Brazil

I said I would be talking about Brazil! Two summers ago I joined a group of 30 people from our church on a mission trip to Brazil. We are going again! I think there are 30 of us again, and I am really looking forward to the trip. We will be going in June for 10 days. I am planning the VBS again for the kids, and it seems like this year will be even bigger and better! We may have the opportunity to see 600 kids in a three day period! This is huge for us, and it makes me a little nervous but very excited. This is what I want to ask you to pray for ----that we will have this opportunity. Our missionary in Aracaju, Randy Warzecha, is working very hard to get this chance for us. He is working with two schools in Aracaju to see if we can do our VBS at their school. They have to request permission from the department of education for us to do VBS at the schools. Doing it at the schools will allow us to see so many more children, and they will not have to find (pay for) transportation to come to VBS. This is huge - we are talking about seeing 600 kids instead of 60. Please pray that permission will be granted for us - the schools are willing, so we are needing permission from the government! Please pray for the mission trip to be a huge success and that God will work through us to bring many people to the School of the Bible in Aracaju.

Easter Weekend

We started getting ready for Easter on Friday. We decided to dye our eggs Friday and hunt on Saturday since it was nice on those days, and it was supposed to be a little chilly on Sunday (it is). It is always chilly on Easter! Here is Jacob showing the egg before it gets dyed and a couple other pics of egg dying.

We did our little "hunt" on Saturday after Morgan's volleyball games. Here is Jacob eagerly anticipating the major event!

Here are all the kids (neighbors and Mark included) before the hunt.

And after...enjoying the candy! I didn't post any of the hunt...not too exciting!

Here are the kids Easter morning right before church.

Not a lot going on today - just resting and enjoying Easter. We are still out of school Monday to celebrate Good Friday - it's nice that we get it off still since Good Friday was over spring break. Starting Tuesday I will be working with a very "unique" kindergarten student that had to be removed from his classroom. The plan is that he is out of his regular classroom for the next 3-4 weeks to see if his behavior can change and her can earn his way back. This is a very violent and angry child, and now he will be my responsibility. Please pray for me (and him) over the next few weeks - we will need it. I am trying to look at this in a positive way; hopefully I can make a difference in his life. Hopefully all will go according to plan, and his behavior will start to improve.

Spring Break

Spring Break...we didn't have a single thing planned! Friday night the girls each had a friend spend the night. Morgan had 2 volleyball games first thing Saturday morning - they won both games! They were down in each game by one round, but they fought back to win 2-3 in each game. Morgan did much better this week. She got a number of serves over, and she even helped win the first game with a 4 serve streak! (The serves are what really seems to count in 5th grade volleyball)! Saturday night we spent with Mark's family going through old pictures and remembering his mom. We are gathering pictures to make a special scrapbook of her life. We spent the night there on Saturday night and went to church with Don and Twala on Sunday. That was nice. We ran into John and Lindsey Shuttlesworth and Russell and Sarah Smith. It's always nice to see CDR friends! After church on Sunday we went over to Mark's sisters house, and they invited us to join them at the Dallas World Aquarium on Monday. That sounded like fun, so I took the three best looking kids in town...I think their names were Morgan, Haleigh, and Jacob!

I took a million pictures, but I will only share a few of my favorites. Here are some cool stingrays we enjoyed looking at. Jacob liked them so much I got him a stuffed version from the gift shop.

The coolest part of the aquarium, by far, was the shark tank. You walk through a tunnel that is full of sharks and stingrays. You can see them swimming around you and over you! Here is a picture of Mark's sister Mandy (green shirt), her son Jack, Haleigh, Lauren (cousin), and Morgan (backs to us). They were amazed.

Here is a stingray from the same tank. He was directly above me in the tunnel.

Here is that same tank from the top! This is cool to see because you can see some of the sharks, but you can also see the people walking in the tunnel under the water. Pretty neat!

Here is an octopus - so gross looking when you see it in real life. It always seems cooler in the movies! I guess the giant head is what grosses me out. The tentacles, with the suction cups, are pretty cool. I was truly amazed at the number of sea creatures that God made. The way that the fish can blend in to their environment was amazing. The place itself wasn't really worth the ridiculous amount of money that we spent for 2 1/2 hours, but it was a great teaching moment to my children (and me) about how amazing our God is. So, for that I was thankful that we went. I'll just never go during spring break again...too many people, and for me to say that, it must have been crowded!

