Scavenger Hunt for Alec's Birthday

For Alec's 9th Birthday, my mother gave him his scavenger hunt that he has been begging for. She made up 20 clues and he had to find each one to receive the money inside. The gift he received from Mitch and me.

Showing off his loot to his cousins.

Huntsville Here We Come!

We are leaving in a little while to drive to Huntsville, AL. to visit the Space Center. Today, happens to be Alec's birthday and he wants to play putt-putt tonight when we get there. Tomorrow, we will visit the space center. I will be posting pictures after we return on Saturday. The Thomas family from Marion, AR, are joining us. Their son Steven is 10 and fits right in with Kirsten and Alec. We have vacationed with them many times before and always have a marvelous time.

Spring Has Sprung and So Have the Flowers!!

Here is my beautiful Kirsten in front of the beautiful flowers. My handsome Alec who will be 9 tomorrow!! He is such a blessing in our lives!!

My two precious children who look like they enjoy being together don't they? On some occasions they simply love each other; on others, I have to make them like each other.

More Fun Outside

The kids invented a new game using this strong cardboard tube. They rolled it down the hill and then the other kids tried to jump over it, run down the hill, and jump over it again. They were all trying to jump it three times in a row, but no one was able to do it although they got really close. What a big group of kids!! As you can see, our "tent city" got a little bigger. We had 13 children over playing for a good part of the afternoon. The two small tents were not enough so Lisa and I each pulled our tents out of storage and put them up so they could all play. They played in the tents from 11:30 - 7:30. What a fun day!

All the kids wanted to "walk" the tube, much like log rollers do. I got them all together for a group photo, and then let them have at it. Alec was pretty good at it. Of course, they all got to arguing over whose turn it was next, so we had to put it away.

Too Pretty for School, Too Pretty to Clean

Today, it was too pretty to stay inside and do school. I know that there will be alot of days like this and we can't skip every day, but today it seemed like the right thing to do. The kids were making their own tents out of sheets to play in and I told Kirsten and Alec they could set up their small tents. Alec is eating his lunch outside at his "campsite."

Brandon and Parker share their lunch on a quilt. Kirsten is happy to be inside her tent while eating her lunch. They are also listening to a tape of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Claire and Jackson are eating their lunch on a quilt while listening to the story.

Busy Week

Kirsten and Claire started taking art about 2 years ago. They really enjoy taking from Ms. Vicki. Kirsten drew this daffodill picture on Tuesday and did the spin art as well. They enjoy the class also, because their friends are in the class also -- Margaret, Martha, Molly, Sophie and Scarlett as well as two other girls they do not know outside of art. Ms. Vicky always makes sure they draw something beautiful. Monday, I worked at the pharmacy and did not get any schoolwork done. Tuesday, we went running from 9:00 - 10:00; got ready for Tupelo and left by 11:00; got home at 3:00; went walking until 4:30; came home and got ready to get to Fit Kids in New Albany by 5:30 (I walked for an hour and then did spin class for an hour); came home to watch The Biggest Loser on TV and obviously did not do any school that day. I don't feel too bad about it though as the kids were able to run 2 miles without stopping and that hasn't happened in a while. I walked/ran 8 1/2 miles and rode a bike for an hour. Wednesday, my intention was to do a couple days worth of school in one, but that plan fell through, although we did get one day's worth accomplished. Thursday we did get two days worth done and started on Friday's work; after all it rained most of the day. I also went to the gym to run/walk and do another spin class. On Friday, I worked again and came home to extra kids at my house, so we had a very full week. I wish I could say that I was planning on doing nothing today except being lazy, but I need to run today and catch up on my housework. Don't you wish that housework would disappear forever?

I am attempting to do a run/walk program that I found in my runner's magazine that is supposed to get you ready to run a 5K in 10 weeks. Today is the last day of my third week and I am excited to say that I have done everything just as I am supposed to do. I will let you know next week if I can still be excited. The first week, I walked 5 minutes and ran 2 minutes and repeated that process 3 times (for a total of four times). The second week, I walked 5 minutes and ran 3 minutes and repeated again for a total of four times. This third week, I walked 5 minutes and ran 5 minutes for a total of three times. Next week, I am supposed to walk 5 minutes and run 8 minutes for a total of two times. I am really dreading that 8 minute run and I watch my time so carefully now when I only have to run 5 minutes. I am so tired at the end of 3, 4, and 5 minutes that I cannot imagine doing 8. But I said that last week about 5 minutes, so we will see what happens tomorrow. The program says to run 4 days a week and my schedule right now is Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Of course, that means that I run Saturday and Sunday back to back but otherwise it works out pretty great. And I try to remember, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. The kids are running a 5K on March 28 in Pontotoc and are really excited to see how well they can do. They are also running one on April 18 in Ripley and I am thinking about doing that one also, but I have not sent in my form yet, I wanted to see how the next couple of weeks go first. My run on Thursday, I went 3 miles total in 35 minutes so that is better than any of my previous 5K times.

