, the co-founder. Is it possible that he wrote that just for me? I find it hard to have a quiet heart and letting God be in control. Sometimes it's hard to have a "thankful disposition". For instance, I didn't get the preschool teacher job and I don't know why. It's hard being thankful when I really wanted it. I know in my heart that God has something wonderful for me, but I wish He would let me know what that was and I'd really like to know NOW. See what I mean, he wrote it just for me.

Have a super weekend everyone...

I made it through their first day...here's what I did

I decided that Jenn and I deserved a good old fashioned breakfast. It was her first full day without the kids too. So, we went to Sterks near Jenn's house. It was wonderful.
That is what they call an omelet. It looked more like a pizza. It was delicious.
Here's Jackson. I did have another picture of him with his mouth full of food and wide open. I didn't think his mom would appreciate it.

Everybody running home. They all had a great day. Lance didn't because it lasted too long. Josh forgot his lunch...way to go Mom. And his snack. He still came home in good spirits. Sam was so happy to have homework...don't ask. It was a good day for them.

I'm not sure what happened to Ben, but I needed to get a picture of him. Even in pain, he smiles for the camera.

Hope everyone had a great day today :)

Yes, I cried...I knew you were wondering.

The whole gang

Sam

Josh

Lance

I got a picture of Jackson because I won't see him on his first day. He goes to preschool next Thursday.

13 Thursday- 13 reasons I'm excited about school starting

1. Seeing the excitement in their eyes
2. The freedom to do more
3. I can see them when I volunteer at school
4. Ever heard of a "nooner"?
5. Back to a routine
6. Kids have to go to bed early
7. I can finally clean my house
8. I'm not real excited about #7
9. I get Jackson all to myself...poor kid
10. I just might start exercising again
11. I can go shopping with no kids...sorry Eric
12. I can work on my floral arrangements
13. and the best reason...I won't have to keep saying, "Stop fighting with your brother", "Quit whining", "Share the toys", "Don't run in the house", and "Go outside".

I actually feel a little better. I stopped crying, that's a start.


These are all "my" kids. The pretty girl is Jennifer. I babysit her. You know Matthew and Ben. The middle kid is Jacob. He's our neighbor.

More Pictures...

I look as if I'm on the verge of crying...I am.

My baby by 16 minutes

Bye kids, see you at 4 pm. This has been great therapy. I'm so glad I have a blog.

The night before their big day...

Wordless Wednesday - this is me tomorrow as all my babies get on the bus! The extra orange is Jackson, by the way.

I've been tagged by KC!!!

Here are the rules:

*You have to post these rules before you give the facts.
*Players, you must list one fact that is somehow relevant to your life for each letter of your middle name. If you don’t have a middle name, use the middle name you would have liked to have had.
*When you are tagged you need to write your own blog-post containing your own middle name game facts.
*At the end of your blog-post, you need to choose one person for each letter of your middle name to tag. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

Here we go...
Jam - I love strawberry jam on toast, bagels, just about any kind of bread you can think of.

Eggs - scrambled eggs with bacon and shredded cojack cheese. Do you see a pattern here? I'm hungry now.

Acapulco, Mexico - where we went on our honeymoon. It was awesome!!!

Nice - most of the time

Nine a.m. - I would love to sleep in until 9 am every day! I'm more of a night owl so it would be perfect.

Excellent driver - I'm an excellent driver except over railroad tracks :)

It's time to tag some people.
Jenn
I don't have an E so I'm going to say Eric and hopefully convince him to do it :)
Alex
ShauNda
DiNah and BeN
StacEy

Thanks, KC, that was fun!

Soak City

It's hot, must go swimming! Valley beach is closed, let's go to Soak City!!!
Love this picture! Now that I have a blog, the kids just know they need to pose ALL THE TIME!

