Rock Solid Family

Fourteen years ago, Thanksgiving day was November 28, 1996.  That was the day my dear husband, Scott and I were married. 

My dad met Scott at Texas Baptist Institute-Seminary.  Little did Scott know at the time that my Dad was sizing him up.  He would come home from seminary telling me about Scott.  Some of my dad’s favorite stories he would tell me of Scott was how Scott asked a question in class that my dad was afraid to ask.  He would say, “Scott saved the day for me in class again.”  I often wondered why my dad, a preacher, would be scared to ask a question in a classroom full of preachers.   But he would come home and tell me about Scott.  He would often tell me, “Just give me the word say, ‘Dad the word is given.’ and I’ll introduce y’all.” 

I was a bit scared of the prospect of my dad’s introducing us.  I thought I could find a guy by myself but I began to see that the guys in the community college I went to weren’t what I had on my list of what I wanted in a husband.  I was just beginning to think that I would have to revise my list.  I thought maybe there wasn’t a guy alive that could meet all my expectations.  One day I came home and expressed my irritation over there not being any good prospects in college.  My dad took that moment to bring up meeting Scott again.  I finally said, “Alright, Dad, but I’ll only guarantee one date.  If I don’t like him you’ll have to help me get out of it.”

Dad wrote my name down on the back of his business card.  The next day in seminary he gave Scott the card and told him, “My daughter really wants to meet you.” 

Scott was really surprised.  When I asked Scott later what went through his mind when my dad handed him his card, he told me that he was a little surprised that someone wanted to meet him.  He said that he knew my dad was nice that maybe I would be nice too. 

A few days later he called and I was so glad that it was my dad that answered the phone.  Scott was secretly glad too.  He knew how to talk to my dad.  Scott’s church had changed the day of their midweek services and so he wanted to visit our church that Wednesday night.  My dad was the pastor of a small country church.  He gave Scott instruction on how to get there.  After service that night we had a date with Dad at Dairy Queen.  My Dad and Scott sat at one table and talked, while my brother, sister, and I sat at the next table and listened.

It wasn’t love at first sight.  I have always been a little wary of falling in love at first sight.  But he met a few of the things on my list. I invited him to my college band concert.  He brought a missionary from India and a missionary from Honduras.  Then Easter Sunday my grandmother invited Scott to eat with our family at her house.  I picked Scott up that day. We talked the whole drive to my grandmothers and the whole way back to his apartment. I remember getting home and telling my parents, “He talks! And not only that he listens too!”   Two of the things I had on my list.

I have often been asked by women how to find a good guy.  I had a list of high expectations for my future husband.
 
He had to love the Lord and put God first. 
He had to be committed to going to church and be committed to taking our family to church.  I wanted him to be the spiritual leader of our family. 
He had to know his Bible well.  (I always enjoyed discussing the Bible with my dad and wanted my      husband to know what he believed and why.)

 It’s been a week since I’ve blogged.  Which means I have a lot of catching up to do.   I’ve been needing to post this picture of Jonathan with his “pup cakes” he had for his birthday at the beginning of this month. 

One of these days, I will have to make cupcakes that look like pups. 

The last time I blogged I posted pictures of an 18 wheeler accident.  It took two or three days for it to be cleaned up and there is still an orange plastic border around the area.  I have no idea how long they will leave that up.

The same day that happened, I took the kids to the park for our homeschool group’s park day.  Elijah liked going down the slide.  He also wanted to eat the slide but I didn’t quite let him go that far. 

This last picture was of Elijah crawling at our church.  He doesn’t go very far yet but he will crawl a few steps for something he wants.  He does get a little upset with us expecting him to crawl when we’re sitting right there able to hand it to him.  But I’m sure once he realizes  the joys of mobility he’ll thank us for it. 

 This morning I had a dream that a bomb exploded at our neighbors.  It turned out that the bomb was actually an 18 wheeler that had an accident in front of our home.

Scott was cooking oatmeal this morning when he heard the explosions.  The man that was driving the truck had to climb out through the window.  Scott said he seemed okay but very shaken.  After calling 911 Scott came in to tell me about it then headed for work.

I have no clue how it happened, but it looks pretty bad.  I’m amazed that the church sign wasn’t hit.  He may have run off the road and tried to dodge the church sign.  I’m just thankful no one was hurt.

This is why I don’t let the kids play in the ditch in front of our yard. 

I’m also thankful that it wasn’t my husband driving his school bus full of kids..

Today is Jonathan’s birthday!  He is three years old today.  I took this picture of him practicing holding up three fingers.  Of course he says he’s five.  Five is easier to say than three and it’s easier to hold five fingers up than three fingers.  So this has me wondering, why can’t a child turn five before three.  In a couple more years it will be a lot easier to say three. 

I know, I know, I’m a very deep thinker. 

