Labor Day

In honor of Labor Day, we're doing nothing!! It's 1:30 and almost everyone still has their pajamas on and we may keep them on until tomorrow morning.

Last week was a busy week, so it's sometimes nice to have those days where we do absolutely nothing. It seems that it's a Herbie Movie marathon at our house today. We've already watched Herbie Fully Loaded and now we're on to Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo.

Last Monday, my mom and I froze about 20 dozen ears of corn. It was an all day affair. Well my dad has a friend down the road who has cows and who knew that cows love corn cobs. I wouldn't know that because I am a city girl. Dad took the 20 dozen corn cobs down there with the exception of a few. We saved those so that my kids could go feed the cows.

Now, even though I'm a city girl, my parents have relatives that own farms. (Mayfield, KY and Paris, TN) So, I have actually fed a cow before as well and here's what I remember. Their tongues are very long and feel like sandpaper. The other problem with cows, the flies like to be around them and I don't like flies or any bug! I was born a city girl and a city girl I will always be!






Thanks Elvis (really, that's his name) for the opportunity to feed your cows. At the rate that Spring Hill is growing, there won't be any cows left in Spring Hill in a few years.

Things You Probably Don't Need to Know

Elizabeth lost another tooth, this time on the bottom. She was eating nuts at school and the tooth went down with the nuts, so we have to leave the Tooth Fairy yet another "I swallowed my tooth note." Good thing, the tooth fairy is flexible!

Elizabeth also informed me that today they had trapel (chapel). She then asked me, "Did you know that Latin is dead?"

Matthew is tired of saying "thou shalt". (They are obviously learning the 10 commandments). We are working on his handwriting because it is terrible. He came home today and said, "I saw someone else's paper and they did a better job than me, so I'm going to work hard and do a way better job this time." It's all about competition with him.

Stephen is thriving at school and asking me questions that I just don't know the answer to. Maybe I need to go sit in a 3rd grade classical classroom. He asked me again about the Minoans and the Mycenaeans and the Greeks and I just don't know. Who's the history whiz out there that we can call when we need answers?

It's also exciting when I pick up Elizabeth to hear them quoting Psalm 23. This was our focus of Camp Life (Zambia). We sing "The Lord is my Shepherd, He gives me everything I need" on the drive home. I hope that these biblical truths are finding deep roots in their hearts. God promises that His Word will not return void!

That's the scoop on school!

Seven Things

I got tagged by Ashley.

Here's some random information you may or may not need to know.


7 things I want to do before I die

1) Go back to Zambia and stay for a month
2) Learn Greek (maybe go to seminary)
3) Watch my children fulfill God's call on their lives
4) Travel the world with Derek
5) Finish scrapbooking my kids' baby books (HA!)
6) Write more encouraging notes to friends and family
7) Leave a great legacy (not famous, just great)

7 things I can do

1) Say my abcs backwards
2) Sing row, row, row your boat backwards (do you see a pattern?)
3) Play the piano
4) Listen to James MacDonald sermons and learn something new every single time
5) Handle any kind of roller coaster ride
6) Enjoy ironing if I have something good to watch on TV
7) Always see a different way (sometimes a better way) that things could be done

7 things I cannot do

1) Go a day without thinking about Africa
2) Think about how old my children already are without getting sad
3) Anything athletic
4) Stay patient with my children for 7 days straight
5) Catch up on my scrapbooking
6) Change a tire
7) Ride the Disney teacups more than twice in a row

7 things that attract me to my man

1) his love for God
2) his patience with the kids
3) his passion for missions
4) his sarcastic sense of humor
5) his patience with me
6) his work ethic
7) his even-tempered personality


7 things I say most often
1) Hurry up
2) It's time to go
3) We're waiting on you
4) How many times...
5) Really?
6) Just a minute
7) Life is not fair

7 celebrity crushes (in no particular order)
???? No idea...so sorry.
Opt out

7 People to Tag
Lorinda
Tabitha
Heather W.
Leighann
Dori
Kyla
Melissa
Terri S.
Becky

and anyone else reading this who hasn't already been tagged!

