Goodbyes

I am sitting here tonight with a sad heart. I know that I have a monster blog update to do, but I can't get the Teutsch family out of my mind. I think as a parent, it is your worst nightmare to have a child pass away before you. You hope to see them grow, marry, have children.....not lose them before.

Brother Scott has been my pastor for 11 years now. Through those years I have had the opportunity to watch Jessica grow up....listen to her sweet voice sing...have her teach my girls at VBS. She was a kind and sweet girl. I can't say that I knew her well, but when you have a church family, all the kids become your "kids" in a way. You are interested in their lives and how they are doing. You wish the best for them. You want to see them do well. That's a church family.

When things like this happen, the church family pulls together. Prays for strength, comfort.....

You want to do more, say the right things to the family, take the pain off of their shoulders. You can't really understand what they are feeling unless you have been there yourself. In the end, all you can do is be there and pray.

So, if you aren't already doing so, I'm asking you guys to pray for Brother Scott, Lisa, Luke, Hannah and the rest of their family.

Here is the link to Jessica's obituary: http://www.legacy.com/shreveporttimes/Obituaries.asp?Page=Lifestory&PersonId=122938655

And here is another nice post about her: http://www.baptiststandard.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=9062&Itemid=53

Happy New Year

I have decided that I will just do a long Fall /Winter 2008 recap in a few days. Maybe that will catch me up. Seems like once you reach a certain point, you are overwhelmed at how far behind you have become. Oh well...it will all come together.

For those that have asked, Stefan arrived safely in China (much to the relief of this nervous mother). He won't be coming back until January 5th. We wish he were here with us over the New Year, but this was an opportunity that he might not otherwise have received. Thanks to my brother and sister-in-law for the extremely generous gift to Stefan. Here are some of the pics that they have emailed me.

And yes, it is very cold there right now. I am a little jealous because Stefan is getting to spend so much time with my super cute nephews!

By the way, please pray that he has a safe journey home...he will have a four hour layover in Chicago and won't arrive until 10:25pm on Monday night. Then it is a 4 hour drive home and up in the morning to go to school. Unfortunately, he has finals next week and has to be there as much as possible.

Before I sign off.......I hope all of my family and friends are happy and healthy and enjoying the beginning of this new year. A special "love you" to my close ones.....you know who you are:)

I'm still here

If I ever get caught up with work...I've got alot to blog about.

Today's Funny - When You're Ready I'm Here

Emma thinks she is so grown up. Especially since she will be 6 on Saturday. I have been REAL busy today trying to get stuff done, so I haven't talked with her alot. She just came in to me and we had the following brief conversation:

Emma: Mommy, I'm so excited about my party on my birthday.

Me: Me too Em. I can't wait for you guys to have a great birthday.

Emma: Mommy, let's talk about the party.

Me: We will later, Emma. Mommy has got to finish getting stuff ready for Cubbies.

Emma: That's OK. Mommy....just know that when you're ready to talk, I'm here. Just come to me when you are ready.

What a hoot! Where did she learn that?

Crockpot Recipes and such

Just thought I'd mention a site that I just found thanks to someone else. It has alot of helpful hints and crock pot recipes, etc....etc...check it out:

Hillbilly Housewife

Flashback Friday...on Saturday :)

I'm getting ready to do some Stefan posts...so here is one pic that I found from a long time ago.

I promise it won't hurt

Yeah right! Emma's two front teeth have been loose for a few weeks now. One of them has been literally hanging on for the past few days.

Before I go any farther, let me go back a few days. Last week, as will happen, the girls got into a ...how shall we say this...let's say "disagreement". It resulted in Sarah headbutting Emma in the mouth. Needless to say, Emma's mouth bled for a short time.

OK...fast forward to this week. For the past few days, Em has had a temperature and her gums have been swollen and purple. I became concerned that Sarah might have done some damage to her sister's mouth, so I made an appointment for the dentist. Most of you know that Emma is all about drama when it comes to any kind of doctors office visit. I had to convince her that all they would do was take a "picture" of her teeth and look at them . And...kudos...she might get a new toothbrush. She was cool with this, so off we trekked to the dentist.

