Saturday, May 21, 2011

Missing....

Life has been just a tad hectic lately.  There are just so many things that need doing and not enough time in a day to get them done.  Most days I feel like I am on overload.

Thursday I had a "To Do" list that was 2 pages long.

How can this be? 

At one time we had 6 kids all at home and I don't think that life was this busy with all of them home.  Maybe it was and I just don't recall.  What I do know is that now we are down to 3 at home and I feel like I can't keep up very well. 

Back to Thursday.....I broke my To Do list into two sections -- things that I needed to do right after work (I have been working a long term substitute teacher assistant job for the past 3 weeks or so and it will continue until school lets out on June 3rd) and things that I needed to do once I was back home. 

My To Do list right after work looked like this....
  • Get Gas
  • Go to Annah's school to get booklet on hygiene and puberty class she has next week (ya gotta know what the school is planning with that topic!!!)
  • Go to Kroger and order wrist corsage for Jacob for prom
  • Go to bank -- make deposit & get $$ from ATM
My last stop on the list was the bank.  I went to the drive thru and made the deposit then looped around the building and went to the ATM. While at the ATM I was talking to Tim on my cell phone.  I went through the motions at the machine and went on my way.  Once home I finished all the rest of the stuff that lingered on my To Do list and later that evening I couldn't find my ATM card. 

Hmmmm....  Retracing my steps in my mind I remembered slipping my card in my pocket to go into Kroger...but no, I went to the ATM machine AFTER that so I didn't lose it at Kroger.  I began to think that I left my debit card IN the ATM.  UGH!  That's a bad feeling. 

I went to the bank Friday after school and asked if they, by chance, had my card.  By then I was hoping that I DID leave it in the ATM and that it got sucked into the machine and not taken by the next person in line at the ATM.  They had yet to empty the ATM on Friday so they told me I would have to come back in the late afternoon to see if they had my card. 

I returned to the bank later and held my breath while they looked up my card to see if it was indeed snatched my the machine.  I was so relieved when she said they had the card!  Yeeesssss!  :) 

As I signed to get my card back (and there was a looonngg list of cards so there obviously I wasn't the only one) I said,  "I am so happy and relieved that my card was found!  I was getting worried about where it was!" 

I paused and then added,
"Now, you don't by chance have my cell phone, do you?" 

BWHAHAHAHAHA! 

Yes, my cell in now MIA.  I'm pretty sure that it didn't get sucked into the ATM but you just never know.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Mother's Day This Year...

Mother's Day has come and gone but the memory of the day is still close in my thoughts.  It was a good day that began with breakfast in bed, compliments of Abigail and Annah with a little help from their dad. :) 

After breakfast I got some awesome and funny cards from the kids.  My favorite was probably the one that said,
"Good moms let their kids lick the beaters. 
Great moms turn the mixer off first." 
BWHAHAHAHAHAHA! 
After cards I got some gifts -- chocolate, some "flowers" that were actually snack cakes in the shape of flowers (surely picked out by the kids so they could eat them in my honor!) and the biggest surprise was this.... (I have to post a picture of it because I don't know what to call it!)

I fell in love with it when I had taken the girls shopping on Saturday afternoon.  I told them on our way out of the store, "You can tell dad that I want that!"  When I said it I wasn't thinking for Mother's Day but apparently they were.  That evening the girls went to the store with Tim for milk and they delivered the message and he drove them to the store we were at earlier that day and they showed him where it was and WALLAH....it is mine. :)
  
I had visions of it living on the fireplace mantle but it turned out that it was too tall and blocked the big family picture that hangs on that wall. (Funny that it didn't seem that big in the store!) I suggested we raise the family picture up but that was met with a frown from Tim.  My memory began to come back to me on what it took to hang that picture some years ago -- it is so heavy and needed special reinforcements to be able to hang it and not have it fall and kill someone. I guess moving the picture is not an option after all. Eventually I will figure out where my new "sticks" will live.
A few weeks before Mother's Day I also got this for my big day......

