The King is Exhausted on High

Oh my gosh, I love this dude. He never fails to make me laugh. We were driving to the new house yesterday. Personally, I love to crank up the Christian praise songs in the car. I've also been known to belt out the words, at the amusement of other drivers. Well, my kids have started to follow suit. If you're gonna influence a habit in your kids, why not make it a good one! We were in the car, and "He is exalted" came on. Collin started to belt it out. Except, he thought the words were, "The King is Exhausted on High." Because to a 5 year old who's never heard the word exalted, God would be exhausted. I mean, come on, he has to answer all those prayers. Then, there's the entire galaxy. My goodness, He's busy! Seriously!

We're in the new house, and we are all indeed exhausted. Everybody loved sleeping in their new rooms last night!

Here's a juicy bit of information...my blog is going to have a new look soon. It's so beautiful! I can't wait. It will, once again have a new name. Don't let it confuse you. It'll be me, just with an absolutely gorgeous blog template from Splat Designs. She's so good! She really has a talent, and she's nice too. If you need a new blog design, check her out.

I'm a rolling stone baby

Home Sweet Home

Well, it's home sweet home for 3 - 4 years. The AF is trying to not move people around as much, so we're hoping to stay for 3 - 4 years. That would be nice. I'm not counting on it, but it would be nice. A.K., no, it's not an AF home, sorry!

We moved some more things inside yesterday. We had a furniture delivery. I got a new kitchen table which is lovely. We got a new bedroom set. It's amazing. I've never had a king sized bed, and now I do! Yes, we bought all those things before the van died.

As an update though, we decided to fix the van. We looked at new cars, but just weren't ready to get one. Getting a new car takes homework, prayer, and shopping obviously. We just weren't ready to do that this week, with moving and everything. D is so sweet, he told them to detail it while they're at it, so my van is "like new". Awwwwww...

So, here's the cars room with the road, and the appropriate decorations...



Collin said, mommy, come here, I have something to show you. He slowly opened his door, and said, "Welcome to Radiator Springs" and started dancing around the room. OK, here's another one...awwwwwww.


Now, in conclusion today, I have a "HUH?" I have those often. Mostly while watching Lost. But, lately there's been a picture on my Yahoo home page under the most e-mailed photos categories. I'm scratching my head on this one...

So, seriously? I don't get it. Was he going to the bank to get money? It says he's at a bank, and fell asleep. Was it at night? Was it just one of those vestibules that are unlocked at night? I'm not getting it. And, a horse? It says he's in Germany. Didn't know people still rode horses to the bank in Germany, but apparently they do. Wacky Germans. (D's family is German, ha, ha).

Thanks to everybody for your well wishes regarding my van! I love hearing from everybody!

Back to packing...

Oh snap, that's gonna leave a mark!!!

OK, so once again, I had a terrible day. I hate to blog about terrible days. I've been doing too much of it. Today, we were driving in my mini-van to get fixed. Well, D was driving it, and I was following behind him. Well, it died all together at a very busy intersection! So, it's raining/snowing, and here we are, people honking at us, giving us dirty looks. I'm thinking, geez, we're broken down! It's not like we're doing this on purpose! Trust me! So, we get it towed in, and they tell us we need a new engine, to the tune of $3,400. OH SNAP! That's gonna leave a mark!!! Well, we're just not sure what we're going to do right now. We're praying hard, hoping God will show us whether to get it fixed, or buy a new car, or buy a used car....yada...yada...yada.

So, everybody in the military knows that they use letter abbreviations for everything. When we first got in the Air Force, wives would talk to me, and use these letter abbreviations, and I would just smile nicely, nod my head, and act like I had an idea what they were talking about. Then, I would go call my husband and ask him. There's TDY, which stands for "temporary duty". There's PCS, my personal favorite..."Permanent Change of Station"...or, until we feel like moving you again in 2 years. That cracks me up. Well, there's another one...DITY. This is "Do It Yourself." You can do this when you move. You can have movers come and move your stuff, or you can "DITY" some or all of your stuff. Well, this is what we're doing right now. After the events of today, I am beginning to see why God wanted us to do this...so we can have a little bit of money...to fix our 9 year old mini-van. You can make some money, but I don't recommend it. Yesterday, I helped my husband move our sectional into our new house. I nearly dropped it, which would in effect negate any money we might make. My arms have bruises all up and down them. We're still not done. We plan to get another truck later this week, and repeat the tremendous fun we had yesterday! I think I'm too old for this.

