9-11 and kids: the discussion

There's a discussion started on my Facebook-CalvaryGirl page concerning 9-11 and discussing it with kids - are you there?

Braden and bubbles

We got Braden a Winnie The Pooh bubble wand for his birthday. That thing is HUGE. I want one! It is one of those things where you wouldn't pay for your own kids to have one, but because it's a gift, the price is justified. Am I the only one that thinks like that? (I hope not!) He LOVED his bubbles. I knew he would. Because I'm the "cool" aunt and cool aunts get the best stuff for birthdays, right? Ok, that's what I tell myself at least. I mentioned before loving to hear him talk. We don't get to spend much time with him anymore and weren't around really when he started talking in sentences and so forth, so I really enjoyed this. Three year old giggles are so adorable!!

Braden's birthday

More video from Braden's third birthday (our great nephew). What a cutie.

My birthday party

My birthday was last Thursday. Jay, Hannah and I met some family members for dinner at Applebees. We had a good time visiting together. I had the best birthday in years this year. Here are some of the pictures I caught. Mom has a really good one on her camera I want to snag soon. It's a hoot. All of these pictures were edited in Photoshop CS2 and I used two- three Pioneer Woman Actions, "Boost" from pack one, "warmer" and "seventies" from pack two.

The cheese girl. The girl LOVES cheese. But she's picky. She used to only eat processed American cheese food products. Then I broke the news that it wasn't real cheese. Good thing she's not a die hard Santa player. The cheese thing was hard enough! So she started exploring. We also eat real American cheese now. She likes to be patriotic like that. She loves Monterey Jack cheese in and on everything if she had the choice.

In the last six months, she has grown a love of fried Mozzarella now. Praise God.

You know ... I cannot remember the last time we took a picture this good. Seriously. Not even our wedding pictures were this good. He was smiling, too! Yes, that's a Jay smile for pictures. He usually doesn't smile. That's why you don't see a whole lot of "posed" pictures of us. This was his gift to me.

"Mommy what made you fall in love with daddy?" Hannah has asked. Well here ya go.

This picture also answers the question to how I can have such brown eyes and my children do not. Note: no additional eye filters were done to this picture. Yes, those are real! :)

You can see the rest of the birthday pictures on the Facebook page. Enjoy!

Wordless Wednesday: Missing the Beach

Happy Birthday Braden!

Three years ago today, I became a greater aunt ("than I already am")- my great nephew Braden was born. Although we don't get to see him as much as we'd like, we still love him so much! We're getting ready to go shopping for his present and his birthday party today. Isn't he a handsome fella?

Happy Birthday little buddy!

These were taken a couple of weeks ago when he was out with his grandma (my sister- trust me, I took great joy when she became "a grandma" ;) and she brought him by for a suprise visit (hence no makeup on me!)

Happy Birthday to me!

Today is the fourth anniversary of my 30th birthday. It's been a wonderful day so far. Yesterday was equally good, if not better. Yesterday morning I posted on my personal Facebook status:

"It's so nice and quiet here. Hannah's quietly on her computer and I'm doing my bible reading on mine. No TVs, only the sound of the bible audio (not playing *right* now, but ..), the ceiling fan, and the bug sounds from outside."

The TV was not turned on until 4pm! Hannah and I spent an hour playing on Pixie Hollow, and that was an easy hour, too. Today has almost been like that. It's a beautiful day. I got up and grabbed a shower first thing. I called our Pastor's devotional line and listened to that before calling my prayer partner. This month I'm paired with a "Titus 2" lady that I have not had an opportunity to really get to know beyond "hi, how are you doing?" and a few short conversations, so this is nice. We just started this week for August. Technically, the prayer calls are supposed to be five minutes for the Pastor (it's the Pastor's Prayer Team) but we talked 30 minutes this morning (which was very nice!) and prayed for a number of things.

I have a certain frame of mind, or mood, that I like to have set when I sit down to do my bible reading and somehow that has gotten off course today, though. The phone has rang a lot more than normal, but I welcomed one call, an answer to one of my birthday wishes! It was my cousin telling me she is coming home today! Praise the Lord! She still has a long road ahead of her as far as her recovery, so please continue to pray for her. I got a call yesterday from my BFF asking for my address. When I told her I asked if she was sending me a card and she said no she was getting me one of the magazine subscriptions I wanted :D What a great friend not to question the fact I'm overweight but enjoy reading fitness magazines, LOL!!

