What's Going On??

Well, I know it's been a while on here.
I've been trying to do posts with some pics, but they upload really slow, and then when I come back to do the blog, someone has x'd out of the page I was in.
So....I guess I'll just write for now.

The kids are doing great. Kaila and Savanna are loving school.....making friends, and having fun playing with eachother.
Jemiah is still getting adjusted to being home with no one to play with except for a slobbering baby....but he makes do with what he has...although I think he asks to watch a movie at least 12 times a day....poor kid.

Burnell is busy,busy,busy at work. I'm still adjusting to having him come home and not have a whole lot to give after a very mentally challenging day. I'm trying to be understanding and love on him . He is such a great husband and father, and I need to realize that this is a season...hopefully not a long one... but a season after all.

God has clearly directed us to slow down.
And we are seeing the reasons and rewards for obeying him in this season.
It's hard because the world tells you that if you have your schedule open, fill it up with whatever invitation comes along, but we have really seen the need to slow down. If I could change one thing in our culture, it might be that.

AS for me....I'm trying to stay sane while entertaining my very-teething daughter.
Days like yesterday will hopefully be rare, but then today, she's being self-entertained, and playing and laughing with Jemiah.
I always said 6months -1 year were the hardest, and I have to say that I still agree with that.
I have so many projects and things I want to do, but I'm just going to have to put them on hold until later.
So I'm doing housework, homework with the kids, parent/teacher conferences, spending some time in the classroom with Savanna, and waiting for the World Series to be over so I can connect with my hubby again! :>)

I'm doing applesauce tomorrow with my mom which will be fun. It's probably my most favorite food to put away for the winter.
Ok. I gotta go....Makenna's sleeping....valuable time. :>)

Check out my scrapblog.
It's easier to post pictures on that blog....sorry I keep dragging you around!
http://www.scrapblog.com/myScrapblog/myScrapblog.aspx?gycid=b16a707a-0ae2-4e17-9b38-22eac5b071a6

SO summer has been filled with swimming, a little gardening, rearragning flower beds, cleaning(or at least trying to), lots of laundry, and great weather. Only now has it gotten really warm. We had beautiful weather, and I was totally enjoying it. I can do without this hot, humid stuff, but I guess it comes with the territory. :>)

The girls start school in two weeks. I can't believe that I'm going to have two in school soon. That seems too crazy to be true!
Kaila will start 2nd grade, and Savanna will start kindergarten. She will go 5 days a week, only half day. I'm really kind of looking forward to going shopping and running errands with only two again!

Burnell has been one of the blessed few to still hold a job at his workplace but he is now SWAMPED in work up to his earlobes. I think he is managing 11 jobs at the moment. Yea, you heard me right...I don't know how he does it, staying sane. I guess a few of those will be ending soon...that should help a little.

Jemiah and Makenna are becoming fast friends which I am glad of because they will have two years home together as the girls are in school. Jemiah is so gentle with her and so understanding of her toy grabbing ways. We are really working with discipline to have him learn to obey immediately and to not say "no, I don't want to". Yea, the fun stages of discipline, but I'm proud of him. He seems to be making some better choices already.

Makenna is my little sweetheart. She has a heart of gold, I can tell already....okay, so they all do, but really, I think she will be my most laid back kiddo yet. I'm just enjoying her so much. With every child I've been learning more and more to just enjoy the chaos because it passes so quickly. I'm not perfect, but I'm definately enjoying holding her through this teething time more than I did with my others. I guess because I know it will be my last one, it makes me more sentimental about it all.

And me?? Well, I'm staying busy just trying to keep up with life. I don't really have much time to devote to other stuff right now. I hope it slows down a little with school starting.
I'm having so much fun just being married to the man of my dreams, who I keep getting to know better and better all the time, and yes, I'm enjoying the ride. He is my best friend, and understands me better than I understand myself sometimes. After 9 years of marriage, I can still say I feel totally head over heels about him.....and I hope to say that after 50 years together.
Love you babe!

Here are some pics of our summer. I'll try to get some more on later.

He Loves Us Too Much....

So I've come to realize lately that God loves us too much to leave us where we are at. He wants us to grow continually in him because he knows that through it all, we will be happier, more-fullfilled people.

AS I look over all the things that God has been teaching me in the past few years...none of them have been easy to learn. They have all required an amount of self-denial of what my flesh wants. I realize that if I am not in a process of denying my flesh, then I am not allowing the Lord to do the work in me that he wants to do. If we are going to become more like the Lord, then we need to keep denying oursleves what we want, and make those hard decisions to choose Jesus over our emotions and feelings.

It is so easy for me to say...it is just too hard. Especially as a woman and how I am made to be relational and feel and be more emotionally charged....I can talk myself out of making the right choice by analyzing everything to death. That gets so dangerous for me because then I'm allowing my analyzations to direct my thoughts, and therefore my relationships.

I've been asking the Lord to stop me right in the middle of my thought processes and show me clearly the decision that can be made to decide to trust the Lord and make the right decision even though my whole being is telling me to choose the easy path and just give in to those emotions. And he has! He has been showing me clearly the decisions I can make and the consequences of those decisions before I make them. And I am so grateful for that.

Thank you father for not allowing us to remain as we are, but to spur us on to become more like you so that we can be more and more a witness for your name.

Beach Bum

Well, we are back from our week long beach vacation. We had so much fun as a family soaking in the sun, playing in the sand, swimming, crabbing, biking, going for walks, dodging mosquitos, and enjoying great home-prepared seafood.

Makenna learned to take short cat naps wherever we went in our arms instead of her normal two hour long naps in her crib.(She still hasn't quite recovered from that):>)

I wasn't ready to come home...having help all the time is a real treat for me! And I loved having my best friend with me all day everyday for a week. The kids loved having him there also.

I'm already looking forward to our vacation next summer! God has truly blessed me with a wonderful family. I couldn't have asked for a better husband or kids...they are so much fun to be with!

Jemiah loved his goggles so much that he wore them to bed one night...I thought it was so adorable I had to take a picture.

And one night we went up to the boardwalk and they got to ride some of the rides. This is the first one they went on. Jemiah didn't know what he was getting himself into. We tried to

warn him, but he didn't get it:>) I felt so bad for him. The guy running the ride just stood in front of him and told him it will be ok everytime the ride came down. Poor kid:>)

Chipmunk Hotel!

As I was standing at my kitchen counter, quietly lost in thought, my three year old son calmly calls out....."There's a squirrel in our house mom." Now, I am not normally one who screams, but when I looked down and saw a chipmunk running by my feet, I had to let out a bit of a girly scream. As we watched it run back the hall, thoughts were running through my mind of how in the world we were going to get this thing out of the house.
Jemiah saw it run into our master bedroom so I quickly closed the door to the bedroom as I watched it jumping from the floor to the chair to the windowsill and all over the place......screaming the whole time. It wasn't so much the chipmunk that freaked me out as much as the quickness with how it moved.....those things are fast!
Well, I was resigned to let Burnell get it out when he came home, but the girls talked me into opening the window and seeing if it would jump out. To make a long story short, I ended up hopping from the bed, onto the end table, around the corner to the bathroom sink and trying to trap it in the bathroom. Well it was darting all over place and we were screaming, and it ended up getting past me and ran and jumped out of the two story window. I was soooo glad to see it go.
So although it's stay was short-lived,I'm sure that it will never come back to see what more this chipmunk hotel has to offer.