2nd post for today took Renee's challenge

My friend Renee posted a challenge for doing a project a month. I have been putting off the closets for a LONG time. Actually I clean Sophie's all the time I just needed to get rid of all the clothes that are out of season, too big, or too small. So I did that today! I started at 9:30 this morning and it is 11:00 and I am done! I do need to box up the clothes and find a new home for a few books but other than that everything else is put away. YEAH! I wasn't going to post before pictures... but I got over it. Big difference!

So I decided to go a little overboard and throw out all the unmatched hangers looks better.

Sleepy head...Simon Says...Sing it Sis...Beanie Babies

Poor Thing! This was the first time he opened his eyes this morning. Rude Awakening!Sunday was the kids musical at church-Simon Says-Jaden played the part of the photographer. His dad is photographing him being the photographer. I am photographing them both photographing someone else:) Ok Ok enough.
Our friends came to watch the play. Well there were a few more but they wished not to be photographed. LeAnna and Kaitlyn pretty pretty girls!
Okay the two on the end are playing shy.Sophie loves her LeAnnaLast night Sophie gave us a concert!
Freddie taking a minute to play baby with Sophie. Girls Rock Out!
She is my little songbird rocker girl
Found these McDonalds Beanie Babies that I had collected on two trips to Texas in '98 and '99. They were a hit yesterday when the kids got 12 toys a piece. One Happy Little Boy (Actually he is ALWAYS happy) I love it!!!

Poor me... Pour me out!

Okay so I have to start this with an apology to a dear friend. First of all for EVERY time I call for just one thing and keeping her on the phone for at least an hour. Secondly I felt horrible when I got off of the phone today. Seems all I did was complain (and about VERY insignificant things). Wow how utterly selfish, rude, and quite frankly stupid. I know if I felt bad she probably felt worse having to listen to it.

I just read a book a couple of weeks ago called "Complaint Free World". This book talks about changing your thoughts and words. Wow did I blow every principle they taught. You only feel worse when you talk about how horrible someone or something is.

My life in reality is absolutely AWESOME! I mean really it is. I am completely amazed at how truly blessed I am. I am married to my best friend. Jerry is a wonderful provider, he is hilarious, excellent husband and Daddy, and he is beautiful on the inside as well as the outside. By beautiful I mean rugged, virile, and handsome. You knew that of course. Our life is always very exciting. My kids are outstanding little people who will one day be outstanding big people. They are very funny, so smart, and love me unconditionally. Now tell me who could ask for more?

With this wonderful life I spent an hour (well not the whole time) complaining about what...NOTHING that's what. Nothing that is significant. So I had a few bad minutes one day...well la de freakin da (sorry mom (she doesn't like it when I say freakin)) Life is GOOD and I should be pouring out all of the wonderful things that have been poured into me. I have had so much love, kindness, goodness, gentleness, peace, JOY, temperance, longsuffering, and faith poured into me that I should be overflowing with that. I am not talking over a period of time that I get a little and store it up. I mean daily people and the Lord Almighty shower me to overflowing with these gifts. And for some reason I chose to dwell on the swamp water that got mixed in. Well I have boiled the water with my tears and asked the Lord for forgiveness of my ungrateful putrid little heart. So friend please forgive me and my rotteness and hopefully the next conversation will be more productive on my end.

Wednesday is girls day out

Sophie and I like to spend the day out on Wednesday. Today started out early...we took Jaden to school, went to the Firefighter playground, storytime at the library, Whitts for a bbq sammy for lunch, The Bethesda Center (thrift store), Wal-mart for some Zinnia seeds and top soil, and then finally back home to play. Sophie decided she needed a Strawberry Honey Popsicle.

Flowerbed in the backyard outside guest room window
Shade garden

Verbena
Columbine I picked up wild off the side of a rock wall. Love the little lanterns:)
I planted my Zinnia seeds and grabbed the camera to take a few shots around the house. I am very excited with the way the flower beds are looking so far this year. Last year with the freeze and then the drought the yard did not look its best. So far so good.

Herbs in walkway flower bed...Catnip, creeping sage, and lavender.

T-Bone tastes good...No we are not snake handlers!

Jerry raised a cow for us to eat. He named him T-Bone. We have another cow right now but he is our kids pet. His name is Dudo Big Indian Chief. We will not be eating him. He will go to the sale barn and become what he was intended ...money. T-Bone was to be food from the start. There won't be anymore cows until we get our own land. Hopefully, we will find something that we can use soon. We had the opportunity to purchase 3 calves at a great price last week but we no longer have a place to raise them:( Oh well I am very thankful for the Kemp's allowing us to keep our animals over there for so long.

We had my in-laws and brother-in-law Jimmy up for steaks last night. Dinner was very YUMMY! They were all very impressed with the meat. Yeah!

So Mr. Snake is still around. Jerry "saved" him for Jaden to take to school. My little princess decided last night she wanted to take a whirl at holding it. The snake has now been disposed of. I told them that we did not need to be known as the snake handlers in the neighborhood.

