Lemonade Stand

Ben is highly motivated to earn money so when he saw the neighbors were having a yard sale and there were lots of people coming and going he ran outside and had himself a Lemonade stand!! He made $3.50 in an hour selling .25cent cups of Raspberry Lemonade!!

Happy 9th Anniversary

Today is our 9 year anniversary - well actually yesterday because (of course) it is after midnight when I started writing this!! I don't have any pics of us on our wedding day up around the house and it wasn't the digital age yet so I had to take pictures of the pictures in our wedding album I made!! They aren't very good pics - I just thought it would be fun to share!!

can you guess who this little guy is?? This is the boy we dropped off at Boot Camp three days ago!! Can you believe it?? Alex was Danny's Best Man - way too cute!!!

Me with my mom and dad

Danny & I with his parents

This picture has always been my favorite picture from the wedding and I think it has to do with the symbolism of family and parents giving away their kids!! I just love all of us together!

We had a very casual and small wedding at the clubhouse where my parents live. It had a big deck outside which is where the ceremony took place and the reception was inside. It was such a wonderful day full of laughter, smiles, JOY and love!! He is my man and I am lucky to have him as a husband and friend for the rest of my life!

One of my favorite things is when we go to bed together(which I really struggle with since I am the night owl) and are able to just talk. The kids are in bed, the house is quiet and we just hang out!

In 9 years we have had 3 boys plus a stepson, Danny got his Bachelor's Degree, moved twice, had 5 cars, 1 dog, 3 new couches, lots of laughter, some fighting, and an absolute faith in God and thankfulness for blessing us with our crazy life on that 24th day of June 2000.

Boot Camp

We dropped off Alex at Boot Camp on Sunday afternoon! He is a part of a group called Sea Cadets which is a program for kids who are interested in the military. This particular program is thru the Navy and he is way more interested in the Marines but since they are part of the Navy and this is the only program available to him - this is what he will be a part of!!

He LOVES it!!! He was so excited to go to Boot Camp he couldn't sleep the night before we took him!! I am a little bit nervous about it all but I truly believe God provided this oppurtunity for Alex and that it will be good for him! I wonder if he will still LOVE it when he is done?

Anyways....pictures.......

Grandma was the only one who could tie a square knot on his dress white uniform!

The HAIRCUT.......

We had been joking about him getting his haircut when he got there but I had no idea it would be this short!! I wonder what he thought when he looked in the mirror????

Not quite done......

Almost......

DONE.....

Where did my son go? When did he grow up and become such a young man???

WOW! He looks all grown up!! Looking Good!

Off he goes......

We will pick him up in 2 weeks and get to watch him Graduate from Recruit Training!

My Boys are HOME

Last Thursday I went to the Homeschool convention and since my hubby had to work the Boys(the little ones) went to stay at Grandma's house in Hampton. She met me halfway in Richmond and the boys happily trotted off to Grandma's. Their cousins were also at Grandma's so they were beside themselves with excitement to get out of my car and into hers and get going!!!
The plan was to trade back Saturday evening when convention was over! While talking to Gma on Sat we decided that maybe the boys would just stay with them since we were all driving down on thursday anyways....sounds great doesn't it????
I missed my boys!
I got home Sat night and hubby and I headed to church Sunday morning - by ourselves - weird!!! In front of us was one of the boys little friends and watching him just made me want my Boys home with me!!! I was excited to have some time to get some school planning done while they were gone but I was not prepared for the enormity of how much I missed them!!! We found out monday that Thomas had to go to the Dr. on Thursday since we will be gone for so long after that so we made plans to meet at 7 tonite to get the boys. I called my mom at lunchtime and asked if we could meet earlier - I wanted to love on my boys!!! It was so nice to hug them,kiss them and have them sitting all over me when we got home!! I truly hope that I remember how nice it is and will enjoy it longer and not fall back into complaining because they are always all over me!!!!

Summer Travels

We have got quite a busy summer!!!
I just came home from the Homeschool Convention(which you can read about on our homeschool blog) on Saturday night.
We will be heading down to Grandma's on Thursday to visit and go to the beach and to drop off Alex at SeaCadet Boot Camp!! He is so excited to go get yelled at and tortured military style for 2 weeks!!!
Stephen, Ben and Thomas will go to VBS next week when we get home from Grandma's and on July 3 we will head back down to Virginia Beach to see Alex graduate from Recruit Training! Then we will drive all the way to Canada to stay with my In-Laws for 2 1/2 weeks - until the 12th of July.
We come home for approx. 6 days and then leave again for a week of camping with my sister and my parents! Can you believe all that???
They will all be good trips but alot of driving and time spent in the car will surely make us all crazy! I am for sure that we will not be going anywhere in August!!!

