Dirty Laundry

Our family went on vacation about 3 and a half weeks ago. Since I wanted to really enjoy the vacation, I did not do much laundry while we were there. Well, we came home with probably 10-12 loads of laundry. This includes beach towels, linens, crib sheets, bath towels, as well as clothes. Well, I have still not recovered. I have done about 5 loads of laundry a day since we have been home. At this very moment, there is probably 5 loads to do in all of the rooms' hampers. I cannot catch up. I do an extra load outside of the normal maintenance loads, and one of the kids will spill a gallon of milk on the floor. There goes another load of towels. Then, one will take off his diaper in the middle of the night(WHY?) and the cycle continues. I think that I am going to have to head to a laundromat so that I can put 10 loads in at a time and be done with it. But the bottom line is that it makes me realize that the more we clothes that we have, not only costs extra money but costs us alot of extra time. I feel the need for decluttering coming on. Every month or so, I go through all of the kids clothes or toys and get rid of the things that we can do without. Why? Because eventually all of the stuff that they have to enjoy eventually robs us of the time to play. And all of the stuff begins to control our lives. We will spend hours after hours cleaning it all up only to do it all over again and little or no time reading, playing outside, learning about God and just that time to really invest in their lives. This is something that God has spoken to me about lately. I yearn for a closer walk with Him. So, I do little things that I think are what He wants. Yet as I spend my time doing the work, I clutter my life up so much that I don't have the time to spend with Him. Before long, they very One I was trying to get closer to is further than ever. It's time to declutter my home and my priorities.

Our Day in a Nutshell...

Well, today we started early by sending Susanna off to kindergarten. It was a little harder than I expected. She absolutely loved it though. All she wants to talk about is what outfit she is going to wear tomorrow and what she wants packed in her lunch. Here we go. She was so funny when she was telling me about having to walk in the hallway with her finger on her lips and a hand on her hip. She said, "Mom, it looks so silly! Isn't that crazy that we have to walk that way?" I laughed because I would not have liked it either. After we dropped her off, Luke, Sam , Eli, and I cleaned out the car. It was in desperate need of it. My car would have won an award for messiest today. I cannot figure out how to keep a car clean. But, it does look good now. It may only last a day or so, but I am enjoying it while it lasts. Then, we went to the Park before it got too hot. We have hardly been outside lately because the heat is almost unbearable. It was so nice to get out today. It is funny how much the dynamics of our family change without Susie. Susanna would have all of the boys playing house on the playground,for sure. But today, Luke was playing superhero and forcing his brothers to go down the slide. It was so neat to see Luke lead his brothers and do some stuff he's probably wanted to do for so long. He loved being the oldest one at home. I explained to him that he will need to step it up with helping with his little brothers. He was beaming. All day, he has been saying, Now, boys, this is how you do this...
He loves his sister but is learning to be unique. He looks up to her so much and tries to be just like her. He gets easily frustrated if she does anything better than him. Sometimes he just gives up. I want Luke to recognize the uniqueness of being Luke and how special that God made Him. They both are playing soccer on the same team. They love it! Susanna played last year and this is Luke's first year. As you can guess, Luke gets a little distracted on the field but he does enjoy it. We''ll see how it goes.

Happy Birthday

To You and You!

Happy Birthday to Kent! You are a wonderful brother and I am so thankful for you. You have stepped up big time in taking care of Mom. Dad would be so proud of you! I love you!


Happy Birthday to my Mother in Law! I love you and am so thankful for you. I often hear about mother in law horror stories and am often reminded of how truly blessed I am. I don't have any stories to tell but good ones. Thank you for raising a wonderful family that I am so glad to be a part of. We all love you and miss you guys!

The heat returns...

Well, our AC has quit working for the second time this week. It sure makes me thankful for when it is working. The irony of it is that Holly's went out this week,too. We gave her the number of the people we used the first time and they came to her house that same day. So, today, we called them and asked them to come and fix it and they said that they would be out on Tuesday of next week. What? We found out that since we are getting this service through our home warranty, which Holly was not, we would be put on the bottom of the list. They know that we have to use them. Things like these tend to fire me up. I am trying to keep my testimony, but I am very tempted to give them a piece of my mind. As you can see, I have trouble being in a good mood when I am hot and my kids are fussy because they are hot, too. We stayed at Mom's house over the weekend and are trying to give her a break. I'll probably be there tomorrow night anyways since Jeff is out of town.
Jeff is taking Kent down to Honor Academy in Tyler, Texas. He will be there for a year. I cannot believe my little bro is going to college. We are sure going to miss you, Bub. The kids want you to call them often.

Wow!

I cannot believe it has been a month since I last posted. We have so much to write about but I will do that later. We got home from vacation on Saturday and our AC is not working. We began to unpack and Sam was drenched in sweat in about 2 minutes. So, we have been staying with Mom until the AC is fixed. Should be today. It has been over 100 degrees in Charlotte. Whew! The beach wasn't so bad because we had a good breeze and the water to cool off in. This is terrible without a pool, though. Hint, Hint, Jeff! I have been begging Jeff to get a pool. Jeff, being raised in Fla does not see the benefits of getting a pool when you can only use it for 4 months out of the year. :) I love to swim. I probably would not get very much accomplished because I would be in the pool all of the time. Well, the last time that we had this kind of weather during the summer, we had a great winter. Lots of snow and snowdays! Today, that sounds so great!