The rest of spring break has been pretty boring and uneventful - just how I wanted it! Today I am going to redeem a gift certificate that Mark gave me for Christmas - a massage and a facial. Yeah - I can't wait until 10:00! I'm not really looking forward to the end of spring break, but I know it's time...my children are starting to get on each others nerves! That is always the sign that it is time to get back to school!

Bible Bowl, Snow, and Volleyball

Our church hosted a Bible Bowl competition for surrounding churches since we aren't going to LTC. LTC (which is always Easter weekend) happens to fall during spring break this year. That really stinks because everyone will be out of town, so we are not taking kids this year to the competition. We still did pre-convention events like Bible class teaching, bulletin board, etc. The kids still prepared very hard for Bible Bowl, and we decided to host a competition so that the kids could still "participate" in Bible Bowl. Morgan worked really hard this year, and it paid off! She was 15th overall, so she received a gold medal for her individual score. Her team came in 4th place, so they recieved a gold medal too. She was really excited and very proud of herself! She has her medals on her backpack! Here she is with her two gold medals.

This is a picture of the Taylor version of a slumber party! The kids were watching a movie in the living room last weekend, and they fell asleep together. It's so nice that they can all still fit on one couch (and that they don't mind being that close to each other)!

It started snowing Thursday morning, and by lunch time it was sticking to the ground and roads. School was let out early - that was a mess, and we were out of school on Friday. It was nice to see a good snow - it snowed about 5 inches. We haven't seen that in a long time. The kids had a great time playing in the snow (except Haleigh - she doesn't do cold)! Here are a few pictures of the lovely snow.

On Friday the snow started to melt. The snow was sliding off the roof of our house slowly but surely. Here is the first picture...

second picture...

third picture...shortly after this, it slid off on Morgan! That was good times :)

Here is the snowman that Mark, Morgan, and Jacob built.

As quickly as it came...it was gone :( We had fun while it lasted.

As I mentioned before, Morgan started volleyball. The team is full of beginners, so it is a good learning time for them. The girls don't have their uniforms yet, so they had to wear their basketball jerseys. So, Morgan is still #2 - here she is going for the ball (along with 2 other girls). They are working on communication!

Last week Morgan didn't get a serve over the net, but this week she did! She got two serves over. Here is one of them!

Getting ready for the ball...

Speaking of volleyball...our church team got 2nd place in the church league. They played hard, but fell just short of the big trophy. Mark was able to play since his ankle healed enough, but he is taking a couple of weeks off from basketball. Hopefully no more injuries!

There's not a whole lot else going on right now...I want to talk about Brazil, and I will do that next time. So long for now!

Long time, no blog!

I haven't written in so long...I feel out of the loop! We have been so incredibly busy lately. I remember when Mark and I first moved to Decatur, and we heard all the families at church talking about how busy their lives are with work, their kids, sports, etc. We were never able to understand that life...until we had kids, of course. Man, they take up a lot of my time! Of course, I wouldn't want it any other way. Haleigh's basketball season is finally over! I am so thankful, Mark is really thankful...Haleigh is not. She has such a good time playing, and she can't wait until next year. That is when all the fun begins for her because she can steal the ball!! Mark has been playing on a church volleyball league for the past 2 months or so. I thought last week was their last game, but they have a tournament that starts tonight. So, we will be doing that tonight. The Decatur High School basketball teams are both (boys/girls) out of the playoffs now, so no more basketball nights at the gym. I am hoping that we will be back to normal for a while, but I doubt it. Morgan is about to start volleyball, and that will be another night! The lady organizing the league called to see if Mark would coach - he said NO! Anyway, here are a few pictures from Haleigh's last game...she did so awesome this year...we are really proud of her.


Mark was out of town for 4 days last week to Tulsa. He had a very informative conference, and hopefully it will keep him educated on things in the gas measurement business! Yesterday he celebrated his 35th birthday. We were glad to have Mark's dad and his wife, Twala, join us at church and then take us out to lunch! Happy birthday to my wonderful husband! Speaking of my wonderful husband...this is what was delivered to me on valentine's day...

