No words

I first want to thank all of you for your prayers for my cousin Amber. I appreciated them greatly and I know she did too. I got a call about an hour ago saying that she passed away. I'm going out on a limb here and saying that I'm not taking this well at all. I am a complete mess! What most people don't realize is that Amber lived with me my entire life, so she was more like a sister. I just recently got back into touch with her after she moved to Alabama and we lost contact. Our time left together was very short.

I would love to tell you all that I have a peace about it and that I know that she is in a better place, but I honestly can't tell you that.

I am at a lose for words right now. This is about all I can come up with. I am, however, going to make a post dedicated to her because there will be no memorial service and I feel she deserves it...and honestly...I just need to do it.

Football, Cookies, Hot Chocolate and Pumpkin Pie

A quick update on my cousin. I am going down, as long as nothing major happens sooner, the weekend on November 7. Her oldest daughter lives here with her dad and I asked her if she would like to go and she was very excited that I would extend the offer. So that weekend worked best for both of us as long as nothing major happens. Prayers are still needed please. :)

Okay..now to the fun stuff! Football!!! Well, I'm not a huge fan, but William and Mason have been turned into fans I think. William won free tickets at work to the Purdue Football game this weekend. He and Mason sat out in the cold while I enjoyed my nice warm house. :) The twins were pretty upset that daddy didn't have enough tickets for them. Weston was more crushed than Isaac, but then Isaac asked if baseball games took tickets and could we go to a baseball game while daddy and Mason were at the football game. I kindly explained that baseball was over and yes it took tickets. They said that they wanted to do something...so we went to lunch! I really didn't expect Mason to last past half time so I didn't want to do anything big, but to my surprise he lasted the WHOLE game and wants to do it again. This comes as a complete shock from a kid that doesn't like to play sports. So here are some highlights!

This was the view of the field from their seats...they were close!

Mason said that went they would put the "P" down it looked like it was going down a toilet. Don't ask!

Cookies and Hot Cocoa....well, lets just say as the temperature gets colder outside I get the urge to bake all the time! I LOVE to bake!!! I'm not a good cook and I don't really like to cook, but I LOVE to bake! On Friday we had a day of just vegging out which consisted of watching movies, baking cookies and making lots of hot cocoa!! Last year I bought a hot cocoa maker and I LOVE it!! While I can not do that everyday it was nice to just do nothing for one day. Now it's back to moving and trying to shed some of these pounds during the holiday months. :)

Pumpkin Pie!!! Let me just start by saying that I don't even like pumpkin pie or any kind of pie really. I know, I've been called strange, but I love to bake them! So when we were at the store Mason asked if we could make a pumpkin pie...literally MAKE it. That was a challenge I will willing to take. :) I have never done it before and let me just say that it is a lot of work, but loads of fun! Today after church I decided that we would give it a shot.

I let the kids have at the pumpkins and clean them out so we could bake the seeds and eat them.

Weston wanted no part..."it makes my hands yucky!" He hasn't liked the feel of the inside of a pumpkin since he was a toddler. I have pictures of him running away from it when he was 2. :)
Then it was time to boil the pumpkin. You can also bake it.Then you let it cool and take the peeling off. I found easier to use a knife and just scope the pumpkin off the peeling. The its time to mash it!! :)

Then it said to drain well, but I didn't have anything to drain so I guess I got lucky and picked a good pumpkin. Finally I got to use my new mixing bowls and added all the ingredients in. Well Mason did anyway. :) I doubled the spices because I had read it tastes better. I got the recipe from allrecipes.com of anyone wants it.

The boys had to smell it to make sure it smelled like pumpkin pie. I was surprised as it smelled like one you would buy from the store.

Its now after 5 and I have just finished! I was serious when I said it takes a long time!

Now its time to see if it passes the test with the kids!! :)

She's been found!

Finally, after several phone calls and many hours of contemplating whether I was doing the right thing...she has been found! I have spoken with her nurse and confirmed that some of the stuff I was told was found to be untrue, that is truely a blessing guys. The nurse was very kind and I have a peace about how she's being taken care of. I have yet to speak with her because she was sleeping, but am going to try back later as they are an hour behind us so its not really late there.

Here's the problem. I would LOVE to leave tonight and drive over night and then get all day tomorrow with her stay over Saturday night, then get to spend Sunday with her and drive back late Sunday night. The problem...we mistakenly told Mason about the football game he was going to get to see tomorrow and he is very excited. I know that doesn't compare to what I need to do, but I hate to break his heart and my husband doesn't like the idea of leaving tonight. If we leave tomorrow then we can't leave until around 4 which puts us there at midnight and I only get one day with her and he misses a days pay of work. I really want to do whats best, but I am not a very patient person so this is really hard to make this decision.

