Learning to spell

Rebekah is learning to spell.

And I am finding it quite amusing.

*grin*

WANTED
One Plump and Perky Turkey

TO PLa weF me.
(to play with me.)

(The drawing of the turkey's pretty good, too.)







INdNss meT PALrms.
(Indians met Pilgrims.)

Playing in the leaves

The kids had a blast making a huge leaf pile to jump
in at Mammy & Pappy's. It took them about an hour
to get all of these leaves raked together. But they sure
did enjoy the benefits afterward. Just look at the air
some of them are getting as they jump into the pile!!

Getting Married

So this morning, Lydia is playing dress-up in her room and she tells me.

"I'm marrying Diego, so I have to do the mambo!"

She also told me that Diego was going to give her a flower in her hair.

So sweet!

Singing songs

So we're on our way to Arkansas to see Mammy and Pappy.

Dana and I are in our van with Rebekah, Spencer, and Lydia in the back seat.

Rebekah Spencer and Lydia are all singing...

Three different songs...

Very loud.

So I tell them to turn down the volume, so they all stop singing.

Then Rebekah says, "Hey guys! I've got an idea. How about we all sing songs in our head? It goes like this..."

SILENCE.


Dana and I busted out laughing. She is SO funny!!

The flu...

Wednesday night: Amber
Thursday: Hope & Papaw
Friday: Mom, Nathan, Rebekah, Stephanie, Eric, Desirae, Ben & Spencer
Saturday: me

The only ones not affected: Dad (thank goodness since he just had surgery!), Tiffany, Jamie, Dana, & David

Those who have been well, helped take care of the children of those who were sick. Stephanie & Dana covered for me when I was dead to the world!

So, that's all for now. I'll try to share photos later.

Oh! And Lydia is the only child who hasn't gotten sick. Mom says it's because she's too quick for any illness to catch her.

Thanksgiving

Rebekah's class had their Thanksgiving celebration this morning and Rebekah was such a cute little Indian. She had her painted pasta necklace and her painted pillowcase dress. (Thanks, Aunt Judi, for the brown pillowcase!)

She made a really cute placemat and they had a good Thanksgiving dinner. Liam even asked if they had juice boxes at the first Thanksgiving!

Here's a photo of Liam & Bekah. They happened to be sitting next to each other.

Rebekah was cracking up because I was acting shocked that she was eating her brownie before the rest of her food.

She had a blast. Here are a few photos!

Get well soon, Pappy!

Pappy,

Rebekah made this card for you. We'll give it to you personally when we see you, but I wanted you to go ahead and see it!

She drew a picture of a house that does your work for you. It's mowing the grass and cleaning its own windows, etc. So interesting the things she comes up with.

Get well soon, Pappy!

Art and a Couple of Turkeys

We have had a very full weekend ... hanging out with friends, Christmas shopping, church, and a life group Thanksgiving party. Unfortunately, there aren't any photos to share. But I do have a little art work. This first piece is by Bekah. It is of our house.

I know that all parents think that their children are gifted, but just let me bask in this one. Rebekah has SUCH attention to detail. She surprises me all the time.

She drew our house with an attic window in the top, the twirling metal vent on the roof, the gravel driveway (see the rocks?) and our van with exhaust coming out the back. If you look closely, you can see that Rebekah is driving. She drew our tree in the front yard and a rainbow mailbox. (Our mailbox is black, so I guess she took a little artistic freedom on this one...) There's a fence in the back yard and a campfire with rocks in a ring around it. After she had completed the drawing, her checked everything off that she had drawn:
"Van...check!
Tree...check!
Mailbox...check!"
and on and on.

As Thanksgiving draws near, so do the Thanksgiving crafts.
Here is the turkey Bekah made in her Sunday school class yesterday.

And here is Lydia's. We call it a Picaso turkey.

Happy Monday!
Jayna

E I E I O

Here's a quick photo of Lydia winking at herself in the mirror to go along with the cutest thing she said the other day.

