A Great Read

I love a good book...I might have mentioned that a time or two on here.

My last blogging for books book was one of those.  It was Karen Kingsbury's (I was so psyched that I got to review one of her books, she is one of my favorite authors) Waiting for Morning.

This is a great read to put you in place with where your heart truly is with Jesus.  In this book, Hannah Ryan unexpectedly loses her husband and eldest daughter in a car accident with a drunk driver.  When the metal hits the road, Hannah finds her faith doesn't stand the test and she loses her trust in God.  But thankfully, God doesn't give up on her. 

In the pursuit of sweet revenge, Hannah becomes obsessed and totally pushes her remaining daughter away, to a point where she might lose her as well.  Hannah's pursuit involves an in-depth trial with a Christian lawyer, cop and counselor with MADD on her side, against the drunk driver that killed her family.  Thankfully, God's plan prevails with putting these three people in her life to remind her of His plan and love for us even when things don't turn out as we want them to.

This book is a great tribute to fully trusting in God through thick and thin, and even more so one of forgiveness.  It was so easy to judge Hannah Ryan in this book.  Thinking, "How can she turn from God?  Look what she is doing to her daughter?  Why can't she see what is going on?"  But when it really comes down to it not a single one of us knows what we would do if placed in a situation of the same caliber unless we have been there.  Preparing our hearts and abiding with Him daily are the only ways we can hope to make the right decision.

I am so glad to have gotten to read this book for free for this review from Waterbrook/Multnomah publishers.  It was a great read and I didn't want to put it down until it was done.

State of the Family #43

Things are a busy as ever around here as the Christmas musical practices are in full swing which takes Mommy away from home 2 nights a week.  Then you add in Wednesday night Bible Study and Kings Kids and the whole week feels shot!

Noisy Man and Miss Firecracker are still loving school.  We had Parent/Teacher conferences for Noisy Man and got a great review.  His teacher reported that he is a very well behaved little boy and doing well with everything in school.  The only thing she had to report to us that wasn't completely positive, but not really negative either was that during reading time he seems to be self-distracting, making binoculars with his hands or playing with his chair.  But when she catches him and asks him a question about what she was just teaching, he still knows the answer.  Hmmm... the musings of a kindergartner.  Noisy Man also hit another milestone this past week with learning how to tie his shoes! 

The battle with Miss Firecracker and nap time seems to have subsided in the last week.  Thanks to an awesome MOPS mentor mom who discussed the 'special time' she and her husband used to do with their children before bed time, I decided to try and implement it with MF for nap time to see if the arguing would lessen.  Lo and behold, it worked!  She gets to pick out whatever book she wants and I lay down in her bed with her. Then we read the book together, just the two of us.  She loves the one on one time, which I think is essential for a middle child to get anyway, and I don't have to fight with her to get her to bed every afternoon!

We are diaper free at this house!  It is such a blessing!  Miss Thumb Sucker has figured out this potty stuff.  She still has a few accidents here and there and wears pull-ups whenever we are out of the house or she is in bed, but is even figuring out how to go on 'other' toilets as well!  I am so proud of her.  And she doesn't turn 2 for another month. 

Daddy has been quite the trooper over the past few weeks with mommy being gone quite a bit for practice, Pampered Chef shows and a few other things.  Get this, I even came home to some beautiful flowers from him the other day, and he had to take all three kids into the store to buy them!  He is still working on breaking some horses so the kids can ride a little bit more this summer, trying to get in a few last fishing trips (without much luck on catching anything) and started a men's Bible study as well. 

Last weekend we got to trek half way across the wonderful state of Nebraska to see some wonderful college friends of ours.  Julie and I have run many races together in Lincoln over the last few years, but then she moved out to beautiful Elsie.  The 5 hour car ride to see them was a bit 'iffy' at times with 3 kids in tow, but once we got there, it was nothing but fun.  Well, almost.  The trek was made so that Mommy and Julie could take part in the Autumn River Run 1/2 marathon in North Platte.  Did you know that North Platte and Eastern NE have almost 2,000 ft difference in elevation?  Did you know that this difference makes a huge difference on Mommy's ability to run well (notice I didn't say fast, just well, my running far from qualifies as fast no matter how well I do)?  More on the race in another post.

