Our Big News

On Sunday, April 20 Todd and I went in view of a call at Glidewell Baptist Church for youth pastor/worship leader. That night they had the vote and it was a yay! It's a small country church not far from our house. They just hired a new pastor and we love this man and his wife to death. Their very being is all about mentoring, so Todd and I are very excited to sit under them.

We are asking for prayer for Todd as he takes on a ministry he's never done before, worship leader - that he will allow God to direct him in leading a service that is pleasing and honoring to Him and that Todd will grow in this area of leading worship. Then we ask that you pray extra grace for us as the youth group is mostly jr. high students, jr. high girls to be exact. The church is really stepping out in faith, this is the first time they've paid someone to work with their youth. In the past it has been whoever wanted to teach on Sundays and Wednesdays. We are very excited about this opportunity to start a youth group from scratch.

We will also be moving. The church has a parsonage that the pastor and his wife did not take, so we were given the opportunity to move into it.

Happy Birthday To The Greatest Father and Husband

Saturday was my loving, extremely good looking husband's birthday. I won't divulge his age, I'll just say he was 8 when my parents were ushering me into this world. No matter his age he's still a hottie!

Saturday was also the grand opening of a new park, Rutledge-Wilson Farm. The kids and I had visited there on Christmas Eve, but now they have the new play area, it's set up like a barn and silo with things to climb on and many slides coming out of it, quite a child's paradise. They also have the working hen house going. Our children loved to grab the rooster's and chicken's tail feathers through the fence. I was thankful there was a fence, I had flashbacks of my childhood when we had chickens and roosters and there was one particular rooster that liked to chase me until he knocked me down and then would peck me. My dad finally got fed up with it and went to make sure that rooster never did it again. In my dad's haste to do it quickly he grabbed the wrong rooster. After going back for the one and still getting it wrong he decided that he would just make sure there would never be another rooster (or chicken just he was wrong in the gender) who pecked his little girl again. Needless to say we had chicken in our freezer for many a months.

After our fun filled morning at the park we all went home for a nap. Later that evening we had cake, thanks to Jadon (he informed me that we could not have a birthday without cake) and gave daddy the card Jadon and Haven made.

We forgot the stroller for Jude so daddy had to carry him around everywhere. Thank goodness for a strong man!

Girls' Night Out

Last night I had an amazing pampering night with my mother-in-law, aunt, sister-in-law and her mom. Thanks to Cozy seeing the offer in our 417 Magazine we were all able to take advantage of a facial, massage and pedicure for $10.00, yes I said $10.00. There were only 10 lucky ladies that got to be pampered for the night.

My face is glowing and smooth, my back, neck and shoulders feel renewed and my toes are a pretty shade of blue. The only thing that could have made this any better - being able to sleep an extra 4 hours the next morning.

Here's the gang after our evening of bliss, see how nice and glowing our skin is and look at those beautifully painted toes.

All The H's? We Have Them!

Has anyone seen the commercial where it starts out with the letter H missing, one part shows a kindergarten class saying the alphabet and when they get to the letter H it's not there. Everyone knows that H should go there, but it's like it's left. At the end they show why and it's because they've all left to go be on the new Lexus hybrid cars. Well, I have a new theory on where the H's have gone. They're in my daughter's vocabulary.

Almost everything she says starts with and H. I've started working on making the sounds correctly and this is what we now have.

Haven's word for blankie: "hay-hee"

Mommy trying to work with her: "b (the sound of the letter b)-blankie"

Haven's response: "b (the sound of the letter b)-hay-hee"

Haven showing Mema her blankie: "b (the sound of the letter b)-hay-hee"

At least she has the phonics down for the letter B, still can't get her to use it for the actual word.

Another favorite lately has been saying chipmunk. Mema bought the movie Alvin and the Chipmunks (which by the way is very cute, highly recommend it) and we borrowed it. Well, the weekend we borrowed it I think we watched it every time the kids were allowed to watch a movie. I could probably act the whole movie out for you. Which I won't do because I'm a bad actress. Anyway, this is how Haven says Chipmunk, "pih-munk", with the enunciation on the "pih".