Please pray that I listen to God and do what is asked of me...even if it requires being patient.

Prayers needed!

Update: My cousin has been moved to a rehab center, but is not doing well at all. The father of her girls has taken them to Georgia and she is there alone. Well, shes not alone, God is with her, but based on our conversations before she doesn't believe that. I have heard several things and trying as we speak to find out exactly what is going on, but I do know that things are really bad and there is talk of her being in a coma. She has made the statement that since her girls are gone then she has nothing left to fight for. She, to my knowledge, is not saved.

I know you all know how important this is, but its so severe. Not only is she alone with no family, but she has no hope and we all know that there is hope in Jesus. I have been praying that God put someone in her path to show her the love of Jesus so that she will accept him. But the more and more I pray I feel like God is telling me that person is YOU.

I, as of right now if everything goes okay (as in if I can locate her and she's not in a medically induced coma), am going to step out in faith and make the drive down to see her even though we can not financially afford this. Of course I want her healed and better and I have been praying Gods will for this situation, but above all I want her to know the love of Christ. I'm just asking that you pray Gods will and if this is how its supposed to happen then let it happen and if not that he would give me some kind of peace.

Thanks guys! I'll update once I know more.

Urgent Prayer Request!

Many of you know of my cousin that was up to visit that has brain cancer. I have just recently gotten off the phone with her and things are not good at all. A little background first. When she finished her radiation it worked a little bit. The tumor shrunk from 5 to 4, so they decided to start chemo. They also suggested that she have surgery to have it removed because of multiple seizure episodes that were very severe. The seizures caused her to loss control/feeling of her left side. She had the surgery 2 days ago and the tumor has already started to grow back. So it did not work. :(

I have just gotten off the phone with her and I'm having mixed emotions. No doubt that I am sobbing and very concerned. While we were talking it was as if sometimes she didn't hear me. At one point she asked me to hang on and I could her the nurse in the background so I just waited. I asked her if someone was there and she said she thought so. I could clearly hear the nurse. But then I couldn't hear anything and she still wasn't talking. So I asked how the girls were and she just said fine. It was as if any answer that was more than just a simple yes or no was too hard and she didn't understand. I am not sure what has all happened and the only information I can obtain is from a very unreliable source. My aunt had to get very firm to get the name of the hospital after several attempts and phone calls by ourselves.

Obviously...I would LOVE to see healing for her!! Most of all, I pray she gets saved!! I pray that God places someone close to her to show her the love of God, his grace, his mercy, his kindness, and his LOVE!!

I know that they are transfering her to a therapy facility to help her get back up and moving again. I am considering going down to visit and help her through the transition as she has no one down there. Please pray that if I am supposed to go down that we can make it happen and if not then pray that someone down there shows Gods love and reaches out to her.

...and thats just what we did!! So this week I have tried to take the "school" out of schoolwork. Have I confused you all yet. haha Ok, so I'll do my best to explain. I had originally thought that I would be the homeschooling mom that would LOVE book work and worksheets and operate like a "true" classroom. Thats what I get for thinking. haha I have been so stretched and so worried about all this homeschool stuff that I basically said forget it...for now anyway. We did do a some work don't get me wrong, but we basically just tried to have as much fun as we could and figure out how much learning was involved. Does that make sense? I hope so! :)

I have learned that Mason really does get Math, has really nice handwriting when he gives effort and LOVES to help around the house!! The twins LOVE singing, drawing, handwriting, cooking and helping around the house. All 3 of them love to help, with the exception of cleaning their own rooms. :) Mason and I have taken a break on Math for now because its getting into multiplication and he's not ready for that yet. We tried guys...really, he's not ready. It was quite interesting. So we are going to work a little more on some basic concepts, a LOT of reading and go from there. The twins are ready to be challenged though. I'm not sure whats in store for them next, but lets just say my kitchen may have some preschool things up on the walls. Creative huh? :)

I have to say that we have had a blast this week...and here's what we've been doing!

We started off with a little vacuuming.

Then we took the advice off my friend Amy's blog and made some homemade applesauce! YUM!!
I promise it looked better than this once we were done!

Follow up eating and cooking applesauce with doing some dishes.

How's that for some stacking?

Look Mom...my first dish-pan hands! :)

Oh...and we can't forget the naps! :)
Then I tried to get creative in the kitchen. hahaha For those of you that don't know...I can't cook! So this is really quite funny! I'll describe it before the picture so that you know what your looking at. hahaha I saw an octopus made out of a hot dog and thought how cool...yeah right! Side note: Don't buy bun length hot dogs, they are too heavy and fall over. The boys said it looked like a dead octopus. Hows that for honesty!So now that we all know I can't cook...on to something more fun! I think I'll just stick with paper crafts instead of food. :)

We went to the park today and looked for some leaves. Our leaf trip ended up being a pine cone excursion! We walked away with about 15 of them!