So, I tend to stress eat. When I'm stressed out, I tend to eat my favorite foods. I posted a few days ago about my pleasant memories of my dad and popping popcorn.

So, here's the world's most perfect husband making his wife popcorn on the stove after a hard day! Well, he's the world's most perfect husband for me. I don't mean to put down your husbands. I'm sure they're really nice and all. But, mine's perfect for me!

Dang, am I cute or what???

Honestly, do I need to say more here?

What a Day!

Ho Hum...my friend Wendy is out of town. I hope she's having fun. Today I was going to get a lot done, and as it would be, I would get nothing done. I decided I was going to start packing in the morning. I was getting ready to go to the U-Haul store to buy boxes, when Collin said he couldn't find his Game Boy. This resulted in looking for it for an hour and a half, and hurriedly going to the U-Haul store to get the boxes, then feeding him lunch and getting him off to Kindergarten. Good, now I'll start packing. Couldn't find the rolls and rolls of packing tape that I know we had from the packers from the last move. Fine, I'll mow the lawn. Mower won't start. Fine, I'll make dinner now. Put the water, butter, and milk in the pan to make mashed potatoes, and there aren't enough mashed potatoes to mix with it. Quick trip to the store. It was just one of those days when you have really good intentions, and in fact, you get nothing done. But, yeah, new episode of Grey's Anatomy tonight. At least it's all straight forward, unlike that irritating show Lost that I'm glued to every week saying, "Huh?"

So, I took this picture of my dog today. It was a beautiful day. Warm, and not a cloud in the sky. On days like these, my dog goes nuts to go outside. She whines at the door until we let her out.

When she gets outside, she promptly flops herself down. We call it her "sun-bath." I can ask the boys, "Where is Brandee?" Their answer will be, "She's sun-bathing." She just seems to be basking in the glory of the sun. Today amidst my failed good intentions, I heard the song, "I Can Only Imagine" by MercyMe. Actually, a lot of people have made a version of that song, but today I heard the MercyMe version. Here's a few of the words:

Surrounded by Your glory, what will my heart feel

Will I dance for you Jesus or in awe of you be still

Will I stand in your presence or to my knees will I fall

Will I sing hallelujah, will I be able to speak at all

I can only imagine

I can only imagine

When that day comes And I find myself Standing in the Son

I can only imagine When all I will do Is forever Forever worship You

I can only imagine

I thought of my dog, and thought, maybe that's what we're going to do. Just spend eternity basking in the glory of the Lord Most High. None of us know for sure what it will be like, so for now, I can only imagine.

Well, just like all everyone else, I am deeply saddened by the events of yesterday at Virginia Tech. What a tragedy. As a mother, I find it unimaginable. I had a hard time sleeping last night. The one thing that keeps me going is the truth that God tells me in his word. He says over and over again to us, "Do not be afraid." I just have to hang tight to that.



It's cloudy, cold and rainy today. The weather underscores how I feel today, so I'm going to try to blog about happy things today.



Darrell started at his new assignment yesterday. I am so wildly proud of him and everything he has accomplished. He joined the AF after we were married. He never thought as a kid that he would do that. His courage and integrity amazes me. Here's a picture of him at our last duty station. It was his last day of work before he would move us, and leave to go oversees for a year. He wanted to sit down with his troops and play a card game that we always played at our Christmas parties down there. Of course the cute little blonde head in the bottom of the picture is my blonde cutie Shane! Nice AF hair, huh?

In other news, I've been wanting to blog about this for a few weeks, but have never gotten to it. So, in an effort to have a happy post today, I'm going to do it.

I am happy to report that my dry streak is over! I am officially a winner! I never win contests, I never have. Recently, however, I won a $50.00 gift card from my local popcorn store. I mean, this is like gold to me. I absolutely love popcorn! I know Chiquita says that the banana is the world's perfect food, but I say, no, it's popcorn!

