When I say I'm a Christian

'A woman's heart should be so hidden in Christ that a man should have to seek Him first to find her.'

I got this email from my sister this morning. I have no idea who wrote the poem but it so beautifully explains some of the misconceptions people have when we say we are Christians. I just had to share it here!


When I say that 'I am a Christian,' I am not shouting that 'I am clean living.'
I'm whispering 'I was lost, but now I'm found and forgiven.'

When I say 'I am a Christian,' I don't speak of this with pride.
I'm confessing that I stumble and need Christ to be my guide.

When I say 'I am a Christian,' I'm not trying to be strong.
I'm professing that I'm weak and need His strength to carry on.

When I say 'I am a Christian,' I'm not bragging of success.
I'm admitting I have failed and need God to clean my mess.

When I say 'I am a Christian,' I'm not claiming to be perfect.
My flaws are far too visible, but God believes I am worth it.

When I say 'I am a Christian,' I still feel the sting of pain.
I have my share of heartaches, so I call upon His name.

When I say 'I am a Christian,' I'm not holier than thou,
I'm just a simple sinner who received God's good grace, somehow!


Update: I have found out that Maya Angelou is the author of this beautiful poem

A Fall Afternoon

What are a couple of girls to do on a beautiful fall afternoon of an unusual 80*?

How about sit on the back porch amidst the constant flow of falling leaves and separate the dog food!


Because everyone knows, dogs don't want the bone shaped pieces in the same bowl as the circle pieces!


Sorting-that counts as math for the day, right?!

Egyptian Pharaohs

This year Jacinta and Kenyon are studying history from creation to the Greeks. We are learning about the ancient Egyptian civilization and it called for a few dramatic reenactments.

First there were 2 Pharaohs. One ruled over lower Egypt (in the red crown) and the other ruled over upper Egypt (in the white crown).

Before you can really rule over anything, you better know exactly where your kingdom is! Interestingly-Lower Egypt was in the north and Upper Egypt was in the south. Menes, Upper Egypt's ruler, united Upper and Lower Egypt to become the first great ruler of all of Egypt.

In order to unite the two kingdoms, Menes had to first conquer Lower Egypt and overtake their Pharaoh. (You know they LOVED this part of the act!)

Menes then combined the two crowns and all of Egypt had one ruler.

In case I have never mentioned it....I LOVE HOMESCHOOLING!! So fun!

Leaving the "Treats" up to God!

If you have been with me here in blog land since the beginning, maybe you remember our last Halloween. If you have not been here the entire time, surely you have gone back and read EVERYTHING I have written-right?!? Well anyway, you can always take some time tomorrow to catch up on all that..hehe..but for now, back to my story. As halloween was approaching I started to get a little nervous. Our convictions were so strong but now that we have had an entire year to forget the power of our decision, how would we pull off the no halloween thing? Thankfully our children are not in public school and therefore not completely surrounded by halloween, halloween parties, teachers asking everyone what they would dress up as on dress up day at school, and hundreds of kids all feeding off each others excitement to go out on one night with the purpose of getting a free bucket full of candy. They were not surrounded by it and therefore did not even think about it. I started thinking the day may pass without anyone ever even noticing. Well that was a little bit of wishful thinking. I mean, Kenyon IS 11 and has trick or treated every year of his life. About a week before halloween, when the kids started noticing neighbors putting pumpkins and scarecrows out on the porch, the conversations started. Keslee was concerned that maybe I had forgotten that I "promised" we could make caramel apples and popcorn balls at home. She took every opportunity to remind me that we had not bought the supplies to do so. As the day got closer and closer, Keslee started thinking maybe she wanted to go down town and "just watch" the other kids but she did not want to trick or treat herself. Kenyon was the one that was still struggling with the idea of free candy being handed out and him not being in line to receive it. The discussion began with...

"if WE don't believe in the spirits and other un-Godly parts of halloween but just get the candy, that isn't so bad is it?" Well son, if we participate with everyone else how would anyone know that we do not approve of ALL the parts of halloween.

"What if we dress up like Bible people and tell people about Jesus WHILE we get the candy." In all the running around and excitement of getting candy you forget to even say "thank you" at lots of houses so how are you really gonna remember to stop and tell every person about Jesus?

