Testing, testing, 1 - 2 - 3 - 4

Just making sure this little spot on the blog-o-sphere still exists.  Phillip and I are going on a mission trip to Haiti and I plan to share our experiences here.  For now I have to soak up all the time I can with my 'circus'!

New Territory

Mara: Mom, can you buy me some perfume?

Me: Why do you want perfume?

Her: Because perfume makes boys come around you.

Me: (After choking on my coffee.) Do you want boys to come around you?

Her: Yes.

Me: Why?

Her: So I can get a boyfriend.

Me: (After being revived from cardiac arrest.) Why do you want a boyfriend?

Her: So we can fall in love, get married, and have kids. I want to manage my own family when I grow up. (She really used those words.)

Oh. Sweet. Mercy.

I do believe I have a tween on my hands. That makes my blood pressure go up, my palms sweaty, and my prayer life more active than ever before.

I want so desperately to teach her that beauty comes from inside, and that nothing is more beautiful than a girl running after God with everything she is. And the world will contradict both of those definitions of beauty.

Lord, help me protect, teach, love, discipline, and raise up these young women. I'm feeling overwhelmed right now and honestly down right scared. Lord, thank you for loving my girls more than I do. Please protect and raise up Godly husbands for each of them.

Mercy, I need some more coffee!

What we've been up to...in pictures. Part 2

The first part of 2011 is mostly a blur of sleepless nights and falling more in love with this little booger during every one of those sleepless nights.
Emily Elizabeth turned 6.
Celebrating Em's birthday at the pottery place.
Easter egg hunt at Nana and Papa's.
One of Mara Lin's writings was published in a county wide publication.
And she got to read her story for the whole school at arts night.
We dedicated Ruthie Carolyn.
The cicadas invaded.
We celebrated our family's 10th birthday (our anniversary).
Becca Sue graduated preschool and is Kindergarten bound. *sniff sniff*
I completed my first 5K!
Becca and Mara performed their ballet recital.

My three big girls (the original Three Girl Circus!) with Mrs. Sharon, their ballet teacher.
Vacationed on the beaches of Saint George Island.
The boy turned 2.
Oh what a mess he is!
Whew, and now I'm caught up. So much is happening in the next month, it makes my head spin. On the to do list is to blog while the memories are fresh though.

What we've been up to...in pictures.

Looking back now, I can see why the last year has flown by....we were a little busy!

Rewind nine months with me, will you?

Here are my four (number 5 was still cooking) at the pumpkin patch the first weekend it was open.
Trick or treating with friends.
We joined a new church and are enjoying getting to know some new friends, some old friends better, and learning lots about how to be the body of Christ. Here's Emily at the Sending Kids Jr. event where families did mission projects together around Smyrna.
We dedicated Samuel John.
I had lots of help cooking for Thanksgiving.
Ruthie Carolyn made my blog name obsolete on December 13th.
But we are all so in love with her that all is forgiven!
I just had to include this random next picture. This is Ruthie and I heading home from the hospital. The nurse carrying her is one of my clarinet students from 1998...small world!
Ruthie and I got home on Mara Lin's 7th birthday.

Celebrating my big girl's birthday at Build-a-Bear.
And five gorgeous boogers on Christmas Eve.
So that catches me up to 2011. Up next is what we've been up to this year so far!

Eight Months

Has it really been that long since I've blogged? Wow whee, where does time go?

This is my attempt at getting back in it....not that I have any readers left anyway! I just spent the last two hours reading old blog posts and I'm sad that I don't have memories from the last eight months written down while they were still fresh. I'm going to do my best to fix that.

I'm planning two or three big "what have we been doing" posts to catch up on the last eight months, and then my goal is to post once a week. And I guess I need to start with a new header and probably a new blog name since Miss Ruthie has made this house a four girl circus...and the little monkey is not so little but still very much a monkey!

I've missed my little space here in the blogosphere and can't wait to get back!

Becca's 4th Birthday

I love, love, love birthdays! Love birthdays of the people I love and even love my own birthday. Becca Sue's birthday was on a Saturday this year, and it was so much fun to celebrate it ALL day.

We had a party at the local donut shop that morning. Here's Becca with her BFF...I love the relationship these two have that she doesn't mind that he helps her blow her candles out. Dawson can help but her sisters better not even breathe anywhere near her candles!
Sam found friends with the Warta boys and was entertained all morning. They're teaching him how cool it is to be a boy!
This is her blowing another candle out after our lunch that day...or rather with her eyes closed wishing before blowing it out.
Ok, who gave the boy a cupcake? He's such a mess and so proud of it!
And the birthday girl lounging while we sing to her yet again at supper!
Becca Sue, You are such a big girl. We have had so many changes in your little world over the last six months and you have just gone with the flow...evidence that you are still the easy going little girl I first met four years ago...underneath the stubborn exterior of course! You're still the best surprise God has ever given me. Love you so much...Happy #4 Becca Boo!

Pumpkin Farm Trip

We love the local pumpkin farm here. This year it was huge. They did have a large area of overpriced activities, but still had a large enough area of free and reasonably priced activities too.

Here are the girls trying to negotiate the hay mountain.
...and success!
Say cheese Emily.
Mara coming down the huge slide.
Emily on the tire swing.
Emily and Sam on the huge teeter totter.
Sam hanging on for dear life in the slippery straw.
And getting help from big sis to figure out the rope maze.
Hmmm, don't get lost in the corn maze big boy!
"Sam, blow Mommy a kiss." Love it!

Emily and Becca playing peacefully in the sand. It really is a rare occourrance....these two can argue like pros.
I did unbelievably well letting them get dirty.
All four next to the huge pumpkin.
And now the boy doing what he does best...getting dirty and making a mess.

And finally picking out pumpkins. I think this is my favorite picture of the day.