New Beginnings

It's been quite some time since I've written on this blog! I'll try to fill you in on some things that have taken place between summer and now. We've had a few changes take place recently. We had a wonderful time in TN; it was wonderful seeing all of you! We actually missed KS a little bit while we were gone, so that's a good sign that we're adjusting. Most of you see our pictures on picasa, so I won't post any this time.

Taylor has had a great time being a part of the youth group at our church and getting to know the kids; they have had many youth functions and have taken many trips. It's has been fun, and at the same time it has been good for her on a spiritual level. She got saved and baptized at age 6, but recently said she felt like even though she knew and understood in her head what it meant to be a christian, she didn't understand it or feel it in her heart. So, she gave her heart to the Lord at a youth function! She's been reading her Bible and is learning a lot. She got her bible out the other night and was practicing talking to Ben about God :) She decided she wanted to go to the christian school at our church this year for the 8th grade. So far she has really enjoyed it and seems to be doing well. They wear uniforms, which isn't as bad as she initially thought it would be She started volleyball this week. We are excited to watch her play this sport for the first time ever.

Joslyn started Kindergarden a week ago :( She was not looking forward to it at all. She didn't want to go unless Riley could go with her. On her first day she was nervous as we walked up to the school, and I thought she might cry as she lined up and walked into school with her class, but instead Riley cried. She burst into tears and went running up to the door to try to catch her. She cried the whole way to the van saying 'I want Jwosyn' :) Joslyn has done really well so far, except that she has already gotten her name on the board for talking too much to her new little mexican friend, Trinity. Her teacher tells me that Joslyn finishes her work quickly and then wants to do Trinity's work for her, to help her get finished. She ties her shoes for her too, so Ms. Watson is afraid Trinity will not learn to do things on her own with Joslyn helping her do it all, so now Joslyn will have to be moved to another table. I guess at least she's being moved for doing something good instead of doing something bad.

Ben and I have started a new herbalife business. It will be a slow startup but has good potential for the future. We will keep you informed as it progresses.

Joslyn

Several of our family members used to love to hear 'Joslyn stories' and have recently mentioned that they miss hearing them, so I figured I would share a few. This first one is very embarrassing, and I would only tell this to family and people that I am closest to, those of you that know Joslyn quite well.....we were sitting in church one Sunday morning and there was a rather large lady sitting infront of us. She was of normal size from her waist up, but her bottom half was several times larger than the rest of her body. I noticed Joslyn was staring at her from behind and had a strange look on her face. After studying the lady for quite some time, she tapped me, wanting to say something to me. Knowing how children can be quite honest with their thoughts, and fearing what might come out of her mouth after noticing what she had been looking at, I quickly put my ear to her mouth so noone would hear what might possibly come out. She said, 'momma, that lady's hiney is too big to fit on the potty...how does she use the bathroom'....!!!! She was very serious about this question; not even a hint of a smile. So, she wasn't being mean, she was just honestly asking what was on her mind :) Thank God it wasn't a moment where the comment was blurted out. How embarrassing that would have been! Another story, one which is typical of Joslyn and without going into much detail, is when we went for her 5 yr checkup. She does not like shots. She has no intentions of ever getting any shots. We had been discussing all morning that she would have to get shots in order to start kindergarden, and all of her friends would have to do the same. She was prepared..so we thought. Needless to say, 4 other nurses ended up in the room. One was holding Riley for me while the other 3 were each holding a limb as I practically layed on her to restrain her so that our poor nurse could quickly give her the shots. She was screaming the entire time. Poor Riley...I wonder was she was thinking. On the flip side, Joslyn can also be very sweet (just in case you ere wondering :) ), and I just love how much she loves Riley. We were recently riding in the van to the store, and Joslyn told me thank you for bringing Riley to us. I responded, thinking she meant bringing her WITH us to the store. She said, 'no, you know when you were at the hospital and Riley came out of your belly..thank you for bringing her to us'. Another day she said the prayer before lunch, 'Dear Jesus, thank for this food and thank you so much for Riley because she is just so cute'. These are among the many daily comments she makes about her little sister :)

