May 30, 2008

An Aunty and her Niece




My niece, Katie and I had a special date tonight. Trish and I decided to meet in town, and trade daughters for the evening. She took Mary and I took Katie.



Our first stop was the park. We had the whole place to ourselves.








And we took advantage of it!




There was a little beach front at the park. We relaxed and ate our dinner here. Then we tried our hand at skipping rocks.



We wanted to find a special rock to take home as a little souvenier of our date.



We searched only a short while and then Katie exclaimed, "Aunty Becky! LOOK!"




A special heart rock that was just waiting for us to claim it. Katie washed it off in the water and put it in her pocket.



My sweet Katie-goose,
I hope you always think of our date when you look at your rock. I had a wonderful time with you. It is a memory that I will never forget!

I love you, sugar!

The Grossest Post in the World!!!!!

For those of you who are a bit "squeamish," I warn you. Now might be a good time to click out of here!

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And for those of you who decided to stick around....here is what the kids found last week.

Oh how I hate this picture! It makes my toes curl just looking at it. These things are so ugly! I hate their whole heads, but the eyes really freak me out!




It was as long as Mikey!




You would have thought that Matt and Allie were snake charmers the way they were handling this thing!

Allie, I still can't believe you were holding it!!!!!!


Ok, that's enough for me! I'm outta here!!!!!!!!!!!!!

May 27, 2008

Memorial Day

Happy "day after" Memorial Day. Thank you to all the men and woman who have fought for our country!
























We will never forget!

A Horsey Party


On May 14th, our Mary and Emma celebrated their birthdays. They are the other "double birthday" that our family has. They are exactly 4 years apart to the day. Mary just turned 9, and Emma just turned 5. They asked if they could have a "horse birthday" this year. So, that's what we did. I made a horse cake...which quite frankly resembled more Elvis, than a horse, but hey, I'm sure there's a horse somewhere in this world that looks like Elvis.


(Go ahead. You can laugh now...I can't hear you anyways.)


The girls wanted to use their birthday money to go ride horses. To say they were excited would be a gross understatement. They were absolutely over joyed!




All Emma kept saying was, "I've never been on a REAL horse before!"


We arrived at this beautiful equestrian center, and headed for the barn where the horses were saddled up and waiting.




Annie came along with us to watch her big sisters, and made a friend along the way.



Next the girls went to be fitted for their riding helmets. Emma, our fashion-conscience child, didn't mind posing with her new hat.







And now, it was the moment that they've been waiting for!

Giddy-up!



They couldn't stop smiling!





I love this picture. They both have the same exact look on their faces....sheer joy mixed with a little bit of awe!






Not too long into the ride, Emma asked the instructor if she could do the jumps. She laughed and said, "Wow, you think you're ready for that already?" There is no doubt in my mind that she would have done it. The child has no fear!



When the ride was over, the girls got to lead their horses back to the stable and help take the saddles off.






The girls have been talking non-stop about "their horses." A dream turned into a reality for two little girls. This was a day that they will never forget!

Maybe next year, Emma will do those jumps.



****Oh! I almost forgot. I'd like to take this opportunity to dedicate this next picture to my sister, Kristy. Imagine our shock when we found out the name of Emma's horse....

This should remind you of your glory days of playing basketball when dear Daddy would cheer you on! "Champ" was dad's affectionate nickname for Krissy. Whenever she would do anything worthy of praise, (or not) Dad would stand up and shout, "That a girl, Champ!" Kris wasn't exactly the "spotlight type," so she quickly let Dad know of her disapproval. From that moment on, she became our "Champy" forever.

May 10, 2008

Doggies??!

We woke up yesterday morning to little Annie saying, "Look at the doggies!"


May 8, 2008

May flowers



April showers bring May flowers....and flowers mean Grampy and Grammy are coming home soon!!!!



Dear Grampy and Grammy,
The snow is all melted and the flowers are coming out. It's safe to come home now.



Grampy, remember you told me that we could work in your garden together? I hope we don't see a snake, but if we do, you'll get him, right?


I'll be waiting in the garden for you.

I love you SOOOOOO MUCH!!!!!!!

love,
Emma,
your gardening partner forever.