These were the flowers we had in our wedding. The lily is called a Star Gazer Lily and the roses are Fire & Ice roses. Aren't they lovely...how sweet of him to send me the flowers from our wedding. Of course, he was the one to select them in the first place, so it is easy for him to remember what kind we had.

On a more serious note, please pray for my friends Jerry and Anna Nicholas. Jerry is struggling with cancer. The treatment is not helping, and his cancer has continued to grow. Their doctor has recommended trying to seek treatment at MD Anderson. Just keep them both in your prayers, please.

I have so much more I want to talk about, but I have so much to do right now...more to come...soon.

Answered Prayers

I love that song by Garth Brooks 'Unanswered Prayers', but I don't like that it implies that God doesn't answer our prayers - he always answers, but sometimes it is not the answer we want. Well, I am very thankful when God answers the way I want Him to! Only a few of you know that Jacob had a urinary tract infection a few weeks ago. This is something VERY RARE for little boys, especially boys under 5. The doctor was obviously concerned about it and wanted to monitor it very closely. He put him on an antibiotic for 10 days and hoped that the infection was just a result of his body having a virus that it didn't fight off all the way and turned to his kidneys. If the infection was gone, he felt good about it. If the infection was still there, he wanted to do a sonogram of his kidneys to see if there were any cysts on them. The antibiotic cleared the infection, but there was still a trace of protien, so we went ahead and did the sonogram (just for me basically - so that I could be at peace). The sonogram went great, and there is absolutely nothing there to be concerned about! That was a major relief for us - I guess it was just a fluke thing. The next prayer that has been answered (the way we hoped) was that I finally got my Texas certification. At this point it is only a one year certificate, but it is a certificate none the less! They are now "giving me permission" to take the necessary tests in Texas so that I can get my permanent certificate. So, this means that I can get a job - or at least start looking for one! Anyway, those were two really big things to us, so I just wanted to share the joy!

Now...basketball! Morgan's team made it 3 games in the tourn. last weekend. We got killed by a Springtown team in our third game, but they played really well. So, her season is over, but we still have Haleigh. Today her team played a double header, and she scored 18 points in the first game and 10 points in the second game. She is a good ball handler and a great defensive player! She is doing really well, and she loves it a lot. This is a big change from last year when she said that she didn't even want to play anymore. She is also doing ballet - which she just loves too. She is going to be a rabbit in the upcoming program they have. This year they are doing Pocahontas. Her ballet class is also tap dancing, and today was their first time to tap. She had a lot of fun.

There's not really anything else going on right now, and no new pictures....sorry. Have a great weekend.

Parenting!

I love my children dearly - more than I can even express in words, but sometimes they are just really challenging. I am living what my parents must have lived raising me - every parents dream for their child I am sure! Haleigh is a real challenge for me. She is so much like me that we constantly butt heads. Mark claims that he uses "creative parenting" with her, and that I need to get more creative with her in the form of punishments. Haleigh just really likes for things to go HER way, and I really like for things to go MY way. So...what do we do about that? She behaves beautifully for everyone else, and people just can't believe that I struggle with her. I see so much of me in her - good and bad. I just want her to have all the good and leave the bad. What I need to do is stop modeling the bad, huh?!

Morgan - well, she is entering puberty. What joy. She is starting to test the waters a little bit on how she can speak to me. She got a quick lesson in how not to talk to me when she decided to mouth off to me on Saturday. Of course, she is the drama queen, so I got a tearful rendition from her about how she thinks that she is "the worst person in this family". I just love those hormones!

Jacob - he still sleeps with us almost every night. Not all night, but at some point he comes to our bed. He doesn't just come to our bed - he takes over our bed. We are just too stinking lazy to take him back to his bed, so I guess we have to pay the price.

The funny thing about all of this - I complain about some of the things they do that get under my skin, but I will miss it terribly when they are no longer in my home. I will miss butting heads with Haleigh, I will miss Morgan's drama, and I will miss Jacob sleeping with me. Someday they will be doing those things will someone else. The journey of parenting is full of twists and turns, ups and downs, and it goes by too fast. I think I will enjoy the journey while I have it!