"But we can MAKE halloween about God for us." You know some people do try to make halloween about God and they use the day to pray for people that have already died but they pray to saints and not even to God. "WHAT? Why are they praying for dead people? They are already dead so what is the use in praying for them now? And why would anyone pray to a saint when only God can hear and answer our prayers?" See son, TRYING to make something about God when it is NOT about God does not work.

"Well if they make a holiday that IS about God that lets us dress up in NOT evil, gory costumes and get candy but it is NOT on halloween and it really IS all about God THEN could we do it?" IF they make a holiday like that then we will talk about it when it happens son.

We finally got the caramel and the apples and some popcorn and were all prepared to make treats together on halloween day. The day was a typical lazy Saturday with Monty watching some football, me catching up on the laundry and the kids playing in the falling leaves outside. Kenyon came in and said that Mrs Barbara, our neighbor, asked them if they would be trick or treating and they told her that we don't do that anymore. She let them know that she had gotten some candy just for them and Kenyon wanted to make sure it would be ok if they had it. I let them know that because Mrs. Barbara loves them, she got candy especially for them and was going to let them have it if they were trick or treating or not so it was perfectly ok for them to have it. Of course this news brought lots of smiles and they realized they did not have to participate in halloween just to get candy. Candy is always available. As they night went on and the sun went down, I got a phone call from my mom. Jacinta was with my aunt and she just saw Soffie. As I am sure you remember, since you have gone back and read ALL my post, Soffie is our most favorite cat. Our cat that is so beautiful that people often try to steal her. The cat that my kids have prayed for since she has been missing (this time) for over a year. Kenyon and I hopped in the car and headed across town to the area Jacinta described. I thought I saw Soffie so I stopped at the end of the block, got out and called her name. The cat jumped off a porch about 2 doors down and ran straight to me-IT REALLY WAS SOFFIE!!! We picked her up, got in the car and headed home. Kenyon ran into the house and called the girls in the living room and said "GIRLS! WE ALL DECIDED NOT TO DO HALLOWEEN BECAUSE WE WANT TO HONOR GOD, RIGHT?" yes "WELL LOOK WHAT GOD JUST DID!!" and with that he opened the front door to reveal me standing there holding our long lost Soffie. The girls were ecstatic and Monty got a big 'ol smile on his face as we all took turns loving and petting our cat. She purred and rubbed on us all and then took off to get reacquainted with her home looking under every bed and table and dresser and toy box.



Once again, God has done an amazing thing for my children. They struggled with following through with a conviction but persevered and God rewarded them immediately. Once again God has shown them that He does hear and answer prayer, in His time. Once again He has shown us all that when we love and honor Him, He will give us the desires of our heart.


What an awesome, AWESOME God we serve!!!!!



oh-and we still haven't made our caramel apples. They just didn't seem as important anymore

CAST FREE!! :)

Ok, so I am a little late on getting this up-Kalysa has been cast free for a week now. Last Sunday we headed back to Shreveport. The day started kinda rough. Right as I was finishing up the paper route(about 5:45 am) I got a flat tire. As often as I go through tires on the paper route, it is hard to keep a spare and my donut tire is just about shot so Mom came and got me and ran me home as fast as she could. I took a shower and took Monty's car to get to the city to catch the Shriner van by 7am. Luckily, my dad was in town and was able to take Monty back out there to get my van later that morning. We made it to Shreveport just fine and got the customary phone call from Keslee...."Are you in the same motel? Is it the same room? Is there 2 beds or 1? Is there a microwave? Is Kalysa still awake? Does it have a big tv? Does Kalysa have her Pajamas on yet? Is there a coke machine? Did you get ice?......" About 10 pm I got another call from Keslee saying she wanted me to be home. I told her I would be back the next day and she would be fine spending some time with daddy. Through tears she tells me, "It's just not the same when you are not here. Daddy doesn't listen to me as much as you do." I had to giggle. Poor daddy had probably had his entire day filled with Keslee questions and stories and he is not as used to "listening" for that many hours to the thoughts of a seven year old girl. hehehehe Maybe it will help him appreciate having to listen to the thoughts of a thirty blah blah year old girl more. :) Anyway....we had a free dinner at CiCi's Pizza and then got a good nights sleep in the motel. Monday morning we headed to the hospital and Kalysa got her cast removed. When the cast was almost off, she started to cry. The nurses and I were asking her if something was hurting and she finally let out a whisper..."i'm scared". I asked what she was afraid of and she said she was afraid to see the cut. We assured her that she did not have to look at it if she did not want to but she could not resist. She was quite concerned about the fact that there was a long stitch about 3 inches long sticking out each side of the incision. The stitches throughout the incision had all dissolved and the nurse cut the extra off and Kalysa felt better. There were still tape strips across the cut and Kalysa was very concerned they would hurt when they came off but they did not have to come off right then. A few baths after we got home solved that problem.