Our time with our friends was wonderful.  They have 2 kids ages 2 and 4.  You would never know that our kids had never played together before.  I don't think there was a fight all weekend and they all played like they had been best friends for life.  The parents had a great time as well, watching football and enjoying great conversation.  Learn more about their wonderful family here.  Julie and I lived in Love Memorial Hall together our first years of college and our hubbies were both Burr Hall boys those years as well!   They made a great cheering section for the race too!

Now onto more busy weeks, hopefully a trip to the pumpkin patch this weekend if the rain holds out, and tractor and combine rides with grandpa!

State of the Family #42

 Things have finally seemed to calm down a little bit around here!

We are getting into a groove and I am finally not forgetting everything because I am so out of whack.  Kind of sad that it took me a month to get to that point though.

Noisy Man and Miss Firecracker got to start AWANA a couple of weeks ago.  It is a program at our church for leading kids to know, love and serve Christ.  So, every Sunday night they get to hang out at church, play games and memorize Bible verses.  It is such a great program. 

Mommy has play practice just before AWANA starts so I drop them at their classrooms and I have been using that time to go run!  I am absolutely loving this weather.  Miss Thumb Sucker and Daddy get to just hang out during that hour and a half, I think they have fun too.

We also went to Grandpa's house for the weekend and headed up to Nebraska City to pick apples!  We are so very bummed that our local place we usually pick tons of apples from had a bad year and doesn't have any apples to pick.  So, we opted for a smaller version of our annual apple picking fun.  The kids still loved it and we got to meet up with Grandma Susan and Cousin D to pick and ride the hay rack as well. We picked a peck of apples (10 lbs) which is probably just a 10th of what we picked last year.

That night mommy and daddy got to go to the Nebraska football game.  It was the first time we have been to a game since college.  We had a great time with our fabulous friends who invited us to come.  And best of all the Huskers (barely) pulled out a W.  It was a bit hairy at first.  :)  It was also very awesome to go to the game that commemorated the 10th anniversary of September 11th since daddy and I were at the game the Thursday following the attacks in 2001.  Very emotional.  The alumni band even played some of the same songs it played that very night.  I remember being in tears back then, and it, again, brought tears to my eyes this time. 

Noisy Man and Miss Firecracker's school had homecoming last weekend, on what seemed to be the coldest day of the season so far.  We went to the festivities, games and supper that the school holds before the game.  Mommy had to help out with the PTO booths.  The kids had fun playing games and winning silly prizes and best of all getting all sticky with the gourmet lollipops.  We opted to skip the actual football game and just went over to our friend's place to roast some smores and let the kids play.

This past week has been pretty uneventful, other than an awesome turnout at our first MOPS meeting and some potty training for Miss Thumb Sucker.  She did great the first week other than a few accidents, had a couple of rough days in the middle and is doing great again today. 

One rough moment that is quite memorable happened when I was expecting some MOPS moms over for some help assembling name tags and centerpieces.  Miss TS and I were in the basement to get some things out of the printer when I to run back upstairs to send another project to the printer via the laptop which had a dead battery (thus was plugged in upstairs).  Of course, it took me a bit longer than I planned and in the process of sending it one of the moms and her daughter came to the door.  Upon hearing people at the door Miss TS came to the bottom of the stairs which can be viewed from the entryway of our house.  Well, we see Miss TS at the bottom of the stairs, covered in poo.  Oh dear!  It was quite the ordeal.  There was no just cleaning this one up.  It was a throw the clothes in the wash, throw the toddler in the bath type of mess.  I am so thankful that the mom who came is also in the throws of potty training and flowed with the punches!  Oh the fun!

And I will end there.....

Corrupted

Time for another book blog.

My most recent read was "The Corruptible" by Mark Mynheir.  I am struggling with where to place my review on this one. 

