Puzzles

We love puzzles around here! We have been able to pull out our big 1000 piece puzzles since we moved because we have a place to leave them set up. It has been fun to work on them again. The last time Joey and I did them was in our first year and a half of marriage! :O The kids have also been working on their own puzzles.

Josiah has proven himself to be quite the puzzle genius!

Katie Jo does fairly well, but she doesn't last long. :) This is her newest puzzle.

Eli brings in smaller puzzles to work on at the same table because he makes pieces fit. LOL  This is his newest puzzle that he worked on with Dad. :)

When we started doing the puzzles, we knew there was one with a piece a missing. I was pretty sure I remembered which one, so we started with the other one. Then, we moved on to the one with the missing piece. Joey said we would throw it away once we were done. Then, we finished; and I couldn't bring myself to throw it away. The missing piece...

It is so much like our lives! We have a missing piece.

The puzzle looks perfect and then you notice the missing piece.

The missing piece is physically absent (sometimes barely noticable), but the colors that are within the missing piece still run throughout the puzzle! The puzzle needs every piece to look whole, but you can almost picture it there because the colors run thru the rest of the puzzle.

Janie Beth is our missing puzzle piece. (Represented by her pink lamb. :))

She isn't physically here, but her presence it still here.

Her colors run through the rest of our puzzle because without her our lives wouldn't be the same! Her colors are present in the rest of our lives!



Lolly

We have a special guest at our house this month. (And the kids have asked that she continue to visit after Christmas is over. :)) Her name is Lolly. Yes, my children named her. The first suggestion as Golly, so Lolly is good! She is our Christmas Angel. (You can find out more about them here.) 

First off I must say a HUGE THANK YOU to my awesome Aunt Tricia for giving us Lolly!!!!!

Each night I set Lolly up with a message of how we will give the next day. She has truly blessed our family! We have enjoyed focusing on others this Christmas season. The angels are God's messengers, and we are too, so we are trying to spread Jesus by the messages of our actions. I have made it my goal to really focus on Jesus and giving this year. Lolly has helped us to do that. We are also doing The Jesse Advent Tree. (Hopefully, next year we don't move at this time of year and I can plan better!) I pray that seeds of Jesus are being planted in my children's hearts as we seek to share Him with others.

Here are some pictures of Lolly and her messages that we have received so far...
Our first day we read her story and just talked about her and focusing on Jesus and getting excited about His birth.

 We made cards to share our thanks with our teachers at church.

 Sadly, we haven't actually accomplished this, but it is in the plans for this Thurs or Fri!

 Lolly hid in the tree! :)

 Here is her message. (We decorated a little tree for Grandaddy.)

 We wrapped 8 presents to go under Grandaddy's tree; one for each day starting Dec. 18 thru Christmas Morning.

Sunday Lolly had to rest because Mommy and the 2 youngest children were up almost all night! But, the 2 oldest and Mommy dropped off the tree and presents at Grandaddy's door and ran. (He somehow figured out it was us!)

I have to say that I am very proud of the kids for going through their toys and picking out like new things to give to children that lost everything in the tornadoes in April!!!

 We will be sharing our smiles at home tomorrow, and out and about as we drop off the toys and go visit Grandaddy since he was upset we ran and didn't stay. :)

I look forward to Lolly continuing to visit throughout the year some, and especially next December! I am thinking she will be around once a week throughout the rest of the year, but Mommy won't tell which day. :)

I pray that God will use Lolly to bring us closer to Him and make giving and thanks part of our lifestyle, being Jesus to those around us.

80, House Mom, Leaves

80!!!! That, my friends, is how many days of school we have accomplished!!!! Woo Hoo!!! Our goal is to get to 100 before we take off for Christmas.We finish up our school year with 140-160 days. It just doesn't take as long to accomplish everything at home. :) I hope to be done before baby gets here, and then we will take off until June or so and start next year up.

When I am done doing a few other things, I plan on getting together a Thanksgiving "unit" for the next week and a half. I also hope to start on our Christmas unit. We are doing Thankful Trees right now. Each family member has their own tree and they write things on pieces of paper (leaves) that they are thankful for and then glue them on their tree. It has been fun. I am planning on doing a Christmas Thankful Tree as well and we will write our thankful things on pieces of paper that will be ornaments.

