Cleaning up Messes

Do you ever get tired of cleaning up messes? Some days, I feel like that's all I do. Messy faces and sticky hands, dirty diapers, spilled drinks, food crumbs under the table. Toys and books everywhere. Dirty laundry, dirty dishes, dirty tubs and toilets. Lord, help me!
That feels like my life most days. Now, as I feel frustrated thinking that's all I've done today, I thought I should stop and give thanks.

Thank you Lord for my little mess makers. Without them, I would be truly miserable. You gave them to me out of your love for me because of the desire of my heart for each of them. I am so thankful. Thank You for always so lovingly cleaning up all of my messes. I know I've made many messes in my life that only You could clean up. Where would I be without you? Help me to keep all things in perspective each day and keep my emotions in check. Amen.

Keeping things in perspective is one of my resolutions... It's the day before the new year and I'm already working hard at it!

Merry Christmas!

'Twas the night before Christmas and we had guests in our home.
Me Me and Pa Pa came over since Nanny and Poppy had gone to roam. What fun we had making and eating chili.
Except for all the beans which made us poot till we were silly.

Then we had presents for the kids; of course, they were excited.
Lucky for them, not a one was slighted.

Gifts were given, gifts were received.

Even some from Santa because they believed!

There's my 30 second attempt at a Christmas poem. I know, I know, I won't be quitting my day job! :-)

We really have had a very Merry Christmas!

Our normal Christmas tradition, for the past several years anyway, is to go to my brother Russ (Poppy) and sister in law Aggie's (Nanny) house for Christmas Eve. Aggie, from Poland, fixes us a traditional many-course Polish feast. This year, they decided to go down to Louisiana, with their kids Ela and Tre, for Christmas to visit our family down there.

So, we invited Mom and Dad to come to our house for Christmas Eve and stay the night with us so they could see the kids with their Christmas morning presents too. (We are no longer separated by only 10 minutes, now it's an hour, so them coming back in the morning wouldn't have been feasible!)

As was tradition when Russ and I were growing up, mom made her delicious chili. It was so yummy, as usual. The only difference between this chili and some others, was that she must have put some "extra gassy" beans in there this time. Holy cow, I will spare you the details, but we heard "Eww" and "you're rotten!" more than once by more than one person... terrible. :-)

After dinner, the kids got to open their presents from MeMe and PaPa and a few from Mom and Dad.

They all got new PJs and new slippers to wear to bed so they would be nice and cozy for Christmas morning. I don't have pictures of this night, because we let PaPa be in charge of those with his camera and I haven't gotten them yet.

Here are the kids' letters to Santa and the goodies we left. We already had cupcakes and chocolate covered pretzels made, so we left those for him. I assured the boys that Santa would be so excited to receive somthing different than the same old cookies and milk, that he would be delighted!

Here's Braden's letter. It says,
"Dear Santa, Thanks for bringing us presents. I just want one thing for Christmas. I want a gutar. Your frind, Braden"
Gracie was definately in to opening her own presents by herself this year. She had so much fun and kept saying "Thank You!" and "Wow, Cool!" and "I'm so excited!" It was very sweet!

Rhett got a Knight play set, which he LOVES! All 3 kids have been playing with it!
Here's Braden with his guitar from Santa! Can you tell he was excited?!

All the kids got new "snuggle buddies", as we call them. Braden got a Neopet. Rhett got a webkins and Gracie got a sweet little girl Monkey from the Children's Place.

Rhett got the drum set from Santa that he wanted!!

Here's Sissy on the "brums"!

After a few hours at home in the morning, we got ready and headed to Berryville for the celebration with the Kennetts. We had a million desserts, some yummy rotel dip and some ham. It was nice to get everyone together and also to spend some time with Great-Grandpa at the holidays. Now in his mid-90's, you just never know how many more Christmases you're going to have with him.

Here's Braden with Uncle Jeff's fancy Christmas wrapping paper. He said that was a "real man's" wrapping paper. If he was secure enough to have such pretty wrapping paper, he's a real man. Braden just giggled. :-)
Here's Braden with his Cubs hat and shirt from Uncle Jeff and some of his baseball cards he got from Bammaw and Grandpa.
Here's Rhett with his Chivas Mexico soccer jersey from Uncle Jeff. This really came from Mexico!
Here's Gracie with her vanity from Uncle Jeff. She likes the pretend

"yip-stick", so she calls the vanity her "yips"!