I really liked the plot.  A cop, Ray Quinn, is forced to retire due to an on-the-job injury that ends his career.  He then starts up his own private investigation business.  He receives a case with a paycheck his new business desperately needs, but seems to be quite shady.  A high level investment company has lost some valuable information, expected to have left their building via a dirty ex-cop hired to work security.  Ray is hired to find the other ex-cop, one he had worked with when they were both on the force. 

Before Ray can really begin his investigation, the dirty ex-cop, Logan, ends up dead and the information completely vanished.  Thankfully, Ray still has great ties with old police force and works alongside them to solve Logan's murder and try to find the satchel which carries the drive containing the valuable information. 

In the midst of his digging, Ray discovers the company he is working for, isn't exactly straightforward with their dealings and the information that is missing is more valuable than just confidential client information. 

The thing that really bugged me about this book was the fact that the author had Ray chasing Logan's dirty past more than what was really going on with the company.  To me, it was quite obvious that the missing satchel wasn't taken by someone tied to Logan's history, but to the current company from which it was taken.  So, much of the run around in the middle of the book annoyed me.  However, I never saw the ending turning out the way that it did, so I give the author kudos for that creative twist.

Overall, I'd give the book about an 8 out of 10.  It kept me reading and wanting to find out the ending.  Plus, it had a great message through another character involved with Ray and his firm. 

I received this book for free from Waterbrook/Multnomah publishers for my review.

State of the Family #41

So much going on.  So little time.  Here is where I get myself into trouble.  I go too long in between my posts and then I totally forget about everything we did in that time span.

There was school starting, of course, and Noisy Man got his own special post on how mommy had such a hard time letting him go.  He is still loving it, thankfully.  And mommy is adjusting to having him gone everyday.  I said "adjusting" not "liking it".  He loves getting to take his own lunch every now and then, running on the track, and reading.  It drives mommy nuts that he never remembers the names of the kids he plays with during the day, so I am clueless as to who is getting to play with my boy while I can't.

Poor Miss Firecracker didn't get her own post for her first day of preschool... sorry about that.  Mommy, again, cried, but at least made it out of the building before starting the waterworks.  Well, I can't really say that.  I first shed the tears on the way to the school, but collected myself and then kept them in until I walked away.  She was so ready to go, when I picked her up to give her one last hug goodbye she yelled at me to put her down.  I also cried when I went to pick her up.  I dropped her off my baby girl and when she came running out of her classroom after a morning of preschool, she looked so big.  I shed a few quiet tears as she ran towards me and gave me a big hug.

I thought Miss Thumb Sucker would be lost without her two older siblings around for 4 mornings per week, but she has barely missed them.  I think she is loving having reign of the house and not having someone bossing her around all the time.  I was a little worried that she wouldn't play by herself very well if there were times I needed to be getting things done, but I was wrong once again.  She is probably the best of the 3 of them at playing by herself.  Probably because she never really gets to and loves not having someone take her toys!

Other than school busyness and adjusting to those schedules we really haven't been up to too much.  Daddy tried to go on another fishing trip, but the trouble maker he is, got kicked off the lake after 2 days.  Seriously.  This poor guy rarely ever takes time to himself and when he finally does and plans a nice 4 day fishing trip, he gets sent home.  OK, so it was really due to toxic blue green algae levels being so high that they closed the lake to all activities, something rarely ever done, but it sounds better if I say he got kicked out.  They were actually having good luck too. 

Mommy and Daddy have been having some great times without the kids lately, which is rare.  We got to go to the Casting Crowns concert in Lincoln with some good friends, and for a fun weekend away with some other good friends.  Both were a lot of fun. 

Our weekend away was to Kansas City where we 'scoped' out the new Schlitterbahn's water park with Daddy's childhood best friend and his wife.  We told the kiddos we were checking to see if it was a good place for them to go or not (thankfully, they bought it).  We had a blast even though it was a chilly 78 degrees with a cool north breeze.  And who knew you could burn to a crisp while you were freezing.  Most of us came home with pretty good sunburns. 

