Five for Friday

1.  Whelp, folks, it's time to start talking Africa.  Guess who has 2 thumbs and leaves 3 months from today?  Yep.  THIS GIRL!  AND my whole fam.  Can you even believe it?  Can you believe I'm really going back to Uganda....again??  Gosh.  Fifteen months ago I thought I literally might die from the weight of grieving over Africa, and now here I am co-leading a team!  Really, truly, y'all - God is ALWAYS working.  Sometimes it is SO. HARD. to see and so hard to trust Him through the dark, but we just have to.  "Lord, where else can we go?" (John 6:68) Totally talkin' to myself here.

2. Jacob is (finally!) getting to play football this year!  Poor guy, he's wanted to play tackle football ever since he finished playing flag when he was 6 years old.  Mama wasn't so crazy about the idea, and somehow I conveniently missed the signup deadline (really) every year.  He made DARN SURE I didn't forget this year and, well, here we are.  He's #33 - wide receiver - and he loves it.

Uh, his uniform is wet from getting water poured on his head.  It was hot, but not THAT hot. ;-)

What we do not love is practice 3x per week and games on Sunday afternoons.  For 8 weeks.  But, what're ya gonna do?

3. Kloe's spending the night with a friend tonight and The Mister is out of town.  Would you like to guess what movie Jacob picked for us to watch on our night home together?  A little Diary of a Wimpy Kid?  Bolt?  Sky High?  Noooo.....this:

Oh yes he did.

4.  Why yes, that is my t-shirt Kloe's wearing.  It's just not right.

5.  Have you met this girl?

Bloggy friends, meet Zoey.  Zoey, meet bloggy friends.  Don't let this innocent face fool you.  That was our first mistake.  This girl is a tasmanian devil in disguise.  Oh the barking, and the digging, and the jumping.  We are prime candidates for the Dog Whisperer.  I think he would pay us to let him come help us.  If only I knew where to get his number.

Hope you all have a great, quiet weekend!

Five Six Several for Sunday

1.  I finally used up the last of my Christmas stamps from last year.  Whew!  Just in time to get some new ones for this Christmas year.

2.  Kloe is playing tennis in school this year, and she LOVES it.  Ever since last Valentine's Day, my kids beg to go play tennis anytime we have a free afternoon.  Can you believe this was my first time to use my new racket?  I know.  And after I'd played for a while, the kids weren't all that anxious for me to use it again anytime soon. :)





Love this action shot! :)









Haha - me in a jacket; Jacob with no shirt. :)

3.  Jacob's last soccer game of the season was a couple of weeks ago.  Team USA had a great 5-3 season.
 

The coach (who also happens to be my Mister) has a tradition that any player who scores four goals in one game gets to pour water on him. But when it's the last game of the season, we pretend everyone scored four goals. Even when it's 41 degrees outside.

4.  You might be a redneck if....this is how you make Cocoa Rice Crispies.

5.  We have Box Tops coming out our ears....

6. They're back!  Glory and hallelujah.  Hurry, buy a bag or twenty before they're gone again!

7. Science experiment.  I wasn't sure what exactly was supposed to happen, so I asked.  Jacob said, "Nothing, I just wanted to make it look all science-y."

8.  Our first pomegranate.  Not a lot to eat out of a pomegranate, but lots of fun (and so pretty)! :)

9.  Does your table ever look like this?  No?  Just me?  Sigh.

10.  I'm plum (do your people say plum?) out of dinner ideas.  What are you having tonight?

Five for Friday

I love those random, rambly kind of posts that really don't have any specific topic, but just sorta feel like you're sitting down with a friend over lunch and talking about your day. Even if it's a friend you've never met and have only stalked over the internet.

I'm not great at writing like that, but maybe I'll get better at it someday. Or...if you don't like those kinds of posts, I guess you'd think that was getting worse. :)

Until then, here's my own version of random ramblyness, otherwise known as Five for Friday.

