Hip Hip Hooray!

School is back in session!  It's not that I was tired of the kids being at home or anything.  It was just time.  There had been one too many fighting, bored, whiny, tired, irritable (did I say fighting?) kids.  It was either school started or I was going for the duct tape.  One way or another, I was going to get through a day without playing referee.  This was just the day! 

Every year at PCS we take this bench picture.  Titus is our new addition this year.  He is going to preschool, praise God!  If it weren't for the "after 3 kids, the rest are free" rule, I'd be putting on the ol' black and white and my whistle for one more year. 

Elijahboy is a 4th grader this year.  Wow!  He is growing so fast and we are so proud of the young man he is becoming.  Only a couple years before Jr High.

Levi has made it to the 2nd grade where I know his kindness is abounding already.  He is very quick to help his teacher in anything that she asks.  Can I get some of that at home?

Eden is in 1st grade and is a girlie girl indeed who loves all things sparkly.  For her first day of school outfit, she had a sparkly skirt, a sparkly shirt and even sparkly flip flops.  She is quite interested in how she looks...she is only 6 years old for Pete's sake.  We are in for it later on, I tell ya!

Our sweet Tidyboy started preschool this year and can I say that he was all but begging me to go every day.  On the Saturday and Sunday before school started, he got dressed in his first day of school clothes in absolute anticipation of THE day.  He was so cute too.  He had his backpack packed (the only thing that fits in it is his lunchbox) and was rip roarin' and ready to go.

 

He took no time at all to jump in to playing with the other kids in his class.  He kissed me goodbye, I think, and ran off.  Now it's a good thing I am not a cryer or we'd have had a problem he was off so fast.  I am glad for him.  He needed the challenge for so long.  Something to keep him busy was just the ticket and we have one.  He goes 3 full days a week and wants to go all 5.  I am thinking on it.

Well, now that the kiddos are in school, at least most of them are, I am able to get going on the house.  There is much to do.  Sigh.  I will post the starting pictures tomorrow sometime to give you all a baseline of what we are up against.  I will go into more detail about it tomorrow.  For now, congrats to all of you who have your kids back in school once again.  Summer is just the perfect length, isn't it? Ah yes!

I have a few words for you...

"Great Stuff" (if you don't know what it is, google it...)

Dried

Ouch

Happy Birthday!!!

Today is a very special day in our family and I wanted to mark that occasion by shouting a "Happy Birthday" to my brother, John Paul.  He is an old man of 34.  Yes, family, you heard right.  JP is 34 years old today.

Now, more importantly (sorry JP), it is our Micah's birthday.  This precious 2 year old went to bed last night and woke up a fabulous 3 year old.

 I didn't get to wake her up myself due to the crazy sleeping arrangements we have here, but I did get to sing to her and so I officially have to say, "Happy birthday, Micah Joy Joy (as I so lovingly call her).  We all love you so very much."

A little over 3 years ago, I was flailing in my decision of whether I wanted more kids or not.  Tim, I must say, was done at 2 kids, but by done I mean that he only wanted 2 kids but as each additional one "accidentally" came along he found he had a new "favorite."  I always wanted 5 or 6 kids and here we were with 4 beautiful children and I wasn't so sure I wanted another one, so for the time being, we were going to be done. That lasted a whole month when I found out I was pregnant again.  Tim sure is potent for a guy wanting only 2 kids.  ;-)  That's my man!

At any rate, 9 months later we have another beautiful baby to add to the mix.  Here's a quick story many of  you don't know.  We still didn't have a name for her even after she was born because we just couldn't agree on anything.  I wanted Avery or Micah and Tim, as in all pregnancies, wanted Chloe.  We tried to start over and scratch both those names.  We had (trying to stick with the Bible names which, oddly enough I never wanted to do but ended up LOVING the names) Lydia and Phoebe and some other Bible names that I can't remember right now, and then for kicks I threw in Eleanor and Evelyn to complete our pattern of every other kid starting with "E".  I wish I would have done that, by the way.  I am such a symmetrical person that it almost bugs me now...at any rate, I finally said forget it and wrote down Chloe on one piece of paper and Micah on another.  Resigning myself to the fact that she could be called Chloe, I folded the papers up and called my nurse into the room.  I put one paper in each of my hands and said "Pick one".  She did and that's how Micah became Micah.  Yes, I did write Chloe on the other paper.  No, I didn't lift the "Micah" hand any higher or shake it at all to gain a favorable (to me) outcome.  ;-)