Daddy and I are convinced we are jinxed when it comes to hotels though.  After our catastrophes on our last hotel stays, we had another couple set backs this time too.  The hot tub was only lukewarm which was majorly disappointing after you'd been freezing cold all day and we didn't have any hot water in our shower in our room.  We had to go to another room to shower.  Seriously, if you ever go anywhere with us, don't let us book the hotel room.  Something is bound to go wrong. :)




We are looking forward to a fun weekend full of apple picking and Husker football!!

Kindergarten Crying

So, I survived the first day of Kindergarten and, so far, half way through the 2nd. 

As expected, Noisy Man was very excited to go and not hesitant in the least to enter into his Kindergarten classroom, even though mommy wanted to hold on to him just a bit longer.  I did great all morning.  We drove him to school the first day, so that allowed us to sleep in just a bit.  Got him up and ate a good breakfast, got dressed and then he sat and watched about 20 minutes of a cartoons while the rest of us got ready.  We headed down the road to Kindergarten (I totally just about typed preschool). 

Noisy Man and his teacher

Mommy made it all the way up to giving him a hug and a kiss goodbye until I started crying.  I tried so hard to hold it back so that he wouldn't see me, but I just couldn't do it.  He looked at me kinda funny, like "Why in the world are you crying, mother?"  But then just walked on into his classroom.

I stood at the door and watched, crying of course.   His classroom para came walking in and I asked her, "You said you would handle their tears if they cried, but who will handle mine?"  She gave me a sweet hug and stood and talked with us for a bit.  I was surprised daddy didn't out right laugh at me, although he did have a smirky little smile on his face, he just kept saying, "He'll be just fine, Mommy."  His teacher, Mrs. L, came over and chatted with us and reassured me for a short while as well until I figured I  had better move on and not blubber at his door all day.

Mommy and her big boy on his first day

Walking out of the school I got a few sympathetic looks from other teachers and such and his old preschool teacher saw us coming and said, "Most of the time I would give Miss Firecracker a hug hello, but it looks like Mommy could use a hug more today."  So, I got another sweet hug from Miss L. and a couple of tissues and finally made it out the door of the school, no longer weeping.  That lasted until daddy started telling me I would be OK and he would have fun and I cried all over again.

We were home all of 15 minutes before Miss Thumb Sucker is wandering the house saying, "Where Noisy Man?  Where he go?"  And the tears came again.

2nd day of Kindergarten, first day riding the bus there

I made it through, and was very thankful his day ended at 1:20.  We went and picked him up with a huge smile on every one's faces.  He had a very fun day, loved the lunch and everything they had done.  We sat and colored together while his sister's slept.

Today I sent him off on the bus and got all teary-eyed again as he waved good bye to me through his bus seat window.  He won't be home until after 4 today.  Man, I miss that kid!

Yesterday was also Mommy and Daddy's 8 year anniversary

State of the Family #40

Whew!  Things have been busy around here.  I can't believe school starts in 2 days!  Be prepared for this mama to be an absolute mess!  Where did the summer go?  Where did my baby boy go?  On a positive note, after Miss Firecracker starts school in 1 week I might have more time to blog with only one at home in the mornings!  I also have to apologize that none of the pictures actually go with anything I blogged on.  Evidently I was a terrible picture-taker these last couple of weeks (which is not like me at all!)

Our Veggies for dinner one night... ALL out of our garden!

So, in the past few weeks Mommy has probably been the busiest.  Yeah!  I do have a life outside of my home!  I was beginning to wonder after this summer with trying to get in as much time with my munchkins as possible before they grow up and go to school.  The last two weekends I have had a lot of mommy time. 

The last weekend in July I got to go to an acting workshop held at our church.  It was a lot of fun to learn some breathing techniques (that I knew about from singing, but had not ever really learned some of the exercises to get better at them and to use them for speaking as well) and character development things.  The 2nd day was a lot of fun doing short scenes from plays we didn't know in a "Reader's Theater" format.  Then we all gave praises and points of improvement comments to each of the groups.  I got to 'fight it out' once again with my 'hubby' from the Christmas musical last year. 