Lydia said,
"Mommy, can you please play the song:
EIEIO
Yes, that's the book for me.
I stand alone on the word of God.
The EIEIO"

So cute!

Periods

So we get a newsletter the other day from Rebekah's teacher. It asks us to review sentence structure since they are learning about all of this in class:

-Sentences begin with a capital letter.
-There are spaces between words.
-A sentence ends with a period.

Only, I remember that Jamie told me that they called periods something different to help them remember to pause at the end of the sentence.

I asked Rebekah what her class called the dots at the end of a sentence.

She said, "Pointy patches pause. We call them pointy patches pause, but our parents call them pyramids."

Here's the video of Jamie as a monkey!!

Click on the video to activate it and then click on it again to play it.

A Fun Time was Had by All

Well, after a lot of work, we finally had our fall party, complete with an Irish theme. Dana made some yummy Irish bread recipes (my favorite was the Irish soda bread!!) and a delicious Guinness beef stew. We made some potato dishes including potato cakes and potato soup. David fried up some bangers and they, along with the Dubliner cheeses went faster than anything else. Everyone really enjoyed the Guinness and cheese fondue several people brought wine to go along with the Guinness. David even ordered some Irish turf peat so that we could have the aroma of the peat burning to make the smell of the house authentically Irish! If you pay attention, you can see that the veggies are in the design of the Irish flag.

Finding childcare for the girls got a little crazy, but my former boss came through at the last minute and the girls had a fun time playing with her daughter. Yea!!It was damp and cold the night of the party. (Fine, Irish weather... as David would say!) Talk about a huge pile of coats!!

There were a ton of people in the house and the kitchen and living room stayed HOT. The guys moved to the office to hang out, have deep conversation and play with the sword. Nathan, here, is pretty impressive --- because that sword is HEAVY.Jamie & David didn't know it, but they planned their own birthday party. Dana and I made birthday cakes (Guiness Chocolate Orange cake and Guinness Chocolate Cake, respectively) and surprised them with them after everyone arrived. Tia made each of them eight unique wine glass charms. I have to say that she totally nailed David's personality in choosing the charms for him. I was on the phone with her when she saw a monkey charm and she immediately thought it would be perfect for Jamie. I laughed that a monkey would make her think of her little brother. (She said she chose it because she knew that Jamie liked monkeys.) Well, later that night, Jamie found the girls' monkey mask in their room and he was TOTALLY cracking us up with his antics. Here's Tia trying to keep a straight face while talking to Jamie in the mask! Ha ha! I'll try to post a video of "Jamie the monkey" in my next post! He is truly hilarious! And, as you can see here, this sense of humor must be attractive to Dana, as Jamie steals a little kiss from his wife. =)Tabitha (Jamie's youngest sister) even got in on the fun, posing in the mask. And here they are goofing off, making a face their dad used to make at them. (I don't know how they do that!)
With all of their adult children (and significant others) in one place, Ina asked that I take a photo of all of them. I think it turned out GREAT!

Blast from the past - January 2005

What a morning!

This morning has been a little nuts!

First, I locked my keys in my car --- WITH IT RUNNING!!

I was freaking out a bit. Our car is supposed to not let you lock the doors with the keys in the ignition.

I remembered finding a random key in my purse and not knowing what it was for. Well, thank the Lord! It was a key to our car!

So I got into work and went into the break room. We have a soda cooler that holds 75 or so sodas. I was refilling it (we take turns in the office) when I dropped a Diet Dr. Pepper on the floor.

It exploded.

Yes, exploded.

Not like it squirted a little bit of soda.

It e-x-p-l-o-d-e-d!

All over the ENTIRE breakroom floor.
All over the inside of the cooler.
All over the front and side of the refrigerator.
And most importantly...all over ME!
My shirt has splash stains and my jeans are SOAKED!
Now I feel all sticky.
STICKY.

At least it's casual day.

Happy Friday!