Upon arrival, Emma developed an overwhelming need to say everything that she could possibly think of, over and over. Yep...nervous talker. After x-raying and checking all out, he motioned to me that he was going to pull one of the offending loose teeth out. Let's call it the dangler. The dentist pulled a trick on Emma (oh so sneaky) and managed to numb her mouth without her realizing it. Then he had her close eyes and snuck in the extra numbing shot. That one made her cry. She didn't know that she had received a shot, she thought that it hurt because he pulled the dangling tooth out.

Once said tooth was pulled, the dentist hugged her and put her tooth in a bag to give to Mom (me) to bring home for that mysterious night wanderer called the tooth fairy. The he did the most unheard of thing and gave her a dollar for her tooth. I want to know where he was when I was little and being forced to go to the dentist! Anyway, after reassuring us that my little headbutter had probably not done any damage to Emma's permanent teeth, we left with a wad of gauze in Emma's mouth.

I thought that this would be it, but no. On the way home, Emma leans as far forward as the seat belt would allow and bellows at me through spit and gauze: "I didn't even get a toothbrush!" My response was "you got a dollar....do you want a toothbrush instead?"

Emma says to me: "No a dollar is cooler. A toothbrush is just brush, brush, brush all day long. That's no fun!"

So there you have it. And by the way, we do know that the dollar bill is upside down in the first photo.

The Corn Maize

Last week I took the girls to the Corn Maize. It's about 20 minutes north of Shreveport. This was the first time that we met up with one of the local home school groups. Fortunately, Cindy and the kids came so there were some familiar faces.

(Just part of the group)

The girls loved it! In fact, they got a little upset when I said it was time to go. That might have to do with them being overly tired though:)

They had pig races, pumpkin blasters, three different mazes, a hayride, and several other things. It definitely kept the kids busy. If you are interested, check out their website: Country Fun Farms .

Here are a few:

It finally happened

I have no pictures to illustrate this story, however, I am sure that you wouldn't want to see one if I had one.

I have always heard stories about children that get items stuck up their nose, but have been fortunate not to have any of my own do this. Well that has changed.

The other day I heard Sarah crying in her room. Emma was telling her that she was going to get "Mommy". Sarah said "No, wait for Daddy to get home." Of course, I had to see why. When I got in the room, I saw all of their Mardi Gras beads on the floor. Sarah was in front of their full length mirror holding her nose and whining. Emma promptly supplied the following information: "Sarah has a bead stuck in her nose!"

Sure enough, there was a pearl Mardi Gras bead stuck in her nose. After a brief surgery consisting of a bright light and tweezers, said pearl was deposited in the trash and Sarah was given a stern lecture on what would have transpired if the pearl had not come out.

When I asked her why she didn't want to tell me she said: "I thought you would be mad and not take it out". So, at least I know that I still have Sarah snowed.....LOL

Just another Friday night at the football stadium. I love football season. Last Friday was the game against Benton. Unfortunately we lost, but the band did pretty well. Of course, I am biased towards our drumline. You can click on the picture below to see more from the other night at the game.

HHS 2008

And here are a few of Caleb. I lucked out and got a seat by Misty and Daryl.

Miscellaneous driving shots :)

Wednesday Nite Live

Wednesday Nite Live has kicked back into gear this fall at church. The praise and worship band from last year was made up of mostly seniors, so Stefan and several of his friends decided to take over. This picture only shows Stefan singing, but he is also playing guitar in the band. Pretty proud of him we are. He just learned how to play the guitar a little over a month ago. They are doing pretty good so far.

A Night Under the Stars

The Shreveport Metropolitan Ballet did an evening under the stars free performance at the Festival Plaza. Greg and I decided to take the girls...thinking that they would enjoy it....which they did. When intermission came, the ballet offered a mini-ballet lesson on stage for the children. We thought that Sarah would go and Emma would be too shy and stay with us. WRONG! Sarah cried and cried...she did NOT want to go on stage. Emma, however, did go up there and drop a few dance moves.

We were fortunate enough to meet up with our good friend Cindy, and her kids.

Here are a few:

Happy Birthday to Greg

Greg's 39th borthday was August 30th. It kind of stunk because we were all sick. However, I rallied around and made him a cake for his birthday. The picture below is what you use when you forget to buy candles. (Can we say yep...toothpicks?)

It must have been REALLY HARD to blow those massive candles out!!!!

Stefan giving the thumbs up as he barely made it in for the cake and ice cream. I forgot to post a pic of the girls in their bandannas...I will have to do that later.