Some more Haven vocabulary:
Haff - giraffe
hor-hee - horse
heep - sheep
hink - pink
hass - grass
And see if you can guess what this one means: heen

Playing Patty-Cake

Jude doesn't look quite so distressed in this picture, which is unusual when Haven's the one playing with him.

Yeah for Smiles!

For the past couple of weeks Jude has been smiling and sometimes we can get him to laugh. Todd and I always love this time when we can sit there and make funny faces and sounds and they think we're funny enough to smile or laugh. Some nights we'll sit there trying to make Jude laugh until he finally gets fed up with us and wants to go to bed just to get away from us. One of the things that will make him laugh is playing patty-cake. Jadon and Haven have started getting in on the game too. Jude likes playing with Jadon, but when he sees Haven coming I know his little mind starts thinking of ways he can get out of the situation. She's not so gentle when playing patty-cake and there are just certain ways she thinks his arms and hands should be facing. And honestly, it wouldn't be normal if his arms and hands faced those ways. He may start running before he can crawl just to be able to get away from her. Don't get me wrong she is most of the time very gentle and loving, she's just a rough patty-cake player.

Jude's half smile (I'm still trying to capture that nice, big smile) and some other pictures I wanted to share of him.

Where Do They Get Their Style?

Jadon has started wanting to pick out his clothes for the day. The last 2 months Jadon will wake up and pick out what he is going to wear for the day. We've had conversations about picking pants and shirts that go together. So, here's Jadon wisdom in picking out clothes; as long as they have at least one color the same in both the pants and shirt and the more you can layer the better. This morning he got up and started picking out his clothes.

"Mom, can I wear these (shorts)?"

"Sure." (He's been trying to wear shorts for days and it's still not quite warm enough, but since he'll be inside because of the rain I concede.)

"What about these. They have red in them."

"Yes, they do."

"This shirt has red in them"

"Yes, it does."

"I think they go together."

"I think that looks good. Please go get your socks and shoes on."

"Can I wear these? They have red in them too." (they are black, gray and red slip-on shoes.)

"Yes, I love the clothes you picked out, may I take a picture of you?"

"Sure."

Never in a million years, when thinking of having children, did I ever think I would allow them to wear clothes that didn't match. Today my son is proudly wearing a gray long sleeved shirt with blue and red stripes with red, white and gray plaid shorts, white socks with a gray band around the top and black, gray and red plaid slip-on shoes. Who knows he might just start a new clothing trend.

AWANA Grand Prix

Okay, I'm a little behind in getting this posted. Last Wednesday we had the AWANA Grand Prix race at church. Jadon, since he is in Puggles got to race a car. He has wonderful leaders and they took home a car kit for each of the kids and put them together and then the kids got to paint them. In the past the younger kids only raced matchbox cars. A side note, I appreciate his teachers so much they always go above and beyond what they are supposed to do and because of that Jadon loves his Puggles class.

Jadon's car didn't win any prizes, but he did get a blue ribbon for participating and that made him a winner. We had to leave the race early so we did not get our ribbon until the next day, but I wish I had the camera handy when he was given his ribbon. His face was priceless, he was so proud of himself.

Before the races started Jadon and Haven had fun playing with Gavin and Ethan.

The Shirt Says It All

Wordless Wednesday

Frogs

Haven absolutely loves frogs, actually she loves all animals, but frogs she gets really excited when she sees one. Nana and I went shopping over the weekend and we came across a frog skirt. Of course Nana bought it and Haven was so excited about her frog skirt. She was getting ready to leave to go to Wal-Mart with Daddy and had to wear her new skirt. It was too cold outside to wear just the skirt so we put it over the pants she had on and then she chose to wear her bright pink shoes with it. Doesn't she look cute. She's ready to go Dadda.

Here is a close up of the skirt.