Lessons learned

I have found myself getting on to the girls a lot lately (as a crying girl lays beside me right now refusing to take a nap). They are legitimate reasons, but sometimes I feel like I neglect to see the good the girls are doing and I just focus on the things they need to work on. So, I decided to take just a minute and think about some of the things the girls do good...actually, there are many lessons I could learn from the girls if I choose to. Here are some of the lessons:

1. Lesson from sister #1-M: Stand up for the weak and for the things you believe in. Let me tell you, there is very little that can stand in this girls' way when she is determined. Thankfully, she notices those who cannot stand up for themselves and helps them. If she believes something is right, she will stand up for it. Sometimes I give up too easily, but this girl doesn't give up. Yes, this quality can drive me crazy when she and I disagree on what is right, but sadly to say, she is ending up right more and more lately!


2. Lesson from sister #2-H: Listen to people. Now, this child does not listen to directions, or she just doesn't compute directions real well, but she does listen to people. I find myself daydreaming while people are talking to me. I start thinking about the things that need to be done, or I pay attention to everyone else around me except for who is talking to me. Not H, she listens when someone is telling her about themselves or telling a story. She listens and remembers and it makes people feel good. She makes people feel important by listening to them.


3. Lesson from sister #3-A: Give compliments to people. A is SO good at this. There are many, many times when A will give someone, anyone a compliment, and it totally changes their entire demeanor. The other day we were in a store, and the clerk was just a tad grumpy. She just didn't smile. I was checking out with the girls, and Autumn was off looking at something else. Later in the car, Autumn was telling me how interesting it was that the clerk suddenly seemed to change her mood and start smiling. I told her what made the difference...it was our little 6 year old A who looked up at her and said, "You are really good at this job." I guess we all need a little encouragement from time to time, and A notices the people who usually don't get compliments and she is not afraid to speak up.


4. Lesson from sister #4-S: Smile. I know this seems like a simple lesson...well, I guess it is, but I am telling you, we all forget to smile. S smiles...a LOT. If we all smiled more, I think we would feel better, and I think other people would respond better towards us. S smiles. People notice her smile and it brightens their day. I need to remember to smile more.


5. Lessons from all sisters: Give hugs. Now I know that it is different for little girls to give hugs to people than it is for a grow woman to give a hug, but I am telling you, these girls hug people and it makes them feel important and loved. The thing is, most people will treat people differently based on money, clothes, or whatever. These girls don't. I need to learn from them.

Now, I am by no means trying to make them sound perfect because I know they aren't. (remember, I am writing these things so I will remember to see the good and not just point out the bad.) But, there are many lessons to be learned and opportunities to be taken every day. Don't miss out!

breakfast in bed

We went to a family reunion this weekend. It was wonderful! I will post pictures later, but I am just telling you it was great. The reunion was held at a guest ranch, so there was so much to do, and since our family went a day early, we had so much fun even before the family got there, and even more fun after they were there! We stayed in a little cottage, which had two small rooms with two twin beds in each room. There was a Murphy bed in the living room, one bathroom and a little kitchenette, which was not fully stocked. We brought our own breakfast stuff and some lunch things in order to save money and not eat out ever meal. So the first night, H and M decided that they wanted to make breakfast for us the next day.
They were insistent that we do not help at all so they can do this for us! Now, we are not talking pancakes and eggs, we are talking muffins in a package and heating up sausage. They got up the next morning, went QUIETLY into the little girls' room, and tried to wake them up. The little girls didn't want to get up, so they continued with the "cooking". They did everything perfectly, and woke us up SO cheerfully with our little breakfast! They even made my coffee and fixed it perfectly with cream and sugar. It was wonderfully thoughtful and so sweet! So in the few days after that great breakfast in bed when they are being rude to their sisters or me, or when they have an attitude the size of Texas, I think of that sweet breakfast and realize the CAN be sweet and they ARE sweet, they just choose not to SHOW their sweetness all the time!

Decisions

The girls are wanting to redecorate their rooms. Autumn and I aren't really much of decorators, so that really would be good to make them look really cute. Our deal was this: if they can keep their rooms clean, then we can pick some things out to put on the walls. Autumn has been looking at some of those sticker decoration things to make it cute. So the girls have been talking non-stop about exactly what they want on their walls. And you have to know that there are two rooms, so there are two girls in each room. So the ideas:
M changes her mind all of the time. She wants blue, then she wants cars, then she wants rock n' roll or high school musical, then she wants cowgirl......can't really make her mind up.

S wants princess.....She wants blue because of Cinderella and she wants a princess room.

H has a very detailed image in her mind of exactly what she wants her room to look like, but I just don't know if we can see the image well enough to make it just like it. She wants 80's rock. Yep, 80's rock....I don't know where she came up with that one, and that is not what I would guess for her, but that is what she wants. On one wall, in gold or silver, she wants drums, on the other wall she wants a guitar. She is so funny and hasn't left the idea of 80's rock...she is stuck on that one.

A.....well, Autumn asked them tonight if they could only put one thing on their wall, what would it be? A's answer................either a picture of Elvis or Jesus!
So these will be some interesting rooms, but honestly, I am really thinking they aren't going to hold up their end of the deal in keeping their rooms clean!..............we shall see!

VBS

We had VBS last week and had tons of fun. We had a lot of kids and it was just a great week. I will say that I am relieved just a bit that it is over....it is sad that it is over because I love it, but it is a relief because I am just glad to know it went well and not have to worry about it.

Here is H and her friend....they both look so pretty!

S and her new friend........both sweet little girls and both just a little mischievious!

A is hanging out before we started.

Our theme was Saddle Ridge Ranch, so each night we had theme nights. We had crazy cowboy hat night, belt buckle night, etc. This was rodeo animal night. A was a bull dog. She likes dogs and a bull goes to a rodeo. She had a collar for the dog, and made horns for the bull. She was afraid people would laugh at her, so she wouldn't wear the whole thing.

This is from Rodeo clown night. Autumn let them pick whatever they wanted to wear for rode clown night. They looked on the internet to see examples and then set to work. Every other day, A brings in totally unmatching outfits begging to wear them. The ONE day that she can pick a mis-matched outfit, she chooses something that matches! It took a while, but she finally got into the whole mis-matched thing.

Here's the fam. Autumn was a good sport and dressed as a rodeo clown, but I chose to just wear the hat.

Once she put the outfit on, she became a clown. One of the girls said that the clowns can't talk, so she turned into a mime. I was laughing SO hard, and she enjoyed getting to put on a show for me!

Here is little miss piggy for rodeo animal night. For a long time she has liked me to call her Mommy's little piggy, so this totally fit her!

All week, we raised money for an organization that does orphan care in Africa. We had a little contest, and each of the four of us had a bucket. (The four of us is our staff minus our pastor. left to right: me, Mark the music minister, Tyler the youth minister and Mike the associate pastor.) The person that got the most money at the end of the week got a "cow pie" in the face. We ended up raising over $1000 and we all tied, so we each got 10 pies. We had lots of fun, and we drew kids' names at random to give us pies. It did look pretty nasty!

I like the expressions on both of our faces! It is pretty funny!

S happened to get called. That does look pretty gross.....it really looks like cow pooh!

The cow pies were made with chocolate pudding, cool whip, oat meal, and green food coloring. Tons of fun!!!!!!!!! I love VBS!!!!!!!!!

splish splash

We went to a splash park in a nearby town a couple of times recently with different friends each time. This thing is so cool...it's free and very fun. They just have sprinklers and different water shooters and buckets that dump water. The girls had a ton of fun. I took my underwater camera, so I had tons of fun too!
I like this picture....as you can see...M is pushing S to stand under the exact place where she knows the water is about to dump out of the bucket. Just look at her face...you can almost hear the evil laugh come out of her! And S is having fun just anticipating the water. A is looking for her bucket to dump, and our friend O is just taking it all in!

I love this.....you can tell so much of the story without the face...seeing them holding hands shows how much fun they have with their friends!

They huddled up together waiting for the water to drop.

We also went with another friend, L, and cousin B, and his friends.

B had fun! He liked walking around and getting wet!

Well, at first he liked getting wet, then he wanted to just run around. When we went the first time, Autumn went to gather the girls up to go home. Autumn and I had both stayed pretty dry...that is until she quickly got out of the way of the kid shooting the water....only to step under the bucket right when it dropped! So when we went back with cousin B, she was careful to stay out of the bucket's way. B had gotten tired of getting wet, so she was trying to get him to just walk around and have fun. She was trying to show him how you walk through the whole thing and not get wet, but just walk around and see everybody. That is when the fountain turned on right when she was on it.....yep, got her wet, but did NOT get B wet....she blocked him!

So he started running around on his own. He would go and sit on the fountain (when it was off) and go step on others, stand right under the buckets, etc. We were waiting for those fountains to come on when he was on it, or buckets to drop on him, but EVERY time he walked away, the fountain would come on. It NEVER came on when he was on the fountain. He NEVER got wet...after he decided to not get wet anymore. And every time he was on the fountains and such, we would laugh and laugh because we thought he was about to get wet, but he thought it was great because he thought we were laughing at him!

We had SO much fun!!!!!!!!!!!!1

Bible Stories: our version

We had a fun and relaxing (lazy) day after a busy week and we topped the day off with an evening at our friend Becky's house. Skip grilled while we swam, then we all enjoyed the yummy food together. On our way home, A shared some of the Bible stories she has learned. I think it started out with a story from VBS, but it turned out to be her summary of the Bible, and our entertainment for the night!
Creation:
When that man God made first was runnin' around, he started naming those animals. But he got the rabbit and fox confused and called the rabbit a fox and the fox a rabbit. Then the servant had legs but they brought that fire cross out, I mean the sword and threw it on the ground but the servant had legs, but God made it not have legs and crawl on the ground.
H: It's SERMON, not servant!
Me: No, it's serpent.
A: Ok, well the servant (her and Autumn argued about that a minute) had to crawl on the ground with no legs.
Good Samaritan:
There were those two mean men and they saw the good guy walkin' so they hit him and took all of his clothes. He was hurt real bad so the shepherd came by (she knew it was the shepherd cause he looked like a shepherd because of his shepherd clothes). The shepherd wrapped him up in sticks and that wrapping stuff and took him to a dungeon because he was hurt.
Noah:
Noah was the one who was on that big ship, and there was a deer that got hit by the storm and he died. But he took some people on that ship so they were ok. He sent out that crow and he was afraid of the water so he came back, so then Noah sent out that white bird and he did good.
Jonah:
Jonah told those other men to throw him in the water and they did cause he didn't do what God wanted so God sent a big blue fish to come and eat him for a lot of days. Then after I don't know how many days, that fish shot him out of his mouth and he was okay.
Joseph:
Joseph got a nice coat that had a lot of colors on it and he got it from his dad, but his brothers didn't like it so they threw him in a big pit to die. But someone came by with a stick to get him out, but they weren't very nice to him with that stick.
David and Goliath:
There was an army of Samaritans and they didn't like the people from Samaria, so they went to fight them every day. They said one two three four every day, but no one wanted to fight because they were real sholdiers (soldiers). But then that boy came out to fight the big guy (later she called him the giant) and he put a rock in it and swung it 15 times then it went and killed him down.
Daniel and the Lions:
Daniel wouldn't pray to anyone but God so they put him in that hole. The mean guys put him in that hole, not his brothers. The mean guys didn't want him to pray to God. Then the lions were there and they were nice to him because God made the big lion nice and the big lion told the other lions to be nice. So they were nice to Daniel and when Daniel left, they were mean again because they were hungry.
The fiery furnace:
Those three guys wouldn't do what the king wanted because the king wasn't doing what God wanted, so they put them in the fire and God kept them safe. They all died but the angel brought them back to life and saved them. And they didn't get poked or bruises or anything!

Okay, so we have some work, but she is on her way......just a little confusion!!! It was SO funny!!!

Pink eye

Sorry I haven't posted much. We had VBS all week, so it has been crazy busy at our house. We had a great VBS! I will post pictures of the girls from VBS later, but for some weird reason, I thought of a random story from a few years ago, so I will share that while I am thinking of it, because it is funny and I want to remember it.
About 4 years ago....we just had M in our home. She woke up one morning and her eye was kind of pinkish. I worked in a daycare and I work with kids all the time, you know, so I am SURE this is probably pink eye, but it MIGHT be allergies, so we will give it a day or so. It didn't have goo coming out of it yet, so.......hmm.........M wouldn't even hardly let us get near it. She didn't trust right away.
We took her to daycare, and when I picked her up, her eye was still pink. When she woke up the next morning, yep, still pink WITH gunk coming out, so we called the dr. and told her that M had pink eye.....no doubt about it, because remember, we have worked at daycare centers and KNOW what pink eye looks like. We work with kids, and just KNOW what pink eye is!
The dr. called in the pink eye medicine for us.....whew! That was easy! Hey Autumn, we are pretty good at this foster parent thing! So Autumn go the eye drops and brought them home....now just for getting them IN M's eye! We got the first drops in.......took two of us, but got them in!
The next morning Autumn went to work, so I was flying solo with getting the drops in....so I went in and woke her up, then went right for it....that way she didn't have time to wake up and fight me hard! So here I am, holding her hands down, talking calmly to her while trying to shove eye drops in her eyes. She was blinking a lot, and I was trying to pry her eyelids open long enough to get these things in.....and that's when I saw it....
What is that?
Is that a bubble from the drops?
What is that?
Girl........be still..........I'm trying to see what that is!
What is that?
OH.
MY.
GOODNESS!!!!!!!
That is a SEQUINS!!!!!!!!!!!!
Be still!
I can't get it!
GIRL...........BE STILL!!!!!!!!
Got it!
Yep.....that is a sequins!
How in the WORLD did you live with a sequins in your eye?
This was not glitter, not a little piece of sparkle, no, this was almost as big as a contact, full out goes on a dress, sequins!
How in the world did she do that? I mean really, when I get a piece of dirt, or a spec of anything in my eye, it hurts like crazy! How did she do that? Who IS this girl?
"M, why did you put that in your eye?"
"Cause I want to be like you!"
Oh my.....she had seen us put contacts in our eye, and this little clear sequins did resemble a contact, except that it was kind of jagged and bumpy, and had to hurt her eye so bad!
Ok, so I guess that is when I realized you NEVER know what will happen with little ones....NEVER!!!!!!!!!!