Josiah is doing really well with his reading!! He is reading through a book about Red Foxes right now and he is really enjoying it. Math is still his strong subject, and he is breezing through it.

Katie Jo is getting better with reading. I will admit that many days I want to pull my hair out! If someone else would teach them to read, then I would take over from there. Haha!! She is doing really well with math as well. Her favorite thing is to craft. She comes up with her own masterpieces. :)

I was hoping to start drawing in Jan, but I'm not sure I will be able to get the supplies, so it may be summer before we get to that. And that is OK!!! We have slacked off on science the last couple of months. We did a little study with Chemistry, and I hope to do a butterfly garden in the spring. We will be doing history with Thanksgiving and Christmas. We will also be doing history after Christmas when we jump into "Samantha, An American Girl". I need to get started planning all that!!!

Eli is just doing his thing. LOL I'm not worried about him. He is picking up bits and pieces as he listens to the others.

We have started focusing on a verse a week to work on as a family. We started with Deuteronomy 6:4-5, then Proverbs 3:5-6, and this week we are doing 1 Thessalonians 5:17-18. I love sitting at the breakfast table going over the verses and discussing them. We started our scripture memorization with Psalm 23, and each morning we discussed a part of a verse.

I love being able to spend the day with my kids!!!!

Katie Jo came in the kitchen the other day and said she liked house moms. I asked her what that was. She said it is a mom that stays home and takes care of her kids and house. :) And she said she was glad that I was a house mom! Me too!!! If you ask me what my job is, then I will gladly tell you, "I am a house mom." :)

We have enjoyed the leaves falling! The kids have jumped in them a few times already, and hopefully we will get a few more jumps in before they are all shredded up. LOL I love when the wind blows and it looks as though it is raining leaves. What a wonderful work God has made!!!

Sorry for them being blurry! I usually do better at action shots, but they were just too fast for me that day. :)

Pigtail Girls!!!

It amazes me just how much hair Katie Jo had at a year old!!! The last pictures was when she was just over a year! Gotta love Joy Schelle's hair in the first pic! She pulled her ponytail out.

Water

It is a nice Saturday and the door bell rings... Our neighbor was nice enough to come and tell us that there was water shooting out of our front yard! Last year this happened and the utility company just put a temporary fix on it and said they would be back in a couple weeks to finish. Well, they never came! The temporary fix wasn't fixing the problem anymore. We gave them a call and they came out eventually and fixed it up. Meanwhile, while we waited 2 more folks stopped to tell us about the water spraying out of our front yard and the kids had fun in the free sprinkler!!! They got to play in water twice Saturday because we played in the rain that morning before the thunder came. :) Here are some pics, but they aren't that good because they were taken on my phone. Our camera will be mailed in this week, hopefully, and prayerfully they will fix it!!

 Joey moved his car out of the way.

 The gutter pool!!!! LOL

Long Lost Picture

Yesterday I was pulling up the internet to let Josiah play on pbskids.org, and Eli saw a long lost picture we didn't know was lost!

I had a blog up that I wanted to write some things from and this picture was on it.

He exclaimed, "Is that Daddy a long time ago when he was a girl"? LOL!!!!!


The night before we were at dinner and Eli said the blessing. These are his words, "God, please let this food go somewhere. Amen"

A bit later at dinner that night I was singing that God has a plan for us. Joey says I wish He would show us. To which Eli replies, "but He isn't". HA!

What would we do without Eli!?!

New Orleans Trip

Our mini vacation to New Orleans was a nice little get away, but I stayed glued to my computer for updates on everything going on at home in AL. I was texting my family to keep them updated on what all was open or happening.