Another call today was Dad wanting to know if 6:30 was good for my birthday dinner, tonight. I told mom the other day we would do it tomorrow because that's payday, but they're buying all our suppers tonight Applebees, yay! What a blessing! I just love their Quesedilla Burger, it's awesome!

I am so blessed. Thank you Lord!

Tell Me Thursday: Family Fun Day

Tell Me Thursday is hosted by tellmethursday.com , be sure to hop over and see other participant's posts!

This week's Wordless Wednesday was about Family Fun Day. Every year our church holds Family Fun Day. They rent out the big bouncy things for the kids to play; create a giant fenced in play yard for the toddlers (if you click on that picture you can see a bigger, more detailed version of the pic). The teens and athletic adults play basketball, soccer, and volleyball. Some years we've had a rock climbing wall that Jackson LOVED. There's food provided and everyone brings desserts. I love the dessert tables at our church events. Everything looks so good, but in recent events I've always managed to somehow to gravitate toward something Mel made not even knowing she made it (beforehand) LOL There's patriotic music played, as well as live singing of good, God honoring songs. This year, "Uncle Sam" showed up and passed out pocket sized Constitution/ Bill of Rights booklets. :o)

Its a great time of fellowship, and we end the evening watching the fireworks show that is thrown by the town a few blocks down the road.

Wordless Wednesday: Family Fun Day

Tell me Thursday: where are we?

Tell Me Thursday is hosted by tellmethursday.com , be sure to hop over and see other participant's posts!

Last week you got to see a very happy twelve year old get her first cell phone at her birthday party. This week, we're vacationing in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina with the same family, my BFF and her kids, and her three neices ... and my two kids. yes, this week we are doing our own experiement of "Wendy and Kristi Plus 9".

She come down last Friday with her four and one neice. My two kids and I arrived Monday at lunch time. The other two neices arrived on Tuesday evening. We're coming home today, bringing two of the neices home with us to meet their grandpa. Poor Jackson, he's been surrounded by girls ALL WEEK! The ages from oldest to youngest is 15, 15, 13, 13, 12, 12, 10, 8, and 7. we wake up, get ready, eat, go to the beach, go to the pool, come in to eat. Go back out to the beach, then to the pool, and in for dinner. Jackson has one weird sunburn, that's for sure! The first day I sprayed some spray-sunscreen on his back, and his burn looks like a rash. His and Hannah's face crisped the first day but I went and got some zinc based sunscreen like the surfers use that can't be rubbed off easily and that's made a HUGE difference. No aloe for us this year, yay!

The second 15 year old just turned such yesterday. We went out for pizza (and got a few funny looks as the whole brood was walking to the back of the restaurant) for dinner. Kristi had T's phone in her pocketbook and surprised her after dinner with it. I have video. You're going to have to come back and see that one once we get home and I get it uploaded. Right now we're sitting at the table, and Kristi is calling out names and numbers helping Jackson enter contacts into my new cell phone (basic, pre paid, not a big deal, etc ..lol)

We're going to be leaving in the next few hours. Pray for us! It's a 4-5 hour drive with minimal stops, but it's raining right now.

Wordless Wednesday: Where are we?

Tell Me Thursday: Sleeping Beauties

The Story:

There's been a bag of scrapbooking supplies traveling with us through two moves. I just keep moving it from here to there, it's like m best friend now. However, I have not looked in this bag in a good three years at least! So the other day I decided, I'm never going to use this stuff- how about I give them away here on CalvaryGirl? So I went through the bag seeing what I had, and found a small envelope with just a few pictures in it. All but three were of Jackson's k4 Heritage program class performance (awwww!). One was a pic off of the balcony at our old apartment once when it snowed.

The last two were these precious pics of my babies sleeping in the cutest positions! Hannah was 1 and Jackson was 4 in these pictures. I remember finding Hannah a lot of times in that position. (The blanket she's snuggled to was my "huggie blanket" when I was little.) Jackson had fallen asleep watching TV early one night when that picture was taken. I remember laughing so hard when I walked in his room and found him in that position. He had gotten too quiet so I had went in to check on him ;o)

They say I'm "always" taking pictures of them while they're sleeping and ask why. I simply say it's because they're so peaceful that way! But obviously I'm not sneaking into the bedrooms as much as I used to cause I had to look back to my JANUARY file to find the most recent sleepy-pics!





