Forever in Our Hearts

My great-aunt Bibs passed away....she was 91 years old. I love you Aunt Bibs.

The other day while I was talking with my brother Greg and reminiscing about Aunt Bibs, we both just shared sweet memories of how we remembered her. Greg told me of a time when he had first gotten his drivers license he and dad and Aunt Bibs were driving to cousin Kathy's wedding. Dad let him drive. I expect Greg was driving like a "16" year old and dad continued to remind him to slow down. Greg said that after a few chides from dad, Aunt bibs looked over at him and sort of gave him a knowing look and said "it's ok Greg hoooney". Ahhhhh, the wisdom. So sweet. It's no wonder he remembered that moment in time.

One sweet memory I have of Aunt Bibs is when she was living at dads apartment and she asked me if I wanted to go to Washington DC with her, on the subway!!! Well, of course I did! The night before, she put pin-curls in my hair so that I would be all fancy for our trip. One lady on the bus said "my, don't you look just like Shirley Temple". I will never forget that...

Dad was a dental technician so while Aunt Bibs was up to visit, dad had fixed her teeth for her. However,I remember Aunt Bibs without her teeth. I spent quite a bit of time with her during her visit, so I learned how to talk like she did....without her teeth. Lord forgive me for being such a simpleton, but to this day, my sister and brothers always request that I "talk like Aunt Bibs". I know Aunt Bibs would laugh right along with us.
We love you Aunt Bibs. We remember you with such loving, fond, sweet and genuine memories that can never be taken from our hearts. Thank you for always being so kind and understanding. You will be missed by so many. I can't wait to see you again!

Also, I wanted to honor the memory of a dear man that went to our church, Mr. Jerry Toler. Cameron and I didn't know him very well but from what we did know he was a wonderful husband, father, friend, and Grandpa. Thank you Lord for his life and for all of the people he had touched. At his service last night he requested two songs to be played. The first that you are hearing is by Brad Paisley and Dolly Parton "When I Get Where I'm Going" and the other "I Was Country When Country Wasn't Cool" by Barbara Mandrelle and George Jones. In listening to these songs you can can hear Jerry's heart. Real and beautiful.

Aunt Bibs and Mr. Jerry you both will be forever in our hearts....

Mrs. Amanda

Yesterday we celebrated a wonderful teacher, awesome servant and my sweet friend Amanda. She has been serving faithfully for over 3 years in the 4's, 5's and 6 year old class at our church. The kids are going to miss her and all of her spritual insight and wisdom. We had a little celebration with cake and goodies and lots of hugs from all the kids that will miss her smiling face over in the "Kidz Zone". She is moving into different areas of ministry and worship, and we know she will be a blessing in all that she does.

We had Amber go get her out of church, she told her that her dauughter (Anna G) needed her, and when she came in all the kids jumped out and yelled SUPRISE!!

Snow Day in Wilson

As you may know we live in North Carolina, we are in the eastern half of the state which isn't known to get much snow. We get an occasional dusting or even more common is an ice storm, but not today. Can you say "accumulation", yes folks, according to the Wilson Daily Times the city reported over five inches in some areas, and at our house our unofficial measurement was about four inches of pure, snow white, powdery, goodness. This is the first substantial snow fall for this area in three years. The kids lost their minds of course, and I guess so did I, I feel like a big kid when it snows. So me being the principal, teacher, mom, and biggest kid in the house, I called an official "SNOW DAY!" We got all of our snow gear out and went out and played in the snow, in and out all day. Cameron took Lindsey and Charlie to an over pass on HWY 301 to go sledding (these are some of the only real hills in the area, its all flat from here to the beach) Here are some of the pictures from our fun.

Look what we found in the toilet

When I woke up the other day I had to do a double take as I passed the toilet. To be honest with you, I thought that maybe someone forgot to flush, however as I looked a little closer (why would anyone look closer?) it seemed that the object was hairy.....yes I said hairy, and indeed it was. I quickly went to wake Cameron up from his slumber, and I phrased it like this "Um, there is something in our toilet and I think its an animal, I think its a rat." Well this was enough to peak his curiosity and he got up to check it out. After even closer inspection, it was determined that it was a baby squirrel, and it was dead. Poor thing must have gotten trapped in the sewer pipes, and made its way somehow into our house. Our imagination takes us to places we don't want to go, like what if that thing made it out of the toilet into the house, or what if it made its way into the toilet while the bathroom was in use.....but lets not talk about that anymore, thank God for small favors. We called the city to let them know what happend and they kind of laughed and said thanks for letting them know, and said it happens sometimes.

Below is picture of the little fella, may he rest in peace. For some reason Cameron felt the need to measure it.....don't ask.

"Children Learn"

Well, it's back to the books for the kids and I tomorrow. I can honestly say that I am ready to get back down to business. I am praying that the transition will be a smooth one. We have all gotten used to staying up WAY too late and sleeping in WAY to long!

As a home school person, I try to reflect regularly on things that I do, things that I can improve and things that I should nix altogether. My desire for our kids is that they be intelligent. My hope is that they have and use their manners. I really do care that when they are texting their friends they use proper grammar (yea right!) But I think I have really chilled out in my approach lately. Yes, all of those things are good and I am doing my best to "get it all in there". A good friend said to me during a book discussion "Us as mothers are NEVER going to teach our children EVERYTHING that they need to know" I have to chant that mantra over and over to get it into my thick head. I CANNOT teach my children EVERYTHING that they need to know about social studies, math, history etc, BUT GOD CAN. Where I fall short He picks up the slack. It may not be in a "school" setting, but HE will be sure that they learn what they need to know for the plans that HE has for them. We have all sorts of ideas of what our children will do, be, or become but God's plans FAR EXCEED any of ours. So basically if I continue to abide in Him and Him in me then He will let me in on His plans for our youngins' (well really, His youngins')! He'll let me know when to encourage a thing and when to back off.

I was in the thrift store the other day and I came across this beautiful poem by Dorothy Law Nolte, PH.D.
Here it is and I hope it blesses you as it has me:

Christmas Fun and close out 2008 and Happy New Year 2009

Well even though this is the first post of 2009, this is a wrap up of 2008, in December we did all sorts of fun stuff. The kids were part of the Christmas play at church, in which Charlie and Levi were angels (they are very good actors) and Charlie was also a Rock Star and Lindsey was one of Charlie’s groupies.

Cameron was able to get some time off and took the boys bowling on Christmas Eve, and of course there was all the fun of opening gifts on Christmas morning. We picked up Cameron’s dad on Christmas morning and brought him over to be with us when we opened gifts, and to have lunch (Christmas Dinner). After we took Papa home we went to the park, this has now become a tradition I guess since this is the second year in a row that we have gone to this park on Christmas day. We spent most of the days after Christmas enjoying our new family gift, new cell phones with QWERTY keyboards and unlimited text, so needless to say we have been texting each other from room to room, thank goodness for unlimited text, so far since Christmas day here are the text totals (this is just 7 days) : Laura – 495, Cameron – 316, Lindsey – 721, Charlie – 860. Charlie enjoys texting just to say Hi every now and then.

After Christmas we made our way to Raleigh to try and find some great deals, but it turned out to just be a good day out of the house (where are all the deals I thought were going to out there). Yesterday we enjoyed the good weather and cleaned up the back yard, and last night Lindsey went to a lock in at a local church with one of her friends and the rest of us just stayed home and watched the new year arrive on tv. And sent plenty of Happy New Year texts of course

So that about does it for 2008, I hope everyone has a blessed and fruitful new year.