Despite a terrible headache afterwards it was a great night at Awana last night!  It was friend night for double friend points and we had lots of friends out.  We had two clubbers accept Christ as their Savior last night too!  I was so excited, our best friends' son C was the one to lead them to the Lord!  He is a junior in high school and has given up his men's league basketball nights to come and be a leader for Awana!  I love that kid and I'm so proud of him!

  No church on Sunday means that I have all my typing and Sunday School preparation done.  I've been doing some typing for some files now...I'm really feeling off this week without my typing and things to do!  It does sound like we plan to get together to go over the PowerPoint again just to make sure we're all on the same page before Sunday.

  I caught up on making birthday and anniversary cards but found out that my Hallmark Christian Card Studio isn't working :( I have the regular card studio but some of the cards from the Christian Card Studio just aren't on there and it just isn't the same.  I got a deal on this one on ebay too, and now I can't find another one :(

  Kiddos are pretty quiet today, they've watched some tv and now they're coloring on the big dry erase board.  Love that thing, it's been good entertainment quite a few times now!

  The headache I had last night is finally gone, but I just feel so tired and out of it today.  Naptime for the Little Miss can't come soon enough!  Tonight is going to be another late night too!

  Don't know much more than that for now...I'll have more pictures to share once I get them downloaded to the computer!

  Hope you all are having a better day than I am!

  Back to work today!  Sounds like it will be a busy day too!  Mr. Bug is here for the morning and will get on the bus for school just after lunch, Little Miss is here all day, and it sounds like I'll get four more girls for the afternoon.  Hopefully everyone gets along!  At least the day will pass quickly!

  Now that I've finally gotten some other things caught up with my weekend off I can focus more on pictures!  I have quite a few I want to post here to share with you all, basketball pictures for Facebook, some of my brother's wedding reception to post on Facebook, and Veteran's Banquet pictures to burn to cds.  Also it sounds like I am going to make a graduation slideshow for Amanda whose senior pictures I was taking so I will have lots of pictures to scan and put into a video.  Never a dull moment ha!

  Guess that's about all I've got for now....maybe I'll be back later this afternoon...hope you all have a great day!

 

  Wow, my week just got complicated!  The boys basketball team won their game tonight...by one point what a game!...which means they now play on Thursday...when we are supposed to have Prayer Meeting.  So we are in the midst of planning to move Prayer Meeting to tomorrow, Awana on Wednesday, basketball on Thursday!

  We didn't have church yesterday because of the ice, rain, and snow we were getting.  It's already thrown my week off!  But this also means that most of my typing and my Sunday School preparation is done so it should be a little less stressful. 

  I also had the day off today so I caught up on a few corrections that I needed to type for last weeks work and finished with all the laundry and I even got to sit down and do some reading and finally finished a book I've been reading for a while.  It was A Time to Dance by Karen Kingsbury.  It was soooo good!

  But not going to bed until 2am Sunday morning and finally catching up on some of my housework and laundry and the excitement of the basketball game is catching up with me and it's time to go snuggle with the hubby and head off to dreamland.

  Hope you all had a great day!

  Wow!  I'm loving these warmer temps and the snow melting...puddles and all...but this fog is crazy!  School started two hours late yesterday and they just cancelled for today!  My schedule changed or I would have 3 hyper boys and a crazy Little Miss running around the house!  Now I just have Little Miss today and the three boys will come tomorrow morning.

The view out the front door this morning

They say it could be in the 50s today!  The kids have no school tomorrow...teacher's day off since we have had parent teacher conferences this week...and no school Monday either.  Quite a weekend for the kids!  Just praying everyone stays safe!

It was another good night at Awana last night  Panicking a bit, our Commander asked if I would do a Counsel Time in a couple weeks.  I told him I'd think about it, want to do a little research before I committed.  The kids brought items for our local food pantry last night.  We ended up with two big boxes full and four or five plastic grocery bags full! They are a great group of clubbers! 

Hopefully with a few final touches I should finish up with the Save the Date card I'm working up for a friend of ours.  Then I can hopefully finish up with editing and burning the Veteran's Banquet pictures to cd.  I have to mail out a few more Valentines from the youth group, print and mail the birthday and anniversary cards for the next couple of weeks, get some laundry done, some typing, and get to my parents for the hubbys birthday today!

What do you have planned for the day??

  Well it was a good game, but the boys lost last night.  They've had a good season, and this was the team ranked number one in our district, but it was still a tough loss.  I honestly think they could have beat them, but we were having a tough time hitting any shots, twos, threes, foul shots, we didn't let them shut us out, but it was a tough one to come back and win.

