Fun Friday!

I know that some of my friends here are crafters,

so when I came across this last night I thought I'd share

it with all of you!

Michael's has a kids craft club online where they have cute

printables and lots of fun craft ideas for kids.

You can also have a birthday party there!

Who knew??

But what caught my eye was the Halloween craft event

they put on.

From 10-Noon on Saturday kids can come in to receive

a free trick-or-treat pail, enjoy a free coloring activity,

free Crayola Model Magic Fusion, and a Make-it, Take-it

Halloween frame!

Children will also receive a free balloon and candy.

(while supplies last, of course!)

I'm not sure if we're going to try to attend, but it sure

sounds fun! And you can't beat free!!

Hope y'all have a great weekend, and be safe if you

go trick-or-treating! :)

TTFN,

Jacob's field trip

Yesterday I got to go on Jacob's first field trip with him!

(Thank you, Mrs. Linda for keeping the littles)

We went here:

This is our local children's museum. Can you see my little

man in the shadows up there?? I wanted him to stand on

the top, but that black metal rail completely covered his face.

They have lots of exhibits, some are large areas designed for

imaginitive play, some are areas for learning, and our guide told the

kids they could touch anything they could reach.

And they did! They had a blast!!

'All aboard the choo-choo train, all aboard, all aboard!

Choo-choo!*'

*this is the song from Choo-choo Soul, if you don't

watch The Disney Channel.

Hey, Skipper, where's Gilligan?

Pull!!

Time for a spot of tea.



This was a giant climbing apparatus that went from floor

to ceiling through the middle of the building.

(yeah, well, saying 'apparatus' sounds better

than saying 'thingy')

Jacob loved it!!

After our time inside, we went out to the picnic area and

ate our sack lunches. Strangely I don't have any pictures

of this. Maybe I just didn't want any evidence of me

stuffing my face like a hog eating. :)

Jacob's class (most of them)
Cheese!

Silly face!!


I wish this picture had come out better. I think my camera
focused on the tree instead of Jacob. I suppose it is the bigger
object in the shot!


Notice the boo-boo on Jacob's chin that isn't in the rest of the
pictures. He fell outside and managed to skin his chin and
the insides of his elbows. I still haven't figured out how he
did that!


Other than the fall, it was a wonderful day. I love that I got to
spend the day with just Jacob. We don't get time alone too often.
He's a wonderful, sweet boy, and I adore him!


Thank you, Jacob, for letting me tag along!


TTFN,

I♥Faces-Halloween dress up.

The unhappy Mickey.

Most of the pictures of Noah from this period of

his life have this exact face. He hated pictures!

It was funny, and not very funny all at the same

time.

When I saw this weeks theme over on I ♥ Faces,

I immediately thought of this picture.

TTFN,

Wordless Wednesday-pet peeves...I mean, come ON.

Is it too much to ask...??

(tell me I'm not the only one whose kids do this...)

(please, please tell me...)

TTFN,

"You know me..."

Sorry about not doing a Not Me Monday yesterday.

It's not that I didn't have enough to do one,

I just had a horrible headache and couldn't get

excited about doing it.

So, anyway, Paul called yesterday from work, and I

could tell from the sound of his voice that something

was wrong. Then he said,

"You know me..."

And I cringed.

The rest of that sentence went something very much

like, "if there's a way to get hurt, I'm going to find it.

I fell down a flight of stairs that didn't have a hand rail."

And I cringed again.

"How bad is it?"

"Oh, it's not that bad. I landed on my right shoulder, though,

and the metal step shoved right under my shoulder blade."

Luckily, he went down on his back, and not end over end!

He went out to the company hospital and they sent him home early,

but didn't do xrays or anything which frustrates me.

The reason he pointed out that he hurt his right shoulder is

because he tore his rotator cuff in that same shoulder in

another accident at work about 6 years ago.

That one required surgery and around 6 months out of work.

That one could so easily have killed him.

