Maybe TMI? but still cute I think

The other day, I was putting up laundry in our closet. Joshua went running by me as fast as he could to the bathroom. He gets in there and slams the door (as usual). I'm so afraid he's going to lock himself in there that I've been practicing with picking the lock. haha. Anyway, I get to him and he's grabbed the toilet paper and pulled off a piece. When I opened the door, he pointed at his diaper and said, "Mom, poooooop". He squatted down in the bathroom and acted like he was wiping with the toilet paper. It was hilarious! He's been telling me lately when he needs his diaper changed. I'm hoping this is some sort of a sign that he'll potty train easily? Maybe that would make up for all the no-sleeping issues we had? Oh, I hope so!

Jacob is at Mom's until Wednesday when they'll bring him and Karleigh back to me. Mom and Dad leave Thursday for their summer vacation. They'll be gone at least two weeks. Cody and Emily come home tomorrow, so we'll have a full house. Trace will be here most days, so most days, we'll have 6 kids! I sure have appreciated and enjoyed the first half of this summer being so quiet. It's been nice.

It's cake!

Haha!

Monika brought this over for dessert for our Bible study (which is going absolutely awesome, by the way). We're going through the book of Romans. We were all talking tonight about how amazing God is in that we never, ever would have dreamed that the three of us would be sitting around studying the Bible together. We were all very wild teenagers, and alot of that was done together. God is a God of miracles, though. He's truly amazing!

I uploaded the pics from my camera.

tired baby

yogurt and cheetos, mmmm!

Uncle Julio's, double mmmm!

Granny Franny has a tv too!

Joshua's shadow

I couldn't get any pictures of him kissing it - he was too fast, but this is still so cute...

green hair and face paint

Jacob and Karleigh had VBS last week. Well, Karleigh had VBS and Jacob was Jr. Team Leader. He took his role as Jr. Leader of the Atomic Fizz (green team) very seriously...




Karleigh was on the Flash Fusion (yellow team). It was sooo much fun!

We took Trace every day with us, but he wasn't here for pictures. :-(

No Other Gods

I'm so excited. Beth Moore has a blog and is doing a book study on a book called 'No Other Gods' by Kelly Minter. She will post on her blog about it and then we are to get together with hopefully somebody else and discuss it. A lady named Rebecca came up with the ingenius idea of starting a message board for those of us with nobody to get together with. Yay! What a great idea! I can't wait to get my copy (hopefully soon in the mail) and get started!

Wow!

Somebody in San Antonio checks out my blog early!

Ok, why does this always happen? Just as soon as I brag about Joshua's sleeping, he pulls a night like last night. I have been up since 3:30. Yup, and now he's in bed and I can't go back to sleep because the kids have VBS in a little while. I've already showered and all that, so now I just have to get everybody else up and ready. I'll wake Josh on the way out and he'll just have to deal with it. It sure would be nice to sleep until about 9 with him.

Maybe I'll get a nap with him today. Haha. That's funny.

I will never, ever take sleeping for granted.

I promise. Josh has been sleeping well for a while now and it is so beautiful. He goes down around 9:30 at night and gets up around 8:30 in the morning, then takes about a 2 hour nap in the afternoon. Beautiful.

I used to kinda' give Dena a hard time about Kerstyn's sleep schedule and how protective she was of it, but no more! I repent! I totally understand and can offer the deepest sympathies to mothers who are not getting their sleep. I hope and pray with all my heart that time is completely over for us and we'll only have the occasional bumpy nights from here on out. And now I find myself just as protective of Joshua's sleep as Dena was - if not more. Sleep is absolutely sacred in our house now.

G'night.

a really nice weekend

We went to Wichita Falls to visit some friends. We haven't been there since March. Before that, we hadn't been there since October when we moved and then had my surgery. I wasn't in much of a visiting mood after the surgery, though, so we didn't stick around.

Friday, when David got off work, we headed to Chris and Mistie's house. David took a nap there and we hung out until after Dinner.

Our dear friends' daughter, Leah, turned 2 on Saturday, and Joshua was her honored guest. Actually, we were all named Joshua as far as Leah was concerned. Anyway, we ushered in her 2nd Birthday in style. She had a trip to Pizza Hut, a huge cookie cake and presents. And I forgot my camera (gasp!). It was like being nekkid! We had a wonderful time with Tim and Laura.

This morning, we went to church where we used to go. I loved seeing everybody and didn't realize how much I miss them until I saw them again. It was like visiting an old friend, but not like home anymore. After church, the guys went to eat at Buffalo Wild Wings and the girls took all 8 children through drive throughs and back to Mistie's house to hang out for a while. There were lots of babies!

I doubt we'll even go up there much after March. Most of our friends will either be PCS'd or separated by then and we won't have anybody to visit. I am very thankful to the Air Force for the friends we've made.

She's not supposed to ask to go to the pool.

So, she's found about 18,000 ways to NOT ask to go to the pool! HAHA!

"Sure would be a great afternoon to be at the pool."

"Jacob, wouldn't you just love it if Katie would take us to the pool?"

"I sure could be swimming right now."

"Isn't this just the cutest swimsuit, Katie? It's right here in my bag if I were to need it today."

"Those kids sure do look like they love that pool!"

"I bet Joshua would love to swim!"

I guess it's obvious that Karleigh's been here for a few days. She was instructed very carefully by Granny Becky that she is not to ask me if I'll take her to the pool. Her creative 6-year old mind has come up with many, many others besides what's listed here to suggest I take her without coming out and asking. I love that kid. Oh, and she's been to the pool twice since Sunday.

