Crazy Hair

These pictures don't do justice to Ellie's hair this morning.

But it's the best I could do...

An E-mail...

I wanted to share an e-mail we recently received from one of the large group teachers involved with our Children's Ministry.

I am sharing it with her permission.

Often I forget to celebrate the amazing things that God has done in the lives of my kids, especially Ellie. She has come so far, but often I forget this and focus on the things she still needs to improve on. Her personality is so extraverted and mine is right in the middle and there are times (many of them to be exact) when I want to try to shush Ellie, calm down her exuberance at life and in general just want her to be more like me. I am ashamed to admit it because God has created each of my kids and their differing personalities. He loves that we are all different yet we make up one body if we trust in Him.

This letter reminded me to take every moment and celebrate what He has done in Ellie's life and to celebrate who He created her to be...

Jeff & Stephanie:

Each month when I’m in CrosswayKids I try to recognize a child who is doing something special or out of the ordinary--showing leadership, or helping others out, being a peacemaker, participating enthusiastically, just something out of the norm that stands out. Then I also email his/her parents to brag on their child.

This month, that child was Ellie. Ellie made my day yesterday!! It was her first time in the elementary large group and I have no doubt that she had a wonderful time.

Since you both work in CrosswayKids I don’t need to tell you how challenging it can often be to get some of the kids to participate in worship. But not Ellie!! Ellie was dancing and singing her little heart out and when worship was over she turned around to me and said “I want to do it again!”

Before the lesson, I had all of the kids introduce themselves since we had new ones in the group... some mumbled their names under their breath, but Ellie introduced herself to the group loudly and clearly.

She paid attention during the lesson and participated very enthusiastically!! When I asked questions she always raised her hand to answer, never just shouting out. As an ice breaker to draw into a bigger point, I asked the kids what their favorite breakfast food was. Apparently the kids loooove breakfast food because everyone wanted to answer. So I was going around the room letting everyone say their breakfast food, Ellie was waving and shaking her little hand in the air, very excited, but she never answered until she was called on. (By the way, her favorite breakfast is toaster strudels!) :-)

Ellie rocks!!!

I am excited that Ellie has moved up to the elementary group, I really look forward to watching her grow and learn in Crosswaykids!!

donna

Thanks Donna!!

First Day of School

Well we have completed our first two days of school and overall I think it went great!

There were of course a few glitches and crazy moments but all in all I think the kids had a fantastic beginning of a new school year!

Ainsley and Ellie seem to love their new teachers and have had a lot of fun already. I knew they would like their teachers because I know both of their teachers. Mackenzie and Ainsley both had Mrs. Baker for kindergarten and she is awesome. Mackenzie had Ms. Quinlan for 1st grade and that is who Ainsley now has for 2nd grade. Looks to be a great school year.

Mackenzie was the wild card, starting a new school with new teachers and all that involves. I honestly was pretty nervous for her, because she was a little nervous on the first day. Beechwood doesn't have a meet the teacher night and there was construction going on in the school so we didn't even get to take a tour of the new school. She did great however and I am so proud of her. When she got into the car after the 1st day, she didn't stop talking the entire 25 minutes it took to get to her sister's school! She seems to love her new teacher and loves all her new classes and the fun stuff they get to do! I am ever so thankful!

I myself and loving my new schedule. I am working Tuesday and Thursdays and then have Mon, Wed and Friday mornings left to do stuff I need to get done and volunteer. Looking forward to a great year of school!

Adopting

Well here's the big news of the last few weeks. We have decided to adopt again! I have been waiting for God to lay it on Jeff's heart to adopt again. I told Jeff on our flight home from adopting Ellie that we would adopt again but it has taken a while to get there for both of us, really.

Parenting kids takes a lot of time and attention! But then you throw in one that has some special needs and time seems to fly right out the window! But I think I have known all along that I wanted to eventually do it again. We haven't made a final decision as to all the specifics though we certainly are leaning towards adopting another girl from China.

We have loads of decisions to make in the coming weeks, but will keep you posted as we go along.

This new journey is especially exciting because we don't have the money saved up! Not sure how God will choose to bring it in but am certain that if He wants us to do this than the money will be there! Can't wait to watch amazing things happen!

How does time...

...fly by so quickly!!

If you can't believe that it is almost time for school to start than please join me in my amazement!

We have had such a fun, busy summer that it seems like it can't possibly be time for school to get underway yet again.

As the week finishes up, I think the sitter will be taking the girls somewhere fun today. I spent yesterday and today at the Willowcreek Leadership Conference via the simulcast. It has been a great learning experience. I always love listening and learning new things from some great and amazing leaders of our time.

