Valentine Treats from Derrick!

Sweet Liv

Liv is so sweet! She is a big "mama's girl" and lets you know it if you try to take her from me. She takes her long, skinny arms, reaches for me and wimpers. Unless you have food and she may be persuaded to go to you but just for a bit. She imitates a lot of things right now and it is so much fun. She recently learned how to click her tongue. She loves to eat and has a hearty appetite. She is too cute when she sucks her thumb. ;)

How God Overcomes Failure in Your Family: Pastor Voddie Baucham

This is great!
True Woman | Chattanooga: Pastor Voddie Baucham

Great Message for Women

We watched this tonight at our homeschool meeting. It is very good! I would love to get Mary Kassian's book called, Girls Gone Wise.

True Woman | Fort Worth: Mary Kassian

California Trip Day 1

These were taken on the plane. It took 6 hours and they did really good. I thought, "Oh, no!" when Bailey asked if we were about to be there 1 hour into the flight! Isabella was apparently excited about getting to use the bathroom on the plane! She told my grandma about it when we got home. I was surprised that they did not sleep that whole time. The baby only slept for about 40 minutes. We had a lot of snacks, some See's lollipops (one of which made a chocolate mustache on Bella and eventually got stuck in her hair), some little Wonder Color activity books, and stuffed animals. The Grand Canyon was so neat to see from the sky. I had hoped to read quite a bit on the plane but did not get to do much of that.

When we got to the airport an employee came up to me and asked if I left my camera on the plane. When I asked him how he knew it was me he said they had told him it was a lady with 4 children. Yet another perk to having a lot of little ones... People know who you are! ;)

To protect the offender I won't say the person's name (although I am sure you can guess who it was! Ha! Ha! ;) )but it was pretty funny when we were finally walking to get our luggage from getting the camera back. We heard " _______ _ _ _ _'_, Please remove your vehicle..." She had left her vehicle and looked for us since we hadn't made it to the luggage area yet. That was an $80 lesson!

We went to a Chinese place for dinner that night and then got the yummiest ice cream sundae from an ice cream shop.

You know the saying, "You snooze, you lose!" It really is true sometimes. Poor Bella. She fell asleep and missed out on ice cream and balloons. My mom had walked Bailey and Samantha to the street corner where a clown was making balloons. Bailey's was the neatest I have ever seen. It was a monkey climbing a tree. Then we went back to the extended stay hotel my mom had been staying in and slept there. My mom found Isabella's finger-sucking a bit difficult to sleep through. ;)

Disneyland

After a long and difficult week we are headed to warm, sunny California! We will board our plane this afternoon. Derrick is not in town and able to be with us :( but the kids and I are meeting my mom there and then driving back. We plan to go to Disneyland and go by the Grand Canyon on our way back. We are excited! We need a vacation, especially after the week we've had!

Well, I had heard husbands talk about how thankful they are for their wives when they have had to take on their wife's role due to a loss of their job, a wife's sickness, or some other reason. They talk about how much they appreciate all their wife does. I have been learning how priceless a husband is! It is a looong story to go through it all but maybe I can paint a small picture of it. Being without a husband has been no.fun.at.all!

