Does the Pooping Ever End?????????


That is my question of the day! And the answer to that is, "for 2 year old little boys, NO!" This morning, I was just sitting in my room reading the last few pages of a book that I was too tired to finish last night when I hear the yelling voice of my favorite little boy, "Mommy, I pooped!" Of course I'm on the next to the last page, but I really did not want to put my book down! If was only 2 pages right, he should be fine, for what, 2 minutes. I yelled back, "just a minute, mommy's coming!" I quickly finish the last 2 pages, hop up & head to find Aaron. I can smell him before I even get to the door of the playroom, that's never a good sign! I step into the room, and Aaron has shed 100% of his clothing. He does the often during the day, the boy loves to run around in the buff. This is normally fine, but not when you have a diaper-no not a diaper- a pull-up full of poop! AND, if you are a mom you know what this means! It means, a diaper you take off by undoing the velcro & it simply falls off, a pull-up on the other hand has to be slid off like underwear. So, are you getting a picture in your mind of what I see walking through the door? Yep, poop smeared down both sides of his legs, but this isn't the worst part of it. Apparently he took his pull-up off first (before his shirt) because there was also a big smear up his back into his hair! Yum! Oh, but there's more! You wouldn't be a little boy if you didn't play in it a little, right? Amazingly, none was on the carpet, but he had proceeded in drawing rambo lines under his eyes! All I can say is, thank the Lord for bathtubs! So, I took my little poop smeared (literally from head to toe) linebacker & plopped him in the bathtub. The worst part was, (or maybe the best, who knows) was Aaron actually smiled the whole time, like he had planned this out from the beginning! He probably did, knowing him! I guess I will not neglect my little pooper again for the last 2 pages of a book! Who knew he could accomplish that much in 2 minutes. 2 Minutes!!!!!

Ok, I have to admit, I have done a wretched job of blogging lately! To that, I am sorry but I must say that it is likely to happen again. But for now, I will give you a little update on us and a funny story about Emily.

First of all, we are settled into our new home in Round Rock. We absolutely love it. Its wonderful to have a Super Target 5 minutes one way and the Round Rock outlets five minutes the other way. Needless to say, not something that Kingsland has ever boasted! The best part is, we are actually within 20 minutes of our church now. For the past 7 years, we have lived over an hour away from our beloved church but that is no longer the case. Praise the Lord! I have been able to spend time with the ladies from our church on a regular basis now, and we have a weekly date @ Chick-fil-a's family night with some other families from our church. It's been absolutely wonderful!

Right now, I am in the great town of Brownwood (actually Early) visiting my parents because Cliff is in Atlanta, Georgia for the next week and a half. He's going through some training at the Chick-fil-a home office right now. When he gets back, he will be working at the West Lake store for 2 more weeks then on August 1st, he will take over as interim operator at the Chick-fil-a in Lakeline Mall! We are so thrilled and thankful that the Lord has given us this opportunity! Please go see Cliff if you are ever @ that mall, I know he will be excited to see you! That's the bulk of what is going on with us, so now I will tell you the funny story about Emily!

Every night, when we put the kids to bed, we say the same prayer every night! We thank God for everyone in our family & then pray that the Lord would be pleased to give Emily & Aaron a new heart that would love Jesus more than anything. That night, Emily asked me if the Lord had given her a new heart yet. So, I asked her if she loved Jesus more than anything else in the whole world. Of course she said yes because kids really can't grasp the concept of loving someone more than all other things. So, I knew I had to be creative. I thought for a minute to myself, and was suddenly inspired. So I then asked Emily, "Emily, do you love Jesus more than your doll house or all your High School Musical dolls?" She looked up at the ceiling and thought for a second, then looked me squarely in the eye, sighed and said, "No" very matter-of-factly and with complete honesty. So, there's our answer isn't it! So, I very gently said, "Well, thats how we know that Jesus has given us a new heart, when we love him more than we love all our toys, friends, family, and anything else in this world. So, we'll just keep praying that Jesus will give you that heart that loves him more than High School Musical!" I kissed her, tucked her in then ran downstairs to tell Cliff the story! We had a good laugh but then prayed the same prayer we do every night, that the Lord would be pleased to save our kids!