Birthday Weekend in Wichita

Happy 13th birthday to Taylor and Happy 2nd Birthday to Riley! Taylor had a track meet all day on her actual birthday, so we had pie and a few presents very late when she got home that night. We decided to take a birthday trip this year to celebrate the girls birthdays instead of having a party. We went this past weekend to Wichita, KS, which is the largest city in KS and is about 3 1/2 hours away. It was SO NICE to have good restaurants and malls and fun things to do for a change! We had a great time. We went to an indian pow wow one evening, which was neat, and was something Ben has always wanted to do. Taylor chose Chilis for her birthday dinner and we all chose ChuckECheeses for Rileys birthday dinner (she had a blast)! We spent the rest of the time at the Starbucks drive thru and shopping at teh malls.....Taylor asked only for money for her birthday so she could buy new clothes, and she got quite a bit of cash to spend (a big thanks to Pa for the majority of it)! Thank you all for the cards and gifts. We missed you celebrating these special days with us!

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day! I hope you all had as good a weekend as I did. The only thing that would have made mine better would have been to see my mom. Our sermon at church was on the Proverbs 31 woman, and I consider my mom to be closer to that than anyone else I know. It is my goal to be more like that.
Friday night I took Taylor and Joslyn to a Mother-Daughter Banquet at our church (Riley stayed home with Ben; I knew it would be more enjoyable that way since she doesn't like to sit still for very long). We had a great time. On Sat Taylor had an out of town track meet, and right as the little girls and Ben and I were about to leave home to head that way, Taylor called and said she was about to run her hurdles, earlier than expected, so we ended up staying in town and went to the Liberal Air Museum, which was pretty neat. On Sunday we went to dinner at an ilalian restaurant here in town. It was a Mother's Day/early Birthday dinner for Tay since she has her last track meet Tues and will get home too late for dinner. Here are a few pictures from our weekend.

Taylor's Track Meet

Taylor had her first track meet yesterday. She was gone from 8 am-8pm, and as you can see, she got very burnt! It was sunny and in the 80's. She ran the 100 meter hurdles and won first place in her heat and 4th place overall. She also ran the 200 meter hurdles and was 5th place in her heat but somehow 4th place overall (someone got disqualified). She is holding her little metal in the picture. Ben and I both had to miss it :( since it was a work day for us and the meet was out of town.

Happy Easter!

We had a fun Easter weekend. It started out with a trip for Taylor (and her youth group) to Oklahoma City for a night of laser tag on Friday. They had the entire place rented out from 11 pm-5 am! She had a blast. While she was there, I spent the evening at a scrapbooking party. It was my first time to scrapbook (even though I've wanted to do it for many years now), and after being there for 6 hrs, I only completed 1 page! On Sat I took Joslyn to a kid's craft party where she made a picture frame. She had a great time. After naps that day, the kids got to open some Easter goodies from family, and then we made cookies together (Joslyn's been begging to make something with dough like Barney does on one of his movies) :) Today, we had a great sermon at church. After talking about Easter this week at home and at church, when I asked Joslyn this morning to tell Ben about Easter she said, "it's when the Easter Bunny brings us candy and also when Jesus died on the cross and then went to heaven to take our sins with him" :) It turned out to be a rainy day (only the second time it's rained the whole time we've been here), which caused the church Easter egg hunt to get canceled, so Taylor and I hid eggs while the girls napped after church, and then we had our own hunt. Riley really enjoyed it and ended up with more eggs than Joslyn. Tonight we will have our family dinner together. We typically spend the day at GG's house, so I decided to fix all the same foods that we typically have there, plus a few extras! We miss you all and hope you have a wonderful Easter! 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 "..that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.."