4th picture from 4th folder

Well, here is my fourth picture from my fourth folder - - Christmas 2004! It's amazing how many changes can occur in four short years. In this picture Brendan was 7 1/2, Grace was 2 1/2, and Anna was only 9 months old. We were back in our other place, with our orange walls and scrawny Chrismtas tree (which we gave to Cub and Rachel - sorry for calling it scrawny!). I can totally see Sarah when looking at Anna - they really do look a lot alike! I am so glad for this Christmas season and for all the previous ones that we have enjoyed. I am looking forward to many many more in the future as well!

Amazing Lady, Amazing Grandma

I was very sad to hear the news that last night my Grandma Webster passed away. I started thinking back about all the influence she has had on my life. She was such a wonderful example to me and I really do wish I could be more like her. I never heard her raise her voice and she always had something nice to say about everybody. Grandma had a way about her to get her point across without making me feel bad about any decision I had made. She loved to hear everything I had to say and was always willing to listen to any new piano piece or little bit of news I had.

It didn't matter what was going on - Grandma was always there. She was part of every important event in my life, and always had something to contribute to that. I love the blankets she made for me, and the blessing outfits that she made for my children. I am grateful for the tangible evidence she left me of her love for me.

I am so grateful that my children had the opportunity to know her. I know that she was excited to see her mother again - it has been about 37 years since her own mother passed away. All I have to do is think about my own mother and I get a very small glimpse at how much she missed her! I feel very blessed to have been born into such a wonderful family with such strong, amazing women to model my life after. I love you so much Grandma! I will miss you, but I am so grateful to know that we will be together again one day.

Onward, ever onward......

As many of you may know, Rebecca loves to sing. Actually all my girls love to sing, but Rebecca has been singing since before she could talk. She would carry the tune of just about any song, not really caring about the words. Well, this morning her song of the day was "Called to Serve". Her favorite part of the song is the chorus where it sings, "Onward, ever onward as we glory in his name" which she just repeated all morning. I was glad she was happy and actually took the words to heart after having such a crazy evening the night before. It all started last week when I took the kids into the eye doctor to have their eyes checked. Anna had been tested at her preschool and they suggested following up with her eye doctor as she had failed their little exam there. I expected that we might have to get glasses for her, because when she was checked out 18 months ago, the doctor said because of the shape of her eye, she probably would need glasses in the future. So no surprise at all when lo and behold, Anna did need glasses. I was a bit taken aback at her prescription which was worse than mine - and that is pretty bad! My next surprise was that Rebecca needed glasses too!! So, $400 later, we had two new pairs of glasses on order. Yesterday the office called and said their glasses were ready, so we bundled everybody up and went to get their new glasses. I tried to get them very excited about them because I wanted them to be excited to wear them. They were both very excited and couldn't wait for their dad to get home so they could show him. Both girls had a bit of trouble at first with the glasses as the prescription is so strong it will take a bit for them to let their eyes relax and let the glasses do the work. My next surprise was 2 hours after we got home..... Rebecca came upstairs with the leg of her glasses sticking straight out from her head! She said they hurt her ear, so she moved it..... BIG TIME!! She had totally broken the hinge and twisted it at a crazy angle. Who knew a 3 year old was that strong!! I had to go back to the office this morning and thankfully there is a warranty and they ordered another leg for her glasses in and hopefully it will be in tomorrow. I hope she will get used to them soon - I don't know how long that warranty will last!! Needless to say, I guess my new song is: "Onward, ever onward!"

Finally Floyd Free!!!!

Matt was asked by a friend of his (Floyd) to be the executor of his will about a year ago. Matt being the nice guy he is said yes and didn't think much more about it. Well, in January of this year, Floyd went and died, and we haven't been able to get him out of our house / garage / mailbox since then. Matt had to clean out this guy's apartment and everything in it got moved to our garage. We had to go through all his papers and see what needed to be kept or what could be thrown away. Most of it was garbage, but occasionally we would come across something important tucked in between some totally random papers. Anyway, our garage is still totally filled with his stuff (junk!) and our bedroom had a bunch of stuff in it too as we were going through boxes there too. Well, enough is enough and I told Matt I wanted our bedroom back to just us. It's pretty bad when you have someones cremated remains sitting on your dresser for 9 months - I was not at all sad to see that go! Matt had his remains buried in his church's memory garden on Sunday and since Matt had the day off on Monday, we rearranged our bedroom and got rid of everything that shouldn't be in our room. I am so so so happy to be in my Floyd Free Bedroom!!!
p.s. If someone asks you to be the executor of a will, unless it is a close relative that you have a good relationship with, RUN!!!

