So Thankful For Mrs. Franks.

I clearly know the bible says not to provoke your children unto wrath. I get it. But, it doesn't say we can't torment them a little

. Ha! So maybe that's why my kids are so bad. It's clearly me and Maynard's fault. However, I do what I have to to keep my kids in line at desparate times. Such as, the "kid" refuses to buckle up. So I immediately pull up to the police station. This has worked like a charm several times for all 3 of mine throughout the years. Oh, and what about Mr. Walmart who watches us on a camera to make sure we behave while shopping. Don't forget about the bad man who tries to come in if a kid opens the front door for strangers. Don't act innocent, ya'll. I know you have tactics with your kids. We can't whip them in public so whatever works, go for it. I would like to introduce you to a family friend of mine, Mrs. Franks. I have never met her or ever seen her, but we have talked lots of times. It all began when Josiah was a toddler. We have called on her and God's help many times. You see, Mrs. Franks doesn't really exist. My kids don't know that. It has lost its effect somewhat on Josiah and Titus as they grow older, but they are still a little unsure. It is working wonders with Amelia, Hallelujah! I have Mrs. Franks number stored in my phone. It's really the time n temp #. Ha! Anyway, I just use the voice command, "CALL MRS. FRANKS". The phone repeats it and it begins to dial. Amelia stops dead in her tracks. I have used her with all 3 of my kids and they have all been equally scared of her. One day Josiah was so bad I called Mrs. Franks up and actually called Melissa, my sister. I hinted what was going on and I put her on the phone with him. Mrs. Franks lined him out real good and he was a believer. My only downfall I've had with this is some older kids found out aboher and they ran it into the ground. They started using it on my kids and it got old for them and lost the effectiveness. I had to call up Mrs. Franks today while at the drs office. Amelia and Titus have strep, aarrgghh!yway, Amelia was out of control and wouldn't listen. So I dialed up Mrs. Franks and would you believe it? She was right out in the waiting room. Amelia couldn't be more distressed. Ha! See the above picture. It's Amelia hiding her eyes from Mrs. Franks while Titus is hollering for Mrs. Franks to come get Amelia. Ha! So let's hear it? What works for you or did work? This is normal, right? Ha!

Playtime With Cousins

Last week my brother Todd and his family came in for a few days to.go camping. We were invited to drop by for ribeyes. Yummy! My kids were so excited to get to see their cousins, Cameron and Peyton. They hopped on their bikes, armed with super cool new water guns from Cameron and had a blast. After dinner Todd built a fire and the kids gathered around for smores. Then it rained, rained again, and forever more rained. My kids were drenched. Thanks to Peyton who discovered the stream of water runnimg down the canopy of the camper. He made it look like too much fun and soon they all joined in. My kids had to.strip down to even get in my van to go home. The next day we invited them to meet us at our local splash pad. We were there about 4 hrs. The kids had a blast. The ice_cream truck stopping by was a special treat as well. I introduced Todd to half price appetizers for dinner at Shilohs then we went to church. The next night we had them over our house for a special turkey dinner. The kids got to play again and then it was time for goodbyes. Mamaw stopped by one night on her way home from Tenesse so the kids were all excited about mamaw coming to stay all night. We have been busy with lots to do. Enjoy a few pics.

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Techincal Difficulties

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I like to pretend sometimes that I'm just one smart cookie.  I don't like to ask for help, ever!  It doesn't matter what it is.  I can be struggling with a jar of mayo and Maynard will casually walk by and say, "You need some help?"  Something just rises up in me and I say, "No, thank you, I can manage just fine."  Then about 30 mins later we have broken glass and a few blisters, but, we have an opened jar of mayo and all by myself.  So saying all that to say this, I needed tech support the other day on my computer.  I was assisting a friend who knew -0 about computers or the internet if you know what I mean.  So like a hot shot I sat down with her and took no time to impress her with my technical skills.  We kept runing into a few problems that were unfixable by me and she kept suggestting that we go ahead and call tech support and let them walk us through our troubles.  Well, I just couldn't let her do that.  I just needed more time and I knew that I would figure it out.  Not only would calling tech support hurt my pride, but they make me nervous.  I've dealt with a few in the office world and by the time I hung up with them I felt like a #1 idiot.  So she gave me about another hour to struggle through it when I heard her start dialing her phone.  AARRGGHH!!!!  Thank goodness it was a nice gentleman who had patience like old Bro. Job.  He was so nice and so helpful.  I remember my friend asking questions that made my face turn red because I was so embarassed that she was asking a question as dumb as that.  I would try to stop her before she got the question all the way out.  Sometimes I would hurry up and turn the phone off speaker phone so he wouldn't hear her talk.  Ha!  Then it was my turn to make a boo-boo and boy did my face turn red.  I am so glad that this man will never meet me and only has her information.  He was giving me a website address to type in.  He was reading it off to me as I typed it in.  He said "forward slash."  So I typed in the address and also typed "forward slash".  Well for some reason the link wasn't working.  Much later, and much to my embarrassment, did I realize I wasn't supposed to type "forwardslash", but enter this symbol (/) which is forward slash.  That is when my little tech man started laughing.  I said, "Excuse me, but you just laughed at me".  He tried to tell me he wasn't laughing, but that just made him laugh that much harder.  I hadn't laughed like that in a long time even if it was at my own expense.  So now my good friend don't think I'm so smart