All the girls have matching toes (please don't mine mommy's 'not so cute feet'! 
Actually a first for Miss T.S. since she was really little.

The next weekend was my biannual scrap booking time.  Yeah!  As usual, I didn't get as much done as I would have hoped, but it was great fun, nonetheless.  I get to see people that I usually only see at these events, so it is lots of catch up and chat time.  I also teach a few of the classes at the event, so that adds to my 'excuse' list. 

I also participated in my first (as well as Lincoln's first) Quarter Auction.  I was there as a vendor with my Pampered Chef business.  It was such a good time.  "What is a quarter auction?" you ask.  Each vendor at the event had 3 items they placed up for 'auction' and every guest at the auction sat at a table with a vendor and had a bidders number.  One at a time, a vendor would go up and auction off their item.  If the item was worth $20-$40 it would cost you 3 quarters to 'bid' on it (other items worth more or less would cost a differnt amount of quarters to bid on).  If you wanted to bid on that item, you would put your 3 quarters into the bucket at your table.  You would raise your bidding number and they would draw out a number until someone with the drawn number had bid on that specific item.  The winning bidder would have to whoop and holler so that they knew to stop drawing numbers.  It really was a blast!  I won a Miche purse with 2 shells (worth $80 something) for $2 (It was a 4 quarter bid and I bid 2 numbers on it).  Let me know if you want to come to the next one in October!!

Trying to walk around in the highest pair of
heels mommy owns!  She thinks she is pretty hot stuff.

As for the rest of the family...

I took the kids to Paint Yourself Silly in Lincoln for the first time.  They had so much fun and totally loved going to pick up their finished item the other day.  For those of you who have never heard of this place, it is a store where you get to go paint your own pottery.  The older two did coffee mugs, which will be great Christmas gifts for some coffee-drinking Grandpas (shhhh!), and Miss Thumb Sucker, who enjoyed the painting part for about 5 minutes before she was ready to ransack the place (I will probably wait until she is a bit older to take her again), painted a little square dish that will be a great ring holder or something similar for a Grandma (again, shhh!). 

Noisy Man and Miss Firecracker finished their last swimming lessons.  I am so amazed at how far they came.  Like I said in the first post after their first lessons, it is not for the faint of heart.  But that only lasts the first couple of lessons because they learn what they need to pretty quickly.  I highly recommend these lessons if you have a child that seems to show 'no fear' of the water and you want to teach them how to be safe.  By their last lessons Noisy Man was able to jump off the diving board and swim back to the side completely by himself and Miss Firecracker can float on her back for an entire minute and swim on her tummy over 10 feet.  I am thinking of signing Miss Thumb Sucker up for these lessons this fall. 

Miss T. S. has been waking up around 6:30 every morning, so around 11:30, while I
 am making lunch, she usually crashes on the couch or the floor.  Neither of my other two
would ever fall asleep anywhere but their beds, so this cracks me up.

We also had the open house for our school and ice cream sundae bar for a fundraiser for the PTO this last week.  It was fun to see Noisy Man and Miss Firecracker's classrooms.  Daddy tells me that they got to Miss Firecracker's preschool room door and she walked in, turned around and said, "See ya, daddy."  Yikes!  I don't know what will be harder... peeling one off of your leg and leaving them crying (like I had to do for Noisy Man his first weeks of preschool) or just having them brush you off so quickly!  I am so glad Kindergarten and preschool start on different days or I'm not sure I would be able to function the rest of the day.  Have I mentioned I am not ready to send my baby to Kindergarten?   Daddy had to tell me what she said because I was busy with the ice cream, which turned out to be a huge success.  We ran out of ice cream!

Well, that is about it for now.  I am hoping to post on Tuesday about Kindergarten so I have a record of it on here.  It would be a fun one to go back and read the day he graduates High School.  Did I just say that?  Oh, I can't even imagine.... One year at a time, please.