Gracie loves her new Barbie that sings a song that she got from Bammaw and Grandpa.

Here's Gracie in her newly rearranged room. Mamma and Daddy got her a new kitchen set. It is in her room and she has already spent hours playing with it! The new little basketball goal was a gift from MeMe and PaPa.

Here's a view of the other side of Gracie's room.
And the other side.

And the last side. It took a lot of work to rearrange everything to make her new large gifts fit! I am so thankful to finally have the space for Gracie to have her own room. She has so much fun playing with her toys and dolls in her very own peace and quiet.

Our family has been so blessed this year by our wonderful family! I want to say a BIG thank you to everyone who has given gifts to our kids. They are all very thankful for each gift they have received. I know because they've told me so. I am so proud of them for their thankful hearts. You'd never know that we've had "less than usual" finances lately (due to the 2 house payments and 2 of each utility bill...). Thanks to God providing what we could get for them and for our family members giving them the rest of what they wanted, you'd think they were children of millionaires! :-) Thank you, thank you, thank you to Nanny and Poppy, MeMe and Papa, Bammaw and Grandpa, Uncle Jeff and Aunt Jennifer!

We will be having the Walker family Christmas in Eureka tomorrow afternoon where we will have lots of good food and the kids will each get a few more gifts. WOW! I told you we were blessed! What a fun time we will have!!

Baking Day

Today is baking day at the Kennett house.

On the agenda: 2 cheesecakes, cupcakes and chocolate covered pretzels.

At this moment, everything is done except for the 2nd cheesecake. I'm hoping to get it started after dinner...

Here's Rhett filling the cupcake pan with batter.

Gracie really wanted to help, so I set her up on the other side of the kitchen with some white and chocolate frosting to mix together. She kept saying, "I'm cooking, I'm cooking." She had so much fun! And she even waited until she was all done to lick the spoon. That doesn't mean she didn't try, but my "eyes behind my head" caught her every time. At least I think...

Braden helped Rhett decorate all the cupcakes. They had many choices of icing colors and sprinkles. They are beautiful!

Here's my little hard working cupcake decorators. I'm so glad my boys like to help out in the kitchen. I hope they will one day happily help their wives in the kitchen! Oh, what lucky women they will be!!

Fun at Home, School Field Trips and Christmas Parties and the HOG game!

We've been busy, as usual! I thought I'd post a few pics of some of the things we've done in the last few days.

Rhett and Gracie were playing quietly in Gracie's room for quite a while. I was starting to get susicious when out comes this! Rhett did her hair for her. They were both so proud!

Christmas vacation is here! I'm trying my best to keep the kids entertained while trying to get all of my work done too.... So far, I've only had a few meltdowns. Hopefully I can keep it together the rest of the break! I really am so glad to have the kids at home. We all needed a break from our normal daily routines.

Here's Rhett modeling the glasses I made for him out of pipe cleaners!

And Gracie's glasses too. She loved them!

On Tuesday, I got to go with Braden's class on their field trip to ride the train. It was very fun! And VERY cold!!!
On Friday, MeMe came to spend the day with Gracie so that I could go on Rhett's class field trip and also attend the boys' class Christmas parties at school.

Thank you MeMe!!!!!!

Rhett's class went to the Shiloh Museam of Ozark Heritage. It was so neat. We got to see and learn about lots of things!

Here's Rhett decorating the Christmas tree in the real log cabin that had belonged to some of the first settlers of our area of the Ozarks. They had homemade ornaments like they would have used back then.

Rhett took this picture of the old barn.

Here's Rhett with the Christmas card he made.Here's Braden at his class Christmas party. He had put icing on his face to look like Santa. Silly boy!

Here's Braden and some of his classmates wrapping up another student during a game. Those kids can sure have fun and get loud!! :-)

Daddy Jason and Braden got to go to a Razorback Basketball game on Saturday night. They had a really good time. Bammaw and Uncle Jeff got to go too. Uncle Jeff took this picture.

