Rock Solid Family

This week has been good. Monday was Scott’s first day off for Spring Break. We enjoyed sleeping later than normal and just having an easy Monday. With our normal schedule, every morning has a reason for our alarms to be set. Even Saturdays even though it’s not set as early, we still have to make sure we get up in time for karate class. So when Scott gets a day off, we enjoy leaving the alarms off. Which is especially nice when you have to get used to the time change.

Tuesday was park day for our homeschool group. I think this was the first time this school year that Scott was off. He and Joshua brought their Skateboards, Jonathan brought a little bicycle with training wheels, and Hannah had her “heelies”. Technically they are not the name brand but they look like regular shoes with hidden wheels inside the soles.

Elijah didn’t want to be left out, so he put Daddy’s helmet on and commenced to doing tricks.

And he looks so little on that big skateboard. He didn’t even fall off. Although it looks like he should while popping a wheelie. 🙂

After our time at the park, we went to a mall where we met with another homeschool family that was interested in making new friends. We enjoyed visiting with them and the kids all had a good opportunity to try out their communication skills. 🙂 It can be hard to get conversations going with other kids without knowing anything about them. But I thought they did very well. The children were all in the same age group. I was especially pleased that our normally shy Ruth had actually started a conversation without any prompting with the other girl her age. I thought back to five years ago and how I worried about Ruth ever making friends. Now she is able to start her own conversations and make new friends.

We had about 45 minutes to wait before karate class began, so we walked around a sports store. There were some kayak’s hanging from the wall, which Jonathan was positive were war boats, especially the camouflage one.

The store was close to where the karate class is located, so we arrived at the class early enough for Jonathan to attend the little kids class. Normally we only go to adult class and participate as a family.
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Uh oh, I fell asleep blogging! I guess any “todays” I wrote you can realize was yesterday. I’m just going to publish this blog and write another one to tell about the rest of Spring Break later on.

Hannah lost her second tooth yesterday. Scott had bought each of the kids candy after karate class on Tuesday. Hannah bit into her candy necklace and her second tooth started to bleed. It was very loose. She was afraid to pull it that night, and I told her that it would be okay to wait until morning.

I had to leave early the next morning for a 3 hour glucose test. I couldn’t eat or drink anything after midnight. I left before the kids were out of bed and Scott came home after his bus run to take care of them while I was gone.

I made it to my appointment on time. They took my blood and then gave me a red glucose drink. For those who have never had the glucose concoction imagine if you were to make kool-aide but added 3 to 5 times the amount of sugar than is called for on the package.

They tell you that you have 3 to 5 minutes to drink it. Now the trick is you can’t throw it up or you have to reschedule. I used to have a harder time with it but now, I find I do best to just chug it down in about 1 minute. It helped that I was extremely thirsty and getting to drink anything was a relief.

Then I was sent to the waiting room to wait an hour. I tried to read a book during that hour but was so tired that I kept falling asleep. They called me back again and took my blood and sent me back in there to wait another hour.

The second hour, I gave up reading all together and used a stool that was in there to prop my feet on and just let myself doze. I didn’t care what all the other women might think that came in. The nurse called me in and took the third blood sample.

I decided that I didn’t want to sleep during the third hour so I played some solitaire on my tablet. I knew my time was coming when I heard the secretary ordering food for lunch. Finally they called me back for my last sample. Then they let me go.

First thing I wanted to do was eat. I went to a McDonald’s and ordered a double quarter pounder value meal. It was good, but as I was eating it I felt extremely shaky. I finished eating and headed home, but I decided to stop at the next McDonald’s for 2 apple pies.
One of those was supposed to have been for my sweet husband but something happened and it disappeared. I did make up for it by fixing dessert for supper.

When I got home, Hannah showed me how her tooth was missing. She told me that Daddy pulled it out with pliers. This is the first time that a tooth has been pulled by pliers in our house. I found it extremely funny and had to ask my husband about it. He said that the tooth was just dangling there and she assured him that she wanted him to pull it with the needle nose pliers so he rinsed them off and pulled the tooth right out.

I took the above picture of her with her 2 missing teeth tonight before she got ready for bed. Tonight, I got to join some other mothers for a Mom’s Night Out. I enjoyed getting to visit with a few of the other Moms in our homeschool group.