3 years later I sit here and say that though I'm still not so sure I want to be done, even after Micah, I am so glad that our "unplanned" baby girl came into the world as God had planned out long ago.  Micah has, in the past months, really come alive and into her own personality.  She is such a spitfire.  I suspect that word just may sum her up, but I'll add more anyway.  She has been a little comedienne since she could crawl, which I never knew was possible, and she is so tenderhearted and compassionate and impish and sassy (usually in a good way, if that's possible) and goofy and at times, as the "baby" of five, she's a bit bossy.  She's always been very talkative and at that, very wordy, and she's girly and tomboyish all at the same time, and boy if she just isn't the culmination of me at various stages in my life, only better.  I anticipate every year with her as I am even now seeing her features mature and her personality take off.  Thank you, God, for placing her in our care. 

Now for a few pictures.  I know only a mother can see the difference in pictures, but here are some of her personalities, the most impish of them not captured...oh well.

I'm so cute and I'm not going to sit still for a picture.  Nanny nanny boo boo.

Let's see, will she get mad if I don't sit still for a picture?

 Maybe, just maybe, if I sit still for a picture, I can go play with the other kids.  I'm thinking on it.

Fine, here is your bloomin' picture.  Take it quick.  The smile won't hold.

For the record, this will be the infamous yearbook photo smile.  Ugh.  At least she isn't showing only her front two teeth like she usually does in forced smiles.  Bucky.

Happy Birthday, honey.

Flood Aftermath

I know this is late, but I have been busy.  Here are the pictures from after the great flood.  I don't know that the pictures really show how crazy things were, but they do give a fairly good idea, if nothing else.  Phil and Shelley, I guess these are for you.  Can you imagine?

For those who don't know, this is the end of the lane and as you can see the road is now in the lane.  That ridge in the lane must have been at least a foot high.

It is endlessly amazing to me the power of water!  These are several inches deep and wide.

This is the view as you look to the left out of the lane.  This is the road that flooded out in 30 minutes time.

Granddad's mailbox made it just fine...but the road.  Holy smokes.

That is about 2 feet high.

Only on a farm do people congregate at the impassable road for hours on end.  It was a remarkable event that had just happened.

You can see that the river is still flooded, but at least not rushing the road away any longer.  The top of the grass there is a good 2-3 feet from where the water still is.  A LOT of road washed away.

This is the field to the left of the end of the lane.  It should be all green with deer tracks.  Now it's just about a parking lot.  I am guessing it will stay that way.  Too bad.

Still that field area.

Another shot of the road off to the left of the lane.

Across the street off to the right, but for some reason I didn't get the shot of the road leading the other way.  It was NOTHING like the one to the left.  I guess it just wasn't picture worthy.  Nothing really happened to the road that way.

The road is going to need a whole lot of gravel to fill the road back up to the top of the grass.  On the bright side, the lane has a nice wide entrance now.

Good Morning. Good God.

No matter what time I go to bed, somehow, the first time my eyes pop open tends to be right at 6:30.  I generally view that as a mistake and I roll over to be swept back off to dreamland.  Not this morning.  I opened my eyes and through the dirty windows (yes, I should clean them, shouldn't I?) I noticed the sky looked rather ominous.  I shifted a little bit and all of a sudden saw a beautiful and bold rainbow.  I got up to look out at the other window and quickly discovered it was a full rainbow. 

Now, this must have been pretty to me because I had to get up and open my bedroom door and go through the SLEEPING kids' room, praying none of them wake up, to go downstairs and outside for a picture. 

Elijah, my early riser, went outside with me and was excited to see this beauty!  As you can see in this picture, there is a second one, though quite faint.  Isn't God good?