2 Days Down

And 5 to go. So far the girls have done good and we've kept ourselves busy to try and avoid missing Daddy too much. Today's little gift from Daddy was a Hermie CD of songs (Hermie is a character in books written by Max Lucado) and the girls both loved it. I loved it because it only cost us $2 and they were actually good songs. Of course, yesterday after Kenny had only been gone maybe 10 hours Amelia sneezed and then came up to me pointing at her nose. Nothing new, she hates to have even the tiniest bit of snot on her face, as well as dirt on her hands, water on her face..... so I grabbed a tissue thinking she just wanted me to wipe her nose, although I didn't see anything. As I wiped her nose, I felt something a little hard and thought she must have just sneezed out a booger -- then I realized it was too big to be that and saw that she had stuffed an eraser up her nose. Thankfully, I was able to have her blow and get it out. I could just imagine having to make my first trip to the emergency room when Kenny was gone. I know, it sounds like a silly thing, but I know some that have had to go to the hospital for that. Praise the Lord she sneezed, wasn't crying to suck it back in and all is well. She has never stuffed anything up her nose before.... I'm hoping this is not a new found fun thing to do.

I have obviously talked to my honey and they got their safely, no delays, were tired last night as the time change is different so going to bed at 10 out there would be 1 our time. They went to the church they are helping out this morning and said they had a great worship service -- said the kids are motivated to make our service more worshipful here at home. That would be an answer to prayer, these teens have talent, but aren't always wanting to use it just for embarassment sake, being in front of people, etc. so it would be great to see the Lord already working in them. They were having some training today, a "gathering" tonight, more training in the morning and then they are starting the sports camp. I'm excited to hear how God works this week!

Seattle

.... that's where my hubby left for this morning. Actually, he's not even on the plane yet, but he and 2 other adults are taking 7 teenagers from church to Seattle on a mission trip. All the way across the country from me and the girls. :( I really hate it when he's away from me, which thankfully doesn't happen much. Please keep them in your prayers, pray for their safety and that they will all be empty vessels willing to be used for God.

And pray for me and the girls, it is going to be an interesting week. Amelia will be fine and hardly realize what is going on, she might ask a couple times where daddy is, but I don't think it will affect her as much. She's much more of a mama's girl so as long as I'm with her, she's ok. Isabella on the other hand, is going to have a harder time. She already kept telling Daddy she didn't want him to go -- kind of like it was her decision. :) I told her that I didn't "want" him to go either because I would miss him, but God wanted him to go so we just needed to pray for him. Yesterday we wrote a letter for Daddy for every day and stuck it in his suitcase. One of the letters she wrote said "I'm sorry I was being mean and said I didn't want you to go. I will let you go." :) I've already got plans to keep her busy and entertained. We have a craft to do every day, we made a little countdown calendar to check off every night, Daddy bought them a couple little presents -- one being the new Veggie Tales movie and the others being the coolest things at the dollar store :), and we've got a couple fun activities planned as well. Oh, and she gets to sleep with mommy at night, so she's pretty excited about that. Hopefully the week will go by fast for us. Maybe once he gets back things will slow down and I can start blogging more.

4th of July

I hope everyone had a great 4th. We did! It was nice having a long weekend rather than having the 4th right in the middle of the week. Of course, we didn't think about this until the very last minute and my friend Andrea and I decided we wanted to go away and do something fun with our girls. We ended up taking them camping for a night. Randy's parents and friends were already camping up in Cherokee so we crashed their party and added a couple tents next to their camper. It took all of 2 seconds for the girls to notice the river next to the campground and want to go play. The water was freezing cold, Andrea and I opted out of joining in, but the 2 Daddy's along with Mr. Eddie (he's practicing up for what he gets to do with his new granddaughter) braved the cold water to help these girls tube down the river. They are already learning how to use their female charms. :)

Daddy even joined in on a ride with Isabella

Amelia liked playing in the water, but decided tubing wasn't for her. She's seems very happy with her decision. :)

Afterwards we went "gem mining" with the girls where they got to find all kinds of pretty "rocks". :) I got this cute picture after we were all done. One of hopefully many more memories these girls get to make together.

