St. Louis Spring Break

We took a little vacation to St. Louis during our spring break a few weeks ago. We drove up on Tuesday morning and went to the St. Louis Zoo that afternoon. We had never been to that zoo before and it was a lot of fun. It's quite big, especially compared to the zoo in Springfield! It was a chilly day, so some of the animals weren't out and about. We did really enjoy watching the camels! They had some funny expressions going on! 

The girls were REALLY excited to stay at a hotel and I think they would have been just as satisfied to stay at a hotel in Springfield instead of driving a bit to stay in one! Our hotel at a pool, so Ross and the girls went swimming one night....along with every other hotel guest. ;). 

Wednesday morning we went up in the Arch! This was my favorite of the whole trip and am so thankful that the rain held off for us so we could get a good look out of the Arch when up in it and were able to walk around the riverfront, too. I think the girls really enjoyed the Arch and thought it was pretty neat! 

Thursday morning we went to the Science Center and had a good time! They had several interactive exhibits that surprisingly and thankfully were all open! We had some fun in their game room and you can watch Lucy and Ross play Super Mario Brothers here! We watched a 15-minute weather presentation that was very neat and informative.

It was only 2 1/2 days, but it was nice to get away and show the girls some new sights! Now we are looking forward to our Florida vacation this June! 

Family Visits

We had a fun visit from Aunt Linda and Uncle Dale during spring break! They came down to celebrate my Mom's 70th birthday and we all had dinner together at our house one night. They brought Christmas and birthday presents for the girls, so that was an extra special treat! We had a nice time visiting and I think this picture below is just great! 

Play School Dreams

One day Lucy was talking about her school math workbook and that they finished one and were moving on to another book. I asked her more about the workbooks and what they do with them once finished. She said she could take it home or throw it away. I asked her if she could bring it home so I could see what all she's doing at school. 

It was really fun to me to see this math workbook, but I couldn't help but think about myself at her age. I would have been SOOOOO excited to be able to bring home this math workbook from school! I would have used it at my play school in the toy room at home! I can't tell you how many countless hours I spent playing school in the basement! I had a great set up with a desk and chalkboard, and my Mom would always buy me teaching supplies, like TWO grading wheels(!!!!) and a teacher planner book...oh I had so many things that were just perfect for my play school. I even taught summer school one year and remember getting everything ready for it. I had some fun times playing school! 

So this workbook Lucy brought home was so fun to me, bringing back lots of fun playing school memories!  

School On Wednesdays!!!!

It's Wednesday morning at 8:30am and my kids are at school!!! We have literally had one complete year of non-normal schooling, as we did not go back to school last year fourth quarter. They have had virtual Wednesdays at home all three quarters so far and the first quarter they were only at school for two days a week. They are now back in school for all 5 days a week and I think it's wonderful! I'm very thankful that we did get to go back to school in August, even if it was only 2 days, but really have seen no reason for the virtual Wednesdays after they opened it up to 4 days of school in the second quarter. Lucy and Molly both did a very good job at home on Wednesdays, but it is just so much better for them to be in school full time now! If you're wondering how the girls feel about going to school on Wednesdays, check out the pictures below........ :) 

Spring Pictures

I took the girls to have pictures done at JC Penney's a few weeks ago. I hadn't planned on doing this, but it's kind of funny how it ended up. Each year at school we have fall and spring pictures. I always buy pictures in the fall because I want to and they are really cheap. I think I spent $8 on each girl and received 1 8x10, 2 5x7s, 8 wallets, and 16 little trading pictures. For the fall pictures I use the same background each year..blue. I do the same background because someday when I put all of their pictures in a 12 years collage, I want all the backgrounds to match. Lucy always wants to do a fun background, like with stars or whatever they have, but I say no.

Well, this year I decided to order spring pictures and told Lucy she could pick whatever background she wanted. I looked through their clothes and couldn't find anything that was nice for them to wear so we went shopping and bought each girl a new outfit for the school spring pictures. I did all of this before I received the order form for the school spring pictures and was quite annoyed when I did receive it. The cheapest picture package was $15 for only 2 5x7s! I guess they do it differently in the spring than fall. I did not want to pay $15 for only 2 prints, so decided to take them to JCP where it would be less expensive (when compared to the amount of prints I would get vs the school pictures) and  I could do multiple poses.

