Ode to Mom

Aaron wrote me a mother's day card. He did it at school and you fill in the blanks. I will share it with all of you. The things that are in red are his answers. In parenthesis are my insights.

My Mom is nice.
Her name is Mary, but I call her Mom. She loves me very much.
Three ways she takes good care of me are byes food, makes lunch, and makes dinner. (You notice how my most important qualities have to do with food)
The hardest job my Mom has is taking out the trash.
The funniest thing about my Mom is her jokes. (He has a good sense of humor)
My favorite food that Mom fixes is chicken. (this is news to me since he hasn't been eating chicken for the past few months)
My favorite game to play with Mom is Bocce. (We learned this game in North Carolina)
My favorite place to go with mom is restaurants.
The coolest thing about my Mom is her skills on video games. (yeah, I rock on level 1 of spider man, but I can't go any higher!)
My favorite thing about my mom is her Jokes. (Apparently, I am hilarious since it is mentioned twice!)
If I could give my Mom any present in the world, I would give her a game. (I guess I am easy to shop for)
If I could take my Mom anywhere in the world, we would go to Hawaii because it is an island. (I think he thinks that I like islands because I went to Haiti, but still, Hawaii would be nice)
Once my Mom and I went to North Carolina and we had so much fun.
If my Mom were an animal she would probably be a Hyena because she laughs a lot. (enough said I think)

Hope you all had a great Mother's day!

Weekend Fun

Hello everyone! As you can see, this weekend was drill weekend for Richard. This was his first drill here in Kansas. He really likes this unit. He will be going to his annual training at the end of this month, so I will be here with only my children. Doesn't he look so handsome?

I cut both of the boys hair this weekend. There was minimal crying on the boys part which is a HUGE improvement. They just hate to get their haircut. Jasmine is with Jacob in this picture, she just has to be out with the family. She is such a good dog.

Leann and I took the kids to this little carnival this weekend. It was at Maude Carpenter (where Leann and Ryan work). The kids got lots of little prizes there. As you can see, the bubble thing was one of them. They had a great time outside today.

I hadn't got a picture of Rebekah's new rat, Squirt. Her rats get along great. Squirt is in her hand. Rebekah is really good with animals. Also, you can tell that Rebekah got her hair cut. Leann did it yesterday. It looks cute on her. She hasn't had bangs since she was 3 or so.

We got this bike today at church. It is Jacob's. The Duhlohery's gave it to us since their daughter has outgrown it. Now we only need 5 more and we will be all set! Alyssa was helping Jacob balance in this picture. None of the kids know how to ride a bike, but they all want to learn. Jacob's bike was very popular today.

For Alyssa's birthday we got her another hamster. Her name is Cream. So now she has one named Peaches and the other Cream. Clever huh? She is the cutest little thing. Already she is an escape artist like her big sister.

More pictures of Rebekah and her hair. Also, her doing some bubbles. It is 75 degrees over here or so. So beautiful!

This picture of me is at a weird angle. Alyssa was taking the picture while she was falling over. Very common in our house! Anyway, I did dye my hair yesterday. I was at Leann and Ryan's house. It literally took all day! I wish that I would have had a picture of it after we bleached it. It was scary bright! Now it looks very nice. Good job Leann! We had to take a break from it just to go to the carnival with the kids. Never dye your hair black, it does not come out. You have all been properly warned. My last day at work is going to be May 12th so I am getting pretty excited about it.

Jacob and I were posing for this picture, and then you can see that Jasmine had to get her rear in there! =) Have a great day everyone!

Good Morning!!

Good morning everyone! I have been determined that it is spring and so once again I have decided to wear shorts. The only problem with this is that the weather is not cooperating. I have made a plethora (I love that word) of cupcakes this morning. They are for Alyssa's birthday tomorrow. I will be taking them to her class. She is going to be 9. Where does the time go? We are getting her another hamster for her birthday. She wants a white one. I will get a picture of her and her new hamster as soon as I can. I will be quitting my job on May 12th so that I can be at home this summer. Richard will have 2 weeks of AT (annual training for the national guard) in June and then in July we will be traveling to Washington/Oregon. So for all of you who live in those places, you have been properly warned when we show up on your doorstep begging for a place to stay! =) I went to a Women's Conference with Leann this weekend. It was absolutely amazing. The women were such an encouragement. "I am mine, no more". Rebekah came with me and I think that she learned some things. Sometimes we get caught up in our lives and forget to let God in. He bought us with his son's blood. "But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions-it is by grace you have been saved." Ephesians 2:4-5 May our God give you boldness to do what is right today. I would ask that you pray for Aaron. We have been having some difficulties with him so on May 20th we will be seeing a psychologist. I would ask that we resolve his problems. Also that Richard and I would be open to what they have to say. Love you all!

