First Posting of 2009

This was Christmas day. We finally got to open our presents to each other about 2 o'clock in the afternoon. That was after my whopping 4 hours of sleep and trip to the ER in an ambulance with Jenai who had somehow given herself an epipen in the stomach while pretending her doll was sick. --- How is it I was smiling so brightly? I FINALLY truly surprised Steven with his presents.


Since Christmas we have had a trip to Georgia, and many other adventures in life. We have had so many blessings and prayers answered I don't know where to start to explain them. We have seen great improvements in our kids behavior (through parenting with the scriptures-- no, we're NOT hitting them with them though at times it may be tempting.) We have had several bouts of sickness in our home even as recently as today. But like the pioneer used to say "Higgidie Haggidie Hoggidie High; Pioneers never say die. Just around the bend there's a hidden cave where we can watch those Cherokee's go ridding on by." Okay so in my case it's not cherokees but they sure do sound like them. Here are some pictures and stories about our busy days.


Brokton has had problems with his tonsils for SEVERAL years now. Yesterday through nothing more than answered prayers his ENT told us he would have to get them removed. He also told us about some new studies done about behavior and tonsil infections. Here is a link if you want to read more. http://www.adhd.com.au/PANDAS.htm


Then this morning Brokton woke up with a fever and a case of strep. I am so grateful that it wasn't yesterday because the Dr. might have said to wait and see after the strep cleared up. What a blessing.



Evelyn has decided she likes to put together puzzles. So as a surprise I picked up this one to put together for the wall of her room.


Unfortunately some water got spilled on it and we had to stop working to dry it out.



We have 3 beautiful Crape Myrtle trees on our property. They give great flowers all summer if you prune them. Well we haven't pruned them since we have been here. We finally figured out how.



This lovely picture illustrates my husband's idea of ladder safety. We also recruited Evelyn to drag branches. She loved the chance to help while brother was too sick to compete for attention.

It looks like hacking so I hope our web resources are right and we get some beautiful blossoms this year.


On March 9 Evelyn had a spring program for the kindergarten classes at her school. This is her with her little friend Collin (they are our next door neighbors and very good friends.) Oh, Collin thinks he is going to marry Evelyn. While I agree he has good taste I think that their kids would have a dreadful attention span!!!!!!


Evelyn was told she needed to wear blue and for her nothing but the best would do! This is a dress that Aunt Maryann sent her. She LOVES it!


This is Jenai and her friend Anika. They think they are Siamese twins. The other picture is Jenai showing as she puts it "bleeds in my eye."


After the next story you can imagine the bleeds in mine!


The day after my birthday I woke up hearing a usual noise from Brokton's room. I thought he was driving his cars and money around on the floor. Well to my dismay in addition to that he was -as he puts it- "Making an abstract" on his floor with a sharpie marker.
So after...
12 Silent Prayers
11 Deep breaths
10 Counting backwards
9 Times of scrubbing
8 different Parables
7 longs sighs
6 Working hands
5 People effected
4 Parts of the Atonement (Mr. Clean-Christ, Water to activate it-Baptism, Sun to see and cleanse the spots of sin-Holy Ghost, Pressure to make it work-faith and works)
3 Mr. Clean sponges
2 Loving parents
1 Humbled son
...we had a clean floor and one great gospel analogy well learned.

(Lamintate floor $500, Sharpie marker $3.75 Mr. Clean Sponges $2.50 Paper towels $1.75 Baby wipes $1.00.... Son praying and asking to help him prepare to be baptized... PRICELESS)




For my birthday the kids wanted to participate and have a "real" party. So we had some great games. We took turns flying an airplane that Brokton had made.


I got to go last.


We each had to stand where our plane launch had landed.



My shot beat Broktons by about 6 inches- Who says you can't win at your own party.



Brokton, and Jenai gave me DOVE DARK Chocolate



Evelyn was so excited to give me the birthday card she had made.



We have had some days in the 70's even 80's recently but don't be too confused. The snow one morning showed Yes, Virginia, there IS a winter.



So What do you do when it's stormy outside it's 10 o'clock and you were just getting ready to have a snack and the power goes out?

Get popping with Jiffy of course.


The cat, Gilbert, was VERY curious.


MMMMMM Smells good. Tastes good too.



After we recovered from Christmas we took a trip to Atlanta GA to visit Chantelle's childhood friend, Jennifer, and pay our respects to Grandma Farmer.



The kids did a great job at navigating us through



In the end we all arrived safely & the fish were so excited to see us they came up to give us a kiss. Aren't the kids so sweet!

While we were in Atlanta We went to the Atlanta Aquarium & saw so many different kinds of fish we even saw the rare Brokafish Evlafish & the ever so rare Jenini fish.


Hey, was that Jonah I heard in there?




One thing that you have to see while visiting Atlanta is the Federal Reserve.
This is one of 12 federal banks in the united states that prints shreds & stores money for banks all over the country.

Because cameras are not allowed in the building these are the only pictures we got of our adventure. (talk about a cash cow. )



After we spent a few days in Atlanta it was time to go meet Grandmere & Papa in Cleveland GA. Our kids got to meet Aunt Lisa & cousins.

(this is Courtney )

The kids went to the Cabbage Patch Nursery to see baby cabbages born, I was so amazed to see all of the little cabbage heads :)



Everyone enjoyed visiting all of the babies in the nursery. Jenai even got one named after her, she was born while we were there.









After a very long day of assisting with cabbage births some of the kids could hardly even make it to the bed to go to sleep.



In December we went to Elias' birthday party at the rock climbing wall. The kids had so much fun!


Evelyn loved going but got a little shaky at the end.


Technically Jenai was too small to go but the girl working the wall strapped her up and let her give it a go. She had such a great time!


SInce it was a Wall-E party the kids had to try the wall-e eyes on every way they could.



We call this the Wall-E fish kiss!