A beautiful bird bath for the front of the house!
Tim was surprised that I liked it and even hesitated before suggesting it be a Mother's Day present... Eventually he said, "Maybe it will grow on me."  BWHAHAHAHAHAHA!  Yeah, maybe. :P  It didn't have to grow on me...I love the punch of color it adds to the front of the house! :) (We've been doing a little landscaping...more on that in a future post.) 

So, back to actual Mother's Day.... after the cards, candy and gifts we made our way out the door to church.  We had to leave early from our meetings in order to be able to call Jordan in Brazil at the appointed time.  There is always some anxiety that comes with the phone call because you just never know if the connection will go through or how good it will be.  When you can only talk to your missionary son twice a year there is a lot riding on those phone calls!
So, right at 1:00 pm our time (2:00 pm in Belo Horizonte, Brazil) we placed the call. It went right through and Jordan answered the phone! YAY! 
The excitement quickly turned to anxiety when it was clear that he couldn't hear us very well at all but we could hear him. We decided to hang up and try again... same thing happened. He tried wiggling the cord and even changing phones but it would only help for a minute than the connection (on his end) would be bad again. He finally gave us a cell number to call him on and when we tried it said it wasn't a working number!  We called back the original number and continued to have problems.  He gave us a second cell phone number to try and when we did that number it finally worked! WHEW! We talked to him for an hour -- 20 minutes longer than his allotted 40 minutes but with all the trouble we had we felt entitled to those extra minutes! :) It was good to hear his voice and to hear how much his voice sounds like his Uncle Jeff -- Tim's brother.  We have long heard him have the same laugh that Jeff has but this time the tone of his voice sounds so much like Jeff too. :) 

At the end of the phone call Jordan told us that he wanted us to know that he had a testimony of the work he was doing.  He was very emotional as he spoke but the spirit was strong and bore witness to us of the truth he spoke. We are so proud of him for taking two years of his life to serve a mission.  He is changing people's lives and they are changing his.  In 6 short months he will be home and beginning the next chapter in his young life.  We are anxious to see where his life will lead him.
After the phone call the girls announced that it was time for me to go take a nap! I wondered what they were up to...since when do they decide it's okay for me to nap? Hmmm.....  I didn't put up much of a fight though. :) While I napped the girls were busy in the kitchen making these for me....  


I loved it!  They even thought of it all on their own!  They brought them into the room while I was talking to young Tim who had called from Arizona. :) 

I did have to question them on what they used to make the heart shape when I found a bag of old cookie cutters sitting on the counter that they used ages ago for play dough! I recognized the bag and knew it had come from the craft cupboard, not the kitchen! They assured me that they did wash the cookie cutter before they used it. Oh good. :)

Cards, gifts, cookies, phone calls....

It was a good Mother's Day.  A good Mother's Day, indeed. :)   

Friday, May 6, 2011

Spring Surprises....

I am not sure where spring has gone but it is fleeting. 
We have had so much unruly weather that it seems like there was very
 little time to breathe in the springtime that I love so much. 
The blossoming trees and flowers took a beating from hail and strong winds leaving the once pretty petals littering the ground so the picturesque beauty of the season was short lived.  As a result, I missed getting in my springtime photo shoot with nature. 
But springtime still had some surprises.....

Surprise #1  So many brewing storms...

 Surprise #2  Our dog turned green...
With all the rain we have had our lawn is growing like CRAZY and  
the freshly cut grass turns Ella green!


Surprise #3 The Easter bunnies colored some beautiful eggs this
year with colors that we have never seen before! :) 

Also never before seen.....Peeps on a stick!:)


Surprise #4 My mother's Lily of the Valley plants(transplanted from New York to Kentucky)survived the fence changes that devastated our back yard last summer.(Compliments of the owners of the field that backs up to our backyard) I was sure they had met their demise but they came through it!   


Surprise #5  These mooing creatures just over our back fence and their babies.  :)


Surprise #6 In spite of the rough spring weather there were some
very beautiful flowers that still made an appearance...





Ahhh, the spring I know and love. :)