Then it was off for some "gym" time. hahaThen off we went home to do some leaf rubbing. This was the funnest thing we have ever done! We taped the leaves to the table and then taped paper on top of them. Grabbed some crayons...and start rubbing! The boys just kept going and going. They were like little energizer bunnies! :)

Tomorrow we are going to paint them with watercolors and hang them in the windows. I'll post pictures after I get all 30 of them cut out. Anyone up for some cutting? hahaha

Our weeks not done yet either. We are off for a play date tomorrow at the park and finish up our leaf project!

Ladies, this week has been a much better week! Hopefully more will come!

Stuck!

So tonight I was hassled by a good friend about my blog. :) She said that she couldn't keep up on everything if I didn't blog about it. Well, my friends, I haven't blogged because I am stuck! Literally stuck in everything...relationships, parenting, marriage, homeschooling and even blogging. This has definitely been a trying season for me and it can seriously end anytime soon, like yesterday. I haven't blogged because I haven't felt anything was blog worthy, sorry.

So let's see, where to start. Homeschooling....well, isn't going that great. We are stuck in a rut. We have still only been doing 3 worksheets and we're a month into it. Those are about all I can get out of him and me. I LOVE the Math and all, but we are bored and I do mean WE. He is tired of doing the same old things everyday and frankly so am I. I just can't throw another worksheet into it. This was supposed to be fun and I'm not having any fun so I know that he's not. I still have to add in Language and Spelling. We are doing a little better on reading, and I really honestly mean a little. We are definitely not reading like we should (we have increased from not at all though), but I think it goes back to the whole boredom thing. I have got to find a way to make this fun for him. And honestly, me too. That was the whole point to this. The twins on the other hand LOVE worksheets!! I just wish I had a little bit more to go along with their curriculum though. Sure we play games and paint and all that fun stuff, but there has to be more. Surely there's more! So, you all may think I'm crazy and I'm starting to think it myself, but I'm considering throwing out everything and trying something new. Ouch! Here's the problem...thats a ton of money down the drain and no money to buy new things. Honestly guys, I'm really starting to question whether I can do this. I know everyone has said that the first year is the hardest, but seriously we have to accomplish something and I feel like we are not accomplishing anything at all. I have lost all my motivation and energy. See why I haven't blogged. It's depressing. :(

So I guess that leaves me with relationships, parenting and marriage. Can I just say one word...disconnected. That is how I feel. And I think I'll just leave it at that because I could probably go into a long list off of that.

I know, I know, my first post in a long time and a depressing one at that. Hopefully I'll have something more positive to post later. Oh wait, I do have something completely off the subject. :)

Fireproof!! If you haven't seen it...go see it! Its a great movie! Here's the backstory. Alot of you may not know that I am a huge fan of the broadway musical Rent, really broadway in general, but Rent is my all-time fav. When I say huge I mean it. I have seen it 8 times, 5 of those were in NYC. all but twice from the pit seats. :) So anyway, its run has come to an end (12 years on broadway...the 7th longest running show) and they filmed the last show to air in the theatres. Needless to say I was very excited!! I bought my tickets 2 weeks in advance thats how excited I was. I will NEVER do that again!! I would not suggest that to anyone. Why you ask. Well, I'll tell ya. haha My friend and I got to theatre so excited and with so much energy. We got our popcorn and walked in theatre number 3 to hear the music playing. Now mind you that the movie wasn't supposed to start until 2 and its about 1:40. We just thought they were playing the soundtrack or something. That was until we notice that its pitch black, Tracie and Eden were on the screen singing Take Me or Leave Me, which meant it was past the intermission and everyone was looking at us like why are you walking in now. We were so confused. So to cut this short, they changed the time!!! The movie was originally planned to start at 2, which is what my ticket said. They changed it to 12!! Now I am not usually one to start a fuss, but this was the last day it was to be played and they shouldn't have changed the time after they sold a ticket. So after begging and pleading to play it again so we could see it and then refusing, we compromised. They gave us our money back, let us into a movie for free and gave us coupons. Oh, plus we got the Rent poster that they were using to advertise it. I wasn't kidding when I said I'm a huge fan. haha So, thats how we saw Fireproof. I will say that I am still a little upset over the whole issue, but it was meant for us to see Fireproof. I am amazed at how well this movie is put together and right on the money. So, I don't usually go to the theatre or advertise a movie, but go see it!! I am going to try to see it again only with my husband this time. Anyone up for a movie date?? Oh, and don't forget the box of tissues, you'll need it! :)

How's that for my first blog in almost a month. :) And I thought I had nothing to blog about. Still not sure its all blog worthy, but there it is Renay. haha