  Little Miss is in a silly mood today!  She was watching Max and Ruby and came and told me that crybaby was crying!  We were watching a YouTube video with a tiny baby and when he started crying she got upset, almost crying herself and told me that he needed a diaper and a blankie!  She's getting to be quite a talker!  Yesterday she was running around the living room and told me "Spinning round...crazy lady!"  I laughed and laughed!

  I was just checking my facebook and saw a friend had posted that there is a Kirby vaccuum cleaner salesman going around town and apparently he will just walk into your house if the doors are unlocked!  She also does daycare and said she was downstairs with the kids and heard the dog barking outside so she went upstairs and there he was standing in her living room!  Guy has guts!  I would have called the police!  That is crazy!

  Today is the funeral for an 18 year old girl, a high school senior,  from a neighboring town who was killed in a car accident over the weekend.  Her boyfriend graduated last year, he took her out to a town about an hour away and a car turned in front of them and another car, he clipped the car in front of him and crossed over the center line where he collided with a snow plow.  It was just one of those things, no alcohol involved, the roads were slick.  She died and he was sent to the hospital in critical condition.  He improved and was sent home, but I can not imagine how difficult this has to be for him!  We are praying that this may open the eyes of some of those kids around them, both in the neighboring town and in the surrounding areas, that think they are invincible and that they would be open to Christ! 

  I have had one of our Awana clubbers chat with me on facebook, she just wanted to talk a bit, wanted to tell me what they did at school and how she was feeling. 

  We had gone to a football game in the neighboring town and watched this girl be crowned Homecoming queen just a few months ago!

  Please, pray with us for comfort for these families and that the Lord would work in hearts and minds through all this!

  We spent a quiet night at home last night...honestly I was in bed by 8:30!  We folded laundry and then just watched some tv and talked.  It was a good night!  Things have been so busy lately it was nice just to be able to relax!

  Little Miss has quite an attitude today...lots of No's an you don't tell me no followed by crying and tantrums.  Fun.  Dad said she was up early today so a nap should take care of that pretty quickly.

  The sun is shining and melting lots of snow...I just wish that we didn't have a lake to "swim" through to get to either door of the house!

 

Happy Valentine's Day! 

It's a pretty quiet day around here, but those have become very welcome lately! Yesterday we spent most of the day at church...we had Sunday School and church, and then we stuck around to help our youth group with their first YAC (Youth After Church).  We made Valentines for the elderly and shut ins of our church, made home made pizzas and cheesy breadsticks, had a short devotional and a couple of songs, and then played games and just had fun together.  We made it home for about an hour and then it was back again for the evening service!  What a day!  But it was so much fun and I'd do it again any day!

The last regular season basketball game is this week, and the hubby's birthday too!  Lots of celebrating around here this week!

Little Miss is sleeping well behind me...maybe the short time she "tried" to nap upstairs did her some good...realizing she has to sleep if she wants to keep her "crib" down here!

Hope you all have a wonderful Valentine's Day!

  So I know I'm totally going to regret this, but Little Miss has been napping for an hour now!  That's twice as long as she napped yesterday...and counting!  She's such a light sleeper if I sneeze or the phone rings or someone comes to the door she is up and any hope of getting her back to sleep is gone....

  I tried putting her upstairs in the second bedroom but she started panicking a bit when she woke up like she was afraid that I left her.  Then she would wake up as soon as I put her down...and forget going back to sleep again.  UGH!  So yesterday after her half hour nap (resulting in such a "joy" of a girl) the hubby moved her bed back down here.  So far so good, I tiptoe around and hate to do much for fear of waking her, but she's sleeping and I get a little downtime to do some typing so I guess this is it.  I just hope her baby brother is a better sleeper when he makes his appearance!  Their Mom and I are afraid we are going to have our hands full when he does...definately going to be a big adjustment for Little Miss!

  Soooo after a big "fight" at naptime with her yesterday and some "round and round" discussions about Awana music, which should have been simple but for some reason got very complicated and frustrating on my part, another "lovely" cold, last minute typing, and some odd phone calls I was not in such a great mood to go to Awana last night.  Definately out of character for me!  I even told the hubby that I just wanted to crawl into bed and try to start over tomorrow.  So glad I didn't do that!

  It started out a little frustrating, our Counsel Time speaker walking in at the last minute, one of the kids getting sick just after walking in the door, discussions of changes that need to be made on another photo project I am working on...which normally I don't mind at all but with my mindset you know how that goes sometimes...

