He's Still Workin' On Me

Last night I realized that 13 years ago yesterday I was baptized. Some days it feels like that was a long time ago and some days it feels like it just happened. I started repenting in November of 1994 and was baptized in 1996. Looking back I know I've grown but sometimes feel discouraged because it feels like I should have come farther than where I am. Good thing God doesn't give up on us, right?

He's still workin on me, to make me what I ought to be

It took him just a week to make the moon and the stars

The sun and the earth and jupiter and mars

How loving and patient he must be

He's still working on me

In the mirror of His word, reflections that I see

Make me wonder why he never gave up on me

But he loves me as I am and he helps me when I pray

Remember he's the potter I'm the clay

He's still workin on me......

We sing that with the kids a lot at the preschool and it's become one of my favorites. Especially when they sing it at the top of their lungs with their little southern accents:)

Shower Weekend

This weekend I was able to go up for Kristi's showers. Well, the personal shower was really why I was going but I did get a chance to swing by her church shower too. My dress is done! I went in for my final fitting Saturday morning and it's all finished! But I forgot my shoes at the shop so, Erin or Kristi could you get them for me when you go in next? Oh. And you're supposed to pick up my dress too because she hasn't done the last steam/press thing. Thanks. I forgot to ask you all weekend long so I'm asking you now.

Anyway, I got to go out for lunch with Mom, Jamie and Haley on Saturday. Haley was in a good mood and she was just so stinkin cute! Then I headed to Erin's to get ready for the shower. I only got a few pictures.

Sporting our aprons. She had a really cute one and a really not cute one. Guess which one she let me use? It did the trick though. My clothes stayed clean, ugly apron and all.

We had a salad bar and one of our toppings was grilled chicken. But it started to rain really hard right when Erin needed to get the chicken done. I just thought it was kinda cute seeing her grill holding an umbrella.

Guest of honor! I can't believe she's getting married in just four weeks. When they first got engaged it seemed like it would be forever until May 24 rolled around. But now it's just right around the corner. Craziness.

After Jamie left the shower I got a phone call from her asking if I had gotten any messages from mom and dad. I hadn't so she informed me that dad was in the ER because he had gotten snapped in the eye with a chain. Something about him pulling it tight and trying to snap it into place. It had a lot of tension and it came unsnapped and hit him right in the eye. Something like that. He's okay though, minus a really nasty looking swollen shut eye with a glued up gash on his eyelid. And on either Wednesday or Thursday, can't remember which one for sure, Nate was out working and cut off the tip of his finger and ended up in the ER. He'll be okay too. He had surgery and has a pin in his finger right now. But really now. Both in the ER in a matter of days. I'm very thankful that they were both fairly minor injuries. But if you've ever noticed that I'm not the most graceful person around, now you know I get it honestly!

About That Last Post....

I thought about not saying anything for awhile, but in order to avoid any crazy rumors, I should mention he's 4 years old and in my class and preschool:) He did call me though. His mom called me the other day after she had taken him home and he was in the background saying "I wanna talk I wanna talk!" She hung up but about 10 seconds later the phone rang again and it was him. It was cute. And he has brought me flowers. Like, every day this week. Jena says they classify as weeds, but hey, I'll take what I can get I guess:)
So- PLEASE don't spread any rumors. Shoulda thought that one through a little more, huh? Okay, well I need to get some sleep because I have and 8 hour drive ahead of me tomorrow after work that I'm not looking forward to. And I'm not a big fan of falling asleep at the wheel so good night!

It Happened This Week:)

First there was a phone call.............


Then there were flowers.............


Twice............


Apparently he's quite the romantic:)


In other news, the big sign outside the vet clinic said it was 87 degrees. It's already hot. And it's not even May.


I'm really excited to go home this weekend. I know I was just there two weeks ago for Easter but I'm just really excited to spend Saturday getting ready for Kristi's shower with Erin and then the shower. Should be fun!

Tee Ball!

We went to a tee ball game tonight for a couple of our kids. Jena has some of her Bluffton friends down this weekend and we dragged them along too. But I think they liked it. Tylan and Miles were playing each other. It was so CUTE! I've never gone to a tee ball game before. I've never really had a reason to go I guess. But since they were both playing we decided it would be fun to go. We sat with Tylan's family but rooted for both kids. But secretly I was really rooting for Tylan's team. He plays for the Marlins and Miles plays for the Indians. Indians won. 21 to 10. Tylan's mom told us before hand that the Indians are a lot better than the Marlins. They actually look like they know what they're doing. But it was still fun. And I got to hold Tylan's baby brother for a really long time and he just laid there and slept in my arms. He was so warm and cuddly! But anyways, here's Tylan at bat. He has a small head and his helmet is way to big. Notice you can't even see his head:)

I tried to get a picture of Miles at bat but he was too quick and before I knew it he was off and running. So here he is headed to 1st base.