That one still gives me chills to think about.

But thank God, he walked away with just a torn rotator cuff.

And thank God for workman's comp!! LOL. We'd have never

made it without it.

My poor husband is an accident magnet. Surely you remember

that less than 3 months ago he cut his thumb on his table saw?

Yeah, it was his right thumb.

{sigh}

Then my thoughts start going places I don't like to go.

Morbid and melancholy places I don't like to think about.

And then I pray about it and feel better.

Until the next time he calls and says,

"You know me..."

Well, as long as he can still call I guess I'll be ok.

Sorry this was such a downer. This is just where I

am today. Thanks for listening. Or reading.

Or whatever.

TTFN,

Finally, a winner!!

Ok, so after having no laptop and then no

internet at all, I am finally back!!

And so, without further ado...

The Joseph DVD giveaway had a whopping

14 comments.

Random.org was kind enough to pick a winner for me.

And the winner is...

My newest follower, Rachel! Her comment;

sweetpea08 said...
My favorite Bible Story was always Jonah and the Whale!

rachel_demille@yahoo.com
October 13, 2009 5:30 PM

Get me your mailing address, Rachel and I will get you

your DVD. I know you and your family will love it!

Thanks for commenting and following! I hope to get to know

you better soon!! :)

Thanks to everyone who entered.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On an unrelated subject...

Blogger is driving me nuts with again with the spacing-

and even worse, when I try to fix it, it really messes up! I

know HOW to fix it, but when I type instead of adding

what I'm typing, it types over stuff that's already there!

Anyone else having that problem??

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

BTW, I am catching up on my reading, and trying to

comment too, but I'm backed up since Wednesday!! It's

crazy, so if I don't comment, please know that I DID read

your posts, I just didn't have time to comment.

TTFN,

Postponement...

Frustration.

I am sitting at the library typing this.

Our DSL is out and the technician couldn't

come today.

So, I'm postponing the Joseph DVD giveaway

until at least Friday!

If you haven't entered, now's your chance!!

I'm going to be so far behind in my reading and

commenting!! Ugh.

Oh, well. I guess I'll see ya when I see ya!!

TTFN,

How'd that happen?!?

Don't forget to enter my Joseph giveaway HERE!!

Ok...yesterday was Columbus Day and the kids

didn't have school. So being the mildly insane

good mom I am, I decided to take the kids on an outing.

Now, having kids of such varying age means that I

have to get creative with our outings.

So we went to lunch, shopping at the Aero outlet,

and {grimace} Chuck E. Cheese.

Shopping to make the older girls happy, and Chuck E.

to appease the boys-mine+Steven. 6 kids total.

Neither is my idea of fun.

{come on...dragging 4 kids 5 and under shopping

and then dragging ME and the 10 and 12 year old

around Chuck E. Cheese??

Nope. No stress possibilities at all.}

Throw in how long it takes for us to load and unload

everyone and monsoon-like storms by the end of the

adventure, and it was one heck of a day!

But I did get some great buys at the outlet, and it

really was a good day altogether. Everyone behaved

very well, and Noah only wandered off at Chuck E.'s and

had to be brought back to me crying twice. Seriously.

The funny for the day happened when we pulled up to

Chick-Fil-A for lunch. Ashton went to unbuckle Emmie

from her carseat. Then we heard,

"EMMIE! Where is your diaper??"

After some deep breaths and prayers for composure I

went to Emmie's seat to see what she could

possibly be talking about.

Sure enough, Emmie was buck naked under her dress.

All I could say was,

"How in the world did THAT happen?!?"

Taking a page from Noah's book, she had apparently removed her

diaper at the house before Ashton put her in the van.

And somehow Ashton never noticed.

Thank God she didn't have any bodily functions

on the way there!! That would have been pretty much

par for the course around here.

Ugh. Did I already mention duct tape for diapers??

Don't forget, today's the last day to enter for my

Joseph DVD giveaway!