Incredible Sermon

Today, our pastor Isaac Guess preached a powerful sermon from Eph. 5:18-21. He has been preaching on this passage for several weeks but brought to light some things that I have never considered before. He began by talking about the authority of God and how we must place ourselves under the influence of the Spirit of God. All authority belongs to God -- excluding NOTHING!! He even has authority over our sin of pride. He can and does make us submit to His authority. He brought up a comparison to the military. The following are notes that I took during his sermon: "When you join the military you are no longer an individual, you are now part of something that is bigger than yourself. You sign away your rights to many aspects of your life. You are under the authority of the military. This is a form of discipline designed to make you work as a group; this prevents chaos. This breaks your individuality, you are now part of a team. Christians are to do voluntarily what people are forced to do in the military. We are unable to meet God in peace without submission. We have fled to refuge to Christ. Submit yourself to the authority of Christ, the God of all things in the universe. He decides my activities, my food, my sleep -- He governs all. Complete submission goes against the grain of humans. I have no where else to flee -- this is the best thing for Christians. We actually find freedom under this submission to Christ. Be relinquishing our own self, motivation, plan of life -- we find freedom. There is no substitute for submitting to the authority of Christ who wants the very best for me. We are not supposed to think of submission only in terms of the law. Think of it in terms of relationship, connection to Jesus Christ. We are the sheep of His pasture, His possession, His treasure, His purchase. The relationship we have with Christ is love. We place ourselves under the authority of Christ because we love Him. Love is the most powerful of motivators. Submit in the fear of Christ (fear here is respect; the fear of disappointment). Love allows us to accomplish things that we could not accomplish otherwise. I am His and He is mine. The gospel can cause us to submit and make us happy about it. We should never plan to disappoint our Savior. We should dread the thought of being a castaway. We can find the grace of joy and life by submitting ourselves to Jesus Christ." These are the notes that I took. Anyone who knows Bro. Isaac, knows that he can talk five times faster than I can write. Everything he said was so powerful and true, that I wrote it down the best that I could. It has given me a lot to think about this coming week. I know that he spoke with more clarity than I could capture in my notes, but I wanted to post it to remind me of everything he said.

Family Night

I finally broke down and bought a fourth Wii Controller for our Wii console, so that all four of us could play a game at the same time. The kids were really excited; before we had to take turns and somebody always had to wait. We played bowling first!! I won the game and I am not sure how that happened. In real life, I cannot bowl over 100, in Wii I scored 168. We had fun doing it! Then we played 4-player Mario Kart Racing -- one of Alec's favorite games. I am really good at playing Mario Kart on the Nintendo 64 (an older version) -- matter of fact, most of the time I can't get anyone to play against me. Kirsten actually won last night with Alec a close second. We played 4 different tracks and I actually came in first on one of the tracks. We made them choose tracks that are very similar to the 64 version. It doesn't matter what game we play or what movie we watch or what book we read, the kids love family night and so do we.

"Red-neck Winter Fun"

This is what Red-necks, aka southern folks, do when they get some snow. We do not invest money in sleds for the ONE day a year that we get enough snow to play in. However, our kids do not need sled to have fun down the hillside. They played for almost 2 hours before the snow started to melt and we had to get ready for church. When we got home from church, there was still some snow in shady areas and Kirsten used a little to make a snowman. I think he is SUPER CUTE!!

Beautiful Snow

Sunday morning came very early for Alec -- he woke up at 4:00 am and then woke Kirsten up and told her that it had snowed some more! He was kind enought to wait until 5:00 to wake me up. I was pretty grouchy and told him to go back to bed. We all got up around 7:00, got dressed, and went outside to play. It was so beautiful! There is nothing quite as breathtaking as the earth covered in a blanket of snow. I love to walk in untouched snow. Kirsten and Alec couldn't wait to go sledding, make snow angels, and throw snowballs at each other.

These pictures I snapped to show how deep the snow was. I know that it was not very deep, but it is so beautiful!!

It's Snowing!

Around 5:45 this afternoon, it started snowing!! Yeah!! It was snowing so hard that we couldn't see much of anything else around us. We were hopeful that it would keep up its intensity and we would have 2 feet of snow in the morning. Unfortunately, it has almost stopped snowing. All of these pictures were taken within the first 30 minutes of snow. It has not snowed this hard in a long, long time. The kids had to get their snow sliders out of the building "just in case." Kirsten started sledding when I thought it was too soon; however, she was able to sled almost all the way down the first time. Alec had to follow suit almost immediately. They also had to throw some snowballs at each other. So much winter fun!!

This was the first picture that I took of the snow falling. The picture is not that great, but it shows how fast that the snow was coming down. It is supposed to snow throughout the night, but what has fallen is already starting to melt now that the snow is not falling as steadily. If more snow falls tonight, I will take many more pictures tomorrow, and will post them.