Visiting Grandparents

Grandma and my parents were over this weekend. It was great to see everyone. We decided to celebrate Alyssa's birthday, even though it is really the 29th. She wanted to share it with everyone special to her. On Saturday we went to the circus. It was not my favorite thing. The kids didn't like it very much either. We actually all left after we saw the tigers. Oh well. On Sunday everyone came over here for lunch since Grandma has never seen our house. The weekend was too short. Have a great week everyone!

Easter Panorama

Ok, these pictures were taken at Easter. These are pictures of us dressing up for the Easter Panorama at church. What happens is there are 5 scenes of Jesus' life and then cars go through and listen to a CD while we act it out. The kids and I were in the scene where Jesus is coming into the city and everyone is waving palm leaves. Richard was (on the first night) one of the guards who was at the cross. The next night he was a guard at Jesus' "trial". He was a very versatile guard! We did this for about a hour and a half. It was a great ministry. I know that we will do it again next year.
Here is Richard in his fabulous costume. He actually was carrying around a sword and spear.
Aaron wants to be in the scene where they are beating Jesus next year. He thought that just waving palm leaves around was "boring". =)
Here is Rebekah. She looks really good in that color. Here I am with my mouth open. For those of you who know me, this is how I always look. TALKING! =)Alyssa had a wonderful time, though you can't tell from this picture. We would do the wave with our leaves. It was fun. Next you can see Jacob before the panorama. Then the last picture is 10 minutes into the panorama. He couldn't stay awake and just slept next to the wall the whole time!
Have a great week everyone! My parents and grandma will be coming down this weekend so the next blog will be of that! Love you all!

Locks of Love

Ryan and Leann came over Saturday to cut the girls and my hair. Alyssa had decided that she wanted to cut her hair and give it to Locks of Love. You have to cut off at least 10 inches. It is so the organization can make wigs for children who have cancer. So here are some pics of it.
She looks so cute with her hair like that. It naturally curls and she loves it! Good Job Leann!!!

Last Haiti Post

As you can see from the title this will be my last post about Haiti. I just wanted to make sure to get in some pictures of what the town looked like. Sunday morning on April 6th the Haiti mission team will be talking to the congregation about our trip during class time. Please pray that it goes well. Ok, here we go.

This is the market. This does not show how huge it is there. They sell everything that a person would need like food, clothing, toiletries, etc. I believe that the yellow building is a shop. The lucky people have these little (and I stress the word little) shops that they can work out of.

This is the center of downtown. Most people do not drive, they walk. So needless to say that when we drive around we stick out like a sore thumb, especially because there are a whole bunch of white people in the back! These are actually more shops down this street. The areas the people lived in were just concrete buildings and not all had roofs.

This is a great picture of the trash system in Haiti. They pile it up next to the ocean and just dump it in. Literally the ocean is black around the island. The Chilean U.N. is in Haiti to help keep the peace, but it also helps to clean up the city. They have taken their bulldozers and piled up huge amounts of trash to be burned. The other group that was with us said that the city was already much cleaner since they were there 2 years ago.

This is a picture of Beka who was on the trip with me. She would hate this picture. Sorry Beka! Anyway, what I want to show you is to the right of her. Those buildings behind her, that we would just knock over, are houses. Every time I look at these pictures it amazes me what we consider poor here in America versus what poverty really is.

I just had to show you the local "Home Depot". There is another place that just sells planks of wood that the Children's home uses.

This was one of my favorite days! The girl in my lap is Gael (said Guy ell) and the boy is Daniel. Gael and I would just sit there and I would sing songs in English and she would sing songs in Creole. It was awesome. She taught me some words in Creole. I really should have taken some french classes, but I picked up some words. It was so much fun. She loves to learn and even though we had a language barrier, we could over come that.One last picture of me with the kids. It was a wonderful, rewarding time and I will never forget it. I can't believe that I have already been home a week. I would ask that we all remember to pray for the people over there. We have been blessed with so much. Pray for the missionaries there who have dedicated their lives to not only preaching God's word to these people, but helping to improve their economy. The kids must all learn a trade before they graduate from school so they can support themselves and help with creating employment. It is a huge endeavor, but it is working. Love you all!