Favorite Foto Friday

We love amusement parks!!

I'm craving a roller coaster ride, but it'll have to wait until next year!

Are You Smarter????

On the 40 minute commute to school, which by the way should only take 20 minutes, but oh the joys of a growing city with lots of schools. Anyway, Stephen starts talking about the Minoans and the Mycenaeans (yes I had to look up the spellings) and I'm thinking, I have absolutely no idea what he is talking about. Where did he read this, hear this, learn this, etc.? Well he learned it at school this week. I don't know if I ever learned about the Minoans and the Mycenaeans and if I did, obviously it's lost somewhere in my brain because the story he told sounded like a first to me. So I'm thinking, "Hmmm...my third grader is smarter than me".

Then Matthew's teacher sends home a note saying, ask your child about creation, about worker bees, about longitute and latitude. So Matthew goes on to give us a thorough explanation of all of the discussion assignments.
According to Matthew,
"Did you know that the worker bees are all womans?"
I'm thinking to myself, "Well now, that doesn't seem very fair"
He goes on to give us many details on honey bees that quite honestly, I just don't know. What did I learn in school?
Once again I'm thinking, "This kid is going to be smarter than me soon."
Then he says, "The boy bees just help the queen have babies."

Well isn't that just lovely. That surely doesn't seem fair!
Tell me it isn't so!

Picture Perfect

Just in case you think that my kids always smile for the camera and always have great days, I wanted to share this. This gives you some insight into our "real lives".

Today is chapel day (tie day). Stephen thinks he looks like a business man, Matthew cannot believe that they're asking him to wear a tie and Elizabeth's shirt is bothering her to be specific "it's itching me". So here's how mommy sent them out the door this morning.

Stephen's old enough to cooperate, Elizabeth has the smile but not the concept to look at me since I'm the one holding the camera and Matthew, well Matthew is just upset about his tie.

A Day of Firsts

Today was the first day of school for Stephen, Matthew and Elizabeth. After day 1, third grade, first grade and kindergarten seem to be going well.

My trip to the grocery store was very lonely. I almost stopped at Publix and asked for a cookie in honor of Elizabeth. We go so often, they know she prefers sugar over chocolate chip. And then our house was incredibly quiet. There have been very few days in our house since 2000 where we haven't had a baby, a toddler, or a preschooler making a bunch of noise. Something about the last one heading off to kindergarten does make you kind of sentimental, even if you're not a sentimental kind of girl.



Elizabeth on the other hand transitioned well. She walked right into her class, sat down and said good-bye. She was ready for her new adventure. She made lots of friends which is no surprise since she is a social butterfly. Unfortunately she doesn't remember any of their names.



Matthew told his teacher that they never had to raise their hands at his other school. (He's very convincing, even though it's not the truth! Scary!) He also informed us that his teacher is old. I said "You didn't say that to her, did you?" If you know Matthew you know he says whatever he thinks. Thankfully, he did practice some restraint and didn't say that to her. Just so you know, she is older. She started teaching in 1969 before I was even born, but she seems as sweet as can be. Surely she can handle Matthew!


Stephen seemed to have a good day. My only way of knowing this though is his one word answers to my questions and the fact that he didn't complain about school. If there's anything to complain about, he'll complain. So since we didn't have complaints this afternoon, I assume that means we had a good day.

The only other exciting news to report about the day is that Matthew complained because I put a note in his lunch. I thought I was doing a good mama thing this morning by writing my kids notes. Isn't that what we're supposed to do to "make their day"? Well it appears that it's not cool in 1st grade. He said the kids made fun of him because he got a love note. I promised not to write anymore unless he asks me to. He insisted and so did Stephen that no one else got a note in their lunch. That is hard for me to believe. I thought this was good mama etiquette. So then I ask Matthew tonight, "What do you want in your lunch tomorrow?" and he says "The same thing as today, WITHOUT the love note." It broke my heart!

Here is a picture of them this morning. Elizabeth just lost her other front tooth last night, so now she has a beautiful 6 year old, all I want for Christmas is my two front teeth, SMILE!