How does our Summer get so full so fast??? We are just simple people who live a simple life and every summer it seems like we turn into world travelers!!! Having just one child who is in public school really limits our ability to travel at other times of the year - if we want him to go with us - and since none of our family live near us we spend our summers visiting them!!! We used to go to the Outer Banks but we have decided that it is more important to visit our family! We do miss the beach trip but it is worth it!!!

Here's to all Your Summer Travels - make them Fun!!!!

I've Been Painting

I found these little wooden stand up plaques at the Dollar Tree! I bought a few and am thinking of making them as Christmas Presents - what do you think??? Would you want these as a gift?

I also found this one.....

They were all just plain old wood - which I can't stand - so I took my paintbrush to them!!!! I think they all turned out cute!!! Especially since each word only cost $1!!!

I found these little chicken cards at the Nursery and I just had to have them! I painted some frames I already had, glued them to scrapbook paper I already had and they will sit on

I got this idea from going here and from there I went here

I liked it so I went straight to Wordle and created some of my own! This is the only one I have finished and it is for my sister who I will see tomorrow - do you think she will like it????

Cleaning is such fun

While the boys have been gone I tackled cleaning their room, the playroom and my room - basically the upstairs. It took me close to 3 hours to get their room picked up, toys put in the right places and vacuumed!! We had to get a new vacuum because ours completely dies and with 4 boys you can't really go without for too long! This vacuum has lights on the front of it that tell you when the floor is clean or if it is dirty(weird I know) red is dirty and green is clean. I am vacuumning and vacuuming and vacuuming and th elight just keeps being red!! It would flash green every once in awhile but it stayed mostly red!!! How sad is that! I guess our old vacuum didnt work long before it died or could it be that I haven't vacuumed in forever????
I will post pics of what I painted tonight - after all the cleaning!!! I had funa nd went a little crazy!!!

The boys are going camping...

Woohoo!! The boys are going camping without me!! They are leaving after church tomorrow and will come back on Monday afternoon! What to do with a quiet house???? Well - I discussed with a friend of mine that I desperatley need some one on one time with God and now I will have it! She did warn me(knowing me very well) that if I try to sit still at home and not do projects it will be very hard for me!!! I am going to give it my all because God and I have drifted way too far away from each other and I need to be Renewed in his Love, Trust, Faith and some more of His Love!! I am very excited to have this quiet time with my Lord and Savior!!!
Maybe I will float around in the pool while I am quiet????
Do you think I could paint a room as long as I am Quiet and hanging out with God while doing it???
It is so hard for me to sit still and do nothing. It is even harder to only do one thing at a time!!!

Thomas' cast

Look at this little bitty cast......

Life is much better with it on but it is going to be a long 4 weeks of healing!!!

Mommy - I only have 1 hand is all I hear!!!

Alex

Alex is my oldest son - he is 14 years old. Now - I did not give birth to Alex but I am the mother in his life - I think of his mom as his friend. Alex has always lived with his father and when we got married he was 5 years old and has always been with us!! He calls me Julie and I am his favorite stepmom!!!

Anyways....Alex left for Mexico today on his first Missions trip!! He graduated from 8th grade at his Christian School(pictures below - ain't he a cutie???) this year and the big thing about this year at his school is the Mexico Missions trip the whole 8th grade class goes on.

Now - this year was a huge disappointment for Alex and us(his dad was going with him) because the original trip - that these kids have planned for all year long and have been anticipating for years before that was Cancelled......Swine Flu!!!! They were supposed to leave a week after the big swine flu breakout in Mexico and because of the concerns and everything being shut down they had to cancel the trip!!! This is the first time anything like this has ever happened at the school and so there really wasn't a back up plan - the kids did some local mission work with some local charities and got to go white water rafting for a day!!!! Nothing in comparison to the Big Trip!!! Praise God for his goodness and Mercy because an awesome parent who has gone on the trip since the beginning(11 years) and has a relationship with the church in Mexico said he would be more than happy to take a group if they wanted to go!! Of course Alex wanted to go - so after much prayer we decided this was an oppurtunity we didn't want him to miss - so he went!!! He is with another parent watching over him because his dad couldn't go and 2 other classmates(there was only 9 in his class) and their parents! They will be working with a local church doing whatever they need done to help out, they will be doing some group activities with the kids sunday school and an after school care group that the church holds and they might do some sightseeing!! I am so Blessed that Alex has the heart and the desire to want to do this work and wants to go and share the love of the Lord with others around him!!! We are praying for many Blessings on this community and on Alex from this trip!!! He will be back next Monday night!!! I hope I will be able to share lots of pics!!!!

Graduation Pics (Mommy missed the whole thing because I was in the ER with Thomas)

These boys decided - on their own - to go all out!!! Alex borrowed his Dad's tuxedo!!

The whole crew!!! An amazing group of kids that have the Lord's fingerprints all over them!!!!

A gift from us and the school - a cross necklace that has our favorite verse for Alex on it.......

1 Timothy 4:12

Getting the official 8th Grade Diploma


Always gotta take a pic with the brothers!!!