On the schedule yesterday was Bill Hybels, Jim Collins ( he was awesome), Christine Cain ( she was AMAZING), an interview with Tony Dungy (pretty good), Adam Hamilton (good and helpful info), Dr. Peter Zhao Xiao and Andy Stanley. Unfortunately I think Peter Zhao Xiao went longer than anticipated and we had to leave before Andy Stanley spoke which was sad! But still some great leaders with some God-given insight!

On tap for today are Jef Manion, an interview with Terri Kelly, Daniel Pink, and interview with Blake Mycoskie (really looking forward to this one...he's the founder and CEO of TOMS shoes, a company that for every pair of shoes a consumer purchases they give a pair away to a needy child), and interview with Jack Welch, TD Jakes and then Hybels with closing remarks.

Looks to be a great challenging day! It is on central time, which means that we don't get to eat lunch till close to 2 and I don't get home to eat dinner till 7. This is very late for me...probably need a power breakfast :)

Weekend activities

Our weekend was pretty low key but we managed to throw in lots of fun too! Friday night we went to the pool and had a really good time. That was our first time at the pool in at least several weeks because of vacation. It was nice to hang out as a family. Jeff was gone this past week on a business trip so the girls we glad to have daddy back too.

Saturday morning we just spent around the house relaxing and doing some yard work. The girls played with a neighborhood friend and then we headed out to do some shopping, eat dinner and go bowling. They were very excited about the bowling as we haven't done that in a long time. However the evening really turned into a comedy of errors on my part! We had some landscape needs to get at home depot, a few P&G coupons to use before the expired, pick out a camera for Ainsley with her birthday money and school supplies for the girls. Then the plan was to go get new running shoes for Jeff and I at the specialty running store in Newport. We got everything we needed to get done and then drove to Newport, which is about a 25min drive. We got there, found parking (which is no easy feat at 5 pm in Newport) and then found out that the store closes at 4:30! Grrrr! Who closes at 4:30 on a Saturday night?? So decided to get dinner since we knew there would be a long wait at the restaurant we wanted to go to.

After a very yummy dinner out Outback (thanks to gift cards), we headed to the bowling alley. We had coupons for bowling and it should have been a very inexpensive outing all things considered. But no...I didn't read the fine print on the coupon (which honestly I should have because it wasn't so fine..)! They can't be used after 6 pm. Of course the bowling alley doesn't open for the public till 5 so that gives you an hour in which to actually use the coupon!! But since the girls were looking forward to it so much, we decided to just spend the money and bowl. We get our shoes and ball and off we go! They put the bumpers up for us since we had the girls and they had a lot of fun. Ellie lost interest about halfway through but I still had her come up and bowl. As a lot of you know, she is pretty weak. She has made lots of progress but still her arm strength is not nearly where it should be. So essentially she placed the ball down, pushed it and 4 min later it arrived at its intended destination! So I was helping the process along, giving it a little push along with her push to cut the time down to 1 min. I missed the extra push on this specific occasion and it started trickling down the alley VERY SLOWLY! I thought for certain I could grab it before it got too far and give it another push. NOT A GOOD IDEA! Not 2 steps in and I was laying on the floor on my back in some pain and very embarrassed. Had we had a video camera there, I am pretty sure I would have been a winner on America's Funniest Home Videos. Needless to say, I am still sore today! I was however the winner at the end of the night so apparently it didn't incapacitate me too much :)

On Sunday we headed to the creek which is one of the girls' favorite destinations. We spent a couple of hours there and found a soft shell turtle which was pretty cool! They had a great time. I didn't bring my camera but once I load Ainsley's pictures onto our computer I will try to post 1 or 2. I think she might have taken 30! Then of course it was off to church. For any of you who don't know, our church meets in the afternoons right now because we are renting space from another church who meets in the morning. Dinner at Chipotle with friends, a friend overnight last night completed the weekend festivities. We will be celebrating Ainsley's birthday Tuesday night by letting her have a fried of two over and then heading to Chuck E. Cheese Wednesday morning. I have a pretty busy but fun week ahead. Today is pool day with lots of cool friends! Tomorrow I work all day and then have a cell group pool party at night. Wednesday is Chuck E. Cheese in the am and then speech in the afternoon for Ellie. Thursday and Friday I am going to the Willowcreek Leadership Conference in Cincinnati via simulcast. It should be a really cool event! I went last year and loved it!

Training

So I have started training for the Columbus Half Marathon. I figured trying to do 1-2 half marathons a year would keep me in shape and the Columbus Half is close by, cheaper than Disney and most importantly FLAT, which is my number 1 requisite!

I am in week 1 of training using Hal Higdon's Intermediate Half Marathon Training Guide. Tomorrow will be 5 miles. Today I ran 3 in about 30 min. My goal in training for this marathon is only to beat my last time of 2:21:36.

If anyone is interested in joining me, let me know!