It’s getting late now and I should get some sleep. Scott and Hannah will be getting their new belts on Saturday. I’ll be posting pictures of that in my next blog. Until next time have a good night’s sleep. 🙂

I kept planning to post about the karate belt testing this week, but am only getting that out today. Today after our normal Saturday karate class, we went home, ate lunch and then drove about an hour away to pick up the used van that we paid cash for.

I had to take this picture of what we do to stay debt free. Yes, we bought this used van with our eyes wide open. We knew it had problems and was being sold “as is”. But my husband has researched this particular make and model and it shouldn’t be too hard to maintain. However we need to at least get it home or to a brake shop. Whichever we can get the brakes to last long enough to get it to. We spent quite a few hours today working on this van in a parking lot less than a mile from where we bought it.

I see potential in this van and see it as a blessing that we were able to pay cash for it, plus have enough money to go to an auto parts store twice and go practically next door from the auto place and buy everyone $1 double cheeseburgers. 🙂 See I found 3 blessings right there.

Another blessing is that it wasn’t raining while my husband was working on it, and we made it to a nice big parking lot that was pretty much empty. Two more blessings right there. That makes 5.

Anyway, you get the idea. 🙂 It can be hard to find blessings in certain circumstances but God’s grace is sufficient. Scott mentioned to me once we were home, how that as he was showering to wash away the grease and dirt, he thought about how blessed we are and how that if we didn’t have any problems then we wouldn’t appreciate the good times as much.

We finally gave up for the night and left the van behind hoping it will be okay until Tomorrow afternoon. Then we’re going to attempt bleeding the brakes again. If nothing else we’ll try to find a good brake mechanic to fix it.

I better tell about belt testing now.

Saturday morning, a week ago, my husband, Scott, our daughter, Hannah, and our son Jonathan tested for their next level of belts in karate.

Jonathan is on the little kids’ belt system and tested for an orange stripe that was added to his belt. He is really proud of that stripe.

Hannah tested for a green belt and did an excellent job.
She is happy because she will soon be matching me, Joshua, and Ruth.

Scott tested for a brown belt. He also did an excellent job. I didn’t get as many pictures of him since I was mostly videoing his part.

Scott’s reaching brown belt level is an amazing accomplishment. It not only shows how much hard work and dedication he put forth to achieve that level, but it also shows how long we’ve been living in this area. Scott has been pastoring the church we’re at now for about 4 almost 5 years now. Time sure goes by fast.

We moved into the parsonage when Jonathan was a baby. And while here God has gave us Elijah our 5th blessing and we will soon be welcoming our 6th blessing. And I’m sure God will help us get the van in tip-top shape by that time.

Philippians 4:19 “But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.”

This has actually been a relaxing week despite the busy title. Scott went to a tech conference that lasted the whole week. I decided that taking a break from our normal schedule and visiting my parents would be a great way to help the week go by quickly. I called it an early Spring Break.

I mentioned that I would get a picture of the kids with their build-a-bears. I took this one before getting the kids to bed at my parents’ cottage.

I got this picture of Joshua on his new skateboard at my Mema’s house. He hadn’t been able to ride it until Tuesday. So he was extremely happy to have the free time to ride on the good old oil roads of East Texas.

The kids also enjoyed playing with my cousin’s children. It’s nice being a close knit family. I had the opportunity to explain first cousins, second cousins, and third cousins to my kids. Hannah still thought it was confusing. 🙂

Elijah started going “poo poo” in the potty this week. He has surprised us with his understanding of what he is supposed to be doing on the potty. We haven’t gotten super serious with his training yet. We are just letting him try going when he wants to. Serious training will commence when we start using real underwear instead of disposable training pants.

Okay, only 6 minutes left to publish this blog this week. 🙂 Yes, I’m blogging late again. But let me share this picture of Hannah with a missing tooth.

She has been really proud of that tooth this week. I was impressed that she pulled it herself without a lot of squealing. She’s growing up so fast.

This week has gone by so fast! I only have one hour to write this blog before I miss posting this week. I only said that my goal this year was to post one blog a week. I didn’t say which day. 🙂

Monday, I decided to stay home and not go to a homeschool meeting that I could have gone to.

Tuesday, I got up early and took Scott to work so that the kids and I could go to my doctor’s appointment that morning. Elisabeth’s heart rate was good and the doctor told me that everything looked great on the ultrasound. I was glad to hear everything was fine.

After my doctor’s appointment I took the kids to Walmart and bought a few groceries and other items we were needing for the week. Then we had karate class that evening.

