
I will post more tomorrow about my theme for 2007 and our family goals.
p.s. Oh, and I haven't forgotten about Micah's activity boxes. I already took the pictures. Sorry.
While I wait for my Saviour to return, I figured I would share....from the heart.

I hope everyone is having a great weekend thusfar. I am here still enjoying the time I have with my beloved. He will be gone all next weekend. Someone from our church asked him to help out with a retreat for young men(teenagers) It turns out that he will be hosting the entire thing. ;0) The good thing is that he only has to go into the office two times this week. 





I used the same fabric for the inside of the pocket.
I used some decorative stitches on the bottom. You can click to enlarge if you want.
I will also do a pocket for the boys. Since they are not writing yet to write prayer requests, I wanted to attach, with a ribbon, a little set of hands in a prayer position, stuffed with batting. When they finish praying, they can stick the hands in the pocket, like that they know it's done. I will take a picture of the boys' mats once it is done.


I guess he didn't think it had enough color. After having his picture up on the fridge for 5 minutes, Elijah came back to add a little bit more color. I love the hand behind the back. lol
Micah is left handed, even though my beloved and I are both rightys. It bugs me the way he holds the crayon, but he's still getting a feel for everything. He switches between his left and right, even though he's predominately a lefty. Once he figures out which hand he will use, I will correct his hold.
Even though these boys love each other to no end, they are so different. Look at how neat Elijah is painting.
And Micah is in there with both hands. lol
I felt such a peace today. Not hopping on the computer while the children were awake was great. It felt like the first time I cut TV out of my life. There really does seem to be a sense of calmness. The computer was on during the day, as my beloved worked from home, but it felt so good not to "check" things here and there. lol So if anyone is contemplating it, I say go for it.
My schedule is to write my post in the evening. In the morning I turn the computer on and quickly hit publish. Either way I have to turn it on, because if my beloved is working from home, he will need it on. If he's not working from home, he sends me messages through IM when he's at work. ;0) In the evening, after the children are in bed, I respond to messages and then write my post for the following day. YAY!! A wonderful side not is that the boys did not cry NOT ONCE yesterday, at all.

I started cleaning in there, and both Micah and Elijah started helping me immediately. They just needed some encouragement and help. Micah said, mommy, I want a new room. What he was trying to say was that he wanted a clean room. He was so excited to see it getting picked up. Don't get me wrong, we would "pick up" the room every evening before bed. I think what they were getting tired of was the amount of toys in the room.

The Lord impressed me that the only thing I should leave out of the closet were the boys' Bibles. They have about 9 childrens' Bibles. I know it seems like a lot, but some of them used to belong to the girls. And they are in such good condition, I couldn't throw them out. It is so wonderful when we follow the Lord's commands. Not even 20 minutes after the room was done, this is what I found. It is so wonderful when we listen to the Lord.
For more Tackle It Tuesdays, go visit 5 Minutes For Mom p.s. Sorry, I know this post is sort of all over the place. ;0) I will visit you tacklers later on this evening.
Yesterday I was doing a complete overhaul of the boys' room. I'll talk about that in another post. My, oh so ever, helpful beloved made breakfast, homemade waffles, so that I could go straight into their room first thing in the morning. After breakfast he then took the children out to the park, so that I could try and finish up in the room.


Here she is once everthing was attached.
Here you can see how the brainwaves were being recorded. Since it was a video EEG, it was also recording her. Everytime I moved her to a different position, I had to move the camera over. The hanging cord was for me to press when I saw her eyes moving around.
Once we were settled, and the technician left, we started some therapy activities. Here she is doing some modular math.
Daddy called to check on her while she was eating some lunch. We had a cheesey little lunch of peanut butter sandwiches. I didn't want to order in and be charged an arm and a leg.
Here she is doing a butterfly with the perler beads. That little hat kept falling off.
I have more to write, but it's raining really hard, and my beloved is calling me to cuddle for 5 mintues before he leaves to work. ;0)









Here is a Cocker Spaniel, which we have one, but her coat is no where near like this ones. ;0) I feel bad. We're going to try and brush her more.