Ainsley's Birthday

I forgot to mention that while we were in Maine we celebrated Ainsley's 7th birthday! I can't believe she's already 7. Where does the time go?

We did a big family celebration and she had a great time with grammie's and grampie's, Aunts, Uncles and cousins! It doesn't happen very often that my girls get a family birthday party since we live so far away from family. Ainsley seems to be the one that gets it most often since Mackenzie and Ellie's birthdays fall in the winter and we don't travel to Maine in February!

She is going to have a couple of friends overnight here and then to Chuck E. Cheese when I can find the time to arrange it, but I wanted to post at least a couple of birthday pics!

I didn't get a good picture of Rian. At the party she was in her car seat sleeping and the pics didn't come out that clear. I have no idea how I didn't get another picture of her! Rian is around 3 months and is a cutie! Her cousin Jordis is around 6 months and adorable too!

All the kids together! You can't see Conner since he's hiding behind his sister Rian

Here's a picture of Conner kissing a fish. He taught Ainsley to do this too!

Cousins Conner and Lexie

Lexie :)

Ainsley with some of her birthday gifts...(she got mostly gift cards so that we wouldn't have to pack up a lot of stuff...)

The cake! I meant to have them write on it but well..it was a busy day! Ainsley didn't mind :)

Ice cream cake is yummy!

Ainsley's birthday hat that she got from Grammie I :) Too Cute!

A blog worth checking out

I love reading Perry Noble's blog. He is the pastor of Newspring in Greenville, SC.

He offers a lot of insight, encouragement and often a whack upside the head.

His blog is definitely worth checking out.

www.perrynoble.com

A post that he wrote yesterday entitled Why I Believe You Can Do Exactly What God Has Called You To Do spoke to me.

Here's a portion of it. If you want to read the rest, check out his blog.

Why I Believe You Can Do Exactly What God Has Called You To Do! July 28, 2010

I believe you can do exactly what God has called you to do!

We serve a God who is a MASTER at calling those who are not “qualified” to do things that seem “impossible!”

I believe that when a person becomes obsessed with the character of God by reading the Word of God and then gets empowered by the Spirit of God…that person is unstoppable and his/her potential is unlimited as long as they will dare to continually follow Jesus and refuse to play it safe! (See Zechariah 4:6-7)

(A quick note on this…you’ve GOT to make sure you’ve heard from God and are not simply getting ready to do something and then begging Him to work!)

I believe God puts dreams and visions in our hearts that are so HUGE that it causes great desperation for HIM and HIS power…thus leading to the world seeing what HE can do through us rather than what we can do “for Him!” (The bigger the revelation the greater the desperation!)

I believe we are all GIFTED....

Check out his blog for the rest of the post!

It spoke to me specifically because I am wrestling with what God wants of me right now.

I desire to be used by God in life changing ways. Life is WAY to short to waste time on things that don't really matter. It is just a matter of seeing what the next step is...I am glad I am not alone on this journey called life and that He is with me all the time.

Amazing!

Home, sweet home

We are home! Have I ever mentioned how much I love my bed? I do. I absolutely love my bed.

We had a great trip to Maine, had lots of fun times and made lots of great memories.

Now it is back to real life and getting the house back in order.

I have started the laundry, but desperately need to clean the house.

I am pretty sure that will have to wait for another day however as I need to work today.

Just wanted to post a few pictures of our adventures in Maine...

Tail end..

So we are on the tail end of vacation. Just another day left in Maine and then off to Boston tomorrow morning to hop on our plane back to our happy home in KY. While I am really looking forward to getting home and getting back to my own bed, we have thoroughly enjoyed our time with friends in family in Maine. I have LOTS of pictures to post once we get back and get them downloaded onto our computer.

We have had a ton of fun spent with Grammie and Grampie Moody, Grammie and Grampie I and Grammie and Grampie Miller. So much fun that I am not sure how on earth going back to KY will ever compare! I am pretty sure it might be a LONG week of transitioning back...

Parades, good food, swimming in multiples lakes, kayaking, fishing, 4-wheelering, jet-skiing, a trip to the ocean. Lots of amazing fun with family and friends! We have been very thankful for our vacation!

Can't believe that it is a little over 3 weeks before the kiddos start back to school!!! Yikes...not sure if I am ready for them to go back to school!