1. The weekend after Jacob came home from the hospital, all three of the rest of us came down with the crud.  The Mister got over his pretty quickly, but Kloe and I had the same awful symptoms Jacob had - nasty cough and off-and-on fever.  I missed two days of work and Kloe missed 3 1/2 days of school.  I actually went to the doctor first, because I felt like an elephant was sitting on my chest.  Any guesses?  Pneumonia.  Ugh.
   
   You'd think I'd learn, but noooo.  Kloe's fever actually broke for a couple of days, and because of that I ended up not taking her to the doctor for A WEEK.  When we finally went, she was diagnosed with bronchitis.  I would be willing to bet, though (since I'm so good at the doctoring thing - sheesh) that since Jacob had pneumonia, and I had pneumonia, she probably had pneumonia too.
   
   While I was too sick to get off the couch, Jacob offered to make me dinner.  He made this menu for me to order from (because he got to order off a menu in the hospital).
   
   

   

   (Bagle, toast, milk, OJ, AJ (apple juice), toast w/sinimin-shuger)

   
   I placed my order (adding the option of cream cheese), and he brought my dinner on a tray. Cute. :)
   
   
   
   
   
2. Definitely the husband's job: Catching mice. Killing bugs. Checking out noises. And this....
   
   
   
   
   
3. Have any of you ever done this? I've tried so many times and it never works. The seed always just molds. Do you know the trick?
   
   
   
   
   
4. Stir fry. Mmmm.
   
   
   
   
   If you use the pre-cooked grilled chicken though, be sure you don't get this kind.
   
   
   
   
   Unless, you know, you like to go cross-cultural with your stir fry.
   
   
   
5. 
   
   

Happy Friday, friends!

Five for Friday - Happy Dance Edition

It's cold, cloudy, and spittin' something out of the sky here in our neck of the woods today.  Oh how I would love to have all my bloggy friends come curl up on the couch and share a cup of warm apple cider with me.  (Ok, not actually share a cup, but you know what I mean.)

This week's Five for Friday is all about Happy Dances.  Don't ya love it? :)

1. My Aunt Donna from Colorado came into town on Wednesday and we met her and some other family members at a restaurant for dinner.  My mom didn't go eat with us, but Aunt Donna had stopped by Mom's house before dinner.  When we got to the restaurant, Aunt Donna said, "I left a surprise for you at your mom's house, and you have to have it by December 1st, so be sure to go by there and pick it up on the way home."  Hmmm....by December 1? Any guesses? (*BIG smile*)
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   Love love love love. Remember two years ago when we first planned to do a Jesse Tree? Yeah, well, we never did. Surprised? I couldn't ever decide on a book, and I never had the time to print out all the ornaments, and I didn't know what we'd do for the tree, and blah blah blah. But now! we! have! one! My Aunt Donna said she was just about to leave her house when she felt the Lord telling her to go back and get this and bring it to us. God is so cool. :)
   
   *Happy Dance*
   
   
2. Got this in the mail this week:
   
   
   
   
   
   *Happy Dance!*
   
   
3. The children's ministry at our church had a coat drive last month and asked families to bring coats that would then be donated to a local community clothes closet.
   
   Jacob asked his teacher at school if he could put up a poster asking people to donate coats. Somehow the question got passed along to the school counselor, who asked Jacob if he thought there might be also kids at school who need coats. That conversation led to Jacob taking the lead in organizing a coat drive at school FOR kids at school.
   
   The counselor interviewed him about the coat drive on the school's morning news last Wednesday, and he made this poster that is hanging in the front foyer of the school (phone pics = not great):
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   Isn't it cute? Look at the little man shivering on the right with his hat and mittens on. Cute, right? See the little line coming out of his head? It's like a word bubble, but it just looks like a bunch of wiggle lines. I asked Jacob what it was. He said, "Those are "C's"....the man is saying "CCCCCCC" because he's cold." :)
   
   Love that kid.
   