Happy Birthday, Claire

It's is Claire's 10th birthday and we had an impromptu party for her at my mother's house. Lisa had planned a different party for a different day but the plans fell through. My mother gives the kids a treasure hunt on their birthday -- she gives them 20 one dollar bills but she makes them hunt for each one. She puts one dollar in each envelope with a clue for the next one. This hunt had to be in the house because it was raining. It was not quite as exciting (she has 7 acres to hide them in outside), but Claire had a blast. Tyler, Brandon, Preston, Claire, Kirsten, Alec, Jackson, Parker, Anna and Amber were all in attendance for the treasure hunt, gift opening, cake and ice cream. We had fun and the kids enjoyed everything.

I am trying to get inspired by Roan and Heather and get organized and get the kids to help more around the house. I get so many groans and complaints that I have just gotten used to doing it all by myself. They do help at times, willingly, but are not used to helping out everyday. I do realize that they will not learn unless I lead by example, which I am going to try to do this next week. It is so hard for this homeschooling mom to teach them school and then switch to mom and chore leader. I hope to learn how to do this better, as I know that they will be better adults for learning how to work hard now.

Kirsten and Alec have run three days this week and we hope to keep up with at least three days each week and sometimes 4 times a week. They are getting back to where they were when we stopped training, and they are getting excited about running a 5K that we know is coming up in April. They ran it last year and hope to blister their time from last year. I am still trying to walk lots and run little, but I have had an easier two weeks than the previous 5 weeks. I hope to get back in the groove of lots of mileage this coming week.

Couples Night -- Such Fun

On Friday night, Mitch and I were invited to a couple's night get-together at our friend Morgan's apartment. We had a blast eating, visiting, and playing games. The theme was Mexican night and the fajitas were great (even though I eat almost nothing Mexican) and after supper, we played some games. The first one was Battle of the Sexes and it was a true battle! The girls won, much to the chagrin of the men. We beat them pretty easily although the guys said that we got some really easy questions. We told them that women just know everything!! After that game, we played Cranium and the guys won that one, but only by one question. It was after 9:30 before we realized it and some of us had to get home to get kids to bed. We had so much fun. I love my children, but it is great to have fun without them every now and then.

Birthday for our friend Steven

Our friend Steven turned 10 on Friday and had a birthday party on Saturday. They live in Marion, AR. We had a great time at the party even though we all have a touch of the sniffles. His mom, Sherrie, made this wonderful cake. She always makes the cakes for my kids and always does a magnificent job. Alec watches Steven blow out the candles on his Star Wars: The Clone Wars cake. Sherrie used an airbrush to brush on the icing and made these edible characters for the kids to eat. Alec wanted to eat Anakin Skywalker and Kirsten ate the other Anakin charcter. The kids all wanted to pick out a different character to eat. They also had a big blow up slide and bouncer house to play in and that was a lot of fun for all the kids.

Kirsten and Steven's cousin Darby look at all the great decorations on the table and the cake. Sherrie also made a "cookie" cake out of sugar cookie dough. It was very good also. My diet went out the window yesterday, as I just ate and ate. Snack foods are so hard to pass by when they are right in front of you all day.

After the party was over, the kids played together, while the grownups watched the beginning race of the NASCAR season -- the Bud Shootout. It was a great race, even though our favorite driver wrecked before it was over. Actually, 20 of the 28 cars wrecked before it was over, but it makes for an exciting race that way.

Spin Class

Yes! I finally did a spin class with my friend Morgan. She finally talked me into it. I really wanted to do it but was afraid of how sore I would be the next day. Mitch was able to come pick up the kids after Fit Kids class at the Healthplex and we went into the class. Morgan had prepared me for how hard it was. Coach Heather also encouraged me to go and repeated about how sore I would be. All in all, I did pretty good. I went easy on the resistance and did not increase as much as recommended each time. My goal was to do the whole class and not stop rather than getting partway through and not being able to finish. Some of the exercises I could not complete as hard as everyone else was doing it. The bike pedals took some getting used to as well as trying to stand up and pedal. I do not do that on my street bike and I also coast when possible on the road -- not so in the class, no coasting for the weary. I decided not to do to much of the up and down repetitive movements until my body gets more used to it. I have been doing lots of walking and lots of step-ups and I think that my upper thighs could not handle too much more on Tuesday during the class. I really hope that I can push harder next week and feel better about my fitness level. I just purchased new running shoes for me and also for the kids as all of ours were almost worn out. We hope to use these shoes for running only and thereby get more months of use out of them. Kirsten has a pretty bad cold right now and was not able to run much today. It was really windy and pretty cool and I wasn't sure how much the cold wind would affect her cold. Alec "fell" today and "hurt" himself and stopped running. I did not see the fall and did not think that he was really hurt but since I could not prove that he was not hurting, I let him stop running also. He is going to have to get more motivated about running or everyone else will leave him in the dust.