As always, Isabella made a few new friends while we were there. I have never seen another child that is like Isabella, she really never meets a stranger. And not just kids, anyone... and it gets a little scary for mommy. We're at the fireworks and she just goes and sits down with people we've never met. One time, I thought I could try to teach her about strangers (we've had so many talks though its just not even funny) because she had gone and started talking to this older man just a little over from us. We called her back and I whispered "You don't talk to strangers without mommy or daddy. Isabella, you don't know that man." And she says "Yes, I do" ---- "You do? Well, what's his name?" (Thinking she would say I don't know because as friendly as my child is she has her daddy's "gift" to forget a name as soon as it has come out of the persons mouth :) Without hesitating she said "Billy." My plan totally backfired, the one time my child remembers a name. :) I love that she is friendly, we go to a playground or a restaurant or a store and she automatically makes friends --- I can see how God can use this in the future, so its hard for me. I'm not the most outgoing person and I don't want to put my fears of talking to people onto her, but I'm not going to be able to let her out of my site until she's MUCH older and then maybe will grasp the idea of strangers.

Anyway, all that from just mentioning that she made these 2 new friends while we were there.

And from these 2 cute little pictures I told Kenny..... "We're SO in trouble."

Amelia liked playing with friends too, but she was much more content just to stay with us and be a little nut. Ms. Marie had bought the girls some little treats and one of them was a magnifying glass and as you can see Amelia thought it was lots of fun.

I love these pictures of Kenny and Amelia, she was doing her normal game of refusing to give us kisses or wiping them away after she does. So sweet seeing my hubby and my girls enjoying each other. We stayed at the campground that evening and they had a group singing and it was a Christian group (although during the "intermission" they had some old people sing and their music should have been considered ungodly. I'm not even sure if it was a joyful noise, or just a noise. The fireworks were really good, especially considering it was just the campground letting them off, I wasn't expecting much so I was pleasantly surprised. Isabella loved watching them, but wanted daddy's hands over her ears, Amelia fell asleep in the middle of the display after letting out a few "Ooohs" and "wows". Here are my 2 favorite pics from that night.

Soccer Mom

Isabella had her first soccer game last night -- so I am now officially a Soccer Mom.

If nothing else, Isabella was definitely the most smiley, fun loving player out there. I know you can't really see in this picture, no ball in site, but Isabella is grinning. She cracked me up just running around smiling.

If you have never watched a 4-5 year olds' soccer game, you have to do it. This week, I took pictures, next week I HAVE to take some video. :) I don't know about all programs, but the YMCA is pretty laid back, you have 2 dads for coaches who are also acting as referees, the kids don't understand the rules, so even the out of bounds lines don't matter to them and they pretty much ignore the whistle. As this picture to the left shows. All the parents were having fun as the kids would kick the ball out of bounds, run behind the goal, run around the parents, etc.

Isabella did have a few moments of Daddy being the coach and referee that she would stop and want him to hold her or hug her, she was very upset once when the ball was going out and Daddy kicked it back in, just as she was going to go and kick it. And she did take the most breaks of all the kids, but it seemed much more interesting to be drinking water and playing on the sidelines. :)
A couple times she would take her break and then I would tell her she could go back in and she would do this little weaving run, like she was trying to do some kind of fancy footwork -- several of us parents got a kick out of that.

BUT, in the end, don't buy me a bumper sticker just yet..... at close to the end of the "game" the white team had a little break away, the ball was kicked to the lone player standing by the unmanned goal (they're always unmanned by the way) and where was this player......

looking for bugs, and didn't even budge when that ball flew right passed her. She even got up and showed the other coach, who seemed way to motivated to "win" (we don't keep score, folks -- although Kenny said we smoked them :) and she showed him whatever treasure it was she found, he seemed less than impressed. I said she might not be Daddy's little soccer star, but I was told by our one little "star" player's dad that his son was like that last year and would play until he was distracted by the bird flying by..... so there might be some hope yet. If not, she is going to love entomology. :)