April Showers Bring May Flowers

Samuel's first soccer game.

Friday we took a field trip to the Space and Rocket Center. The kids favorite part was the rock wall. They had a great time with their friends. It would have been more educational if we had done a guided tour. But you live and learn. Right?

Saturday was Samuel's first soccer game. He did so well. I loved watching him play. He scored once and did a great job blocking. ( I don't really know how to play soccer....so not sure of all the terminology). When we got to the game he asked me if it was too late to cancel the game. They have postponed the games so many times he was afraid they would cancel it again. He was so cute in his uniform. :)

Dave and I had a great date night on Saturday. It was a nice to just hang out with him. We saw the movie The Soloist. I would highly recommend that movie. So a good meal, a movie, Ben and Jerry's ice cream.....and of course a trip to the grocery store. What else could a girl ask for:)

This week is SAT testing for Abby. She was pretty nervous last night. She was OK after we got to the testing center and she saw some of her friends. The other two and I are doing our school work at the library during the test. They like that....anything different.

Its hard to believe its almost May. The weather is beautiful and we just want to be outside. Only 14 more days, then our summer begins!!

Monday

Good news. The air conditioner is working and it was only a small problem that was easy to fix. I always dread calling the repairman, I'm so scared he will tell us we need a new unit. Thankfully not this time.

This is a busy time of year for us. Our life seems to run in semesters. We are on a sprint...then we slow down and have some down time. With Dave teaching again, doing college ministry, us being in school, homegroups at church, everything is really busy during the Fall and Spring and we wait for summer to slow down and relax. We are getting ready for our end of the year school program. Each family chose a person to focus on and study this semester. We chose Martin Luther. We all learned alot about him and how he was such a great leader in the reformation of the church. We have a presentation to do at our open house. So we are working on that. Abby is getting ready for her spring piano recital. She will be finishing her first year of piano. Erin is ready to start playing something. She really wants to play the violin. I for one am ready for this school year to come to an end. It's hard to believe Abby will be in 4th grade, Erin in 3rd and Samuel in 1st. Where does the time go? It really just seems like I blinked my eyes and they were not babies anymore. So no more blinking!

Air Conditioner Issues

If you read my 100th post you would know that one of the things I really love, I mean really love, is air conditioning. I am so thankful to live in the time in which I do. You know, a time when cars have air, most homes have air, restaurants, schools, most buildings have air conditioning. I think I took air conditioning for granted until June 14, 1998. That is when my love/hate relationship with air conditioners began. Dave and I got married on June 13, 1998 and the next morning we were leaving for our honeymoon. We got into the car headed out and realized the air was not working. So you can imagine how HOT it was riding in that car in the middle of June. But we managed and it was a great trip and it gives us a good story to tell. We got back home to our little rental house in Gordo and our air conditioner did not work more than it did. This was a character building experience for me and Dave. Once when the twins(my sisters) came to visit, they were so hot that we went to the grocery store just to cool off. Oh the memories:) So then we moved to the east side of the state. Our central air unit went out and we had to replace it....which was a big chunk of cash!! Now 10 years, almost 11 years later we are still having air issues!!! Every year it seems we need to have our unit repaired. A few years ago we had the repairman out to fix our unit and he found a snake wrapped around the inside of the outside unit. Thankfully it was dead. So here we are again. The beginning of another summer and our air is out. What do you think God is trying to teach me? I guess I haven't gotten it yet. So tomorrow we will have an air repairman come and work on this old unit again. Thankfully today was in the 60's.

Spring Pictures

Wisdom for Today

I was reading one of my favorite blogs today and wanted to share it with you.

Jesus Led With Silence

http://www.praiseandcoffee.com/



Its often hard not to defend ourselves against lies, but Jesus was such a perfect example for us.

Catching Up

The kids bathroom....I have no idea why these pics are sideways:)

The hall bathroom.

Last night Dave was saying how the last two weeks had been a blur to him. That's been about how long its been since I've blogged. Dave had two weeks out of school/one week off from the church. So what did we do? We did lots of little projects around the house. Dave tiled both upstairs bathrooms with a little direction from Ricky and Jason(thank you guys). He did a great job. Little did we know the tiling would not be our biggest problem. Putting the potties back on was extremely hard and quite yucky. We put the potties on and took them off...repeat...repeat...and never could get the wax rings to seal the potties in place. I definitely know more about the bottom of a toilet than I ever wanted to know!! We finally called a plumber...and it was worth every penny. Also putting the doors back on was harder than expected. We had to cut the doors off because the tile made the floor higher (I use the term "we" loosely, I did not really help with that). Dave, being the perfectionist that he is not only cut the doors off, but sanded, primed, and repainted them. We (again, using the term loosely) got finished with that project on Saturday afternoon.

Life at our house is as busy as ever. Abby has an ear ache at the moment. I took her to the doctor this morning. The other two have had bad coughs for a while. Sometimes it's hard to decide whether or not to take them to the doctor when they aren't running fevers. Our doctor tells me use your judgement, when you feel uncomfortable treating them, then bring them in. I just tend to second guess myself alot of times.

My Kid's Market trip was a big success. I got lots of great things for the kids. They were very pleased with their new clothes and Dave was pleased with me for staying within my budget. Kim and I had a great time as usual.

Spring Break

We decided to take a break from school this week. Dave is out of school and has also taken off from the church. We are getting some chores done around the house. We are planning to put tile in both our upstairs bathrooms. Dave pulled the flooring up in the girls bathroom and the wood was quite yucky! The kids soak the floor every time they take a bath, so it wasn't a big surprise that the wood was rotten. Today it rained so we were stuck in the house all day. We are ready to get out of the house. We are hoping to do some yard work tomorrow. We have big plans for our backyard. We are going to burn some rotted out cross ties in the back yard to help get the yard ready to be leveled. I'm ready to get some of these projects done. I'm thankful for the week off too. We desperately needed a break from that little schoolroom. Even though we will still be together everyday, its different than when I'm teacher mama. This week I can just be mama.....well maybe not..... I guess I'm always teacher and mama. Sorry if that made no sense. Today Dave also stained the rails on the staircase. He has had a productive day.....as for me, I rested alot today:) It rained all day and I could not seem to get motivated. I did some dishes, laundry and kept things picked up......but nothing productive like painting or the like. Tonight my sister Lori and her little boy are spending the night with us. Dave and Lori are involved in a serious game of Super Mario. I hope to put the kids to bed soon and watch a movie.