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Wordless Wednesday Sleeping Beauties

Gratituesday 4-28

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thankful for using the #gratituesday hashtag!!

God is good, ALL the time. We followed the Lord and put the kids in a charter school this school year to get caught up on some financial issues, etc .. the plan was always for them to be back in their private Christian school the following year. It's been a very, VERY rough school year for Jackson, overall. You just cannot beat "home". It wasn't that he as much didn't like the new school but it wasn't "the" school he wanted to be in. So we're been through the fire this year exalting him to do what's right in the middle of a situation none of us really cared to be in but knew it was what the Lord was having us to do.

Well, the opportunity presented itsself Sunday night for us to have the kids finish the year at thier old school (I didn't think you could do that!!). We went up to the old school yesterday and signed all the papers. I picked up the kids, took them home and went back to their current school to tell their teachers, fill out the withdrawel forms, and clean out their desks. I went to my parents to go through their supplies and compare it next to what they needed today, then went to Target to get supplies, and back home to get ready for church.

We never thought about their to-be teachers announcing to their classes (filled with allll their friends!) that they were coming back (today)! One of Hannah's friends immediately said something to her last night at church cause he was so happy to hear the news. Hannah and him flew up to the soundbooth with Hannah asking Jay what was going on. Jay convinced them there "had" to be "another Hannah W." the teacher was talking about ;o) poor kid! LOL! I was able to reach Jackson's friends in time so they were BOTH clueless overall.

We got up this morning and I felt Hannah, said she was warm and needed to stay home, and that was it! Jackson puts up NO fight to go to school. This morning was SOOO "as a matter of fact". I said "well, I have some stuff to do at church so since y'all are home you need to go with me.." "here, put these clothes on so you'll look nice and not like a bum if the (visiting) missionaries are up there" (we had International Sunday ... Sunday, and a bonus service last night.). Little did they know their backpacks were packed with empty folders, their pencil cases from their desks, lunch packed and ready to go :p

Jackson was whiney over his clothes, but the Lord gave grace as it was needed. The batteries in my camera were gone cause Jackson had been playing with it, that made me tense cause we needed to leave ASAP and Jackson was too busy with a brewing attitude (that we've dealt with all school year, well, since October). As soon as we wer ein the car he was ok, and I got him videoing his self talking about why he missed his old school etc ... I pulled into the school parking lot saying I needed to pick up something for the church- my kids were OBLIVIOUS!! No clue whatsoever!

This is them getting the news (I expected more reaction, but Jackson was actually SPEECHLESS!)

more reaction, moreso Hannah this time-



Them sharing why they were glad they were back-



Jackson reunting with his BFFs-

Praise the LORD!!

Layout: Virginia Vacation (2)

I got another layout done with our vacation pictures, what do you think?
The kit is by Bel Vidotti- she has the cutest work :o) The wordart is by Ellie Lash. The font for the top is Chowderhead, and the transparent effect is an action by atomic cupcake.


click to see a larger view for more detail.

388: Question of the Week

Something was brought up on another blog I read (she has the most gorgeous pictures). One of her children had lost a tooth and the discussion was how much the tooth fairy paid out, etc ... As a Christian, the whole imaginary type people / figures associated with holidays and events got very sticky when Jackson was little. Santa, Easter Bunny, so forth. I was almost disowned by my parents over Santa Claus! It was an actual raise-your-voice confrontation when we announced we were not going to encourage the Santa story with Jackson and focus on Christ instead.


When the first tooth was lost, we were in a great big gray area. Our reasons for not going with Santa and Peter (the Easter bunny, lol) was not going to hold. There were no spiritual applications to a child losing their teeth. They would not be spiritually hindered by an imaginary figure, when the day come that they find out the figure was not real (unlike the others...). So we went with the tooth fairy.

Ooooohhhhhh have we went with the tooth fairy ;o) we've really made up things as we go. The main "rules" of the tooth fairy is:

She will not visit unless your room is clean. Not "clean the path to your bed" clean, but CLEAN. Vaccume every inch clean. Fairies do not like messes, ya know. If she tripped over a toy in the middle of the night she might hurt herself and instead of visiting all the other kids who had lost their tooth, she'd have to go home and put her foot up and rest. That would be bad.