If you haven't entered already, please do so now!! :)

TTFN,

Sunday's Song

Make sure you enter my Joseph giveaway HERE!!

Have a favorite worship song-new or old-
that you'd like to share? Have a story to go along
with why it's so special to you? Tell me what song
moves you and why-leave me a comment or, if you
want to blog about it, leave me a link to your blog!

Flashback, circa 1983!!

Friends

Words: Deborah D. Smith

Music: Michael W. Smith

Packing up the dreams God planted

In the fertile soil of you

Can't believe the hopes He's granted

Means a chapter in your life is through

But we'll keep you close as always

It won't even seem you've gone

'Cause our hearts in big and small ways

Will keep the love that keeps us strong

Chorus:And friends are friends forever

If the Lord's the Lord of them

And a friend will not say never

'Cause the welcome will not end

Though it's hard to let you go

In the Father's hands we know

That a lifetime's not too long

to live as friends.

With the faith and love God's given

Springing from the hope we know

We will pray the joy you'll live in

Is the strength that now you show

But we'll keep you close as always

It won't even seem you've gone

'Cause our hearts in big and small ways

Will keep the love that keeps us strong

Chorus: And friends are friends forever

If the Lord's the Lord of them

And a friend will not say never

'Cause the welcome will not end

Though it's hard to let you go

In the Father's hands we know

That a lifetime's not too long

to live as friends.

Listen here:

BTW, the name of the song is just 'Friends.' This version was the only one

on the playlist website that was the full length so I chose it even though it

is not correctly named.

I lost two friends at two different times in high

school. This song was played at the funeral of the

first, and by the time second one died, I could no longer

listen to this song.

It took me years to hear it without

crying. Even now, it moves me in ways very few other

songs do. I miss both friends. Both were wonderful,

amazing christian kids. It was truly a hard thing to

understand, then and now.

I am thankful to have the knowledge that I will see

them again one day!!

Hope you are having a blessed Sunday!

TTFN,

Bye-bye for now, my laptop...

Make sure you enter my Joseph giveaway HERE!!

Yesterday I packed her up.

Then I called the Fedex people to come get her.

My laptop is heading off for a 7-10 day vacation.

I must say, it's much needed.

She's been so rundown lately she just can't seem to

keep up!

She's having hot flashes and breakdowns frequently.

Finally I called and made arrangements for her

to get the treatment she needs.

A week+ of rest and relaxation.

Time to charge her batteries (or get a new one if

that's the problem!) and come back feeling (and

maybe even being) like new!!

Goodbye, laptop.

I will

go absolutely out of my mind without you

miss you.

In the meantime, I will have to make do with the

dinosaur desktop upstairs...

which means I won't get to be on very often as

going upstairs means leaving the little ones

unsupervised.

And as we all know, bad things happen when I leave my

little ones unsupervised!! ;)

TTFN,

Much randomness and a giveaway!!

I just wanted to do some follow ups:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Date night was wonderful! We went to Longhorn

Steakhouse with two other couples that we enjoy spending

time with for supper and I got chicken!! {very out of character

for me-I LOVE steak, but I just wasn't feelin it!}

Then we went to Marble Slab Creamery and I got a MONSTER

dish of ice cream with caramel, fudge, pecans...

YUMMMMMMMM!!!!!

Yeah, I know...Curves, here I come!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The aftermath of the Noah poop story was pretty simple,

I cleaned him and Emmie up first, and gave them to

Ashton to keep OUT OF THE LIVING ROOM!

While she kept them occupied I got a bowl and filled it

with some very strong, concentrated, antibacterial

cleaner and wet a cleaning rag.

First I wiped the bulk of the...ahem...mess...up and went

and washed out my rag. Then I went back and got to

work with the cleaner.

My couch was quite wet by the time I finished scrubbing

and rinsing and scrubbing and rinsing, but at least it

no longer smelled like poop! Then I did the same with

the rug and the rocking chair (which I didn't discover had

anything on it until I was leaving the living room!)

