Happy Birthday Michael

This week we celebrated my dear husband's birthday. I love any day we get to celebrate him and the kids love it.

Bible Study Group

Most of you know I did a bible study with a group of ladies this summer. The book we did was called Becoming a Woman of Excellence by Cynthia Heald. Very good book and study, I would highly recommend it. I'm also looking for a book I can do in the fall, even if I do it by myself. Most of the time we had at least 4 -5 women, once we had only 2 women, but the study was good, we had lots of kids I lost count, especially with 5 infants. Heidi even had her baby during our study and only missed one week and we just generally enjoyed each other's company. Thank you ladies for doing this journey with me.

We were missing 3 ladies, we missed you guys at our brunch.
From left (Heidi, Abi, Me, Tanya, Sarah and Lisa).
Meghan helped with babysitting.

The girls playing their DS's.

The Mirror

Walking to a restaurant with the family and I comment.

"Boy it sure is hot out today."

When Kaleigh, my darling 5 year old almost 6 she will remind you and says:

"Your telling me Sister." With attitude.

I didn't know whether to laugh out loud, because it was funny or shoot myself in the head because I know I have said that phrase before. I've said it before I'll say it again...That Mirror sure isn't pretty, but I guess there are worse things to say.

Guarding my Tongue

"...and has no slander on his tongue, who does his neighbor no wrong and casts no slur on his fellowman" Psalm 15:2-4

"Reckless words pierce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing." Proverbs 12:17-19

Lately God has really placed on my heart to Guard your Tongue, I thought mostly so I would not speak harshly to my children or with malice to Michael (usually only when I'm PMSing) LOL. Keeping in my slow to anger, and desperately trying to give grace. I try desperately to listen for crude language around my kids to make sure they are not hearing any of it, (even some of the kids shows they watch can be a little much), they soak things in like sponges, especially Kaleigh.

However, he has really placed it in my heart when it comes to speaking about others. While I am very conscientious, asking how so and so is, I never really thought about it as a form of gossiping. Now I don't mean speaking about them in a gossipy way, "Oh did you hear about so and so" because I truly try not to gossip about anyone, although I am not always successful at blocking it out, and sometimes I can get caught up in some venting. But there are times when I really want to know what's going on in some one's life. Now I know generally speaking, that it is the motive behind the question you are asking, but sometimes I can let my mouth put too much into a conversation about someone else or their struggles and that is where God is really working on me. I need to remember that their issue lies between them and God and I don't necessarily need to be a part of it, I just want to remember to keep them in my prayers. Most of you know I am not a gossip, but I am watching the line between friend and gossip, so that I can be the woman God wants me to be.

Idlewild

My friend Courtney, who I swear has all these great ideas, in the spring told me she was taking her family to this park called Idlewild, well when she got back I asked her how she liked it. She said her kids loved it and it was the perfect park for little kids and since our kids are almost the same age with the exceptions of child number three, her kids are 8, 5, 3 and 1, they are similar in age and should enjoy the experience. So I looked in to the park, since Michael and I had been discussing taking our family, just the 6 of us (that still sounds funny to me) on a mini family vacation. Well we've done Busch Garden's before (a little pricey and a lot of big rides), Kings Dominion is kind of the same thing only closer, nice but really not aimed at small children, so we thought we would look into Idlewild. I hear it's a lot like Dutch Wonderland, but also has a waterpark inside of it, so you can do both a regular amusement park and a waterpark. Well never having been to any of these places we decided to try one and it turned out to be a great park. We were very lucky with the weather, it was cloudy on Sunday when we got there and it rained once while we were in the park, but Monday and Tuesday were gorgeous, warm with out being excessively hot. The park itself is very reasonable and we got a deal through our hotel that included 4 tickets with our stay and you could purchase 2nd day tickets at half price. So it was economical. The hotel we stayed at, lets face it we need a suite big enough to hold us all, overlooked a golf course, it was really nice. The park itself was really clean, the kids could ride almost all of the rides, you had to be at least 36" for almost all of the rides, with the exceptions of a handful like the Wild Mouse and the Roller Coaster, which my kids don't like anyway, so it worked out really well for us. Even Jaden could do a couple of things, especially the Story Book Land which is exactly like it sounds, a park where story books come to life basically.

This was the view from our hotel room in the morning, the fog between the mountains over looking the golf course was beautiful.

They had a lot of these cardboard cut out through out the park, especially in story book land.

This was one of the bigger rides, it was a balloon ride, but it got pretty high, Kaleigh actually did not like it, but Jordan and Madison loved it and wanted to do it again the next day.
This was a part of the park called the Jumpin Jungle it was great for them to climb around in.Yes that would be me on the Tarzan slide (it's really a zip line).
Water raft races.
They saw ball pit full of fun, I saw germ pit, I kind of had to leave my phobias behind for that one.
They had a concert in the evening that the kids loved, and we caught on the way out.

Madison was the only one who would ride the Ferris Wheel with me, everyone else was too scared.

The entrance to story book land, even Jaden got to enjoy some of the park

Flying Aces, I was surprised Jordan actually wanted to ride this ride, she is not good with heights but she loved it when she rode it with me. However, she did not like it when she rode it the next day with Michael.

Hold on to Daddy's hat.

Been Gone a While

My sister came for a visit for a few days after my mom, came for a few days so we have had lots of fun visiting with family lately. Unfortunately, I did not get enough pictures, but at least I got one on of my sister and the kids.

We've been so busy with this summer, it seems to be flying by, but here are some quick pictures from the past several weeks.

Look how little he is compared to his Daddy, it cracks me up.

Does she not have the worlds best smile, the curls the cheese, I can't take it....she's too cute.
Yes, I'm bragging on my kid.

Kaleigh's on a kick lately about being a cowgirl, she keeps asking if she can save enough of her allowance can we buy a horse. How crazy is that..