Sam went down the slide too, but I couldn't seem to get a good picture of him. I kept missing him. He's very upset that there is a picture of Matthew and Josh, but not him. That's Sam for ya! The world revolves around him :)
This is the only slide Ben will go on. He's my scaredy cat (man, that's got to be spelled wrong...doesn't quite look right).

This is one of the only slides Matthew can ride, not because he's scared, but because he's not tall enough yet. I feel so bad for him because he's a daredevil and can't always ride the things he wants.
I'm sorry I must show this picture. It's the "end" of the summer. These will be the last pictures I take of any kind of swimming. I will not tell you who's butt this is, but I can tell you that I told him to pull up his trunks the whole day. He had it coming...

We're getting up at the "crack" of dawn tomorrow to go to the science center in Cleveland...can't wait. I think the kids will love it. It's been awhile since we went. Nothing like shoving all kinds of fun stuff in before school starts.

Wordless Wednesday-the dog I've always wanted!! Yes, I was driving when I took this.

"It's raining, Mom, I'm bored. There's nothing to do!"

"Let's play hide and go seek. First, I need to put on my sports bra," says Mom. Game on, boys!! To add suspense to the game, it was storming out which made the house dark and eerie. We had two rules...one, you cannot turn on the lights and two, you couldn't change hiding spots. The basement and garage were off limits. Talk about fun...

Matthew had a great hiding spot and it took us a long time to find him. The below picture is me on the bed and they never did find me. They gave up first. I was so proud of myself. I kick butt in hide and seek.

I may not be the best mom in the world, but today I felt like I was. We had so much fun.

For dinner, I taught Ben how to make spaghetti and meatballs. Again, felt like a great mom. He did spectacular. Dinner was delicious. He was so proud of himself. I was so proud of him.

Awesome day...and it rained the whole time. We were planning on going to Soak City and I'm kind of glad we didn't.

Chocolate Chip Bread

Ok, here's the scenario last Friday...I'm going to a get together and I need to make something. I don't have time to go to the store so I need to find something in the cupboards. Here are my choices...marshmallows, waffles, or yes, chocolate chip muffin mix. I choose the muffin mix, of course.

Now, I don't want to make muffins because that's just not right, for some reason. So I see there's an 800 number to call if you have questions about their product...so I call...what do I have to lose, right?

The lady answers and I ask the million dollar question...how can I turn this muffin mix into a loaf of bread? Now, I thinking, there's no difference. All I have to do is add milk as if I'm making muffins. I, of course, am wrong...go figure. Here's the recipe if you would like to make bread out of muffins.

2 pouches of Martha White chocolate chip muffin mix (Wal-Mart has it)
2 eggs, beaten
2/3 c. milk
1/4 c. oil

Mix well. Spray bottom of loaf pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 45-50 min.

So there it is...just wanted to share...it turned out really well and tasted delicious.

Encourage others and yourself! Share a scripture, quote, devotional, lyrics, or anything that has blessed you and strengthened you in your faith.Don't forget to copy and paste this and to link back to Sheryl's post.

I had an interview for the preschool teacher job on Tuesday. It went really well, but it doesn't pay much and I was contemplating whether it would be worth it or not. This is the verse that God guided me to read...

"Be shepherds of God's flock that is under your care, serving as overseers - not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not greedy for money, but eager to serve." 1 Peter 5:2

I felt that it wasn't about the money, it was about serving God. I would be teaching little kids about God and how he loves them so much. I'm ok with the whole money issue now.

They haven't called yet though...we'll see. I firmly believe that God knows what's best for me.

Ok, ok...I have a little secret...I'm going to whisper it

I like "High School Musical". Pleassssse don't let anyone know. I thought for sure it would be this cheesy stupid movie about high schoolers.

I was wrong, not about the high schoolers part, but about it being cheesy.

I enjoyed it...ok, I admit it. It's shocking I know.

I'm actually looking forward to watching #2 tomorrow.

Wordless Wednesday

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. Psalm 23:4

This is what we went through as we were going camping on Thursday. Before this picture, we were going through Savannah and there were several tornadoes on radar right above us.