anymore and our problem never was solved.  It ended up being a technical problem on their part that they had to deal with and will get back with us later.  I just thought I would share that with ya'll.  I know how some of you just get a kick out of my goofy stories about myself!!!!

We Love VBS!

Where our church is so small we didn't have bible school this year. I think it's important to keep your kids involved in as many activities as you can, especially in the holiness movement. The reason why I say that is because we choose to keep our kids as sheltered as much as possible. So it seems there isn't as much for them to do. I always heard for everything we take away from our children should be replaced with something positive. For example let's say my kids asked me if they could go to the fair and I said no. I would need to replace that with something positive like, "We don't agree with everything that goes on at the fair, but how about I take you to the Magic Show at the library and then maybe to the park afterwards." This was actually something that Sis. Debbie Roberts had taught about parenting. It makes sense to me though. I don't want my kids to be raised with always being told no you can't do this and you can't go there. They don't understand all the reasoning behind it no matter how wellwell you explain why not. That's why I try to keep my kids busy in activities so they don't feel like they are missing out. I wish we had more kids at church because that would be alot of fun doing alot of activities with them. But since we don't, I do what I can. We are faithful to our library. My kids have their classes with stories and crafts. They also have different shows like puppets, plays, animal shows, and more. So anyway, getting back to my subject, we were invited to vbs this year at a local church. They believe a little different than us, but I knew they would be taught from the Bible. My kids enjoyed Bible school so much. As soon as we woke up every morning my kids would start asking if it was time for Bible school yet. Even Amelia enjoyed herself. She sat on the front row with her class and even went down the steps with them to her class. I would love to tell you that that is where she stayed, but she was a roamer and walked around checking things out. Occasionally, she was brought back to me (per her request). She couldn't wait for the puppets. That was her favorite part. Titus decided he didn't like being in the baby class. Even though he was 4, he just didn't fit in right in that class so the 2nd night he snuck to Josiah's class. They let him stay there the rest of the week so I guess he behaved. Josiah enjoyed the contest between the girls and boys during the offereing. He was counting his money out at home way before it was even time to leave for VBS. He enjoyed the crafts alot too. He was excited to get to be with his friends Micah and Zackery too. Josiah is my social kid. He takes that after his dad. Me and the other 2 would be just fine living under a rock somewhere as long as we didn't have to talk to strangers or people we didn't know very well. Ha! I remember when Josiah was 3 he grabbed a kid by the arm and said, "You will be my friend, you hear me." Ha That is where he takes after Maynard. Anyway, Friday night was the last night. They had a giant waterslide made for the kids. They had a blast. I didn't get any pics of the slide because I was too busy trying to keep Amelia off of it. She kept cutting line and it would take her forever to go down. It wasn't fair to the other kids so I made her get off and go change. And that dear friend, is when things got bad. My precious darling, baby girl threw such a fit I was humiliated. I wanted to leave right then, but it wasn't fair to my boys so I let them play longer while I held her in the "sleephold" for an hour. VBS brings back so many good childhood memories. One that stands out for me is painting ceremic praying hands and then having our snack, red koolaide and cookies. Ha! yep, food is usually always included in my memories. Good grief, we used to get snacks. Now adays its actual meals or sack lunches every night. That's so unfair. Ha Ha Poor Maynard! I didn't cook supper, but only one time last week. My kids were getting fed at VBS so we ate peanut butter and jelly or cereal every night. Enjoy some pictures.

Amelia halfway sitting in her desk.

Titus's first night in the "baby" class.  Can you tell he's not happy? Ha!

Spending friend time with an old buddy, Zackery.  They got to spend a week together at bible school too.

Yes, Seriously.

Yep! This is Titus with a chair stuck around his head. It only took me about 20 mins to remove it. I was debating on either removing a couple of ears or find a chainsaw somewhere. I was near despair and pure embarassment, if I had to walk over to our neighbors to have to ask for help in removing a Lightning McQueen chair from my 4 yr old's head. I kept telling myself that if the chair went on his head then it should come back off somehow. It was similiar to working a puzzle, but I finally got it off. Good news was I didn't need the neighbors help afterall and Titus got to keep both his ears. This is normal, right? Surely this has happened at your house before! Ha

Get Ready, Get Set, Slip n Slide.