Rhett's Ram

Yesterday at school, the boys were given an opportunity to participate in the Animaland fundraiser. Animaland is kind of like Build-A-Bear Workshop. On Tuesday morning, I sent them to school with their forms and checks to sign up. Yesterday afternoon, when I picked them up, Braden had his but Rhett did not.

Not sure what happened, but Rhett was sure upset. After all, he was the one most excited about doing this anyway.

So, knowing I'd get my money back from the school, I asked Jason if he could come home a little early so I could take Rhett to the mall and do one there. It had started raining pretty steady at this point in the afternoon, so he was able to make it home and Rhett and I were able to go on our little date.

I can't even describe the look on his face when he was going through the process of picking his animal and outfit, etc. He hasn't hardly let go of his new child since! It's no surprise that he brought him to school today for show and tell!

He is a white tiger dressed in Black and Gold football attire and his name is "Ram".

Braden chose a Husky dog, dressed in army fatigues and his name is "Sarge". I will post a picture of those two later.

The Best Friends and Christmas Tradition

I truly have the best group of friends I could ever imagine. My good friend Lydia started this tradition a few years ago where we go to her house for a fancy little dinner and she treats us to a fabulous meal, wonderful hospitality and always lots of fun and laughter. I am so blessed to be a part of this group!

Here we are at the party last night. It was misting and 24 degrees outside, so the fact that we were still able to be together was even more wonderful to me. (Let me take this moment to say a BIG Thank You to my Jesus for keeping me safe traveling to and from the party!)

Left to Right Seated:
Kim, Jenn, Me, Lydia, Sandra, Jonie, Tasha, Betty

Left to Right Standing:
Mary Ellen, Leah, Marci, Brenda

Thanks to Marci for lending me this photo and for such a sweet "shout out" about my cheesecakes! I made a pumpkin cheesecake and a turtle cheesecake to share. I enjoy cooking and baking so much and it thrills my heart to be able to share it with people. I'm so glad it was enjoyed by my friends.

Thank you, Lydia, for making the special effort to get us all together each year. We all appreciate you so much and cherish this tradition!

It is such a blessing to know that even though I moved away, I'm still close enough to be a part of these women's lives and I feel so special to still be included.

Good friends are hard to find and truly a blessing from the Lord. I love you all!!

He's makin' his list and checkin' it twice

Last Saturday we braved the crowd and took the kids to see Santa at the mall. We were at least an hour back in the line and as if it were divine intervention, the digital camera broke and they let everyone who wasn't planning to buy pictures from them move ahead in the line. We waited less than 5 minutes!!!!!

Gracie wasn't sure about sitting on Santa. Last year, I traumatized her and made her sit on Santa and take a picture.... I'm sure Santa loved having to hold the screaming, flailing child. This year, I decided it wasn't that important. Daddy just held her by Santa. She asked for a Barbie.

The boys were so excited and a little nervous. Braden asked for a guitar and Rhett asked for drums...............

We've been talking to them alot about being thankful for what we have and asking them to think about what they really want for Christmas. They won't be getting a whole lot this year...and we've talked to them about that. Last year, they had a pretty big Christmas, but that won't be the norm. While I was so proud that they only asked for 1 thing, did it have to be items which will produce loud, loud noise?

They have been good and they are on Santa's good list, so does Santa have a choice but to bring them the ONE thing they asked for? I think not.

Does anyone know where I can get a good deal on a bulk supply of earplugs?

New House for Sale Blog!

I decided to create a new Blog detailing our House for Sale in Berryville.
Check it out HERE.

Encouragement

I am in real need of encouragement these past few days. What I know in my brain is slow to get to my heart sometimes...
These are words and scriptures that I have written down from my devotions the past few days.
I thought maybe they'd bless you like they've blessed me.
I'm not good handling uncertainty and it seems like there's lots of it in my life right now. It's just the same old thing... selling the house and buying a house here in our new hometown.
I know these things to be true and I'm praying constantly that I would feel peace in my heart and mind.
Thanks for your prayers.