Say So...Dumb Dumb...Do Do

Went to a Awesome concert with several of my wonderful friends tonight. Point of Grace started off the evening with four songs. Mandisa came next, then one of my all time favorites Ce Ce the only thing that would have made her performance better would have been Be Be:).Barlow Girl came out and rocked out. Man the drummer was amazing. She had muscles that made Popeye look weak. She banged the life out of the drums, sang her heart out (beautifully I might add), then started preaching. Wow what a girl! Natalie Grant has become one of my peeps now...yes we blog. She was amazing and made it look effortless. The girl has some pipes and she can blow. Then Israel Houghton came out and we had church. I will be stalking him now...not really but I will be finding out when he will be in concert again.

So after a wonderful concert we head to eat. Tammy suggested Mafiazios (sp?). It was not too far from the concert but we got lost. Not too lost just turned around a bit. When we finally get about two blocks from the restaurant I get stopped at a red light. I am sitting behind a silver Sephia wishing it would turn or get out of my way when out of the corner of my eye I see a man walking toward us. I had noticed this man before we stopped. He appeared homeless. So I am thinking okay homeless man is going to walk past the van. Homeless man gets some kind of braveness about him and slams his hands down on the passenger side window and starts yelling something. Well unfortunately for Tammy she was the passenger. She did not see Homeless man approaching the vehicle. Her first sighting of Homeless man was his big paws and face in her space. So she tells him to go away and calls him a dumb dumb. Then she grabs me and yells drive drive go go. Well that pesky silver Sephia was still in front of me and the light was still red so we had to wait about 30 seconds and then I gunned it. I am not sure what Homeless man was doing after all of this I am just glad I did not run over him. The restaurant was just a short distance from the red light...far enough away that we did not have to worry about Homeless man but not far enough away for our nerves to settle down. We meet our other friends at the restaurant and fill them in on our adventures. Tammy said," I really do have a great vocabulary and could have called him something better than dumb dumb. " Mysty says, " I'ts not what you can do, it's what you do do." Well the do do remark set everybody laughing to tears again. What fun! It really doesn't take a whole lot to make me laugh. I am just glad my front seat didn't have any moisture on it when Tammy got out of the car. I dropped Diana off at home first, then Mysty at church, and then took Tammy home. When she got out of the car I told her to have sweet dreams and hopefully Homeless man would stay out of them. That is when we noticed the smudge marks on the window. I bet if we would have had some powder we could have gotten a pretty good print off of that window. I thought he stuck his face to the window too. By the way this was not some cute little Homeless man this was a big scary big face big paws homeless man. Well enough about that just had to get all of that out of my head.
Maybe our next outing will be a little less eventful than this one. Or maybe not. We shall see....

Ewwwwwwwwwwww! Yucky Skucky

Today while enjoying a popsicle with my beautiful sweetheart Sophie I look over and see this creepy scary thing. We had been outside for 15 minutes on the front porch where this thing was hanging before I happened to spot it. We are painting the posts on the front porch and I had put masking tape up so that we would not get paint on the bricks. Yep I caught a snake with masking tape. I'm thinking about lining the house with it to see if I can catch any more.Jaden holding a snake is my idea of a nightmare. Jerry
thinks I am unreasonable right now because I won't allow Jaden to take it to school tomorrow. Hello! By the way Jerry is going to be out of town in the morning and I will be taking Jaden to school. I'm sorry but I don't get all warm and fuzzy about the thought of driving them (Jaden and the snake) to school. Oh well I am just a disappointment to little boys and their dads everywhere but I have my limits.

Emma comes to play today! Grow seeds grow!

So Emma is one of Sophie's very best friends. Sophie tells me that she is Emma's sister because she needs one. Could happen...Sophie also has declared that she is marrying Drew (Emma's brother). Sophie and Emma were born 8 weeks apart. Jaden and Drew are 6 weeks apart. When they are all together it is like having two sets of twins. Luckily, Tera and I are going through the phases together:)

Aunt Jan gave Sophie a lovely garden set. We planted the seeds Friday evening and Monday morning they were starting to sprout.Wednesday morning-We've got leaves!

Sophie is so excited she loves waking up and checking on her flowers:)

Family comes to visit and Sophie does her first scrapbook page

Jimmy,Jaden, and Jerry

Sophie, James, and LeAnna
Jacob and Jaden too much food and fun!
Uncle Jim and Sophie having a moment

Uncle Jim looking at Jadens latest find.
Barlar hug sandwich!Sophie working on her birthday pictures for her scrapbook.

Fun on Friday

Jaden helping Dad mow the yard Sweet friends
We were so excited that our friend LeAnna came over to play for a little while today. They had a ball just laughing and being together.
I thought this was precious-they are holding hands. My Sophie is a hand holder.
Fun at our favorite eating spot!
"Do not keep the alabaster boxes

of your love

and tenderness sealed

up until your friends are not here.

Fill their lives with sweetness.

Speak approving, cheering words

while their ears can hear them

and while their hearts can

be thrilled by them."

- Henry Ward Beecher