03/27/08

PARTY anyone???? Here is the party set up ready and waiting for people to arrive. :)

Oh my.... the past two days have been B-U-S-Y!!!! Friday night my best friend and I cleaned this house. It was interesting since I haven't had time to do a lot of fine tuning. My friend is quite OCD when it comes to cleaning so she was cracking me up. I appreciated that, though, because we got this house clean!

Saturday was crazy from the time we got up till the time we went to bed. I finished up their scrapbooks that morning and then began decorating and setting things up. We put up the tent so I could put the tablecloths on, and once that was done, Steve and I got to mowing the yard. I was thankful I had the opportunity to help him with that. My Mom came down and helped make fresh-squeezed lemonade, tea, and cook the potatoes for us. I am so thankful that she is always here to help us. I am so blessed to have Mom and Dad!

The cake was from my favorite bakery, Once In A Blue Moon... AWESOME as always. They made the sand out of brown sugar!! How neat is that???

Steve had put the pig on early that morning. He bought a HUGE pig because we had planned for a lot of people, but many of them seemed to have to cancel at the last minute. We were having to give away pork at the end of the night. ha!! You can see in the grill pic just how big that HALF a pig was!!

The party was a success and we are now tired! lol I thought I'd share some pics from the party. We had a "luau" theme this year and it was a fun one for decorating and such. We asked a lot of people to just COME to the party and not bring a gift. Their presence is all we needed. People and memories are what make life special and we are trying to teach that to Wesley and Mikayla. They were very blessed, though, by people who loved them and chose to bring a gift anyway. It was definitely not expected. Here are a couple of pictures of things they received. Wesley got a lot of John Deere "stuff" which made him quite happy, and Mikayla got her some more American Girl Doll books and other stuffed animals/ play things which made her quite excited. They just don't realize how blessed they are....

Steve and I have decided that this year was the last for a big party for a few years. We have done one like this since their first birthday and they have been great. Now we'll do them when they are 12 and then 16. We will probably do a combination party when they graduate from highschool. There is a lot of work that goes into planning one of these events so we are ready to scale back a bit.

Some of you left comments and asked about the "Grand Prix" car race at church the other night. Well, it went along great. I don't remember if I mentioned that Mikayla had never won anything in this and Wesley has won 2 trophies before. Mikayla has been wanting to win for some time now and last Wednesday night was no different. They both had some pretty fast cars, but Mikayla's wasn't as fast as others unfortunately. Wesley actually won first in the speed race!! He was quite tickled. Mikayla was so "pitiful" on the bleachers when they were calling out those that won... I could see her saying "Please be me, please be me..." and then when they called out Wesley's name her little face showed all of that disappointment. She tried very hard to be proud for Wesley, though. On the way home we had to explain to her that truly, she gets "trophies" every day when she can read a chapter book and understand it, take a test on it and do great or learn her verses for AWANA in no time and "rattle" them off. Wesley struggles in that area in some ways right now. Once we explained it to her in that way she understood a bit better. She hasn't really said anything about it since. These are areas in which Mikayla needs to learn and grow and I know the Lord is teaching her these things. Wesley needs those boosts in confidence every now and then whereas she does not.

Speaking of a "boost".... At this point in the year sometimes I can get discouraged with everything going on around me and wondering if I am where I need to be doing what I need to be doing. I give all I can each day to my students, with the Lord's help, but some days I walk away from school questioning whether I am making a difference. I know sometimes that is the Devil trying to bring me down as well as just from being plain tired.

Well, this past week, and then again tonight, the Lord showed me to keep on keeping on... I read in the kids devotions tonight from Matthew. When I read this part of this verse, it all came back to me: Matthew 6:8b - for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him. WOW... yes, He did that for me this past week. I had two or three separate instances this past week that "lifted me up" so to speak. Those people had no idea that what they said would be exactly what I needed, but the Lord did and He used them to help me through some discouraging moments. I wasn't in the depths of despair by any means, but still a bit discouraged and stressed. God is so good to know what I need even before I know I need it. He is always there ever watching over us and guiding us through trials or happy moments of life. He is always there!

Tomorrow is a day off for me. I am going to be just a MOMMY and not the teacher! We are going on Wesley and Mikayla's field trip to the museum. I went to school this afternoon to finish up some loose ends to be prepared for tomorrow, simply so I wouldn't have to go in at all tomorrow. Usually, I take off and still go work on stuff in the early morning and get last minute stuff finished. After the busyness of this weekend, I thought a little extra sleep was in order. lol I am looking forward to just being with Wesley and Mikayla and enjoying the day as a family.

Speaking of family... I changed my family picture above on the right. We took this after the party was over last night. It was the only picture I have of all four of us from the whole day. Kind of a shame.... we were so busy I didn't get a lot of pictures I had wanted.

Well, I am going to go crash for a bit before heading off to bed. I hope you have a wonderful evening.