Be encouraged today that while God's timing is not ours, because He is always for you, not against you, we will someday, at just the right moment, fully understand His divine timing.

2 Corinthians 12:9
My grace is sufficient for you: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.

"for the Mighty One has done great things for me. Holy is his name."

Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year! We truly have so much to be Thankful for.

Usually our Thanksgiving tradition includes 2 dinners. One with my mom and dad and brother's family and all of us. And the other with the Jason's mom's whole side of the family.

This year, my parents went to Louisiana to spend the holiday with their families, so we just had 1 dinner to attend on Friday afternoon. So, this marked the very first Thanksgiving day that we stayed home- just us.

At the last minute, (the day/night before, actually) I decided to cook us a dinner. No turkey. I got a pork tenderloin out of the deep freezer. I also made homemade mashed potatoes and gravy, cream cheese corn, rolls, and mini cherry pies.

I spent most of the day cooking, as I also had to prepare deviled eggs and a homemade pumpkin cheesecake for Friday's dinner. (That pumpkin cheesecake was one of the yummiest things I've ever put in my mouth. Jason LOVED it. He said it was very dangerous and asked me not to make it too often!!) I was totally ok with that. I love to be in my kitchen cooking. If only I didn't have to clean up my messes, though.... I ran my full dishwasher 4 times and hand washed several sink-fulls of dishes on Thursday....

We made a big breakfast that morning. Pancakes, Eggs and Sausage. Jason and Rhett helped me with the cooking. Rhett is really getting into cooking lately. It is so sweet. He BEGS me to help. It's not always easy for me to allow him to "help" because I'm usually in a hurry and I dread the extra messes that I will likely have to clean up. But, I've been making a conscious effort in the past few weeks to start allowing him to help just about anytime he wants to.

Here's him cracking eggs! This was the first time I let him do this task. I had him crack each egg into a small bowl, and then after inspecting to make sure there were no shells, he dumped it into the big bowl with the rest of the eggs. He really did a great job. Only 1 egg had any shell with it. That's about as good as I do!

Jason took this picture to show the one that escaped... this poor little egg, didn't make the bowl, and therefore, didn't make it onto the breakfast table!

Braden vaccumed the living room while we made dinner. Gracie was supervising...

After breakfast, we put up our Christmas tree. We sold our tree and all of our decorations at our yard sale, not expecting to be in a house for Christmas and knowing that we wouldn't have room for much of anything at the apartment...so, we're borrowing one of my mom's trees. She only has 1 house now, so she only needs 1 tree! It is a very cute tree and I am using some of her ornaments too. I have more of our family ornaments to put on it, but they're in somewhere in storage and we have to find them first... It's much smaller than we're used to, but this is all we have room for. I'm thankful we have room to put a tree at all!!

After a couple good, long rounds of front yard football, Jason and the boys came in and played a game of chess. Jason has been looking forward to the day when they would be old enough to play against him.... since I don't particularly like to play... They did a really great job. It was definately still an instructional game; it will be a while yet before they can play on their own. But, all 3 of them had a great time.

When we sat down at the dinner table, both of the boys volunteered to say the blessing and they both did a great job. As we ate dinner, we talked about Thanksgiving and took turns going around the table saying what we're thankful for.

Rhett went first. He is thankful for our home. I could have cried. There has been such a HUGE difference in him since we were able to move out of the apartment and into a home. It was very sweet to have him say that he's thankful for this without being prompted or asked.

Braden is thankful for Freedom, Friends and Family. In that order!

Daddy said he was thankful for having work, when so many people don't. He is thankful for our family- he told each of the kids that he loves them very much. And then, (here comes the mushy-gushy again!) he looked me in the eye and told me he was thankful for his "beautiful wife".

We asked Gracie what she loved and she said something about her "ba-ba" and then something about a princess. Then she said her princess bed. (Which I will post a picture of later... we put a princess canopy over her bed and she is in heaven!)

I am thankful for our Family and our Home and our Health. And a million other things too. I have a very thankful heart.

After dinner and getting the kitchen cleaned up (again!) we moved the dining room table into the living room and played our favorite family board game Monopoly. We played for a couple hours.

