Encouraging

It's engcouraging to be around women who believe in God, who love their husband, who love their children, and are given the opportunity to get together. It was a beautiful evening of fellowship, meeting new women, and being served by the men of our church. I'm thankful for returning home, just in time to hug and kiss my boys good night. They'd been fed by my loving husband, showered, bathed, read to, and had just wrapped up praying.

Good night all!

It's begun!!

Our journey into the adoptive world has begun. Both Kevin and I have a really good feeling about Cradle of Hope Adoption Center, Inc. as the agency to work with. My heart feels like it is pounding so hard, it will pop out of my chest and my hands are shaking!! We'll begin working on our home study information in the coming days. Depending on how quickly we work on this, it could be completed by the end of April or beginning of May.

Hold on world, think we're boarding the roller coaster of a life time!!!

Our Journey

Our journey, in life, continues with little regard to time or circumstances. It plots along, with or with out us. We can choose to take an active part in this journey or let the journey dictate what happens.

Probably the greatest thing for us, for Kevin and me that is, is knowing that in our own journey we are serving a mighty God. The Alpha & Omega; the great I AM; the Creator of the world. He is the only God to have raised someone from the dead. He could calm the seas with a word. He could bless a few pieces of food and feed thousands. People were healed by His touch or word. It is reassuring to know that this God has our best interest at heart. It is this God that I put my hope and trust in. No one else has been able to do the things He has.

With this hope and faith in God, Kevin and I are moving toward adopting a child. A definitive age, country, or sex, we have not totally decided on. For both of us, there has been a strong burden to look into adoption and to pursue it. We are trusting in God to open the doors to the child He has planned for us. It is a journey that we look forward to. We are both excited and nervous at the same time. We look forward to seeing God's hand in this, as His plan unfolds in our lives.

In the mean time, we'll continue to walk the path that is before us. We will continue to be in prayer over our lives, the lives of our boys, our family, our church family and friends, our leaders. Let us know how we can pray for you, too!

Faithfully your friend,

Nothing usual about

today!! Woke up feeling like I hadn't slept well and at just after 4:00 PM still tired and not ready for the day. Phone calls this morning seemed to take a lot of time. School was very disjointed! On the bright side, after we got home from the library we were home for the remainder of the day. I was actually able to get a good fire going today. Cool thing is that I am the only one enjoying it right now. The boys are wrapped up in electronics (and I'm so tired, I almost don't care today). It's nice and warm in this room, with the only light being from my computer and the fire. Not so romantic or anything, but with Kevin on the way home, guess sharing with a sleeping cat and my computer will have to do. Here's what it looks like, should you care!!!

The Journey

Have you ever stopped to ponder the journey you on? Where you've been? Where you are going?

A lot has been running through my head lately. A lot of different questions. Am I where I should be in my walk with God? Do I really lean on Him or my own understanding? Are we (speaking of homeschooling) where we should be at this point in the year? Does my daily life, schedules, commitments, etc. meet God plan for my life?

Yes, several things for me to think on! Many more things to look into as well.

Snow Removal!!!!

Who knew that several days in a row of 40 + degrees would get those living in Northern Virginia so excited!! The snow is beginning to melt.

The boys and I had a few places to go today. We were totally excited to see a few bob cats moving snow out of the road ways in our neighborhood. We wondered if they'd get to our street at all. Well, upon coming back there were a few on our street; two of which were working at our end of the street, taking the "island" we'd created and dumping it at the end of the pipe stem. Thankfully, they didn't cover the pipe stem ~ we would have been mad. They actually were able to knock down the wall that had been built and dump more down the hill. Following are a few pictures from our living room window.

dumping snow at the bottom of the pipe stem

bringing more snow down

Although not the best photo, the two bob cats
passing by each other!

Another Mad Lib

Today maybe Tuesday, but it was the first school day of the week for us. That means we did a Mad Lib to get us thinking of grammar and some rules. Today's actually turned out quiet funny.