Emily's Question

This happened last week but between the packing and unpacking of it all, blogging got moved to the back burner. Anyways here's the story. The kids and I were sitting at the table about to eat lunch, we had just finished praying, and Emily looks up at me very serious and concerned that something was greatly wrong. Then she asks me, "Mommy, why didn't Jesus come back to life at Easter and take everyone that loves him to heaven?" It was so cute and I had to try not to let a little giggle slip out. You might think what in the world had we told her Easter was, or we did a really bad job explaining Jesus resurrection. However, a few weeks before Easter, my grandmother died. This was right about the time we started talking about the resurrection with her. My Granny was a believer, and we know that she is with Jesus right now. So, of course Emily being a 4 year old, she wanted to know where "Granny" was now that she had died. We've talked to her endless times about the gospel but this was actually reality now. So, we explained to her that Granny was in heaven because she loved Jesus and believed he was her savior. So, then you have the whole talk where she names every person she knows and asks if they are going to heaven. We had to be oh so delicate with our words. But, somehow in the confusion between Granny dying and going to heaven and why we celebrate Easter, she thought that at Easter Jesus was coming back and taking his people to heaven. I wonder how she felt this whole time leading up to Easter. I wonder if she was scared or just was just going with the flow. I was just a little in shock of how her little mind took these circumstances and made them make perfect sense in her head. When this first happened I thought it was funny but after thinking about it and praying over it, it has caused me much heartache. I pray earnestly that the Lord would be pleased to save her and Aaron and give them understanding quickly. The Lord has given parents such a huge responisbility in raising our children up to fear and love him. I truly feel honored and very thankful that the Lord has entrusted me with our little ones, but with all the joy and laughter, you never realize how much you anguish over and continually pray for them. Then I think there is no one that knows how I feel more so than God. Who sent his own son to die and actually had to pour out his wrath on his own undeserving son. He truly is our great comforter!

Finally, A New Season!!!!!

Praise the Lord, we finally sold our house! Granted it was while Cliff was gone for 3 weeks (who would have thought!), and only after a year on the market. Never the less, thank thank thank you Jesus! We have been praying for this for a year! Looking back, we can't believe it took a year to sell but all in the Lords timing! It is a gorgeous house & we will greatly miss it. Jerry builds some amazing houses! Many, many things have happened in the almost year & a half we have been here. Aaron learned how to walk here; Emily started her first day of pre-school here, and 2 wonderful Christmases. Many wonderful nights with our dear friends watching Idol & Lost while making "gourmet" dinners (not to mention finding out Jason is allergic to cilantro)! And, many a tear shed in our living room & pretty much every other room in the house. Sweet, sweet memories. This has been a hard year though & we are grateful to be moving. The Lord has taught us so much, how to make it on our own, when we were used to being surrounded by friends, being very very smart with our money, trusting the Lord to provide when we had absolutely nothing left, knowing that God really does cause all things to work together for good, and just resting in the Lord with an uncertain future. The Lord has been so gracious to us though, over the past few months he has opened up many doors & we are finally out of our time of uncertainty. He has beyond all measures given us the desire of our hearts!

Back to the house, we did not have an offer for a whole year then within 10 days we had 2 very good offers! So, we accepted one of the offers & are actually closing on April 15th. Cliff was gone to McAllen for 3 weeks helping run a Chick-fil-a that had lost its owner and all of this happened while he was gone. All 3 of us are so thankful he is back! It was not fun having him away, he does so much not to mention keeps me sane. While he was gone, I was looking like a mad woman all over the internet for house to rent in Austin & I had narrowed it down to about 10. Then when Cliff got home, we went & looked at all of them & found the perfect one. It is in Round Rock but closer to the Cedar Park side very close to our church and some great friends. We are moving in on Monday and are so excited!!!

I have been packing pretty much non-stop & ran across a box full of camp stuff. There were pictures, notes, bible studies, memos and it was so bittersweet to look through all the stuff. There were pictures of the kids with the counselors, at the pool, at camp out, on the back porch of the chow hall. There was a picture Kate drew of Emily where Emily was holding something in her hand that was smoking & it was not a match! I even found some old pictures of Chad Gerlt & Cliff when they were counselors together from 10 years ago! Not to mention tons of pictures of Paddlock at random places thanks to Shawn (even one with a dead bird)! Sarah, I found pictures of your 1st year at camp & that summer that Ryan bleached his hair, and of course, tons of pictures of Meghan & Aaron (back in his really chubby days!) There were pictures of Brittany from when she was a camper & a counselor. I also found one when Mindy had really, really long hair and of Jamie when she did masters and many a picture of dog meetings. I cried a lot going through that box. Even after a year, its still hard, I'm guessing it will never be easy though. Camp was such an amazing place & I'm so thankful the Lord had us there for so long. I can look at things and be thankful that all our best friends are from camp or in some way connected with camp! And at anytime if we need people to be praying we could send out 1 e-mail & a hundred people would be praying for us! But anyways, I guess our season is actually just now ending. Even though we left camp a year ago, we still lived out here. We still had counselors over at our house last summer, during reunion, & talked often with full time staff. So in a small way, we were still connected. But now, the Lord has moved us on. I'm really speechless as to what say except that the Lord has been so faithful!

