Give me an "M"... M

Give me an "E"... E

Give me an "L"... L

Give me an "A"... A

Give me an "N"... N

Give me an "I"... I

Give me an "E"... E

What does it spell??

  

Melanie

My girl wanted to try out cheerleading for the first time.

They took one look at her and her small frame and decided

she should be a "flyer". 

 She often looks down in order to keep her footing.

She's just getting the hang of this thing.

 She's having fun even if her eyes are closed. :)

Go Marshall!!

and

Go Melanie. I'm proud of you, baby girl.

13 kittens and counting... I could have my own show.

I never dreamed that after that sweet day about 2 1/2 years ago when we brought 3 kittens home from Indiana, that we would have a kitten explosion.

Yes, I realize how this could happen when your cats aren't spayed or neutered, but 2 litters in one year? Our intentions have been to take care of matters before they got out of hand, but the window of time between the first set of litters this year and the next was minuscule at best. In the meantime we did get our male, named Bick, neutered recently. The vet's receptionist told me that a male up to 5 miles away can smell a female. What?? We need these females spayed ASAP!

We're hoping and praying that we can give away our sweet little kittens.

Flying again...

About 10 years ago, give or take, I was introduced to the one and only, Flylady.

Of all places, I was sitting in a new beauty salon getting ready for a fab haircut when the owner introduced himself as my new stylist. I was a little surprised. I guess I was expecting a woman. He was very nice, personable, and a little talkative. Our God is a God of introductions.

He talked about his family, church, home schooling, and his wife. He talked about how Flylady single-handedly changed his family's life. Especially his wife, who was a home school mom of four children. You better believe he had my attention. What in the world is Flylady, I wondered? He kept repeating her website: Flylady dot net, Flylady dot net. So I stuck it in the recesses of my mind and later checked it out.

Mind you, I had no computer. We were always behind the times; still are to some degree. So I asked my husband to look it up at work and print off any information he could in order for me to get the gist of it. He printed off 20 pages or so and that night I read all about it in my bed. I couldn't put it down! God was doing something here.

Little did my hairdresser know that just days before that a friend of mine loaned me the book titled, Managers of Their Homes. She simply thought it would help me in making a schedule for our family of 7. This particular book is written by a home school couple and in the book many of the schedule examples come from families that home educate. Our God is a resourceful God.

Bear in mind that home educating intrigued me for those that chose the crazy idea, but it wasn't something I ever imagined myself being able to achieve. Our God is a equipping God.

God used a haircut and a generous friend to pave the way for our family's new adventure. He also used a very close friend and her family that was considering the idea. Our God is creative. I recall hearing a message on Focus on the Family regarding home schooling even before I had children and I applauded those that did, but thought, "Oh no, this is not something I'll be doing." Ha!

Well guess what, folks. That Christmas my husband bought us a computer, I began to organize our home, came up with a schedule, started praying about home schooling that fall, and that's exactly what we did. I didn't even mention the fact that I was 8 months pregnant during that haircut and was expecting twins to join our family of 5. Five kids and becoming a homeschool mom?! Um, yeah...

If you want to know more about Flylady, take a look at their website. Her motto is, "You can do anything for 15 minutes." So today I received my Flylady calendar to help our family fly once again. Flylady is about organizing your home 15 minutes at a time, having a schedule, keeping your kitchen sink clean, and having the proper tools to carry out such things.

I love the way the Lord works. He can use ANYONE or ANYTHING for His purposes. Our god is a loving God and I praise Him.

This calendar is a 17 month calendar that begins in August and ends in December of the following year.

a couple of bruisers

It was the perfect weather this past Saturday to watch my boys play. They beat the Coldwater Cardinals by a lot. Let's see what next week will look like. 

Grant- 5th grade Rocket Football

Cooper- 5th grade Rocket Football

Game Faces- I love it!

You guys rock!

Kick Off - First Game on 9/8/12 vs. Coldwater 40-0 We win!!

Grant left, Cooper right

Time for a break.

Drink plenty of fluids, boys.

Not for a lack of writing material

Each time I have a conversation with a certain friend of mine about my blog, it gives me pause to once again put pen to paper, or fingers to the keyboard as it were. I love doing it, but for the past 2 years, give or take, I have found it difficult to find the time to do so. 

That all said, gobs of things have happened over the summer or even more recently, worthy of talking about. It's been a fantastic summer! I love everything about it- it's my time, a little time away from our home school routine, running the older kids to as many activities, a time to have my friends over for a pool day, to run or not as was the case during the heatwave,  to go on dates, to look forward to family reunions, weddings, barbecues, time spent at my in-laws', long weekends up north, painting projects, and my list could go on.

The weather, even when it was way too hot, was perfect for me. When you have a swimming pool, you want to enjoy it, and enjoy it we did. Shawn put his garden in and it produced tomatoes, jalapenos, zucchini, cucumbers, watermelons, onions, lettuce, corn that the cranes came and ate, and the broccoli, too, and beans. We made cucumber salsa, canned pickles, pepper jelly, tomato salsa, and various jams, and we baked pies, too. It's the simple things that bring so much joy.

We had lots of firsts:

Austin got his driver's license

He got a new (to him) car

He landed his first job

He was able to golf about 10 times this summer

He had braces put on in May

Braaten just started 9th grade at Marshall High School

She made the freshman volleyball team

Bray also has braces on since May

Braaten paid for her own ticket and flew to Manchester, England to visit our friends for 3 weeks

She went to the Olympics (women's volleyball- US vs. North Korea) We won! She saw Hope Solo up close

She passed me in height this year- she's 5'7" now and still growing. I'm a whopping 5'6"

I'll be left in the dust by all 5 before I know it 

Melanie started the 7th grade in Marshall Middle School

She made the 7th grade volleyball "A" team

She joined the rocket football cheerleading team

Can we say 1 too many activities for 1 child? Yes!

Live and learn...:)

Grant & Cooper, who always get lumped together because they're twins, joined the 5th & 6th grade Rocket football team

They played on a travel baseball team and really loved it

They get to be home schooled without their older siblings and they are loving that time with momma

And momma loves it, too. 

Life is busy, it's hard sometimes, but we press on and continue to find joy in the journey. 

God is so very good all the time.

A pot o' pepper jelly. It's really good.

I painted and distressed the table. The chair, on the other hand, got distressed by being outside.

A homemade blackberry pie.

Homemade blueberry jam. Not as appealing looking, but ever so tasty.

I painted and distressed this mirror that I snatched up for a dollar.

Shawn picked this bucket of blackberries and picked a whole lot more than that.