I have a love/hate relationship with JCP pictures. I have been going there for almost 8 years now and have bought countless pictures from them. Sometimes I have a great photographer and get really good pictures, others the photographer is so/so and I'm not super thrilled with my pictures. This time around, though, all of the pictures turned out so good! And although I spent more money at JCP than I would have at school for pictures, I did get way more poses! 

The Desires Of Your Heart

 "Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart."

I have always liked the verse above. I remember growing up I had a small poster of some teddy bears dressed up for a fancy tea party with this verse on it. It's a verse I've always thought about and had a friend even quote it to me once during a conversation about life. It was quite a few years back when we were both single and both wanted nothing more but to be married. I asked her if she ever worried that she wouldn't get married. Her reply to me was well, what does God say...."Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart." That conversation has always stuck with me and would serve as an underlying peace of sorts during times when I was really down about being single while all my friends were married. And I would think that I just needed to follow God and he would give me the desires of my heart...a husband and family. 

Fast forward about 15 years and I heard a devotion using this verse that gave me a completely different way of thinking about the verse than I ever had before. 

I've always thought of it as spend time getting to know God, read your Bible, pray, etc., and then God will give you what your heart wants. One might interpret that as a "this-for-that" type thing, but I didn't. It was more so spending time with God and then things in life would fall into place because I wasn't focused on what I wanted, but focused on God, and then He would bless me with my heart's desires. 

The devotion I heard talked more about the second part of the verse..."He will give you the desires of your heart." His take on the verse was that if you're delighting yourself in God, then those desires you have won't really be what you desire for your heart, but they will be God's desires for your heart. God would place desires on your heart that might not be from you or what you were thinking of, but they are from Him and what He wants for your life. Which in reality, I believe that God's desires for your heart are way better than any desire you could ever think of yourself! I wish you could have heard the devotion firsthand. It was really good and I hope at least part of what he said came through in this post! 

God Cares About Everything....Even Barbie Shoes

I started this post in the summer of 2019 and am finally getting around to typing it out! I hope I can remember all I wanted to say about it......

One summer afternoon we went swimming at our pool with some friends and I brought along our pool bag full of pool toys. One of the toys was a Barbie doll who had on a pair of black high-heel shoes. The girls played with the Barbie and other toys in the pool and when it was time to go home we gathered everything up in the bag. I remember wanting to make sure and get the Barbie shoes because I just did not want to lose one of them and not have a complete pair. I picked up the Barbie but she only had one shoe on. A friend who was with us helped pick up the toys and she found the missing shoe, so I had my complete set again. I put the shoes back on the Barbie and put her in the toy bag. We went home and got all our stuff unloaded and went about our day. 

The next day when we went swimming we did everything the same as the day before...loaded up, swam, picked up, and came home. This time when picking up the toys I noticed that one Barbie shoe was missing again! I looked all over and just could not find it. I was sad about this, because like I said, I didn't want to have an incomplete pair of Barbie shoes! I looked some more, but accepted that the shoe would just be lost and, honestly, like would go on just fine. I don't think the girls would have cared at all because we really do have a TON of Barbie shoes, so what would one incomplete pair matter?! 

When we got home and unloaded the car that afternoon I walked over to our front steps to look at something. I looked down and I could not believe what my eyes focused on! I bent down to see if what I thought I saw really was what I was seeing and I was correct.......it was the missing Barbie shoe!! I could hardly believe it! The shoe had been found!! I had no idea why in the world it was laying in the flower bed like the picture shows. Perhaps one of the girls had the Barbie out playing with it by the flowers and the shoe fell off? Perhaps the shoe hadn't gotten all the way in the toy bag and got attached to one of the girls and it fell off when they were by the front steps? It's still a mystery to me how that Barbie shoe got there and I know I'll never know the answer to that question. But it did make me think about God had how he answers prayers and cares about everything in our lives...even missing Barbie shoes! If He can help me find a missing Barbie shoe, then imagine what else He can help you find or what else He can do for you?!  