May 6, 2008

The Search



On this fun evening of playing football, Joel lost his wedding band. This was over 2 weeks ago. As soon, as he felt the ring gone, he looked up and said, "Oh no! my ring fell off." We all immediately parted ways and began our search. Well, almost all of us... I looked up and saw Mikey on his knees. At first, I wasn't sure if he was praying or looking at bugs. :o) He stayed there for a few seconds, and then got up. He ran off to join the others in the search. When I caught up to him, I asked him what he was doing. He smiled and said, "I was praying that we would find Daddy's ring." It's amazing to me that God gave us these precious children to teach, and bring up for His glory, and yet so many times I find that they are teaching me.



We searched and we searched for the ring until the sun went down, but never found it. I was slightly disappointed thinking, "Lord, my sweet boy just prayed to you. Surely, that's gotta be an immediate 'yes,' right?" Little did I know that this journey was not about finding a ring, but about teaching me that sometimes God doesn't answer our prayer in the exact way that we were thinking...nor in our time frame.



We looked all that first week, but never found his ring.

The conversations that opened up with the kids with these past few days have been far more precious than the gold in that ring. One day, while we were out searching, I said, "Matt, do you think that God doesn't answer prayer because we haven't found the ring, yet?" He said, "No, Mommy. I think God is teaching us patience." I said, "I think you're right. And I hope I learn it quick because I'm not patient enough to learn about patience. We've got a ring to find." :o) We talked about when he was a toddler, and how he didn't like "no" very much. In particular when I took him grocery shopping and he wanted candy when we got to the checkout lane. A lot of times, my answer would be "no," simply because it was too close to dinner. I said, "Why do you think I said 'no'?" He said, "Because it wouldn't have been best for me." I said, "And that's just it. Obviously, our Creator knows what's best for us. I can't understand why we can't find this ring right now, just like you couldn't understand why mommy said no to your candy. But what I do know is that I just have to trust that God knows best."

Proverbs 3: 5,6 "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not unto your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge him and He shall direct your paths."

Our prayer has been, "Lord, direct our path." I really like the part in that verse that says, "lean not unto your own understanding." It's not fully trusting God, if we're still trying to figure things out.




During the second week, the search actually got fun when someone let us borrow a metal detector. We went all over the field with that thing. One day, Joel came home from work and found Matt and I way out in the field. He yelled over, "Hey, I know the ring isn't out there. I wasn't even over there that night." I looked up and said, "What ring?" :o)








We sure found some interesting things with the metal detector.



We found an old pipe, a scraper, lots of bullets and scrap pieces of metal...no ring, though. The funniest thing was when the metal detector went nutty making noises and I said, "Oh Matt! Matt!!!! we've got something big and cool here!!!!" We dug deep into the earth, only to find an empty, old Capri Sun juice container.



This was our coolest treasure. Anybody know what this is? There were two of these.



I got some treasures too, this past week. :o)



After each day of searching, I would go inside feeling disappointed that we didn't find the ring, however we still continued praying. Last night, Joel came home from work, and I told him how I didn't think the ring was out there. He teased me about buying it from a bubble gum machine, and that's why the metal detector wasn't picking it up. We looked again at the football pictures that I had taken that night. We zoomed in very closely on his left hand. Sure enough, you could see the ring there in one picture, and gone the next. Joel decided to take the metal detector out "for a spin" while I cooked dinner.

2 1/2 weeks of searching on an average of 3 hours a day, my husband walks outside and within in five minutes, he came back in with the biggest grin on his face.



There, somewhere in the middle of "obvious plain view" and "duh" was his ring! My mouth literally fell open. I couldn't believe that he found it just like that. Of course, we were all overjoyed! (ok, and maybe I was a little jealous that I wasn't the one to find it.)


Now, his wedding band is back on his left hand where I placed it on December 16, 1995.



And it's a good thing, too because this would have been awfully annoying to lug around!




We decided to play a little trick on Matt. We taped the wedding band to the bottom of the metal detector, and asked him to come outside and help look. Of course, the metal detector was beeping like crazy. Finally, he said, "What's the matter with this thing?" He picked it up and flipped it over.


We got him good. :o)