"O" is for......

I really do love my kids!! They keep me laughing (and sometimes crying) everyday. Today at the breakfast table the girls were saying what each letter of the alphabet is "for". For example: "A" is for Anna, "G" is for Grace, "K" is for Karen (we are babysitting her for the weekend), etc, etc. All of a sudden Anna comes up with "O" is for Oh forget it! I tried so hard not to laugh, but I had to leave the room when her next one was: and "O" is for Oh Geez! What a nut that kid is....... gotta love it!!

What was your favorite part of the day?

We have started something new at our dinner table over the last few months. To try and keep the natives happy and quiet, I have started asking the kids "What was your favorite part of the day?" It gets them thinking about something happy and positive to share with the rest of the family and then Matt gets to hear some of the things they have already told me about their day. It has become a favorite thing to do, and the kids remind me if we miss it - - they really do love sharing their thoughts and feelings about their day! Anyway - I have to share Brendan's favorite part of today. Once a month the kids get a hot lunch (we have to pay for it of course) and today it was from KFC (sometimes Pizza Hut or Hot Dogs, etc.). Brendan said his favorite part of the day was having lunch from KFC. Matt asked him what KFC was - and it was quite funny to see him stop and think about it, and think about it..........and think some more. He finally said, "It means King's Famous Chicken." LOL!!! That just became my new favorite part of MY day!! Wait, wait..... it gets even better. To top things off - Brendan could see how funny I thought it was and his very next statement was: "You are going to tell everybody about this aren't you?" Oh, how well does my son know me!! Of course I have to tell everybody - that is just what mom's do!!!

I have to share another funny thing that happened yesterday too. Rebecca came upstairs crying her eyes out and I asked her what was wrong. She told me that Anna had hurt her nose. She appeared to be fine, and after a cuddle she was fine and off playing again (not next to Anna this time though!). Before I could get the chance to go and find Anna and talk to her about this, Anna comes up the stairs and asks, "Did Rebecca tell on me?" I told her that Rebecca said she had hurt her nose, but Anna just looks at me and says, "No I didn't, I just punched her in the eye!" OK, it's really hard to not laugh at your kids sometimes, but especially when you don't want them to see you laughing because it really shouldn't be funny, but holy smokes, what else can you do sometimes!! I managed to keep control and sent Anna to the time out chair - in our house - if you hit, you sit! So Anna heads over there and says, "How come I have to be here, this isn't fair!" Maybe next time she won't punch her sister in the eye........... maybe........... : )

Alright, already!!

I know, I know.... I am a really bad blogger. Story of my life these days. I don't even know where to start to try and catch up!! These last few months have been really crazy and I don't know where I put my emergency brake, so we have been barrelling down the racetrack of life at breakneck speeds. We are well into the school year for my kids - their first report cards are coming out in two days. How the heck did that happen? It's hard to believe that it is past the middle of November and Christmas is right around the corner.

One really fun thing I did this month was take a little vacation with my husband!! Matt took a week off work and we were able to go to my mom and dad's for Roger's homecoming on the 9th and then spend a couple of days just hanging out with them. My mom and dad agreed to keep our kids overnight and I finagled a pass to a bed and breakfast from my sister Melissa and so I stole my husband away for a night. We were able to go out for dinner and then we went Christmas shopping for our kids. I am so excited that we got all our shopping done together, and in one trip! The best part is that we were able to keep it all down at mom and dad's house. Nobody is going to find Santa's presents this year!! The bed and breakfast we stayed at was awesome. The scenery was beautiful, the hosts were great, the food was amazing and the room was well used : ) : ) : ) !!! It really was nice to have some time to ourselves without any telephones, TVs or crying kids!!

My sister Mary Lou was able to get some awesome pictures of my kids while we were down in Mountain View too. I am very excited to get some ordered and up on my wall. Thanks again!!!

Well, hopefully this will satisfy my audience's craving for posts from me..... and hopefully it won't be so long in between again!!