Good Day!

Today has been a good day! Got my hair cut and best I can tell they did not butcher it. I got twenty dollars off a sweater I have been wanting but wouldn't buy because it was too expensive. I went up to the school for a look at the finally finished Guided Reading Book Room ( the one have I spent a million hours in since school started) It was almost finished when I had to take a break to deal with all the repairs on my house and this was the first time I had seen it completely finished. Several people told me they appreciated my hard work in the bookroom and the volunteer coordinator even mentioned my name in the school newsletter. It was not necessary but it is nice to be appreciated (it really was a lot of hard work and long hours in basically a big closet!) Little K has been a lot sweeter today than she was yesterday and big K brought me roses!
Another big weekend awaits us, K has two different Fall Festivals tomorrow and then hubby and I are going out tomorrow night (long overdue) Sunday, hubby will do communion for both services (long morning) and then K has birthday party across town. Maybe we will find sometime to rest in there. We gain an hour on Sunday morning so that will help a little. We have really been enjoying the cooler weather around here, hope it continues but you never know in TX. God's blessings to all of you. Have a great weekend!

Whirlwind Week-Part Deux

Here it is Weds and I feel like I am just now catching up after the past week and weekend. K had a nice birthday party with 4 little girls from her school. We had it at a little teashop. The owner provided them with boas and hats and they had tea and scones. The owner was supposed to spend time with them and give them some etiquette lessons but the shop was overbooked and packed. I knew when we got there that things were not going to go as planned. There was a group of older "society" ladies waiting to go in to have tea. They were mostly dressed in black with the most outrageous hats you have ever seen. One of the hats was a huge spider with black netting as the web. My Mother in Law asked them if they were a "Red Hat Society" and they exclaimed "Oh No Dear, we are the "Mad Hatters" Before the other little girls arrived they latched onto my daughter and took pictures with her. They were quite a group of characters and there were quite a few of them and this was a very small teashop. So the tea party did not go exactly as planned because the owner had to keep leaving the girls to go wait on the other groups. The girls still seemed to have a good time and the owner tried to make up for the inconvience. She gave K a cute little ladybug teapot and charged me less than half of what we had agreed on. MIL was not happy with the situation but K was okay with it so everything was fine.
In Laws breezed out bright and early Sunday morning, did not even say goodbye to me or K. I think they said goodbye to their son but am not sure! Hubby had to be at church early to set up communion for early service, so I was left to deal with a very angry little girl. Sometimes I think that people forget how important little things like saying goodbye are to kids. K got to sing and sign a song with the elementary kids during the baby dedication at church so that helped her mood a little. Sunday afternoon found me running to get a baby gift for a shower I had forgotten about and then attending the shower. It was sweet because this girl had several miscarriages and I had spoken with her in Feb. and she told me that she knew that God was going to answer her prayers and she had not given up hope. Now, her baby boy is due in Dec. Sunday was wrapped up by going to Life Group, end of a long day. Monday and Tuesday were spent getting the last few problems worked out on the work done to the house. Halelujah, it is finished! Also yesterday I was able to find K a halloween costume for about $10, she likes it and it did not cost me a fortune or require a tremendous amount of work on my part. Yeah. She will be Cinderella, originally she was going to be a beauty queen but outfit looks like Cinderella so she is going with that. Last year she was the Statue of Liberty and that costume was a pain to make.
I think maybe we are back to semi normal around her, just the normal everyday life stuff. I think I have had enough excitement for awhile so it will not hurt my feeling to be dull and boring for a few weeks. Hope that God is blessing all of you with a wonderful week!. I apologize for the mis-spelled words but can't get the spell checker to work and am too lazy to go hunt up a dictionary!

Whirlwind Week!

What a week it has been! They finally finished the repairs on my house (well, almost they have 3 things to fix tomorrow) and it looks livable again. The carpet relayers and the carpet cleaners both came on Weds and finally got out of the house about 3:30 ish and K and I left the house for a doctors appt at 3:45, followed by dinner and church. Thursday was K's 8th birthday so it is was a whirlwind of activity all day long. It started out at 6am with:

1. breakfast taco's (which is a big deal because I am NOT a morning person)
2. logged onto the computer so that I could wake up K with an e-card from her Granny and Papa,
3. got K off to school
4.stripped her bathroom of all rubber ducky stuff and redecorated with tie-dye and butterflies.
5 Errands and picking up her cake (while I was doing my errands I witnessed a shop lifter so I had to take a bit of time to report that to the manager)
6. Take Cake and juice boxes to school for party
7. Work for K's teacher at school (2 hours)
8. Party with classmates, blue icing on carpet ( fortunately it is blue carpet)
9. run home to change into swimsuit and do homework
10. Swim lessons
11. Birthday dinner at Magik Time Machine (across town)
12. Home to open Birthday presents
13 Finally everyone to Bed!

Friday Morning I only had a little to do:
1. Get K off to school
2. Workmen doing touch up on the house
3. Try to put back all the furniture and stuff from having three rooms of carpet clean
4. Change sheets on beds
5. clean 3 bathrooms
6. plumber replace pressure regulator valve (dug up front yard and cut off water)
7. welcome in-laws for weekend visit at 3 pm
8. K off bus at 3 pm

Whew, I am getting tired just typing about it, well time to get the dinner going so I will make this Part 1 and continue with Part 2 later. Hope all of you had a much more relaxing weekend than me!