Christmas Present!

This post is a little late, but I guess better late than never! 

The Christmas decoration in the picture below is a tree that my mom puts out each year. I've always loved it and have tried to find one like it for myself, but haven't had any luck. When we were at her house for Christmas this past season I told her how I liked it and wanted it someday. Well that someday came a lot sooner than I thought it would!

On Christmas night my parents came over to have dinner with us and that's when my mom gave it to me, although I didn't know about it until they had already left and the girls were going to bed. Ever since I was a kid my mom would always put a small present under our pillow on our birthday or Christmas or special days/holidays just so we could have one more present to open that day and extend the fun we had! You might think that this tradition has ended now that I haven't lived at their house for over 20 years, but she is still carrying it on and this is where I found the Christmas tree decoration!

That night when it was time for the girls to go to bed Molly jumped into my bed to be silly and she found the present way down in my bed by where my feet would go. She pulled it out and she knew right away that it was a present from Gumma! (This isn't the first time Lucy or Molly has found a surprise in MY bed that was meant for ME to find! :) ) Molly called me into my room and I opened it and was so surprised and happy to find the tree. It's not a super special or collectible decoration, and she didn't even have it when we were growing up. Rather, it's something I've always really liked. My mom recognized that and decided she wanted me to have it so I can enjoy it now instead of someday.....

That was a very nice, fun surprise and I'm thankful to have this tree decoration now. And it's not so much the fact that I really like it, but rahter because she was nice and thoughtful enough to give it to me knowing I really liked it. Thanks, Mom! I'll enjoy putting it out for Christmases to come! 

Lucy's Style

I love Lucy's style! She seems to have a knack for putting outfits together and they just look so good. I remember when she was in preschool she wore all pink one day...a pink shirt and pink pants. When I first saw her I thought "oh, too much pink!" but then as the day went on I realized she looked really good! 

Last week she planned to wear this school t-shirt and it was still a little chilly out, so she put on this sweater to wear with it. I thought she just looked so good! She seems to be one of those people that just looks good no matter what she wears!

I even heard from the Gramma of one of her friends that her friend says that Lucy always looks good. Even on their weekly school zoom calls when Lucy doesn't quite have her hair fixed, she still looks good! I hope Lucy always keep her sense of style! 

Accountant...Plumber...Electrician

Ross wears many hats in his life right now. He has the obvious...son, husband, father, friend, accountant...but did you know he also has a few other hidden hats that he wears every now and then?! I have to say after 15 years of knowing him, and being married to him for almost 11 years, I have recently learned about some of these other hats he wears!

One hat that is very handy and saved us a lot of money is that of plumber! One Friday in January he came home for lunch and I had just gone downstairs to start a load of wash. When I walked down in the basement I saw a big puddle of water on the floor and water very steadily dripping from the ceiling. I called Ross down right away. I had just taken a shower and we thought somehow a pipe had burst from the shower in our bedroom (on the second floor) and was leaking down to the basement. He started looking around right away to see what he could find. He called me Dad from some advice, too, but kept on searching for the water leak.

He thought to look in our mud room to see if the leak could be there. When we moved into our house the washer and dryer was in the now mud room, right off the kitchen and garage. We moved our washer and dryer to the basement and turned that room into a mud room. The hookup for the washer was still there, so we covered it with bead board and didn't think anything else of it. Well, when Ross was searching for the leak he looked at the bench in the mud room and found it was wet. He figured something was happening with the hookup behind the wall, so tore off the bead board and found the source of the leak! He rigged up a hose to let it leak into the utility sink and the next day was able to close up the old hookup and fix our plumbing problem. He bought a new board to put up and for only about $40 he fixed our plumbing problem!

He also wears an electrician hat! We bought a treadmill last month and after Ross got it assembled he plugged it in and turned it on, only to have it not work! He quickly realized we needed a dedicated outlet for it to be plugged into. He went to Lowe's and bought a few electrical supplies and created a new electrical outlet for us and our treadmill now works!

I never knew Ross was so handy! I'm very thankful for his ability to think through issues we have and fix them. It saves us a lot of money! Thanks for being so handy, Ross!