Here are a few pictures of our old house in Kingsland (the first 2) & the new one in Round Rock(the 3rd picture). Can’t wait for people to come visit us in Austin now!! (or I guess it would be Round Rock)

DORA REALLY IS EDUCATIONAL!!!!


Okay, so I do find Dora the Explorer extremely annoying. However, I must say that I saw something today that will enable me to keep putting up with "saaaaaaay Map". Emily is very much into pretending & the more dramatic the better. So, today as I was laying on the couch not feeling very well, she's squirming around on the floor & reaching desperately for my hand. (She was walking beside a river & fell in and needed me to save her.) She's laying on the floor kicking her legs, reaching up for me, "help me, help me, help me over & over again. I play along the first couple of times but finally get tired of it, so I just act like I don't see her. So, she gets louder, "help me, help me." Still I don't respond, and I"m trying not to laugh at her unending pretending. Needless to say, she doesn't give up. She says help me a few more times, but finally she tries something else. Since obviously english is not working, she switches to Spanish & starts yelling "ayuda me, ayuda me" over & over. With that brilliant switch, I finally decide to rescue her from the raging waters of her imagination. I was very impressed! So, I think I can endure Da, Da, Da, Dora a little longer. Maybe she can refreshen me on my Spanish.

Emily is growing up so fast. We were at the mall & her and Cliff were shopping at Libby Lu's (a very cute little shop for "princesses"). Emily looked up at Cliff and said, "Daddy, can I get my ears pierced?" Of course, it's very hard for daddy's to say no to their little girls, so Cliff did the easiest thing he knew and said, "You have to ask your mom." They then went looking for me, to ask me the same question. I have been fine with her getting her ears pierced, my only concern was causing needless pain, for something that is obviously has no purpose except added cuteness. BUT, when Emily came and asked me, I wanted to make sure she knew exactly what was going to happen. So, I asked her to tell me. She said, (very matter-of-factly) "They are going to poke holes in my ears, and it will hurt really bad, but only for a little bit. But, I still want to do it!" So, needless to say, we let her do it. She was very brave and was so happy after she saw her ears in the mirror. She was so excited to go tell her friends and teacher at school. She's so proud. Oh, the things we females go through for beauty, even at 4 years old.

Then today, I gave Aaron a haircut. Its such a nightmare to try to get a 2 year old little boy to sit still long enough to cut his. Its been so hard in the past, that this time I let it get way to long trying to avoid the inevitable. But, finally today, I put a big pile of gummy bears in front of him and started shaving. I cut it as short as I could bring myself to do, to buy more time before the next haircut. I must say, her looks very cute now, and not like a little white boy with an afro.

The Joys of Children




Okay guys, I posted this on my facebook sight a few days ago, but I thought all of you might enjoy too!

Well, first of all you'll notice the time right now. Its after 4am. When you become a mom, something happens when it comes to sleeping. Literally a pin drop, tiny cry, cough, bump will wake you up. So, tonight I heard Aaron turning a lot in his bed. He usually sleeps like a rock, so needless to say, I got up to check on him. I quietly sneak out of bed, tip-toe to his door, open it as quietly as possible. Then proceed to carefully make my way over to his bed without stepping on a squeak toy, then I peak over the rails of his baby bed. And, what do I find, not a pajama clad toddler sleeping soundly, but a bare bottom sticking straight up in the air. The entire bed is soaked, bumper pads and all. Not to mention, poor little Aaron asleep, face right in the middle of the mess. At first, I think "oh, poor baby!" but then I laugh (in my head) and think, "this is so much like Aaron." He is hilarious but has a flare for trouble. So, I stop for a second to think what to do, when I spot the discarded diaper & pajamas on the floor, across the room, aparently flung there. So, I proceed to as gently as possible put to his pajamas back on not to mention a new diaper. Lay him quietly in bed with Cliff, change his bed sheets, move him back his bed & head back to bed myself. He barely woke up as I was putting his clothes back on, just enough to give me a sleepy smile that said so much more than I am sleepy. Well now, he's soundly alseep, back in his fresh bed, and I am left here not being able to sleep, but also thinking back on the days before I had kids & knowing I would never go back for anything even though I do have have to clean up a lot of messes, its so worth it!!