Great Family Retreat

Our family just got back from a great retreat. We went out to Leakey, Tx to the H. E. Butt Foundation Camps. The man who started HEB grocery stores, set up this camp area in a canyon along the river ( don't remember the name of the river) and he allows church groups to hold retreats out there in the spring and fall and then they have youth camps during the summer.
When I was in the Aggies For Christ we used to get to go out there occasionally, it was great then and even better now. They have made a lot of improvements over the last 15 years or so, but even way back then it was the nicest place we went to for the AFC retreats.
Our childrens coordinator and our youth minister did a fantastic job with everything. One of our members is a manager for Red Lobster and he took charge of the food and we ate GOOD! We got a little piece of the Zoe Conference in that several of our members went and brought back the beautiful new songs for us. We had a joyful time praising God and learning these new songs.
One of the best things was that K did not get sick and end up in the hospital this year!!!! Praise God for that! (Last year she caught a virus and had to be hospitalized for dehydration and her birthday party had to be rescheduled. Let's face it, it is hard enough for a kid to be sick but on their birthday, that is just too cruel!) We were able to witness a baptism in the river so that is alway a wonderful thing! Guess I better go tackle the mountain of laundry but I go happily singing "Great is our God, sing with me. How Great is our God...."

Graduate!

It is official now I am a graduate of the Physical Therapy Program. Today was my last day of PT and I passed my evaluation with flying colors. I stuck with it and it really helped my shoulders and neck. The Dr. was really pleased with how far I had come in a few weeks. I am able to sleep all night without waking up every 1/2 hour or so because my arms are numb and I have significantly less pain than before the therapy. I am going to miss seeing everyone at the office but not paying the big co-pay every visit. They gave me some exercises to keep doing at home and said to come back if it starts acting up again. So, yeah for me I stuck with it and am relatively pain free now!

Whoops!

Boy, did I mess up this year! I totally forgot that I needed to get the Cherished Teddie Age 8 Birthday figurine for my daughters birthday ( which is in about a week) K was going through the curio cabinet and she brought out some figurines and asked why we had two of these ( I got a great deal on a set of 13 on ebay and so now I have about 4 that are the same) and she also announced "I will be getting number 8". Lightbulb goes off in Mom's head!
Of course the store does not have #8 (every other stinking # but no 8) so today while K was playing at a friend's house I called every store within 20 miles and of course no one has it. I even looked into ordering it online and they will express deliver it in 4 to 8 working days (still too long and too expensive) So I went on Ebay and found one that ends tomorrow night, it still may not get here by her birthday but at least it will not cost as much. I went ahead and bid on #9 and #10 too, so this won't happen again for a year or two.(depending on if I win the bid of course) I guess I need to put the 4 duplicates back on ebay and try to sell them, I have bought from ebay before but have never tried to sell anything. It is usually easier just to donate my stuff to charity and take the tax write off. Lazy way to go!
Here's hoping that I win the cherished teddie #8 so my daughter will get her traditional bear and Mom will save face this year! I will probably get all three and promptly forget where I hid them for year 9 and 10! Things we do for our kids!

Yeah for the Weekend!

It finally feels like Fall here! It is in the 50's, drizzle rain and the wind is blowing. K performed in a PTA program last night, she did a really good job. It was so cute, all these 2nd graders singing and dancing to these silly songs. K did one about the wild west, complete with rattlesnakes, cactus and wagons. Then, they did a version of the chicken dance. I couldn't help but think this is probably the last year they will be able to get the boys to freely participate, they are going to start saying it is "too girly" to dance before long. They all did a great job.
I guess I am an old stick in the mud but it drove me crazy the way people did not control their small children. Some of the parents let their children run around the cafeteria (where the PTA meeting and program were held) and up on stage, before and DURING the PTA meeting. These kids were making so much noise, we could not hear the speakers. They were walking up to the stage area and clowning for the audience. They repeatedly asked the children to clear the area and had to ask the parents 2X to come get their children so the 2nd graders could perform. Is it any wonder that schools have problems controlling kids when their own parents will not take responsibility for their kids? I had no problem with them running around before the program started but during it was a bit much.
They came out and did the estimate for the repairs of my house today and said they will start fixing it next week! Yeah!!! My parents are back home after being hurricane evacuees for about two weeks. You can just hear the relief in their voices now that they are back home. Today they were clearing out limbs and brush that had blown into their yard.
I bet it is a quiet blogging weekend with so many people at the Zoe Conference, hope they all have an uplifting time. Hope you all have a fantastic weekend, I certainly plan to have a great one!

Another Prayer Request

It seems like I am posting a lot of prayer request these days but then again, there is a lot of people who need prayers. This one if for my parent's preacher and his wife. His wife is undergoing radiation treatments in Houston, so they are staying with their daughter (who lives in Houston) She is having a hard time and talks of "not making it" and wants her husband with her at all times (very understandable) but he feels torn because he feels needs to be overseeing the repairs of his church (roof and water damage) and helping out his congregation members with their problems. Also their grandson is serving in Iraq and that worries them. So if my blogger friends could lift these folks up in prayer I would really appreciate it.

My parents and brother's family are all still stuck in Ark but hopefully will be going home by this weekend. My parents are older (late 60's and mid 70's) and this is taking a toll on them. They are trying to take care of everyone else and they could use someone to take care of them sometimes.

We are still in a state of disarray due to the water damage but hope to get started with the repairs as soon as the adjuster gets out here. We are thankful that the damage was not worse and that we are still able to live in our house, even if it inconvient right now. Anybody got any really good news to share? We could use some around here! Blessings to everyone!