Personally, I thought it looked great! I was surprised the cut was so high on her calf since the muscle they operated on was the heel cord but what do I know about these things? After the cast was off we were told to go back to the waiting room and we would be called back to get her new splint. Kalysa was excited to have some time to play with some of the toys and video games in the lobby. A "foster grandparent" set up a table for the kids to paint so Kalysa got to paint a little train figurine. After about 2 hours I walked over to the department that we were waiting on to see what as taking so long and everyone was busy. Kalysa and I went to the cafeteria to get a snack. All the other patients riding on the van were already finished with their appointments and were just waiting on us. After out snack, we went back to orthodics and found out that the reason we had not been called is because they did not have her scheduled. They had her scheduled to pick up her splint the week before-which would have been impossible since she still had a cast on. They pulled up her information and got her right in. After her splint was cut down to fit her foot we had to go back to the waiting room and wait to be seen by a doctor to check the splint. The splint she had before had a lift on it since her left leg is 1/2 inch shorter than the right and the new splint did not so the doctor sent us back to orthodics to get a lift added. They do not put lifts on the splints but on the shoe so we had to leave her left shoe and they will mail it to us when it is fixed. We finally left the hospital about 2:30 pm which got us back to the city around 10:30 pm and home around 11:30. It made for a really long day but I am so thankful for the fact that I did not have to drive and was able to sleep some on the van.

The design for the splint Kalysa picked out has pink and blue butterflies all over it. It is really cute and the most girly design they had available! I knew exactly what she was gonna pick as soon as I saw it. She picked it out when we were there for her surgery and she had the mold made.

Since her tennis shoe is still in Shreveport, she has been wearing her house shoes. The splint is hard plastic and is very slick so she has to have something over it or risk slippin and slidin all over the place when she walks.

She loves wearing her splint now just as much as she loved the last one. It will keep her foot at a 90* angle and prevent the newly repaired muscle from contracting and tightening up again.

Even without the splint, she can easily stand with her foot flat on the floor. Of course we knew there was a problem since she always walked on her toe and her muscle was so tight but it never slowed her down. She would run and play and dance and spin and jump around with all the other kids. Sunday night, after church, I watched her running and playing outside with the other kids and could really tell a difference in her gait. It looked so much more natural and "normal". It amazed me to see how much the surgery has changed her movements when I never really noticed her movements not being "normal" to begin with.

After a few baths and lots of vitamin E oil, the tape strips finally came off. The scar looks really great. I bet after a little more healing time it will be hardly noticeable at all.


As for now, we do not have any more appointments scheduled for Shreveport but I know she is supposed to be seen a year after surgery. The Shriners will continue to provide any future care she may need until she is 18. I am just so thankful that the Lord provided this opportunity for my little Glori-Bell.

What to do....

A friend stopped by on Saturday and she was on her way to take her kids to the park. She wanted to see if our kids could go with them. At first I said sure but quickly remembered that my 6 year old was still in a cast and every park in town has sand under the play area. Kalysa has had lots of casts before and there have been times that upon removal, piles of sand have fallen out but this time there is an incision under there as well. An incision that we have never seen. I don't know exactly where it is or how big or if it is healing good or not. All I could picture is a cast full of sand acting like sand paper for the next 2 days and rubbing the surgery spot open creating a gaping, bleeding, nasty hole in her leg. I can't deprive my baby girl of a day at the park when we have started having fewer and fewer nice park playin days anyway. So, what to do.........

Grab a bag from a left over Sunday newspaper and the duck tape!! Duck tape fixes everything, right?! I put the bag over her cast and reinforced it with plenty of tape around the toe to ensure the bag did not rip and let the sand in. Then I tucked the bag around the top of the cast and taped it to her leg. There ya go! One perfectly sealed leg!

And one happy girl that gets to run and play in the sand with no worries!!

Don't really understand it but....

For some reason, boys LOVE this stuff!!


Boys THRIVE with it!!

They FLOURISH because of it!!!

No matter how old they are!!