The blizzard that came through has been crazy to start with! I have never seen anything like this and have NEVER seen school called off for as long as it has been. With homeschooling we normally follow the public school's schedule. We have been able to continue schoolwork but have taken breaks too. We stayed at my in-laws for several days which was a lot of fun. I never dreamed we'd be "stuck" there for 5 days! The kids and I were sleeping in the living room together. It was time to get back to our house. I decided to drive home when the roads were better and before another snow storm came in. I chose to be "stuck" there for the next one. The reason I went in the first place was in case our power went out and we didn't have Derrick but the power never did go out. When I got home I saw that our house had been damaged. We had an ice dam and the water had melted and gone down our wall in the kitchen and water had seeped all into our kitchen floor too. If we had had wallpaper it would have come off but our paint almost looked like wall paper as it looked like it was wilting. The details of all that are quite a story in itself. So, we already had our floor ripped up in an area, big, loud fans constantly blowing downstairs to dry the water, and couldn't use our kitchen table to eat or do school on. One event seemed to happen after another. I'm not including all the little things! One of the kids had turned our refrigerator off. By the time I noticed I didn't know if it had been off for one or two days. I noticed my milk was not very cold in my cereal. Then I noticed some other things and finally opened the freezer to see everything melted in there. I had planned on making homemade spaghetti for my neighbor and was really disappointed that I couldn't use my meat. The streets were icy and I didn't want to get out to get more. I thought about what I should do and how I already told her I was bringing the spaghetti. I decided to start making it without meat. It would be better than nothing! So, the spaghetti was simmering. I started cleaning out the refrigerator and throwing everything out. I asked Bay to help and push the refrigerator toward me so I could sweep behind it. Apparently he pushed with a little too much force. I heard a loud noise that sounded like loud, forceful air. I didn't know what happened and was afraid something could catch fire. I think I was a little confused because the fire was on the stove boiling noodles and simmering spaghetti. I said, "Get out the house! Go get a neighbor!" I went and grabbed the baby out of her crib and threw a coat on because my shirt was not appropriate (I was not totally dressed for the day). We ran outside barefoot on the freezing snow. Man, does that burn your feet! Thankfully, I got ahold of Derrick and he told me to turn the breaker off, turn the water off, and turn a valve off. Water was shooting all over my kitchen and spaghetti. The dry floor that had been drying for days was again wet. Bailey had caused a tube to break that goes to our water and ice dispenser. There was a lot of pressure. Our mail (tax information) was soaked! Thankfully, the kids never got ahold of a neighbor. It would have been kind of embarrassing! Here I was in a torn up, soaked house with no spaghetti and, I forgot to mention, two minutes before this happened I got off the phone with the dr's office finding out I have a weak positive for Celiac's disease! This is where I just broke down. I was weeping. Derrick told me to send the kids to their rooms and sit down. I know he felt so helpless. He said, "I love you. You know I love you, right?"

I called a sweet, sweet family from church because my stomach literally felt sick and I was so weak. The wife took the kids, except Livi and her husband came to help me. My sweet in-laws wanted to be on the way but I told them not to worry because my close neighbors were coming.

I ended up ordering spaghetti for my neighbor, pizza for the kiddoes, and my grandparents brought me chili and a baked potato from Wendy's. The crying wore me out so I had to go to bed early and finish packing and cleaning early this morning.


I go to the dr this morning to find out what a "weak positive" means. I was insistent to talk to him before we catch the plane today so I can know...something. He is putting me on a gluten free diet. Having a diagnosis is scary, yet almost a blessing because I have been sick off and on ever since I had Livi almost 9 months ago. I have these "attacks" randomly. They hit like a thief in the night, are very painful, and I have a hard time functioning the whole day after they hit. I have known something is seriously wrong with my body so I will be glad to know what to do and to prevent further damage. Gluten is like putting poison in your body to a Celiac.

Women's Ministry: Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss-- Seeking Biblical Womanhood

Women's Ministry: Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss-- Seeking Biblical Womanhood

A Quote From Patrick Henry

"It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ." -Patrick Henry

This was taken before the cousins left for France. Lili (my mom), Gigi (my grandma), Papa Jerry, the cousins, and our family. Ryan took the picture.

Our Blizzard

Warm and cozy at Grandma and Grandpa's.

Aunt Stephanie's car buried under the snow. Uncle Jaared and Stephanie were brave to get out and go to Steph's dr. appointment today. Of course, they had to find out if we were getting a new girl cousin or boy cousin. It's a girl! Uncle Jaared and Papa Mitchell picked up some pizzas for us too as the groceries are getting less...

Sam in the snow at Grandpa and Grandma's. It's wild here right now!

Samantha with a bowl getting ready to collect snow for snow ice cream! We had to improvise with what we had on hand. We had cinnamon, powdered sugar, and milk. I don't suggest it! It was a hit for Bella, Grandma, and Samantha! The rest of us needed the usual vanilla and sugar.