The tooth fairy walks inside instead of flys, because the ceilings are too low for her to gain speed to fly inside. The tooth fairy leaves boys $1 a tooth, and girls $5. Her rates went up after Jackson lost his teeth, but right when Hannah started losing hers. {Truth? all daddy had was a $5 for her first tooth and he had already forgot two nights before then ...}

Also, the tooth fairy sometimes does not come the first night you put your tooth under your pillow. She's a very busy fairy with a list a mile long of children to visit so some times it might take a few days for her to come by- just be patient! If she's over seven days late (this happened once)- she'll leave an extra special quarter that she loves dearly that has special powers sometimes for you. That beats a $5 bill any day! (the quarter? gone ...)

Oh, and her name is Elina.


So how about you? Does the tooth fairy come to your house? What's she like? Is there a big payoff at your house for teeth? Create a post on your blog and link me to it in the comments, or just leave a comment here sharing about what your family does with lost teeth. If you'd like feel free to grab the QOTW graphic for your on sidebars!

Family Update- April 24th

It's about time for an update, isn't it?
I'm doing ok. It seems if it's not one thing it's another going on (with me). If I'm not hit with a migraine I'm just overall feeling ... "uhg". I'm sure a lot of it has to do with my weight, so I am going to be focusing a lot of attention on that in coming weeks. I really do need a lot, a LOT of prayer regarding my motivation and will power as it pertains to eating habits and exercise. The problem with exercise is hip pain due to arthritis and now my right knee has been hurting significantly. I know it has much to do with the pressure my weight is putting on it. I'm still working on habits and routines, we're better than we were, but have a long way to go ;o) I did apply to Gymboree, but never heard anything back, so I'm going to assume it was not the Lord's will for us right now. Thing is, I have no peace about anything else, other than keeping children at home during the summer.

Jay's traveling a lot more with his job. We're so thankful we have not been affected job-wise because of the recession. The thing is, with his line of work, they are always hiring (not for what he does, but ...)- but you have to be physically fit to qualify. Oh~ and drug free :p Please do not apply for a job and waste yours and the company's time if there's a remote possibility you're not going to be able to pass a drug test! And do not think companys don't do random drug testing, because people are getting fired there for that, too! (Hence additional openings.) Very shocking news the other day was his boss as fired, which is bad because he really liked him and respected him. If you think about it please keep that situation in prayer- that his replacement won't be a royal jerk (it's true, right?) and that his new boss won't have a problem moving on to bigger and better things.
We got to take a mini vacation over Spring break in Virginia Beach and .... another town (lol) where a friend of Jay's lives. It was very nice. More pics to come, but you can see quite a few here.

We're looking forward to getting a garden planned soon (we're late!) and having a HUGE yard sale. We have SO much stuff we can get rid of, we're going to have to have a few yard sales just to get rid of it all. There's just too much to be able to get everything out at one time.

The kids are both playing soccer, and enjoying it a lot. Last week was their first game, they've been practicing about a month now. There are only three teams in Jackson's age group, so every other week he will be playing two games back to back. He has been deemed the primary goalie for the team though he's going to have opportunities to play in every position throughout the season. As active as he is I find it funny he'd choose goalie as a preferred position ;o) Hannah's just excited to be there, which makes me glad.

Some may have been wondering the stories behind my Wordless Wednesday post this week, I'm gonna share that separately. One hint- nothing to do with soccer ;o)
Hannah is still dealing with some degree of bullying (previous post), but what's being reported now is more regular mean-self-centered kid-type bullying. Jackson is determined he is going to make straight A's this quarter, after bringing home his best grades this year for 3rd quarter- two As and 3 Cs. That sounds good but for a child that has made all As his whole life ... not very hot- and he knows it.

I've always said that I would never pay or reward my kids for their grades, because they should get good grades anyway. Considering how rough this year has been, knowing he needs more motivation than fear of failing 4th grade (no danger at all, but apparently his teacher has brought it up enough generally speaking to the class it's been a fear of his...). We've told him he would get $20 for every A he makes for 4th quarter. He wants a new, "good" skateboard so he has a goal in sight. So we'll see how that goes. I know it's excessive, but I wanted to do something that would not only "get" his attention, but KEEP it for ten weeks. Please continue to pray about them getting back in their old school for next school year, that the Lord will give Jay wisdom to make the right decisions for our family concerning the many factors that plays into their return. We'd greatly appreciate it!