Meghan, I would have LOVED to have gotten a new couch,

but it just wasn't in the budget!!

On a somewhat related note, I am having much hesitation on my part

when it comes to putting Noah in underwear...

I can't imagine why.

And strangely, duct tape on the diaper seems a real option.

:)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Finally, in response to the comments on my Sunday's Song post,

I have decided that since NONE of you have seen the movie

Joseph King of Dreams I'm just going to have to

give a copy of it away!!

That's right. I like it so much and am so amazed that

it is so underwatched that I am going to give

away a copy to one of my bloggy friends!!

It's a great telling of the story of Joseph, and it is really

Biblically accurate. I was a bit surprised because it's

a Hollywood made movie, not a Christian film!

All you have to do is leave me a comment telling me what

your favorite Bible story is! That'll get you entered.

For more entries;

1. Follow me.

2. Grab my button.

3. Blog about this giveaway, and in addition to telling what your

favorite story is, also tell me why!

Just leave me a comment for each thing you do

(and link if you blog about it)

so that you can get your extra entries!

I will pick a winner next Wednesday!!

TTFN,

Wordless Wednesday...a snotty-nosed (and eyed) little boy!

Poor baby!!

If you click on the pic you can see what the post title means.

It's gross, though!

And BTW, I would NEVER take a picture of my poor, sick, sweet baby boy

when he's all snotty and yucky!

TTFN,

Not Me Monday! On not Monday Tuesday.

Welcome to Not Me Monday!
Free therapy brought to you courtesy of
MckMama.
Hop on over to see what she and all the other
moms have not been doing this week.

(Sorry this is late...We had another visit to the

pediatrician Monday {Noah does have an ear infection,

and his eyes and nose are just POURING snot!}

and after being gone most of the day,

I was too busy and then just too tired!!)

While driving in the car the other day, we were not

totally jammin to Single Ladies by Beyonce.

Ashton did not look at me, dead serious, and say,

"Is she saying, 'I'm a Chevrolet?'"

I did not almost drive off the road laughing.

(Don't know the song? Go back and watch this

post. It's the song the baby is dancing to. She

actually says, "All the single ladies" over and over.)

Noah's potty training is on again, off again, but when

when we're 'on' he doesn't say the funniest stuff!!

The other day we'd been sitting there for about 15

minutes with nothing happening and I was trying to

rush him along. He grabs his whacker, stares at it

a minute, looks at me shaking his head and says,

"I fink da baddewies dest runned out!"

Another time, he pulled his whacker up and pointed

to his scrotum and said,

"Mommy, what's dis?"

After a moment trying to remember what we

call them (cause, ya know, it's all about consistency when you're

teaching your kids the wrong names to call their

private parts!) I finally just said,

"That's your scrotum."

He looked at me like I had lost my mind.

"Noooooo, dat not my FWOTOM!!"

I was not on the phone the other night with a friend

that I don't get to chat with very much. She did not

call to pick my brain for all my useless wonderful

Disney knowledge. I am not a virtual well of still

useless all-things-Disney knowledge. I do not love

going to Disney, and helping friends plan fantastic,

fun family trips!

Since I never had that phone conversation, and I never get

caught up on the phone and forget to check on my little

ones for more than a few minutes at a time, I was

certainly not still on the phone when the following

story didn't happen.

I realized that Noah was, once again, sans diaper.

I went into the living room to re-diaper him when I

was assaulted by much foul odor. Though I have blocked

much of it from my memory, I think this is pretty much

what went down:

"Noah, why don't you have on a diaper?"

"And why does the living room REEK of poo-poo??"

"And what's that all over the couch???"

"OMGOSH!! Did you seriouly wipe poop all over

the couch????"

"AND THE RUG?????"

"AND WHAT IS THAT ALL OVER EMM...???"