I remember as a kid, my dad and I would make popcorn. I don't mean microwave popcorn, I mean the old fashioned way. We would pop it in a pan on the stove. Then we would put some butter in the pan to melt it, to pour it over. I still remember then we would sit down and watch something on TV, while eating yummy buttery popcorn. To this day, the smell of fresh popped popcorn is a comforting smell for me. Maybe I should make some today! I remember in high school, I took a creative writing class. Our assignment once was to write a poem. No, my friends, I didn't write about teen angst, young love, or even the beauty of nature. I wrote about popcorn! My teacher loved it. He thought it was funny.

I hope everyone is able to find joy in the simple things today...go pop some popcorn!

Are you Kidding Me?

Well, I haven't posted in a while again, so I wanted to get a quick one out there. I have been down this entire week with a cold. I had that flu bug a few weeks ago, and now I have a cold. What's up with that? I must be getting old. I usually don't get sick.

I woke up at 3:00 a.m. and couldn't get back to sleep. For the past few days if not a week, the weather people have been telling us that we would be getting a foot of snow last night. When my kids went to bed last night, they were expecting a winter wonderland when they woke up. When I woke up at 3:00, there was nary a flake on the ground. Yes, I know, weather predictions are only predictions, and they can't help it if the storm takes a different track, etc. etc. etc. However, this is equal to like no visit from Santa Claus in the minds of young children. I mean come on, it's mid-April now. This was probably our last good chance to either be delayed or have no school. Oh, boy, they were ready for it. Even the teachers were ready for it. Theron's teacher was talking about it. Shane's teacher was talking about it. I'm glad I'm not at that school this morning at 9:00 a.m. with grumpy teachers and grumpy children! Even the public works guys all went into work and loaded up their plows with stuff. I mean, come on, they had to leave their families to get their plows ready! I should have been a weather reporter, because there's no other job in the world where you can be so incredibly off the mark and still keep your job! Think of the kids when you do your reporting! Tell us there's a chance the storm is going to take another track for crying out loud! Think of the families! Think of when you were a kid!

The only other morning worse than this was the morning after Daylight Savings, which we all know never turns out well.

I'll post more when I'm feeling better.

An Easter Week

I haven't done a blog in nearly a week, so I'm just going to sum up my Easter week. What in the world is that picture? That my friends is the custodian at the elementary school who I hope they pay enough to be standing on the roof on a cold and wet day. Why you might ask? The kindergarden egg drop of course! Our assignment was to pack an egg in a baggie and in something else no larger than 8 X 8 X 8 inches to be dropped off the roof of the school and not break. The educational value for a kindergartner? I'm just not sure, but I'm sure the teacher had her good reasons. Did ours survive? Of course it did! Daddy, the logistician packed it, so of course it didn't break. Seriously!

On Friday night, we went down to the new house to do some bedroom painting. Now, this might be a sight you've never seen, I don't know. It's a tent right smack dab in the middle of our living room. We camped out Friday night to get up bright and early Saturday to start the painting. Do I enjoy camping out on the living room floor? No. Seriously. I love, love, love spending time with my boys and my husband, but seriously, I'm a city girl. I prefer a mattress and my little blue pillow. It was nice to do once.

Shane's room was painted green on the bottom, and a tan on top. He's going to have a kind of outdoor camo border. His room theme will be hunting dogs. He loves labradors. The room's gonna be cute when it's done. Oh, excuse me, it's going to be manly.

Now, Collin's room, this is going to be awesome when it's done. It's still a work in progress. Can you tell what it's going to be? Ok, I'll tell you, then you're gonna go, oh yea. Maybe not. It's going to be a "Cars" theme. Can you see it now? The bottom is the desert. Then we did the sky by mixing two colors of blue together. It really looks like a sky! Then, when we go back down, daddy is painting a road right down the middle. It's going to look cool!

That brings us to Easter morning. I'll have to say, this is a sight I haven't seen in my thirty...umm...something years! There was a blanket of snow outside! The boys and daddy kept humming Christmas songs. I kept saying, "stop it!" It's Easter!

It's all melted now, and it's going to be in the 60's tomorrow. Weird, strange weather pattern!

So, here we are coloring eggs! Always a favorite pastime for three boys. Every year we spend hours coloring eggs to specific standards. Then, I might need a hard boiled egg for something, but do you think I can crack one of theirs to use it? No! That would be a crime. They sit in the fridge for weeks, and I finally say, can I throw these away, to which they reluctantly say, yes, if you have to! I went to the grocery store today.

