bsmiles and sunny days

This is Leila's favorite shirt. Everytime she sees it, she insists on wearing it. It doesn't matter what she wears it with, this day a diaper was all she needed, as long as she has on the puppy shirt. I love it when it comes through the wash, which sometimes takes a little while, because she gets so excited when I pull it out. It really is about the simple things in life, isn't it She's almost seven and just started losing teeth this summer. I was beginning to wonder if the bottom two would rot out before they fell out. Once the concern started to mount, I decided to investigate the matter and found the grown up teeth making an appearance before the bottom rotters even considered making a move. Which brought us to threats of a trip to the dentist if she didn't start working them a little. She got to wiggling them and before we knew it they were both gone. Then she lost the top one. That big boy was coming through already too! She's still got one baby tooth up f

We love our neighborhood because it's far enough from town to be secluded, but still in the city limits, and before school started there were usually kids everywhere. When we realized this move would be a reality, it was heartbreaking for the kids, who had real friends that they couldn't even think of moving away from. So we prayed and God answered. This is one of several of Kennedy's best friends. We live at the open end of a culda sac which makes us the final boundary of the dead end before going out onto the main road of our complex. I love that the kids can ride their bikes up and down the street without constant supervision because the traffic is very minimal and generally limited to the residents of the community. I don't worry about someone sticking them in their car down the street and taking off. *I still keep one eye on them whenever they are outside.* These boys have finally come to accept one another. Max still pounces Scooder, but Scooder tolerates him

I've promised these pictures to so many people. Here they are! Dun da DUN! Isn't he adorable? The kid is fast, he's got good form, he's ready for a half hour before we leave the house every day, and he respects each coach and whatever they say... But he won't hit. He gets out there lookin like a pro and won't hurt a fly. Other moms keep telling me that it will come, he'll get hit hard and it'll make him mad which will push him to another level. I'm telling you, he's getting pummelled and there's no wrath in him. I want to just cheer him on to victory, but the coach is holding him back because he's holding back. I know he can hit, I've seen it plenty of times. SO, being the type of mother that I am, I'm paying him. *I learned this trick from my mom who paid my little sister a quarter for every full day she stayed in school all day.* A quarter for every time he gets somebody on the ground. I don't know if I'm doing the rig

I have been trudging through How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth for a very, very long time now. I read it way back in my nocturnal days working as a CNA, but it was difficult to process just reading, which is what inspired the study guides. Now I've completed the careful combing of information and collecting the points that were more difficult to grasp in a study guide. Dun dun DONE!!!! With the reading it helps to punch the intent of each point and makes this seemingly difficult information more attainable. I know this because I've read it with, and I've read it without. And I didn't remember anything from it when I read it without. But now I have PERSPECTIVE. Yes... perspective. The overachiever in me wants to read it again and read each book of the Bible alongside each chapter of the coinciding book, which I will probably do eventually. But for now I am joining up with the ladies' Bible study at church and I need to focus some of my energy there. I

I can't get away from these thoughts about the kingdom of God; it's led me into some serious soul-searching. Every morning I get up and pray that I will be what I'm supposed to be, and most nights I go to bed and pray that I will not fail as miserably tomorrow as I did today. It has brought me to a crossroad of sorts. Not that I haven't been here before, but with a little knowledge this time I have found some reprieve in what I've discovered. The kingdom of God is a complex topic of discussion and despite my search I haven't been able to define it for most of my life. Something that I read shed a little light, but there are aspects of the kingdom that perplex way smarted people than me, so I choose to tuck that part away and focus on the simple understanding that I have gleaned. In the gospels, some people believe that Jesus' intent in telling parables was to directly point people into the kingdom of God, which is exactly that, His kingdom. The confusion I a

One of the things I try to do everyday in my study time is to work on a few pages of the How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth study guide. I had high aspirations to finish this thing when I was in Nebraska, but my life starting changing and so did my priorities. I wish I could control that but I am still so weak in these things... which also explains the ten pounds I put on during those weeks of chaos! I've been working through the Wisdom books and this morning something really caught my attention, something I want to remember and put into practice. *I do not retain knowledge easily, which is why instead of continually reading this book, I have decided to pick it apart, piece by piece, so that I can digest it and hopefully retain some of the important pieces of knowledge long term. One thing that is important to understand about Proverbs is that these little bits of wisdom were written to be memorable rather than to establish doctrine or understood literally. It's simple

One of the first thoughts I had when Dale told me we were moving thirty hours from home was, "Who will come to our birthday parties?" Usually we pack the house with blood relatives and a neighborhood kid or two. This year we had some kids I'd never met or even seen before that night- and a mom, too. I never cease to be amazed at the attentativeness of our God to the teensy details in our lives. The Spiderman party hat/masks were a huge hit, especially for this guy who sang, ate cake, and played tag in his mask all night. Tre was thrilled to have some boys to wrestle with, while the girls bounced and flipped in the front yard. It was thrilling and chaotic. Exibit A: Heelys. I don't know why I bought them, I guess it was what he really wanted and I didn't think past that thought. But everytime this kid tries to mimic his sister and glide through the grocery store he ends up wailing and screaming on his back. So, mostly he trots around on them, clicking along, comp

I love to make seasonal foods; being that it's summer, I have taken every opportunity to make homemade ice cream. It's so fun and yummy, I can't stand it. I got a really good and simple recipe from one of those Gooseberry Patch cookbooks. It uses raw eggs, which eliminates all the cooking and straining and a ton of time. I used to think we were chancing it by eating the ice cream but I used my logic to reason away any bacteria in the freezing process. Fortunately for all of us, I was watching the The Foods Channel and a pastry chef expained that there is a chemical reaction when you mix eggs and sugar together that makes the eggs safe to eat. You have to mix them for a little while, thank you KitchenAide for the greatest mixer in the universe! But if you take the time to do it, you'll have safe eggs and delicious ice cream in no time. I love these photographs. Leila's was an accident. That's what she looks like after everything she eats. Jasmine and K

Gotta love this kid! I mistakenly told him that his birthday was coming up about six weeks ago. Since then it's been the only thing he sees at the end of his tunnel. This is difficult for the poor kid because sometimes it can be so anti-climatic. I don't know what to make of it... do I not tell him and then just surprise him the day of? SURPRISE! This is it! You're five now! I don't think so. Besides, this year he'll learn the calendar and be able to look at it and know. Anyway, we're planning lots of festivities. This is the cake he requested. I don't know if I posted it before, but the original was quite a fiasco. I agreed to make it today, on the real birhtday, and save a normal cake for the party, just in case it ended up being a second sinker. As much as he wanted to camp at Pismo beach, we don't have a camper or the money to rent one; and I'll tell you truth, I don't think we're quite ready to sleep on the beach in a tent. No, no, I