Wednesday and Thursday were normal days. Scott, Hannah, and Jonathan will be testing for their next belt level a week from now. Hannah is pretty excited that she will be testing for a green belt which will be matching me, Ruth, and Joshua.

Friday, I took Scott to work again and then came home and after my mornings Bible reading I fell back asleep. It’s time for my Glucose screening and I originally planned to get that done on Friday. It doesn’t require an appointment since I am only taking the one hour screening. I decided to skip that appointment and after lunch the kids and I went to their Keepers of the Faith meeting. Then we got a tire replaced on the van.

Today, we had a large group of visitors in our karate class. We had a lot of fun. After we left class we went out to eat at our favorite restaurant. The picture above is Elijah enjoying his meal.

Once we finished eating we went to the mall. Scott told the kids that he would let them each buy something for their allowance this month. Ruth got a Build-a-Bear with clothes. Hannah and Jonathangot clothes for their build-a-bears that she had gotten in the mail this week. And Elijah got a build-a-bear puppy. Joshua got a new skateboard. I’ll take pictures of them with their new toys tomorrow.

I could write a lot more but I only have about 15 minutes to make my deadline on this post. So I’ll try to have a better post tomorrow. 🙂

Today was a normal day. We have a regular routine we go through on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The kids and I try to make sure that we get everything done and get all dressed for karate class.

Then Scott gets home, we share some highlights of our day. Then we all get in the car and head to karate class.

We got there in time for the kids to get most of kids class. I helped Elijah put a floor puzzle together and then our Sense I announced that kids’ class was going to end a little early today. I didn’t think much about it. But after they did their regular closing ceremony, suddenly cake and punch was brought into the room. I wondered whose birthday it was and then found out it was a baby shower for our baby. 🙂 I was so surprised.

I took a few pictures and had Scott take a couple of pictures of me holding the little outfits for the baby. 



Our Karate Family gave us this cute Pink Gi for Elisabeth.

We didn’t get a picture of the cake before it got passed around but I did get pictures of everyone enjoying it. 🙂

Hannah was my partner during adult class and I informed her that she had a green mustache from the icing. Oddly enough she didn’t seem to mind. 🙂

And the other amazing thing was that Scott knew about it for a week or so and didn’t even let out a hint about it. That really surprised me! 🙂

There was only one sad part, we also found out that a really nice young man was moving. But the reason, I mention this is that our Sensei led our class in prayer for that young man and his family.

I love how family oriented our dojo is and how we all feel like one big family. I also like how our instructor is very open about her faith in Christ and isn’t afraid to show it. She even appointed Scott as our dojo chaplain. 🙂 You don’t see that very often in a traditional dojo!

I just want to share one more picture from tonight of Hannah demonstrating a partner stretch that our class did. The partner was to push their backs until they said to stop.

Hannah is pretty proud of how flexible she is. 🙂 She can do the splits and then lay flat on the floor without any effort.

This was a later blog post this week. I had been trying to decide what subject I wanted to talk about before the week was over. I didn’t realize that a subject would spring up on me like this.

Next week there is a lot going on. I won’t have to have a surprise to give me something to post about.

(1 Corinthians 10:31) “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.”

After such a busy week, it was nice to enjoy a fun filled weekend.

Saturday, we started the morning with a really good workout during karate class. Then that evening the girls and I enjoyed going out to a Mother/Daughter tea party with friends in our homeschool group.

The girls enjoyed wearing pretty dresses. We were able to bring our own tea cups and enjoyed having fancy tea.
There was a nice area set up where we could have our pictures taken. One of the mothers brought her camera and took our pictures. Afterward I took a picture of Ruth and Hannah all dressed up in the pretty accessories that were there for the girls to wear.

They were so sweet wanting to take a picture together. One of the older girls present mentioned that during next years tea party they will have a little sister to add to their picture.

After the tea party, I took them to Walmart and bought them some hairbands.

While we girls were gone Scott and our sons made home made pizzas and watched a movie. Scott told me that my brother would be proud that after the movie, Scott showed the boys some YouTube footage of Michael Jordan.

Sunday, we had a good time at church and enjoyed visiting with our members after services.

Today, Scott was off for Martin Luther King Jr. day. We took the kids to a skate park where they could enjoy trying out their new skooters and skateboards. Elijah and I took pictures and videos of Scott and the kids trying out all sorts of half pipes and ramps.

We had a really good day. This week should be a little less busy than last week. Tomorrow, we will be back to the normal routine. It’s good to take a break every once in a while and enjoy some time together as a family.