We’ll be having cake and ice cream and opening presents when Scott gets home.     I’ll be taking more pictures.  So check back soon.  🙂

Joshua, Ruth, and Hannah were invited to play over at their friends’ house yesterday after church.  Scott and I decided that we would use that opportunity to take Elijah and Jonathan to the store.  We let Jonathan ride a bicycle around the toy section.  He was doing fairly well with it.  Then we let him try several toys.  We bought him a small school bus that he liked rolling on the floor.  He likes school buses because they are “just like what Daddy drives!” 

Then we let him pick the ice cream and we went home to make milk shakes.  

Jonathan is getting so big.  He will be turning three on Thursday.  Time goes by fast.  I don’t want Jonathan and Elijah to feel like they are living in the shadows of their elder siblings.  So we use any opportunity we can to build happy memories for all of our children. 

This week will be another busy week full of memory building opportunities.  We will be doing a lot of fall cleaning in preparation for some furniture we will be receiving from my sister and her husband.  We have a field trip this week with some other families in our homeschool group.  I’ll try to remember my camera and post some pictures.  We will be voting tomorrow.  Then there will be Jonathan’s birthday on Thursday.  And our karate class will be meeting in a new location.

I should be able to find time to blog though.  Be watching for updates and pictures. 

My older children have been having fun with their new e-mail addresses which their Papa (my dad) gave them.  Joshua has been sending me e-mails every day. 

I highly recommend every parent find some way to communicate privately with your children.   I’ve been amazed at some of the thoughts and my children have shown in just a few sentences they have typed to me.  If you are afraid of your children having e’mail, I would recommend setting up an in home mail box.  Where your children can write you a letter each day and maybe let each of them have their own mail boxes where you put their answered letters.  I may do that with my younger children where they can draw pictures for me. 

With my older children I used to have them write me letters in cursive.  It was a practice in reading and writing in cursive.  I would write them a letter to read in cursive and they were to write me back.  Now they are getting practice in typing while writing letters to me and their Papa.  Scott even plans to join in on the e’mails during his lunch break. 

 Hannah and Jonathan do not have complete understand of letter writing.  So I’ll probably start working with them on mailing real letters and starting off with an in home mail box where they can “write” me and Daddy.

It’s amazing how many subjects we have been adding to our homeschool without the kids even realizing it.  Who says work can’t be fun?

We are sure moving up in the world.  We now have high speed internet.  This is a video of Elijah that I’ve loaded on here as a test.  I’m hoping that seeing this on my blog will make it seem more real.  I had a hard time finding a video because I’m usually more concerned about finding good pictures for my blog.  Now I am able to not only view videos but upload videos as well. 

High speed internet isn’t the only improvement we made this week.  I also signed us up to recieve garbage service.  This was the first time I had heard of trash pick up called “garbage service”.  I was glad that I found out what it was called.  I would have felt funny asking the lady on the phone, “Is this the place that collects trash?”  Instead I saw in the phone book that another company called it garbage service.  So I was able to be far more professional about it.  We will now have our garbage picked up once a week.  I’m very happy about that.  It was getting to be a problem trying to find a good time to take the garbage to the dump.  Scott went to work too early and got off too late to take it for me.  I used to burn the trash but there has been a burn ban and no sign of it being lifted any time soon. Then I tried to get all the trash loaded in the van with the kids and go out of our way to take it to the dump before we had to be at our karate class.  Finally I just made up my mind that I had to do something.  After several phone calls I finally got to the right place and we can have our trash picked up for only $20 a month.   That is well worth it to me. 

The high speed internet is definitely going to be a benefit not only to my own ability to blog and keep in touch with family and friends, but it will help me with homeschooling the kids as well.  We will be able to view more educational videos and not have to wait for everything to download before I’m able to use it.  Now I can just say, “Hey, let’s look it up!”  and find the answer to many of our homeschool questions.  This also means I will be able to Skype my brother and his family in France. 

And for everyone else, this means y’all will get to see a few more videos on my blog.  I’ll try to take some good ones.  🙂

Jonathan, Hannah, and Elijah watching Leap Frog Phonics video.

This has been another busy week and it’s not over yet.  Monday, Elijah’s second tooth came in right beside the first one.  Tuesday we had our usual karate class that evening. 

Elijah eating sweet peas with his first tooth.

Today, I felt Elijah’s first tooth as he was chewing on my hand.  I quickly checked his mouth and then showed Scott.  Sure enough his first tooth has come in.  It is just about the same timing as Jonathan’s first tooth.  You can check out my post for May 27, 2008 to see what Jonathan looked like back then.

I fed Elijah sweet peas today, which he seemed to enjoy. Towards the end of the jar he started playing with it and sputtering sweet peas at me.  It reminds me of my dad every time I get sweet peas sputtered at me.  My dad always tells the story of my spitting sweet peas at him.  He tells me that one day when he is in the nursing home and I feed him sweet peas that he will spit them at me.  So now whenever I feed my children sweet peas I think of him. 

Well it’s been a good weekend now to begin a new week.  We’ll be starting a new health class this week in our homeschool day.  I’ll post more about how that goes later.