Happy Hills 2010

I arranged for both Mackenzie and Ainsley to go to camp together this year. They are usually separated by grades, but the week that Ainsley should have gone is when we are in Maine, so they made an exception. So I sent both Mackenzie and Ainsley off to camp at Happy Hills for the 3rd-4th grade camp last Tuesday night. They were scheduled to be there from Tues-Friday but alas I got a call Wednesday night saying Mackenzie was homesick! I think next year we won't send her as this seems to be a problem each year. This is the first year I have had to pick her up but last year she did call and say she was homesick. I thought having Ainsley with her would be helpful but apparently not helpful enough. So I picked Mackenzie up early on Wednesday night and thankfully Ainsley was a trooper and stayed the rest of the time alone without her sister. Mackenzie was really very sweet though. When her counselor called she said that Mackenzie was homesick and really wanted to come home but was very concerned that her sister might be scared at being left alone and wasn't sure she should come home. When I talked to her she said the same thing. She said she would check with Ainsley and see if Ainsley would be ok to stay alone. If not she would stay. Very sweet. But Ainsley said she was ok to stay and so I left her there. I was so proud of her as Ainsley is honestly our least independent girl. She usually needs friends and people she knows in order to feel comfortable staying in new places and doing new things.

I had a good couple of days with Ellie and Mackenzie before we headed back up on Friday to pick up Ainsley. She said she had a blast! I think Mackenzie was sad she didn't stay! She did say she cried a little bit after Mackenzie left because she missed her but then she was ok once they got busy...

She was pretty exhausted though. They keep them up till 10:30 so that when the kids go to bed, they are REALLY tired. She said she fell right to sleep:)

Jeff came home from China on Saturday afternoon laden with all sorts of cool gifts. The girls got new silk umbrellas and another tea set. I am now the proud owner of seasons 1-7 of NCIS, seasons 1-5 of House and P90X. Can't wait to try out P90X when we get back from Maine.

This summer for us is basically globe trotting. We have been very busy doing lots of travel it seems! We head to Maine tomorrow so today has been spent organizing, making lists and packing! Tomorrow at 3 we depart from Cincinnati to Boston, where we will spend 3 days doing lots of cool things. I can't wait! And we hopefully will get to hang out with Aaron and Christina. Then onto Lincoln for a week. We always plan this time to land over our town's homecoming festivities so we can see more people in one place. A week with Grammie and Grampie Moody, Grammie and Grampie I and lots of other family!

Then onto Southern Maine to visit Grammie and Grampie Miller before we head back home to Cincinnati Monday the 26th!

We will post all of our great adventures when we return along with hopefully some good photos...

Here is the boat they made in arts and crafts...

Ainsley next to her bunk. Mackenzie has already taken her stuff to the van...

Ellie next to Ainsley's bunk

Ellie and Mackenzie walking into the girls' cabins

South Carolina

We spent almost a week with my brother and sister-in-law and their family over the 4th and had a blast as usual. We drove down on the Wednesday before the 4th and had that evening through Saturday with everyone. Jeff had to fly out of Greenville early Sat afternoon for a business trip to China which was a bummer but the girls and I managed to still have a great time even while they were missing their daddy. We got to experience our first swim meet and had a lot of fun watching the kids compete. Their oldest four swim for their subdivision swim team and it is pretty competitive. They all did a fantastic job! It was especially great to see Jackson swim since he is the only boy in the family and is really into swimming. He did a great job! Unfortunately I forgot to bring my camera and didn't get any pictures.

The kids as always had a great time hanging with their cousins. They worked on a play while we were there and performed it for us. It was a great job by all. I did take video but Ellie fussed and was distracting so I decided not to post it. Mark preached at their church on the Sunday we were there which was really cool. I hadn't heard him speak in years so it was especially cool for me. Apparently it had been 6 years since he last preached! Their church is very large and has 2 full-time teaching pastors so rarely does he preach. He did a fanstatic job and he seemed like a natural. I was glad I was able to be there to hear him!

We celebrated the 4th of July in our usual fashion. All the people in their cul-de-sac get together and buy separate fireworks and take turns shooting them off. Jackson LOVES fireworks and is getting old enough to set them off so he had a great time! I enjoyed watching them from the sidelines. Ellie did much better this year. They didn't seem to bother her at all but she did ask to go to bed somewhere around 10..:) It was a great time with the family and we are thankful we at least live close enough to drive to visit them a couple of times a year..

Here are some pics from the week..

Dinsmore Camp

The older two girls spent a week at the Dinsmore Homestead near us doing Pioneer Camp. They absolutely loved it! Mackenzie was sick one day and I had to pick her up early but other than that it was a great week. They did it a few weeks ago but I am just getting around to posting about it. They learned about the Oregon Trail, the Civil War, celebrated a 4th of July like it would have been celebrated many years ago, and many other things. They had so much fun and they learned lots of cool stuff too! We will definitely do it again next year. Next year Mackenzie also wants to go to the Young Ladies camp where they learn how to prepare tea and do all the things proper ladies did many many years ago. I think it would be a great idea and wanted her to go this year but you have to be 10 and she's only 9.

I didn't get many pictures but did take a couple on the last day.