HOW TO DO THAT NEW
DANCE, THE MONSTROSITY
(words bolded are the boys)

Two brave volunteers are needed to follow the instructions as they are read.

Here's how you do the Monstrosity. Stand with your feet together. Now, move your left foot quickly to the side. Now stamp your right foot 2 million times and put your hands on your partner's Thing Two. Next, you both run slowly to the right and bend your hairs backward. For the next eight counts, both of you skip swiftly to the left. Nest, you and your partner stand back to back and wiggle your printers and slap your cats together. Don't forget to keep stamping your right foot. Now, face your partner again, put your peoples together and shout, "SAF!" Now, hop backward and repeat the whole thing 1 billion times. If you feel that you can't learn this dance, you can always eat the next one out.

No S Diet

Finally getting around to dealing with being over weight! Over about the last 5 years I'd put on way to much. Will be the first to admit that, but just not ready to do anything about it.

Toward the end of this January, I came across the "No S Diet". Are you thinking huh (while scratching your head)? It really is straight forward. The S stands for sweets, snacks, seconds, Saturday, Sunday, and Special days. To follow this diet is simple. There's no counting calories, no taboo foods, no weigh ins, no "lost foods". Monday - Friday you simply eat regular food on a "normal sized" plate (9 - 10 inch plate), don't go back for seconds, skip things that are sweets (to me that's all desserts, cookies, donuts, hot chocolate, chocolate, soda's, etc.), and no snacking (on anything healthy or unhealthy or somewhere in between). S days (Saturday, Sunday, special occasions M-F) allow yourself a treat here and there, possibly a small second serving, or light snack. Keep in mind the more you binge, the harder it will be to loose weight.

What I've found, after two full weeks on this "diet" is:

• I'm not craving sweets as much
• I'm eating slower
• my stomach has shrunk
• restaurant portions are REALLY huge
• there will be days of weight lose and some days maybe gain ~ mostly loss though
• I don't feel deprived of any sort of food ~ healthy or junk
• I've lost almost 10 pounds in two weeks
• I'll be able to stick with this diet for the long haul
  

HAPPY EATING,

Day early . . . .

day early to write about Kevin and mine anniversary. Tomorrow we'll celebrate 13 years of marriage. 13 isn't much, by a long shot, especially when my folks celebrated 50 last June.

Here's a few photo's I scanned in yesterday ~




Since 1997:

• we've lived in 4 different places
• own 5 different cars
• bed rest for 13 weeks
  
• 2 sons born
• learned to talk in code so boys wouldn't understand
• quickly had to relearn code as the boys got smarter
  
• no job changes for Kevin
• 2 different (paying) jobs for Jennifer ~ with last paying job being in 2001
  
• 1 child in public school for a couple years
• in third year of homeschooling
• switched churches once
• 11 different vacations
• 6 different places for those vacations
• one broken ankle
• one gall bladder out
• one child had their tonsils and adnoids out
• boys playing sports
• boys in cub scouts
  

I've enjoyed being married to Kevin, good days and bad days. Look forward to many more years.

And it snows again!!

This round began after midnight today. As of this posting, we've gotten about 3 inches of snow, slush, rain, and more snow. The wind is blowing pretty hard and sounds pretty eerie.

Thing One peeking over one of
the mounds of snow along our pipe stem.

Thing Two near a short mound.

This is a short video from our front porch. The wind wasn't howling when I took this as it is now. May take another video later.

On a cool school note, Thing Two wished "Katy" was here. That would be the Katy from Virginia Lee Burton's book "Katy and the Big Snow".

Delayed Mad Lib Monday

Yesterday felt a bit "off" for school and just didn't get around to posting our "Mad Lib Monday". By the time I realized I hadn't, it was later than I felt like working on the computer. So without much further adu, here it is:

SCIENCE FICTION STORY
(words in bold have been filled in)

Major Zarnak of the Intergalactic Space Patrol deactivated his hyper-building overdrive and landed his spaceship on the planet Florida. On leaving the decompression chamber, he saw a 0-armed monster approaching quickly. He shouted, "CROCOGIRAFFE," the galactic word for peace, but the monster whipped out a disintegrator color and tried to silly him. Major Zarnak ducked and slept the monster with his subsonic hicky.

