bsmiles and sunny days

A few years ago, Dale and I were out on one of our notorious Thursday night date nights, eating dinner at Outback, one of my personal favorites, enjoying a lovely quiet dinner when something caught our attention. The sound was almost like white noise, a constant flow coming from a table across the isle and a few booths back. Casually we both took a turn looking to see who it was and saw a college-aged girl chattering away mindlessly to an obviously uninterested guy across from her. We exchanged a look and then snickered, going back to our lavish spread of delicacies. When we got in the car I said, "You think I'm like that girl, don't you?" He made some completely sarcastic comment about how he would never say anything of the sort and we laughed again at how completely self-consumed people can be in conversation. This last couple of weeks, I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I'm Outback girl! I have been on the horn every recess, during lunch, after school, and af...

It's always difficult for me to repress the squirm when someone asks me why I home school . I'm not embarrassed about it; I don't feel like we are sub-par because of our choice to educate our children at our dining room table. It's not a sore subject for any of us usually. But when someone who is pro-public education corners me with that question, I find it difficult to answer honestly without coming across undesirably. So I just want to put it out there. There is a moral code, a system of values, that used to fuel education in this country that has been lost, or rather, obliterated along the way, and replaced with political correctness and moral relativism. I'm not looking for forgiveness on the subject, I just want to set the record straight. We have been given a charge to raise our children in the fear and admonition of the Lord and will not take that lightly. That includes not entrusting them for the majority of their day to be molded and shaped by the thinking...

1. For a year or two years or three I have been blogging and every time I post something new I crack up at this. I type in *www. bs * and up comes my blog and I think, " Hahaha . B.S." And then I fight away the urge to write about how funny I think that is and tonight I'm pulling out all the stops. 2. I'm pregnant. 3. I called my little brother tonight. We haven't talked much in the past year or six; I mean, we talk when we can but we are both extremely busy so when we get a chance to talk and we are both really up for the conversation, we talk for a long time. Well tonight he was ready to shoot the breeze and when I told him, he laughed right out loud, a deep rolling belly laugh, which thrilled my little heart to bits. Because that's what I did. I laughed. Just like Sarah. Just like I did the last three times I got pregnant by surprise in what I deemed at the time the hardest stage of my life. I still laugh when I talk about it. And what I think is so great ...

I don't like to be the one to decide. True, the nature of my being is to hope that someone will make the decision for me and it will be the one I would have made, but I like to dodge the responsibility of making that decision on my own if at all possible. That doesn't happen often. My days are packed, seriously, stocked-full of decisions carefully considered and made by yours truly. So at the end of the day, if I haven't spent the time the week before making menus, I don't want to decide what we should eat for dinner. Especially if we are going out. It's becoming more and more rare for us to go out for a meal, so I want it to be perfect, delicious, and cheap; all of which cannot co-exist, as we all know. So I'd rather just let you decide, drive me there, and I'll eat what is set before me and enjoy it knowing that it's what you wanted. Which leads me to the reason I am becoming more and more scarce in this venue. I don't know what to write. ...

This poor dog, he really does have a lot of my attention temporarily. I heard some sniveling in the the kennel the other day while I was working in the kitchen and found Max locked in with a large stick and... the resident princess. I laughed and laughed and laughed as I watched her push him back with, "No, puppy! No, puppy!" every time he tried to sneak by her. Like a loyal subject, he conceded and she would climb in almost on top of him and grab ahold of the mesh to shut the door. I stuck my head in to make sure he had enough space behind her so that he wouldn't come out wounded and she grabbed my face with both hands and pushed it out of the kennel, then shut the door, which spawned gales of laughter from me and then her too. I think she likes to be in charge of someone, since obviously, everyone here has some seniority over her. Unfortunately for the puppy, he doesn't know that he's not obligated to her antics I don't know how long she played in there with...

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 ...