Darrell: you got eggs? Whatcha making?

Me: Um...deviled eggs.

Darrell: Why can't you use the ones we colored?

Me: Um...I just can't. There will be wailing and moaning. Just go with it!

For some reason, we all decided to put the buckets on our heads and run around. Yes, yes, I am proud!

Well, I think that's all for right now! I hope everyone who might come across this had a blessed Easter! I know I did.

Play Ball...

So here we are at a Major League Baseball game last night. We had fun, but it was COLD!!! Baseball games aren't very exciting. Not much happened. Each time I had to take Collin to the bathroom, there was cheering in the stands. I kept thinking to myself, geez, I'm missing like the only thing that has happened the entire game! Or maybe they were cheering Collin on for making it to the bathroom. I don't know if any of you out there have boys, but raising three boys, I am keenly aware of the double standards that exist with the way people treat little boys as opposed to little girls. Don't get me wrong, I understand that boys and girls are different. Indeed God created them different, but as kids, they're all just kids. We went to the game because my son was singing the national anthem. Don't get all excited, it was him and like 100 other kids. It was two elementary school choirs. But, anyway, we were sitting in the section with all the families. So, you can imagine, it was chaos! Kids everywhere, running everywhere, up and down the isle, hanging on the railing, etc. Well, there was a cute little girl in a cute little pink dress hanging on the railing for some time. Well, quite a while. But, all she got was, "awww, how cute!" So, my son decides he's gonna give a try. Might as well try to get some "aww cutes" for himself. No such luck. Immediately the man who works at the stadium went right up to him and told him to find his seat. Irritating!

So, here's a picture of my son with the other kids, right after they had finished singing the national anthem. He's the one jumping out of the crowd. (the handsome blonde one)

Sort of mid left, with the big smile on his face. He thought it was just about the neatest thing he's ever done in his life to be able to sing the national anthem for a baseball game. It is indeed something that not everyone can say they've done!

So when we got there, my husband asked if I wanted to have anything to eat, because we did not have time to eat dinner before. I said, yes, some peanuts. He said, peanuts? Not something I would usually ask for. But, I wanted the authentic baseball experience. It was fun.

Theron had his standardized testing today. It was writing. He was supposed to write about who has influenced him in his life. He wrote about Jesus. You just know that's going to really bother whoever reads it to grade it. But, my son knows he still has the freedom of speech! He also wore his Jeremy Camp "I will take my cross" t-shirt and another boy in his class gave him a hard time. I asked him if that was going to stop him from wearing the shirt again. He said no. Rock on. You express that freedom of speech dude!

A Special Day

Well, I read my friend Wendy's blog, and I feel like I am just not good at this blogging thing. She is so funny, and has so many things going on in her life. I just feel inferior. My life has been anything but funny lately. I had the flu or some sort of really nasty bug the other day. Let me tell you, it was not funny at all. YUK! I am feeling better today, which is good. It was a special day in my life. My oldest son was confirmed today. He has this incredible fear of speaking in front of people, and for confirmation today, he was supposed to read a speech he had written in front of the entire congregation. Up until the time he finished the speech, I was never sure he could pull it off. I could see it in his face. He was terrified. One of the members of my church walked up to me afterward, and said that seeing Theron do that brought tears to his eyes. Indeed, sitting in the front row, I was crying also. He's on his way to becoming a man, and I'm so proud of him! Next time we'll be taking pictures of him in the front of the church will be for his wedding! Yikes! And that's no April Fools! Well, this is me not looking my freshest. My hair is flat, etc. etc. I am still getting over the flu here, so I'm not looking my best. My friend Wendy came and was kind enough to take pictures for us. Theron walked up to me and said, "Miss Wendy came!" He was so happy that Miss Wendy would come to see him get confirmed! What a friend. And, FYI - for all of you who read her blog about her rotten rotten kiddos...hello, I heard not a peep from them the entire time. In fact, when my five year old turned around to try to talk to Connor, he shook his finger at Collin and told him to turn around! I saw no chaotic kiddos this morning!!!! Don't let her fool you. She's a good mom.

To close today, here's another real cool picture we took in the mountains.

Pretty cool huh? Amazing.