After the game we snagged them both for a picture. They're always so much cuter and more fun when we're ouside of preschool.

But then a very sad thing happened. A couple of the girls had stayed back to study and when we got home they told me that my Devin stopped by to see me. I was pretty much devastated. I haven't seen him since he went to kindergarten. I seriously look for him whenever I'm around town hoping I'll see him at Wal*Mart or Chik-fil-a or something. I still shed a few tears over him and just about cried tonight when I heard I missed him. So I looked up his mom's number and called her but she must have gotten a new one. I'll have to call her at work on Monday. One of these days I'll see him again....

Thank You, Captian Obvious!

The conversation went as follows:

Me: "Hey is that the cami you bought today while we were shopping?"

Mandy: "Yeah! It's the yellow one."

As I said. Thank you, Captain Obvious!

adventures in preschool

If there's one thing I hate with a passion it's snakes. And we had one today at the preschool. I was inside getting all the mats laid out after lunch and having the kids all go to the bathroom before nap. I went out to call another kid and Miss Louise hollers that there's a snake over where she was. All the kids were crowded around trying to see. Thank goodness it was a real little guy. But both of us hate them and so we spent quite a lot of time just trying to work up enough nerve to kill it or trap it somehow. I said to get me a baseball bat and I was going to start beating it. But all we have is the plastic wiffle ball bats and she didn't think that would do the trick. So she ran over it with a tricycle. Man that thing was tough. It took forever for it to die. So while she had it trapped with the bike I ran to the kitchen and got a knife. By the time I got back it was pretty much dead but we finished him off with the knife just to make sure. Miss Louise said he struck at one of our boys. But really. He was really really little. The picture makes him look bigger. YUCK! They are so nasty!!!!

And now, if you're officially grossed out, I'm sorry. But we don't normally have snakes come play with us. So I thought I'd let you all in on the fun.

Easter Weekend

Well, I had a great weekend. It was so good to be home with my family and see some friends too. The only bad part was leaving. Especially when the girl on the radio says "Happy Easter Sunday to you. Are you having a good day? I hope you're with your family." And my mom's side of the family was getting together and I was NOT with them. That sure didn't help the leaving situation. And I had to drive in rain most of the way home. But I made it safely, thank the Lord.

I got up there Thursday night about 11:00. Friday I went to Olive Garden and shopping with Mandy, Jamie and Haley. But I forgot to take any pictures. The goal was to get a church outfit. And I did. Not one that I just love but it'll do. I like it. And Jamie and Mandy were very patient with me while we shopped. (I'm not a good shopper and really struggle to stay in a good mood when I go.) But we'll just say, it could've been worse. It HAS been worse in the past. I thought I did pretty good at staying happy. Right girls:)

After church on Friday (which was really good by the way) Dustin and Mandy came to our house with Libby and Caden to dye eggs. I love to dye eggs. So does my mom apparently. While I was driving home I called her and said that's what I wanted to do Friday night. She said that was good. She already had the eggs ready and was just waiting to see who she could do it with:)

Here's Libby and Caden doing an egg. I think Caden got more excited about the cookie we gave him than the eggs.

Dustin showing his patriotism. I guess he does a red white and blue egg every year.

Some of the finished product. They're just so pretty! I don't understand how anyone could not enjoy dyeing eggs.

Saturday morning I got to see Kristi for a little while. I had a fitting for her bridemaid's dresses so she picked me up and we went together. But she had just got off work and was really tired so we went more for the quality time rather than the quantity. For lunch on Saturday I went to Monical's with some of my Jamaica friends. Erin D is home and so that was a good excuse to get together. Ahem. Might have been the best part of my weekend. But don't tell my family that.

So then after sitting at Monical's for a couple hours I went over to Gridley to visit Katrina who is currently an invalid. Earlier that week I sent her a care package with crayons and a coloring book. If you look on the fridge behind us you can see that we put them to good use:)

Saturday night we had Hodel Easter (no pictures) and Sunday I got to see my cousins who were home from Phoenix. (no pictures again) I haven't seen them in probably four or five years. Long enough for them to have three kids that I hadn't met until now. It was so good to see them. I wish I could have spent a little more time with them.

And then church got over which meant it was time for me to journey on home to Alabama again. (but not before getting an Easter basket) Yes, I'm 26. Yes, I still get an Easter basket. Is that a problem?
I get to go back in two weeks for Kristi's showers. I have a lot of stuff I'm going up for in the next couple months. I'm excited for all the stuff I'll be doing but I'm not too excited about all the driving it requires. It gets to be long. Especially when I do it a lot in a short amount of time. But it's okay. All right, now has come the part of the post where I have started to ramble so I need to just quit. Good night everyone!