  But sitting and listening to our Counsel Time on Daniel I have to admit my heart started to soften a bit.  Then a good conversation with one of the best friends about her trip taking her son back to the airport as he heads back to Afghanistan after his two week break home.  Then off to the Spark's Counsel Time (it was backwards night so the Sparks could get into the Valentine's store first....so for one store they aren't getting all the "left overs"...) to put the words up on screen for one of their songs and finally down for handbook time.

  All the record keeping had been done when I got down there and I have to admit that I was a bit disappointed when my clubber told me that she didn't have any sections ready.  But then she told me she wanted to talk...she was worried about a family that attends her church occasionally and her 4 - H club.  This is the Father's second marriage and it's not a great relationship, the kids are told they don't have to obey, they have horrible language and social skills and she just wants to show them a different way, the right way.  Wow.

  I was humbled.

  I said a quick prayer of thanks, thanks that she trusted me enough to talk about this, that she treasured my advice, that she had such a heart for others and wanted to see them come to know the Lord....and we talked about how prayer was the best and biggest thing she could do.  And how that if she saw them don't avoid them but make it a point to say hi, how are you...they don't have to be your "best friend" but "physically" show them that you are different, show them that agape love, and how they probably aren't going to "drop everything and run to you" that second, but I'm sure sometime in the future they are going to come to a place that they stop and wonder why you did that.  Why you didn't just look down on them and judge them like everyone else.

  I told her of a personal experience of mine, where one of my classmates...who readily admits that she was not one of the nicest girls in school, contacted me on facebook and said that she had been thinking about me and how I stopped and helped her when she was having trouble with her asthma while running the mile in PE.  Why hadn't I just kept going and ignored her like everyone else??  Come to find out she had become a Christian and wanted to thank me.  Wow.  By the way, I really have no recollection of this event!

  After our talk we spent some time in prayer not only for this family but for my clubber as well, that the Lord would give her the words and the actions to show them His love.  I also told her how proud I was of her, that she had such a sensitive heart for others and was looking for a way to help when so many others judge and move on and promised to continue pray for her, and them. 

  After we were dismissed and everyone was milling around waiting for rides home I found her again and told her she could email or whatever she needed anytime, that I was here for her.  She smiled and thanked me for doing this for her and I got teary all over again!

  It's so easy to get caught up in the negatives and day to day things just like I had yesterday and this fifth grade girl gave me the "shake" I needed to pull myself out of it and put my focus back onto Him and others where it needs to be!  I only wish that the kids from my Sunday School class and youth group could have been there....this is EXACTLY what we have been talking about!!!

  After there were just a few of us left I noticed another leader sitting cross legged on the floor with a couple of clubbers and after getting a picture of the three of them sitting there the leader shared a sweet story about why these two clubbers were so special to him.  I don't know how much of this story he wants out, as it is a bit personal but I will say that I had goosebumps and tears all over again!

  All the kids had gone and there were just a handful of leaders left, I went to our Commander and I said "I'm sorry but I don't think Awana was for the clubbers tonight, it was for me!"  I explained to him and he nodded his head and said yes, that's the way it happens sometimes that we definately get more of a blessing than the clubbers some nights!

  I can't wait to go back next week!   

Ahhh it's definately been one of those days!  Little Miss is not liking to nap, I moved her playpen upstairs and she's sleeping less than the little she was sleeping when she was napping down here....she's such a light sleeper if I sneeze she wakes up and is done napping for the day.  Trying to convince her that napping is a good thing and she'll be much happier if she does isn't going so well though.

Had a little fun with the kiddos and Elements this morning...I won't show you the kiddos, but I will show you a little something I made for the hubby...just don't tell him lol! 

That's a picture we took this summer on one of our little drives where he likes to get lost and I take pictures along the way.

We bought a few little things for the kids for their Valentines last night on the way home from the basketball game...they're getting heart straws, candy hearts, bubbles, and I think I have some cute little stuffed animals with little loops on them to hang on their backpacks or something around here somewhere.
 
Can't believe Valentine's Day is coming up so quickly!

Sorry I haven't been posting again...but I do have some good things for you!  50 free prints from Shutterfly!  Enter promo code at checkout: MRNH-DYD0-PHTT-0Y1M04

Offer ends Feb 7

and 50 free prints from Snapfish Go to this website http://www.fancyfeast.com/snapfish/?DCMP=EMC-FF-January+Snapfish+Email&HQS=Snapfish+landing and enter your email address and you’ll receive a unique promotional code to print or save. Once you get your code, visit Snapfish.com to redeem your prints. It’s that easy.


I just ordered my 50 free prints from Shutterfly and have some more to go through before I order from Snapfish.  It looks like you can get those prints through August once you get the code and add it to you account.