Trick or Suite!

 
We had a great time at Starlight Starbright's Trick or Suite! We had never participated before, but this year Erin asked, and I decided to give it a shot. We were able to spend the night in one of the suites too! For our family of six, a getaway to a hotel is a very rare treat! They took an entire floor of the hotel and decorated the front rooms of the suites. Then the kids got to visit each of the rooms and play games and get candy! Oh my did they get candy!!! They had so much candy, their bags broke! They had to get a second bag! They were beyond delighted! Most of the rooms were safe themes. They had an underwater room, Candyland room, Pirate room, Mad scientist Room and a bunch of others. Our room was the luau room. They even left us a couple of boxes of Mauna Loa Macadamia Nuts Covered in Milk Chocolate. Yum!

Our church does a harvest party that is like a big carnvival with lots of games to play for candy. It is great fun, but they are not allowed to dress up. So the Starlight Starbright's event was a real treat! They got to dress up and get lots of candy, and go swimming, and spend the night in a hotel and have a HUGE breakfast! What could be better than that? Thanks Starlight!

Catch up....

With school started and in full swing, I hadn't had time to blog about some of the things we have been doing over the past couple of months. For my own records, I will pre-date the posts to when they actually happened so in years to come I can look back and they will be in chronological order. Soooo.... if you see the same top post as the last time you visited, it might not necessarily mean I haven't posted anything new!

Roses in my rose garden

I love roses. I have a few roses in my flower beds. They are beautiful. I'm not sure I care for them properly, but they keep coming back each year and blooming for me. On vacation last summer, we had our lunch in a rose garden. It was so pretty and it smelled so nice. That's where these pictures were taken.

I am so thankful for the flowers in my garden. They might be a bit thorny at times, but they are beautiful and even smell nice!! lol. Ok, well maybe I was taking that analogy a bit far. Not that they smell bad, mind you, but, well... they're mostly guys and smelling like roses doesn't actually fit. ANYWAY...

How to break a child's heart...

My heart is broken. I know in the grand scheme of things, this really is only a blip, but right now I'm stunned.

We have been dreaming of a "Make a Wish" trip for well over a year. I have posted about it here and you ladies have helped us dream too. Christalin wanted to go to Disney World and be a princess for a week. She had plans of a different princess each day; Ariel, Sleeping Beauty.. you get the idea. She has been telling anyone who would listen about her Make a Wish trip.

I did the referral about a month ago. I just got a call on my answering machine from Make a Wish. They said she is NOT eligible for a wish.

WHAT? She has Cystic Fibrosis! This is a life threatening disease! I called them back and they said I would have to talk to her doctor. Her doctor is out of town until Monday.

When Josiah was 7 (he has Cystic Fibrosis too) he was all set up to do the same trip (minus the princess part of course ) He backed out, because he wanted his little sister to be able to remember the trip.

So why can't she go? And how on earth am I going to tell her?

Quotes to Ponder...

Blessed is he who speaks a kindness; thrice blessed is he who repeats it.
- Arabian proverb

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
- Mark Twain, American writer

Know the true value of time; snatch, seize and enjoy every moment of it. No idleness...never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.
- Lord Chesterfield

If you chase two rabbits, both will escape.
- Unknown Author

We may not have it all together, but when we're together we have it all.

I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble." --Helen Keller

In order to realize the worth of the Anchor, we need to feel the stress of the storm" ~ Corrie ten Boom

If you think twice before speaking once, you will speak twice the better for it.
- William Penn

It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog.


It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not to deserve them.
-- Mark Twain

Just because nobody complains doesn't mean all parachutes are perfect.
-- Benny Hill

Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you are a mile away from them and you have their shoes.
-- Jack Handey

If we're not supposed to eat animals, how come they're made out of meat?
-- Tom Snyder

Let no act be done without a purpose, nor otherwise than according to the perfect principles of art.
-- Marcus Aurelius

Cardinal virtues… they are: Prudence, Temperance, Justice, Fortitude.
-- C.S. Lewis, a 20th Century Knight, from Mere Christianity

Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a rock. – unknown


Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.
-- Will Rogers US humorist & showman (1879 - 1935)


Quitting is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. ~ Unknown


Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.
-- Thomas Jefferson


Club Manana – “Carpe Diem Tomorrow”
-- T-shirt

"Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen" (Ephesians 4:29).

Coming together is a beginning.
Keeping together is progress.
Working together is success.
-- Henry Ford--

We found a home for them!

 
Last spring, I posted about a huge box that came to our house. They were the deer heads from the hunting trip last December. We had no idea where we would put them! We came up with a place! The top of our stairwell works well! The bigger one is Josiah's and the smaller one is Mike's.

(I still apologize to them every time I go downstairs. - I'm so not a hunter! lol)

To teach or not to teach...

Ahhh the joys of 3's! My dh and I have been teaching the two's and three's at our church for over ten years. The first years when our children were that age, we bounced from the two year old's to the three year old's and back again. Now that my youngest is older, we've been sticking with the three's. They are a fun bunch of kids. We usually have about ten kids each service. Last week we had 25 kids, but the 4&5 year old teacher wasn't able to make it, so we piled them in with us. It was crazy, but fun.

As our kids are getting older, Mike and I have been wanting to work with the jr. high kids. We were all set to stop teaching the three's and go to the jr. high. However, our four kids have been helpers in the three year old class since they were three years old. They love it! They begged us to not stop teaching the three year olds. How could we say no? So, we are all teaching the three year olds first service, then Mike and I are in with the jr. high second service. We go to church for ourselves on Saturday night. Whew! Pretty busy, but lots of fun!

The pictures of the kids with the fish is of course for "Jonah and the Whale." They were pretending to be swallowed up!