If I Had

If I had a dollar for every time I've blown my nose the past two days, I could buy a plane ticket and take a vacation. Except I would want to wait for my poor, raw nose to heal before I went anywhere.
If I had a dollar for every time one of the kids asked me "why are you sick?" today, I could upgrade that ticket to first class. This too shall pass, huh?
Okay, complete change of subject now. Since the preschool is church affiliated we are not licensed by the DHR. (DCFS in Illinois) And every year we have to renew our exemption. So I did. And I thought I was doing everything right. Not so. They called yesterday afternoon to let me know all the things that I had not done right. And I started feeling really overwhelmed and started crying to the lady over the phone. I felt dumb. Because not only was I crying to her, I had a couple parents come in right then to pick up their kid. They were a lot more sympathetic and understanding than Ms. Willie Dickerson was. (The DHR lady) It's really not a huge deal either. But when I'm not feeling good, problems that actually are this big seem to be about
this big. But it's all working out and I thank the Lord for nice, understanding parents who are cooperative and make me feel better about all my dumb issues.
Tomorrow we're decorating Easter eggs. I like doing Easter eggs. They're fun.
A few days ago one of our girls grandpa's brought her in. He told us he couldn't quite figure out her diaper and so he taped it together. We looked after he left and sure enough, there was her diaper being held together by scotch tape. Funny.
Well this morning was attempt number one to get up and exercise before work in the morning. It failed. I better go to bed now so I can be ready for attempt number two tomorrow. Good night!

Started My Morning Way Too Early....

So, Saturdays I like to take the liberty to sleep in. Pretty late. I'm usually up in time for lunch. I've gotten a little better over the years because I don't really like to waste my day away and feel lazy, but boy do I love not having to get up for anything. Today though we were having a garage sale for someone from church who has transferred out to California. We've been helping him get his house organized and stuff and today was the sale. And I volunteered to get there a little after eight, which meant getting up at about 7:30. A little before actually. Now, I am blessed with a job where I don't have to be there until 8:30. So I don't get up until about 8 on any given work day. So it stunk to get up earlier than usual on a day where I normally sleep in as late as I feel like. And I couldn't fall asleep last night. I went to bed about midnight and didn't fall asleep till about two. So now I'm tired. And sunburnt. And I have a sore throat. Probably from lack of sleep. Anyways.......
I left the sale for an hour to go to a class at the gym. Guts and Butts was the name of it. I've never been to it before. I just joined this gym. The one I had been going to was clear across town and depending on traffic, took about 15 minues to get there. So there goes 1/2 hour out of my night just driving around town. How annoying. But they just built this gym and it's about 1 minute from my house. I could walk there faster than I could drive to the other one. I don't, because I wouldn't want to exercise too much, right? But I wanted to try this class. I think I'll have to wake up about ten minutes early tomorrow because it's going to take me that long to get out of bed. I won't be moving very quickly, that's for sure. But I liked the class enough that I'll go back whenever I'm around for the weekend. Which isn't much over the next few months..... very busy all of a sudden.
Tonight we went to the Taylor Mason and Thor Ramsey comedy tour. I laughed the whole way through Taylor's. It was great. Thor, well, he was funny, but I didn't really get into him until he started feeding off people in the audience. He was a lot more corny or something. It was fun though. And we got Marble Slab (Cold Stone copycat) afterwards which is nothing to complain about.
And that was my day. Last night we were pricing stuff for the garage sale. I snagged a brand new pyrex dish/lid/carrier set. I was pretty excited. And then I wondered if being excited over a pyrex dish made me old. But I decided that it didn't mean I was old. Just mature, right? RIGHT? Okay, I'm tired and rambling. I need some advil, some water and a good night's sleep. So, good night.
By the way, I had peanut butter ice cream with oreos in it.

Hodge Podge

*I went to a wedding shower last night for someone I have never met. But they're parents go to the Athens church and in order to not hurt feelings, we made an appearance. It was redneck. I wore a sweatshirt, jeans and tennies and fit right in. In fact, I may have been a little overdressed compared to some. Camping lights strung up between the hanging lights, hotdogs for the food, and the prizes... oh the prizes. I won a game so I got to go pick one. My options included a serving plate thing that was actually kinda cute so that's what I got. A couple of gaudy drinking glasses, some pens that light up when you write, and what looked like some leftover Valentine's Day candy. It was interesting.

*A lot of kids have imaginary friends or animals. My Tylan? He has an imaginary pet fly named Fido.

*Today in class one of my girls decided to play barbershop. Huge chunk cut out of her bangs and a huge chunk cut out of the back. I called her mom, handed Destyne the phone and made her tell what just happened. Mom left work and Destyne didn't get to stay at school. Boy it was hard to keep a straight face. For me and her mom.

*Tonight's singin' supper. I'm making homemade pizza. I hope it's delicious.