Oh what fun it is to slip n slide!  Especially on a home-made 100 ft slide.  Our Fourth of July celebration started last weekend.  We went home to visit my family over the weekend.  Some of their church folks had a little get together which included the water slide, hotdogs, popsicles, watermelon, and sweet tea! yay!!  If we could have turned down the temp about 20 degrees, it would have been perfect.  I slathered my kids down with sunblock at least every 45 mins to an hour.  Titus is allergic to sunblock, but I figured a few bumps were better than sun poisioning and blisters.  The kids played for at least 5 hours while the adults tried to supervise and stay cool, which was next to impossible.  The kiddos were knocking each other down and bumping into each other.  Which they couldn't help it because its kinda hard to steer while sliding down.  Kids would be walking up the slide while another group was sliding down and it was like playing dominoes with real live kids. Ha! After a few bumps and bruises, I think they finally realized it might be a good idea to walk in the grass back up the hill the next time.

                                                                    Here comes Titus.

                                       Here's Josiah in what appears to be a 3 kid pile-up. Ha!

Thank goodness for my mom.  She was great with the smaller kids.  Amelia took about 3 hrs to decide that she liked it after all.


So the guys decided that they had all they could stand.  They confiscated all my poor sister's dish detergent, and a brand new bottle of laundry detergent.  They started pouring it down the slide because they were really serious about this ya know.  Soon all the kiddos started piling out because their eyes were on fire and the guys pretty much had the slide to themselves now. Ha!  There were a few kiddos who kept coming back for more though.  My nephew Kamden put on his swimming goggles and continued to slide.  Smart boy. Ha! I won't even tell who whispered that idea in his ear.lol
So with all the detergents in the slide now the guys were having a blast.  They made it look so fun.  Of course us girls just sat by the wayside cheering them on.  Acting like we didn't even halfway want to get on that slide.  So I asked my sister Angela ever so quietly, "Um, so based on a percentage, how bad do you want to get on that slip n slide?"  Her answer? "Oh, I wouldn't mind it."  My reply, "Me either, lol."  So, we went and grabbed our bathing suits.  I'm a little reluctant to post our picture for all to see, but here goes.

Yep, there we are in our swimsuits.  lol  From left to right, My sister Christy, Blog friend Angie lol, my sister Angela (and also a blog friend), Lindsey (who I heard was a blog stalker, lol), and me!

I lost count how many times we went down that thing.  I had trouble at first.  I wasn't sliding all the way down.  I was getting frustrated until my Dad hollered out I needed to get all the way wet first.  So after I was soaked, I tried it again and, "wheeeee!"  It was so fun and it hurt so bad. Ha!  It would throw me to the side which was actually bales of hay and I would crack my elbow.  We had a few races, but I don't think I ever got to win.  Maybe once was all.  Amelia climbed up on my lap and she let me slide with her a few times, but I was so done after about an hour and she screamed wanting to go down more.  Isn't it funny how some kids wait until its time to leave before they decide they like something after-all?

So the next day I could barely walk or move.  My elbows were black and blue.  Josiah said his legs felt shakey and his muscles felt weird.  I felt worse as the day went.  I text Christy and told her I was either really sore or I was coming down with the flu.  She assured me everyone felt that way.  I wasn't in church with any of them, but I say it was kind of funny seeing some of them moving around really slow. Ha!

We had a great time and was thankful to be included in a fun weekend.  Thanks to Christy and Michael who put a lot of work and money into it.  Lots of memories and bruises were made that day.

Hope everyone had a great Fourth of July.  We spent the day at home and then went to Maynard's neice's birthday party.  My kids got to play with their cousins on the Parker side which they probably see less than my family who live over 2 hours away.

Here's a short clip of my hubby demonstrating the correct way to slip n slide!

Summer Fun

Amelia has decided she likes the pool now.  She hates big pools so I've not done much swimming. I did get in with them once though.  It gets hot sitting here watching them.  Both my boys have learned to swim this summer and I am so proud. We share a 4 ft pool with the Allens because we don't have enough land to put a big one up. This 10x30 will do on hot days just fine.  Hope you all are enjoying your summer and staying cool!

Mommy Meltdown

Anybody ever have one

of these? I've got so much on my mind that I feel like I'm gonna explode. Everything is starting to get to me. This morning I asked the boys to start cleaning their room while I started in Amelia's. I heard a loud scream and "help me, mommy." So I ran to their room to find their bed standing on its side. Instead of laying on their bellies to remove junk under their bed, they picked the whole mattresses up. I can't even fix this back by myself. So, I am in my bedroom squalling and crying because I just couldn't stand another ounce of pressure. So as the tears fall, Amelia pats my back and says, "aww, you kay, mommy? you hurd your head? aww, it kay, mommy. don't cry. there I kiss it." So as mad as I really want to be, its hard to stay that way when my little girl ain't quite sure what to think about her mommy having a meltdown! It will get better, right?