God was truly with us and protecting us...God is good!!

So I know you have to be wondering what our favorite things about camping were...well, today, is your lucky day!

Eric's favorite things were...rafting on the first day. We canoed for 11 miles on Sat and it was not fun. Everything hurt when we were finished. Don't feel like doing that again. His other fav. thing was sitting around the fire

My favorite things...making S'mores and packing up to go home. I'm just kidding, I actually liked going through the storm on Thursday. I'm fascinated with thunderstorms and all.

Ben's favorite things were...kayaking on Sat. He actually was in a 2 man kayak and his brothers would switch on and off to ride with him. He did all the work...I was very impressed. His 2nd thing was playing kickball. There was a field right next to us and it was perfect for the kids.

Matthew's first favorite thing was playing spoons. It's kind of a card game where you have to get 4 of a kind and then grab a spoon. The person who doesn't have a spoon is out. It gets your heart a-pumping, I thought I was going to have a heart attack. He also enjoyed playing kickball.

Sam's favorite things were swimming in the pool and throwing sticks into the fire...don't ask.

Josh's favorite things were sleeping in the kayak with Ben hauling him around and playing in the park. He was there more than at the campsite, I think. I would tell Sam to stay with him and Sam would constantly come back to the campsite and say that Josh refuses to leave.

This week's Joshism...we get home and what pops out of Josh's mouth, "I missed my toilet" And there you have it...

This is Sam's eye. His eye got into a fight with a rock and lost. That was the worst injury we had...thank goodness.

To add insult to injury, Sam just hit that SAME eye on the corner of a headboard before bed and now he has a little cut on his eyelid. Poor kid. His eye looks awful.

This is a locust who decided that our tent was a great place to relax. The brown bug is actually it's shell...very fascinating.

I've never really looked at a locust because, well, I didn't really care to look. It was a very pretty green. My step dad used to take the shell and spray paint them different colors.

What a difference a year makes...

Here's all the kids from last year's camping trip. Josh wore that costume a lot that weekend.

Below is this year's picture. They had a lot of fun. They played Corn hole, kickball, and spoons.

Great times...

So what are you doing this weekend? We're going camping!!

Yes, it's true, I'm taking my 5 guys and heading down to Mohican and camping out. My mom and my step dad and his family will be there too. We went last year and had a lot of fun. I get along with my step dad's kids too, which makes it great.

What I haven't told you is I don't like to camp all that much. Would I rather be at a hotel...oh yes, I would. Is it all that bad for a couple of days...no, it's not. Would I make it on Survivor? No, I would be that whiny person you love to hate. I would never even try out for Survivor.

I do love the fact the I can get out of the house, there isn't a tv that I "have to" watch. I love sitting around a campfire and making S'mores.

Will I do it next year? Oh, yes, I just need to complain a little. Can't wait to share all the pictures with all of you. Hope you have a fantastic weekend.

I'm back...been sick and doing my floral arrangements

What a crazy week I've had...I was sick with a nasty cold from Sunday night until yesterday. I'm still not 100%, but I can at least function now.

Last Tuesday (7/31) I was asked to create some floral centerpieces for the conference hall at Successful Relationships in Norwalk. The Added Gift, which is a great little store with many different vendors in it, is adjacent to it. I am one of the vendors in the store. I needed to make 10 centerpieces by today, which, if you do the math, is only 9 days.

I was in a panic, but also very excited because I really enjoy making floral arrangements.


Luckily, I started making the centerpieces Saturday night and Sunday because Monday morning I was miserable. I could barely move because of the vicious headache I had and my nose would not stop running...not fun.

I also made the candles out of soy wax with help from Shaunda...thank you, thank you, thank you. I couldn't have done it without you.

They really turned out nice and I am so very proud of them. It's like they were my babies...that kind of sounds pathetic.

I'm a day late...been swimming...finally! Happy WW!!