   *Happy Dance*
   
   
4. Did you know if you buy a Wal*mart gift card and use it to buy gas, you get 10 cents off per gallon?
   
   *Super Happy Dance!!*
   
   
5. This discount on gas makes me especially happy nowadays, because....
   
   BEFORE[(= me being a dork :)]:
   
   
   
   
   AFTER:
   
   
   
   
   *HAPPY, HAPPY DANCE!!*

Six for Saturday

1. I know, Halloween was SO last month, but since when did that ever stop me? :)

Who's the rootin-est, tootin-est cowgirl in the wild, wild west? Could it be....























Why, no! It's Miss Kloe, wearing Jacob's too-small chaps and vest and Daddy's hat, but she was happy and so I was too. :) And Jacob was beyond-thrilled to be Obi-Wan Kenobi. I told someone that he was a storm trooper....boy, do I stand corrected! Can you see his padawan braid? (it was a braided leather bracelet I brought him from Uganda) So cute. :)



































We get to dress up twice most years since we go to the fall festivals at Jacob's school and at church. And most years, the kids go as something different for each one! For the school festival, Kloe decided not to dress up this year (too big now that's she's in middle school, I suppose), but Jacob finally got to wear his fighter-pilot costume. We actually bought it at a resale shop 2 years ago even though it was way too big, just because he loves to play dress up so much. He's had a blast with it all this time, and I'm sad that it actually fits now, because that means he won't be able to wear it much longer. This is his fighter-pilot face. Doesn't he look so serious (and handsome)? :)

2. Why, oh why, is this the scene on Kloe's bedroom floor every. single. morning? sigh. And why exactly does it matter so much? I don't know, but for some reason it does.























3. I was excited to see Dum-Dums in the half price basket at Wal*Mart the day after Halloween because the kids in Uganda LOVE them! They were marked $2.40-something per bag, so I picked up 2 for my trip next summer. When I got to the register, they rang up at 99 cents each! I was so bummed I hadn't picked up more.

4. Pumpkin Spice lattes are back! Woohoo! I'm usually not a fan of pumpkin flavor (other than pie), but I had a coupon for a free one of these last year so I tried one and loved it. After that I picked up some pumpkin-flavored coffee creamer at the store, but it was nasty. In fact, I only used it once and ended up throwing the bottle away. But YAY for pumpkin spice at Starbucks! Get 'em while they last!

5.Just received this book in the mail from PaperBackSwap, and I am LOVING it. I'm only on chapter one, but I've already got it all highlighted-up.

I love this quote from the book. It's referring to Deuteronomy 24:19, which says, "When you are harvesting in your field and you overlook a sheaf, do not go back to get it. Leave it for the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow, so that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.

Tom Davis says, "The Hebrew word for blessing is baruch. It implies being hunted down and pursued by the favor of the Lord.....God promises that if we take care of the needs of the fatherless, WHATEVER we put our hand to will be blessed."(emphasis added)

Incredible.

6. After this incident a little over a year and a half ago, we had a monitored alarm system installed at our house. A couple of weeks ago, the kids and I had JUST left the house when my phone rang. It was a number I didn't recognize, so I didn't answer it. Not 10 seconds later The Mister called me in a bit of a panic. Turns out that call I had ignored was the alarm company. Seems our alarm had been activated through a breach in the back door, and the police were en route to our house. Oh my déjà vu.

Immediately I knew what had happened. Jacob had been outside in the backyard playing, and we were leaving the house in a hurry to get somewhere. I called him in and we headed straight out the door through the garage. It was a pretty windy day (what? in West Texas?), and he didn't get the back door shut good. The wind blew it open, and wah-la - the alarm system works!

We were only a couple of blocks from the house when The Mister called me, and by the time we got back home there were already TWO police cars at our house! Wow! The officer who talked to me seemed to be none-too-happy about being called out on a false alarm, but HELLO, would you rather it had been the real thing?

Not exactly the way I'd like to have our system tested, but I'm happy to know it works the way it's supposed to!