I know, I'm strange

but I can be strange if I want to.

I've always, always, always loved cemeteries. I love how peaceful they are. There is one close to our house that I've always loved to go out and just sit in. Zion Cemetery's first burial was 1859. It's still active today, but is very small and quiet. I took a break yesterday and went out there for a bit. The sun was just right, so I took some pictures.

Some pics from yesterday

This is a road close to Dena's house.

These birdhouses were behind the DQ. Thought they were funny.

Yesterday, Josh and I went up to Dena's for the evening. Mom and Dad called and asked if I could keep Karleigh until Thursday because Mom got time off from work and they want to go to my grandparents' in Missouri. Of course. So, they brought her to El Chico's where Dena and I were gonna eat and ate with us on their way out of town. It was really nice. After dinner, we went to Dairy Queen for Blizzards (super-yum!). We all had a really good time. It was nice to hang out with them.

This morning, Jake's team actually won a game! I quit posting all the scores because it was just so sad. Anyway, it was one of those edge-of-the-seat games that was very close the whole time. Jake caught two pop flies and scored 4 of their runs! Go, Jake! I wish Cody had been here for it. He would have loved, loved, loved winning a game.

So, you think you can dance?

Laundry!!!

I have done so much of it the past several days, my head is swimming! I went into Cody's room to get it ready for company and it was crazy in there! He had stuff stuffed everywhere. I'm not surprised, he's a 12-year old boy, but it was still nuts. I took everything off his top bunk and threw it into his closet. Then I fished all the clothes out from under his bed and threw them in the closet. I stripped/washed his bedding and put it back on. The girls who slept in there used a sleeping bag on the top bunk and his bedding on the bottom. I decided I'd tackle all the stuff in his closet today. I pulled it all out and probably have about 10 loads of laundry to go. Once I get done washing everything, I'll head back in there for all the trash/broken stuff. Hopefully he'll be happy when he comes home to a nice, clean bedroom.

Jacob's was tackled right after Cody left, but it still has a ways to go. I'll get in there and help him too, when he comes back from Mom's, or better yet, once I get done washing all of Cody's stuff.

I hit Emily and Joshua's room yesterday and cleaned out/organized alot of Emily's toys. I'm so glad she has things here so that she feels like it's her room. Joshua's stuff is mostly in the living room in a bucket, so I try to keep it pretty organized for him. He mostly just sleeps/changes in their room. I do need to get through the dresser again so that she has a place for her clothes when she's here for the summer.

Once they start school, I'm sure I'll take care of washing their clothes again for them - if nothing else, out of self defense. I can't stand stuff stuffed everywhere and I know they're both at a point where they'll appreciate it.

A couple of thoughts from the last few days

I had this all typed out and then Blogger lost it. Hopefully I can get it out again like it was before.

I have been watching Joshua dance alot lately. He's so excited to hear music - he gets this funky indian rain dancing thing going. Soooo cute! Anyway, as I posted before and lost it, I wish I could find that abandonment when I worship. I picture little children like Joshua dancing funky rain dances before God's throne and God absolutely loving it. I know that my inhibitions come from myself and are things I have to work through, but I want to feel that freedom. We're working on it, and will get there.

Another thing that's been in my head comes from the movie Cars. Joshua seems to have picked this movies as a favorite and wants to watch it ALL THE TIME. There is a rusty old truck in the movie named Fred who gets so excited when Lightning McQueen and another famous racecar know his name (which is on his license plate), that he forgets to listen to what they are saying to him. He just falls all over himself with the "he knows my name! he knows my name! Lightning McQueen knows my name!" I know that sometimes I get so excited when I hear God speak my name, that I just don't hear past that. I want to hear His message, but don't want to lose the wonder of God knowing my name.

I wish I were a better writer.

I am lawn mower repair woman!

Since we've lived here, I've learned how to drain the oil, add the correct amount of oil and clean the air filter! I'm sure more is coming. I'm starting to recognize little symptoms of the lawn mower by how it sounds, like when it doesn't have enough oil and when it's flooded. I guess you can't really know too much about stuff, but right now, I smell like gas and oil - kinda' reminds me of how my Dad smells after he's been working on some mechanical thing - minus the extreme sweat!

It may not sound like much, but I'm pretty proud of me.

I can't believe I did that!

My best friend's boy stays with us when he's not in school. He's a sweet kid and we enjoy him.

He doesn't have school today, so is staying with us. I talked to his Mom and she needed the door unlocked about 7:30 this morning. Well, guess what. I didn't wake up and totally forgot the alarm! I could not believe myself. I'm not one to usually do stuff like that and totally feel awful. I think she was only a few minutes late to work, but it killed me. She's getting a key and the alarm code asap!

I have so much to do and really don't want to. I need to be cleaning and will in a few minutes. I know it's just the getting started part that's hard. After that, I'll be on a roll and get it all done. We have some friends coming from Wichita Falls this weekend and are really excited to see them. They have the sweetest kids. They were our neighbors on base and we also went to church together. It'll be fun!

interesting...

I recently signed up for a blog tracker. I can go to that site and see a map of my readers, right down to the street they're reading from. I am completely amazed! I have alot more traffic than I thought. Some of the cities fascinate me also: San Antonio, Houston, Indianapolis, Detroit, just to name a few. It shows me the times and dates of their visits also. Pretty cool. And here I was thinking that nobody really reads me....