I'm pretty sure that by this time my voice had escalated

to decibels that only dogs could hear. My friend was

laughing her butt off expressing her sympathy, though,

so even if she couldn't understand what I was saying anymore,

she certainly understood what was going on.

The worst part was that when I picked up the diaper,

there was NO POOP RESIDUE IN IT. Yep.

He totally took his diaper off, took a poop, and smeared

it across half the living room and let his sister play in

it too!! (I'm wondering about the whole

'teach them to share' thing now.)

I finally took a deep breath

(through my mouth-the smell was RANK)

and told my friend,

"I think I need to get off the phone now and clean my

kids and living room up. I'll talk to you later."

She was laughing so hard she was only able to screech out

"Ok! I can't wait to read your blog this week!!!"

And THAT, my friends, is what

NEVER HAPPENED TO ME

this week.

P.S. Be watching for a giveaway the end of the week!

TTFN,

Sunday's Song

Have a favorite worship song-new or old-

that you'd like to share? Have a story to go along

with why it's so special to you? Tell me what song

moves you and why-leave me a comment or, if you

want to blog about it, leave me a link to your blog!

I haven't done this the past 2 Sundays, and I've missed

doing it. Music really is a spiritual outlet for me.

I feel it in my soul. :)

This morning just as I had the thought that we were

actually going to make it to church (we've been once

in the last 6 weeks or so due to illnesses that seem to

spring up on the weekends!) Satan stepped in yet again.

I kid you not, within 10 minutes of me telling everyone

to go get dressed for church Noah began squalling,

complaining that his ear hurt.

He went from being totally fine to crying and running

fever. In 10 minutes.

There must really be something going on at church

that Satan doesn't want us hearing!! It's getting

somewhat discouraging.

But after I put some drops in Noah's

ear and gave him some acetaminophen

Paul decided we would at least watch a Christian

movie since we weren't going to make it

to church.

We watched Joseph King of Dreams. If you've never

seen this movie, I highly recommend it.

It tells the Biblical story of Joseph with surprising

accuracy. The kids love it and afterward, Paul had a short

discussion with the older kids about the point of the whole

Joseph story. It was really a good Bible lesson.

There is a song in the movie that I really love, and when

I heard it today, I just knew it was the one I needed

to blog about. I just love these lyrics!

{Joseph's character is voiced by Ben Affleck, but I'm

pretty sure it's not him singing.}

You Know Better Than I

Joseph The King of Dreams

I thought I did what's right
I thought I had the answer
I thought I chose the surest road
But that road brought me here
So I put up a fight
And told You how to help me
And just when I had given up
The truth is coming clear, for...

Chorus:
You know...Better Than I
You know...the way
I've let go...the need to know why
'Cause You know Better Than I

If this has been a test
I cannot see the reason
But maybe knowing,
I don't know
Is part of getting through
I try to do what's best
And faith has made it easy
To see the best thing I can do
Is put my faith in You, for...

Repeat Chorus

Bridge
I saw one cloud, and thought it was the sky
I saw a bird and thought that I could follow
But it was You who taught that bird to fly
If I let You reach me... Will You teach me?

Chorus:
For...
You know...Better Than I
You know...the way
I've let go...the need to know why
I'll take what answers You supply
'Cause You know Better Than I

Watch and hear the clip from the movie here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRSEDL1mGlI

Joy Williams also has a fantastic version of the song on

one of her cds.

BTW, I copied and pasted these words from a lyric

website and I had to correct a few of the lyrics and

some of the spelling, so please excuse any other

errors you find-they are not mine!! :)

I hope you had a blessed Sunday!

TTFN,

Date night!

I just had a long luxurious bubble bath in my huge tub.

~~~~Ummmm~~~~

Now Paul and I are about to get ready and go out to eat

and have a kid-free night with some friends!

Yay for date night!!

After the last few weeks, I need a night away.

Ok...I'm off to get ready! Have a great Saturday!

TTFN,