So, we left Thursday the 28th. We got to Birmingham without any problems, but then it took us close to 3 hours to get out of there. Mostly due to traffic, but we also stopped for lunch and at Wal-Mart. We chose to go the long way through Mobile since Tuscaloosa was hit so hard. We arrived on the New Orleans Baptist Seminary campus between midnight and 1. We piled into the apartment and got everyone in the bed. The kids were in a room with 2 single beds, so one of them slept on a pallet each night. (I should have taken a picture!) I have to say they road incredibly well!!! The DVD player wouldn't work so they spent the entire trip looking out the window, playing leapsters, or just hanging. I am very proud!

Friday Joey met with the seminary president. It was a quick meeting because Dr. Kelley's previous meeting ran over, but only the Lord knows what may have come out of it! We were going to go to the French Quarter that afternoon, but Eli decided to throw-up. Isn't that how things go!! LOL We hung out in the apartment and took a walk and played on the playground. I just have to say that the campus of the Seminary is BEAUTIFUL!!!! I could sit and stare out our window all day! And I just about did. :) Eli seemed fine and was able to eat, so we did go out to eat that evening. Then, we went on a trech to find a cord to hook up the DVD play to the TV. (It would play the movies but wouldn't show the picture.)

Our Room

The view out our living room window

 Adjusting fine to sleeping there. She looked so snuggly and she has her hand in the blanket because she pulled it up some more.

 Watching the fountain on campus

 The campus sanctuary

 Going on a walk

 The huge stingy catepillars that are over taking the campus. They were supposedly even worse the week before.

Taking a break as we walk.

 Where we ate dinner. Yummy!

 The view that evening when we got back.

We also had a lovely incident with the van. We were going to leave because Eli seemed fine and go ahead to the French Quarter but the van was making horrible sounds. So, Joey took it across the street to be fixed. We walked over to Church's chicken while we waited. They called and said it was a quick little fix, and thank the Lord we took it then or it would have been much worse. They didn't charge us! Praise the Lord!!

Everyone woke up in a great mood on Saturday, so out we went! We walked the Riverwalk and went in the mall. We went down to Cafe Du Monde. We walked Jackson Square. It was a wonderful day just spent together! God trully blessed our time together and blessed us through others! We watched a movie that night. If I remember correctly we also went on the playground.

I tried to catch the sign for this store as we drove. JOY

 This is what she looked like when we got to the parking lot. Baby in her mouth!

 Watching the boats

 The cruise ship was in the harbor. You get a perspective for how big it is when you see the 18 wheeler beside it!

 Joy was sleeping in the stroller. Wish I had thought to take off my sunglasses!

 Watching a street show

 Cafe Du Monde

 We put some on her lip for a picture. She did get some on my finger.

 The powdered sugar was Yummy!!! LOL

 Joey had just driven the stroller down the steps and this is how she road! LOL

Everyone being statues. (We saw 3 different guys doing this.)

Playground fun....

 Movie Night

Sunday morning Katie Jo thought it was a good time to throw-up. :/ We decided to not go to church in case anyone else started. We had our own little service on the living room floor. We went out on the playground again. That afternoon I was talking to my mom and the power came back on at her house. We are only a few houses down, so we knew it was on at our house too. We decided to head home a day early so the kids and I wouldn't have to kill time while Joey was at his pre-op in B'ham on Monday. We loaded up and headed out. We made it about 10-15 min and stopped for KJ to throw-up. Woo Hoo, here we go, I thought. And I was also crying because we were leaving. It was so pretty there and it was time to go back to reality. I really can't explain it.

Our worship service.

 Yes, it is hooked to her ear. LOL

 Worship isn't always serious. Ha ha!

 Joy and I were resting, and we had a couple folks join us. :)

Anyways, it all went well after that incident and we got to Meridan, MS and stopped for dinner. Do you know how hard it is to find bland fast food!?! Yep, KJ threw-up again after dinner, but that was the last time. She was able to eat corn chex without a problem so she just snacked. We got home about 9 or 9:30 that night. Thank you, Mom and Amy for cleaning out our fridge so our house didn't stink!!!! I stuck the diapers in the wash because they had been sitting all those days. It was nice to be home even if it was a mess. :)

I am thankful that we had that time away, but I also wish we had stayed. It would have been a wonderful bonding time as a family and a time to get to know our neighbors. But, the Lord blessed our time away as a family. I still wish we had selective electricity. :)