After our game and our dinner went down a little bit, we warmed up the cherry pies and ate them a la mode. Yummmmmmmmmyyyyy!

Of course, Miss Gracie the Mess-maker, took a bath in her ice cream. That's what we get for not paying attention to her while she was eating...

What a wonderful Thanksgiving day!

Friday, we went to Jason's parents house and enjoyed a wonderful afternoon of food and fellowship with family. Then, I stayed up until 2am doing online Christmas shopping.

I plan to go to bed early tonight!!

Speaking of being Thankful... we may have an offer on our house. Please pray with us. A couple who is new to Berryville, have looked at it a few times in the past week. Jason showed them the house again today, and they are very interested in the house. We're going to be trying to work out the details in the next few days. God is in control. We trust Him to work out the details according to His perfect will for our life.

I am so Thankful that I have a Heavenly Father to lead me and guide me through life. I can't imagine how I would make it through a single day, much less big life events without relying on His strength. I am so weak on my own.

I hope all of you enjoyed your Thanksgiving holiday too. And I guess this is our official welcome to the Christmas season!!

Coldest Camping Trip Yet

Last weekend, we decided to take the camper out for one last hoorah before putting it up for the winter. We picked Devil's Den. It's close and it's our favorite.

We even allowed Braden to invite a friend to come with us for the weekend. Poor thing has been desperate for friends since we moved...

All day Friday, I cooked and packed, getting everything ready so that maybe I could relax a bit while we were there; knowing that I mostly just had to heat up the food. With the exception of breakfast, of course. In our family, there is a law against not cooking bacon outside for breakfast...it's just wrong not to. So, with the exception of breakfast, I had all the other meals and snacks almost prepared. Only warming necessary.

When Jason got to the house with the camper, he went to plug it in so the refrigerator could start working, and something in the electrical panel below the refrigerator started making cracking noises and smoking. There was no power. The short version of the story is that Jason knew the boys would be devastated to come home from school and find out that the highly anticipated trip was off. So, he called a local RV mechanic and found out how we could make this work. After replacing a blown fuse and realizing that was not going to fix the problem, upon the advice of the professional, he cut the wire causing the problem, therefore disabling the power supply to the camper. Then he went and bought a trickle charger, which we were told we could plug in at the campsite, hook the battery to it, and live off of the battery power for the weekend.

We finally get all loaded and on the road- almost 2 hours behind schedule. It was dark when we got there. It's freezing cold. Temperature already in the 20's.

After getting all set up, we realized that the power situation was not rectified. There was no power in the outlets in the camper and the microwave didn't work. (So much for my heat and serve meals plan...) We had to run an extension cord from the outside into the camper to plug in the electric space heater and the tv.

All was well until sometime after we had gone to bed. The furnace started making very strange noises, and then quit working, so we had no heat. Only the little space heater we brought. It was VERY cold! It had gotten down to 24 degrees that night!

Then, later in the night, I realized that we had forgotten to leave faucets running so the water hose wouldn't freeze. I woke up Jason to check it and sure enough, frozen water hose.... lovely. Now I couldn't even go to the potty...

Here is what the hose connection on the outside of the camper looked like the next morning...

Luckily, my husband is an official wilderness man and is very resourceful, he had an extra hose that we could use.

Despite this and the fact that we forgot to check the status of our propane bottles for our outdoor cooker and therefore ran out before the weekend was up, we ended up having a GREAT time.

Jason fixed the furnace problem. He had both propane tanks filled up before we left town, but apparently the guy messed up on one of them, because it was empty! That's why the furnace wasn't working. Jas switched to the other tank and it worked like a charm the rest of the weekend. We were toasty warm!

On Saturday we hiked alot, made a campfire and made smores. On Sunday, we biked a bit and even had another fire in the morning.

We all came home in desperate need for baths, as it was too cold and none of us wanted to shower while we were gone... and it was SO nice to get home. Except for the 9 loads of laundry I had to do when we got back... But, as I always say, I mostly work myself to death to do fun stuff like this to make fond memories for my kids. If it were just me, I'd probably just lay around the house and not create so much work for myself!

Here's some pics of the weekend!