"Surprised!" said the monster, clutching his icky.

"Funny," replied Major Zarnak cleverly and, getting back into his spaceship, he zipped back to his headquarters on the planet Shazam.

Yet another snow storm

Yes, another storm this season. The second, I believe, this calendar year or maybe I'm forgetting one. Pretty sad that I can't seem to remember how many times it's snowed around here. It truly seems like the snow from December had just finished melting and we got more on January 29th. The roads were fairly clear from that one, and we got another 24" to 30" today. I'm ready for it to be over, for the ground to dry out, and let the flowers grow!!

P.S. Just read some of my blog, this snow storm would be the fourth of the year; 3rd in one week.

Valentine's Day Art

Had a burst of creativity for an art project with the boys. Some was directed toward fine motor skills for both boys (the punching of holes in construction paper), which of course turned into a competition of who could punch the most holes at once. I'm not going to complain about it because it was keeping them happy for a brief moment. Had planned on vacuuming the living room anyway, so a few extra bits of construction paper is no big deal.

Back to the art project, following is a quick directions and photos of what we did.

1. Punch holes in pink and red construction paper.

2. With clear contact paper, sticky side up, sprinkle dots all over the place. Yes, you can see sprinkles on this, but after putting top piece of contact paper on, I realize sprinkles weren't a great idea. Skipped the sprinkles on subsequent "runs".
3. Put a top piece of contact paper on. Would work with smaller pieces than I did, probably more of a square sided piece than rectangle. The contact paper would be more manageable to deal with.

4. Cut out heart shapes, any size you want. I folded the contact paper (loosely) in half to cut out the hearts.

5. Used clear tape to hang hearts on paper. If you look closely at the photo below, you can see what looks like frosted hearts with dots in them.

Enjoy,

Something fun

fun to sew. Wanted to get back into sewing and this was something relatively quick to make; at least it felt relatively quick (maybe a couple hours wortth cutting, sewing, turning right side out, more sewing). Any hoot, used the width of white fabric cut to the width of the chair, plus about an inch, then sewed up the sides. Decided to put loops on the sides for the ties, so that, if the mood strikes, I can change them out as the seasons change.

Multiple things from school!

We're wrapping up our "Owl Moon" week today with the boys working on their Owls. They enjoyed the beginning of building it, but time got the best of us and a week later we're working on them again. Alls well that ends well. At least the starting point, today, is easier than the starting point last week. We know how finicky the owls can be AND most of the remaining parts are very similar, so it should be a breeze to put together (If only I hadn't starting typing this post prior to working on the Owls the second time. Thing Two has given up on his. Thing One's is almost finished. The are just a pain to put together).

Also, on tap are the Owl Pellets we have to dissect. Once again, Thing Two had a blast with this kind of activity, where Thing One couldn't be bothered. Two totally different kids, two totally different interests. Here's Thing Two and the biggest bone out of his pellet. Being so small, it was hard to photograph well. Probably took about 50 pictures and this was the best. It looks like it might be a skull of a small bird. Thing Two was pleased with his find.








Last, but not least, our newest school tradition ~ Mad Lib Monday. Enjoy your reading . . .

REVIEW OF A MONSTER MOVIE
(the words in bold were filled in)

A new movie has just opened called “The Teenage Printer Meets the Blue Vampire from Outer Space.” At the opening, we see the teenage here, played by George Lucas, who is a green scientist. He is trying to build an orange monster out of old Thing Ones and used Thing Twos. The monster has Silver skin and 20 gazillion arms and is played by Scooby-Doo. Suddenly, the monster comes to life and kidnaps the beautiful heroine, played by Carrie Fisher. Then he begins to destroy Springfield. In the end, the monster is destroyed by the vampire, who is played by Mark Hamill. And the hero and the heroine live quickly ever after.