I never realized Saint Bernards were so big. I felt bad for the one on the right. Notice his own personal little fan.
I will say that when we got there, the lady that worked there started to introduce us to some of the residents. The girls and I were standing there, sort of awkard, not knowing what to say. Suddenly, I realized my beloved was no longer standing behind me. I turn to my right, and see my beloved sitting down admist a whole bunch of ladies, who were all laughing. I later spoke to him about it, and asked him how did that happen. The girls and I were so unsure how to approach them, and here he was laughing it up. He said, oh, I just went over to them, pulled out a chair and said, "hey ladies, is this where all the action is at?" lol Have I ever said how much I love my beloved?
This lady surprised us all. She was 97 1/2. She came over and kissed all the children, hugged them and just didn't want to let go of them. She had no children. So she's talking to them, etc., and then she just says, "I'm going to play the piano." To be frank, my beloved and I both thought, she's going to go over and hit one key, wait a bit, hit another key, etc. She was so fragile, and she had her little walker caddy. We were in shock when she sat down and started playing that piano like a professional. It's like her entire body was that of a 97 year old, but her hands were moving like that of a young girl.
It really felt like she was playing for us. She was so cute.
Apparently she is a lot stronger than we thought. She kept sitting Britney on her lap. And Britney is heavy. No matter what she weighs, she is one of those children who just feels very heavy. This was a huge step for Britney as well. Britney has always had lots of sensory issues. She normally doesn't like anyone touching her, or she won't really hug anyone, etc. It took a lot even for my beloved to win her over. So to see her here sitting with a complete stranger, was huge for us. Not only that, Britney said she liked the nursing home and wants to go back.
Here are some of the other ladies enjoying their snacks.
My beloved and I had a small chuckle later on in the day. They really did keep repeating everything over and over. We had a few of the ladies tell us how many children they have. One of them told me she had 5 children, and the first time, I said, "wow, what a blessing, etc." Everytime she would say it, I would repeat my comment with the same enthusiam I said it the first 5 times. It was kind of hard. I saw Kayla looking at me from the corner of her eye, not understanding why we kept repeating the same phrases over and over. She would give it a 2 minute break and then say it again. They really were very cute; chin hairs, missing teeth and all.

Here is my beloved speaking to a lady that lived in Manhattan, NYC. She really did look like she was from there. ;0) Very sharp, and told us she was the youngest of 8 children many times as well. ;0) Too cute!!
I have more to write, but we are off to a dog show. My beloved loves going to them, so we're all going to learn a little more about dogs today. I hope everyone is enjoying their family today.
I know I am supposed to be ducluttering, but someone on my local freecycle group posted an offer for a box of patterns. I put in for it, and she said I could have them. I didn't expect the box to be this big.
There were a lot of old patterns, which have been wonderful to look through. There are a few, that if I can learn to alter the length, I can use them. I haven't had a chance to go through all of them, but I am really looking forward to it. It's so nice getting free things.

Since we live pretty close to the Everglades, we get all sorts of interesting birds. This picture was taken in the water in our backyard. I saw this Anhinga drying out its wings, and it made me chuckle, because she is on top of a fake duck.
next to his eye. I wiped it up a little, put some ice, and then realized that it looked kind of deep. I dressed everyone up, and off to the doctor we went. Thankfully, they all behaved wonderfully. The nurse fell in love with him. He didn't let out not even a wimper. He answered all of her questions without a problem. She actually thought Elijah and Micah were twins. lol Believe it or not, we get that question at least once or twice a month. They are only 3 pounds apart, so I guess Elijah is kind of big for his age. Thankfully, he didn't need stitches. She put some "glue", the kind they use for boxers, and it should heal okay. I can't let it get wet for a couple of weeks.


Hmmm...there is no story behind this picture. I just love him, and wanted to see his gorgeous face. ;0)
Why is it that we have four children, four chairs, but two of them are empty? It's a mystery!!







Kayla took my picture, can you tell. lol ;0)
This one was Britney's.
I tried downloading all of ours, but Blogger wouldn't let me. Mine had yellow construction paper surrounding the stump picture, which I had completely cut out of the white paper. I kept peeking over at my beloved's trying to see how nice his was, and trying to get some ideas. He's a lot better when it comes to these things.
I hope you all have a great time learning more about Jesus' birth during these next few weeks leading up to CHRISTmas.









would say that. *laughing* So I started explaining to him...