Jackson and I went to the local TEA party on tax day 4-15. We had a good time and enjoyed the experience. I was so proud to be an American that day. I had never attended a protest before, but it was so peaceful, and respectful. For us to be a group of extremists, we sure were nice! I thought it was hilarious when I saw on TV the next day some guy from Vanity Fair was saying "oh they weren't mad at all, they just seemed a little miffed more than anything" (paraphrase). Apparently, the liberal left thinks that you have to scream, holler, vandalize, interrupt speeches, and otherwise act like 5 year olds having a hissy fit for it to be a "real" valid protest. Apparently peaceful protesters just don't know what they're doing. Hmmm ... I'd be willing to disagree and call them to the floor on that!


Our local reps are planning more TEA parties in the future, and definitely one on Independence Day. It meant a lot for me as a parent to take part in it, and include Jackson in it. A long time ago our old Pastor said (paraphrase) "...one day when this country has went completely downhill, my grandkids are going to ask me what I done to stop it- and I want to be able to tell them I done everything I could...". I'll never forget that, and hold the same opinion. When Jackson is an adult, after conservatism reclaims this country through conservatives getting involved and finding their voices, and using them- he will be able to say "My mom and I were there when it all started ...". Some people think it's a moot point to talk politics with their children, but for me, that's HISTORY. I know nothing of the Regan years from first hand experience, and I was the same age then Jackson is now. Hannah is too young to appreciate what's going on, but Jackson is genuinely interested. Saturday we're going to the first meeting of our local 912 project. It's more of a meet and greet than anything I believe, but it's going to be fun. We're meeting at a local park and having potluck, etc ...

Hannah had her first field trip for the year. I know! They had one planned earlier in the year but it was cancelled. It was to this Health Center that was SO neat! I wish I could testify to how informational it was, but the models of internal organs freaked Hannah's little friend out, and we had to stay in the break room the WHOLE time we were there (2 1/2 hrs!). We had a nice time together though, it wasn't boring or anything. Time went by fast. Since her friend got NOTHING out of the field trip its self, I took the girls by the Krispy Kreme we passed on the way in (we were out of town). We had two of her buddies riding with us, and one her never been there before, so that was really exciting, especially since they were making the doughnuts when we got there!



Church is going great as always. I've been going out on Monday night visitation for a few weeks now, and it has been a great blessing. I've been wanting to start going for a good while now. I hope our family routine allows me to continue to do that :o) Jackson went out with some guys this week and he really enjoyed that. I learned Hannah has the option of staying at the church while I go out if needed, so that was a relief. Some weeks she's ok, others she's fickle about it. So we'll see.

Hope you all are doing well, and please link me to your own family updates by commenting! Don't forget about the giveaway!

5 Minutes for Photography

This week's article at 5 Minutes for Mom is about taking pics in an outside environment where the kids are not thinking about getting their pictures taken. It made me think of all the pics I took out at the beach last week while we were there. We got locked out of our hotel room before Jay got back from work, so the kids and I went out to the beach while we waited for him to get back (it was about 40 minutes before he was due ...)

Needless to say they weren't dressed for a typical outing to the beach, then again, we've never been to the beach when it was colder weather, either! So I told them to take their shoes and socks off, roll up their jeans and go run in the sand. When I said "run", I really just meant "Go DO something" LOL what did my kids do? They went down in the sand and started running in big circles, Hannah chasing Jackson. Then Jackson decided to do some kind of jig type dance being silly. I was snapping away with the pics.

If I posted the original pics, you wouldn't be able to appreciate them because of the resizing I'd have to do and I was a bit of distance away from them standing on the boardwalk, but, I cropped them so you could see what I caught:

This one was a bit blurrier (is that how you spell that?), but I liked how the shot caught the sand kicked up in the air as she was running:



This was more clear and caught his silly expression (and more sand movement)

Wordless Wednesday 4-8

Virginia Vacation













Click here for one more :o)

iheartfaces: "My friend and I"

This week's theme is "My friend and I".

We spent Friday and Saturday with a friend of Jay's from work. His wife and he so graciously invited us into their home having never met the kids and I. We had such a good time there this weekend. Saturday he took us out on a nearby river on his boat fishing. I caught the first one then Jackson caught a very good sized catfish for a ten year old. The kids just loved "Mr. C" and he went from "Mr. C" to "Uncle C" by the time we left ;)

I got this picture when we were out on the boat and thought it turned out so well, so this is my entry for this week: