so, it's been awhile

it's been over a year & a half since my last blog.... crazy!!!

I'm not going to write enough to catch you up on the last 18ish months, but I've recently been updating the kids' scrapbooks and realized how much I'd forgotten. Then, I looked back at the blog and instantly had all these stories and cute things they did and quickly filled in their books.

So, for the sake of my memory...here are a few newer things.

Ruthy has started 3rd grade! I remember when she couldn't even say 3 words....now it's a chore for her to say anything in under 3 words. :) She has a wonderful teacher and a great class. Ruthy doesn't much like sports. The other day we headed into town to play tennis. Moriah & Javan love tennis. Ruthy said, "why do I have to get dressed to play tennis. I don't like it. It's just running around chasing a ball and I get sweaty." ha! While she's not much into sports, she loves to make her own songs and dances up. She would put on a show in our living room every night if I'd let her.

She has a heart for others. Today we were listening to Klove radio when the news started. The first story was about Hurricane Irene. Ruthy listened and then asked me who Irene was. After I explained 'who' it was, she said, "Well, I haven't heard much about this so I don't think anyone else knows. I think we need to move the people to Iowa." She continued, "I need to do a video about this so other people can donate money to those people." :)

April 2011-

Ruthy bought a mood ring today in Branson. She is now play-acting with Moriah trying to play different emotions to see if it changes.

Moriah loves sports, but doesn't love the attention from it. She would prefer to score a soccer goal, or do a back flip or summersault in the pool, or hit a par 2 in min-golf without anyone noticing. She is going to play soccer again this fall and her Daddy gets to be her coach. They are both pretty excited about it. (Ruthy and I will be the photographers b/c we don't care much for chasing balls around a field...ha).

Moriah is in 1st grade and has a super-sweet teacher that she hoped all summer to get. She loves learning. She comes right home and does her homework without being asked. She is super fun and loves to laugh. I love it when she wrinkles her nose and smiles up at me. The other day Moriah had an itch on her foot....you know the kind that only comes when it's bedtime. I went in the kitchen to find a miracle-medicine and came back with two Skittles. Amazingly, it helped her foot. She told Ruthy it tasted like Skittles, but she wasn't sure. :)

This summer Moriah learned to ride her bike without training wheels. She kept working until she figured it out.

javan is a lot of fun. He turned 5 this summer. That means we have been at CCO in Oronogo, MO for 5 years and six weeks (as of late-July). He is amazing. He is so much fun and so cute....I think God made him cute to help him from getting in quite as much trouble sometimes.

He enjoys playing soccer and tennis. While he's a good soccer player, he stops way too often to explain to the coach, a team-mate, or the other coach, why he missed that ball. He is a great talker for being a boy and the baby of 2 big sisters. This spring during a game, Javan walked up to the other coach (while playing on the field) and said, "Your shoe's untied...ha ha, April Fool's!". Then he chased the other players who had the ball and instead of standing in front of them kept chasing them trying to 'web' them with his Spider-man web!

He loves going for walks, but only when he can ride his battery-powered 4 wheeler. Right now his favorite cereal is "snowflakes" (you might know them as cornflakes) and he really likes the ones with strawberries.

He is a kind-hearted boy and cares a lot for his friends...which is about everyone he meets. He doesn't know a stranger and if he does, he will quickly talk to them about anything. He's pretty funny.

He LOVES stories. He soaks them in. We've been reading a children's Bible he got for his birthday. He has an amazing memory of the stories (both Bible stories and life-stories of things we've done). Yesterday he asked me if the Israelites were the good guys or the bad guys!!

I think his favorite story lately was this summer. Shiloh, our black lab, caught a mole. I hate moles and any other rodent, but I hate what the mole did to our yard too. When Shiloh caught it of course it was a Sunday morning so Mark was at church. I turned Shiloh's big water bowl over on top of it and had Javan bring a medium-sized Rubbermaid tub out to put on top of the bowl. This week, Gma had a mole at her house (that hasn't been seen yet, just his runs). Anyway, Javan immediately started explaining how she needed to take care of the mole.


january 2011-

Make cow-tongue tacos for supper (a first ....which the kids liked until they found out what it was) and played chubby bunny for dessert.....Javan will be a good youth minister someday! :)

Well, okay, I guess I did get a bit wordy and then I threw in some things I 'remembered' after going back on facebook. hopefully the next post won't be so long and we won't wait so long to write.