The "Dancing Queen"

I'm so grateful for the joy of children.

After having 8, I can certainly see why God wants us to be more like them.

Following in my footsteps

For some reason out of 8 children, only the girls have bad eyes. Esther is no different. I guess time will tell with Abby.

The good thing is that there is a way to fix it. I'm so grateful for my eyesight! I think I wouldn't appreciate it so much if it were perfect so I'm also grateful for their imperfections too.
:):):):):):)
Joseph is so good to me! When he heard from the kids that I was grumpy tired, he bought me flowers. What's even better is that they can be planted in the ground. He knows me so well!

"Good Things" from our kids

Good things: our kids have given us great cause to be happy. . .

• Joseph is making straight A's and made the choir that he tried out for!!
• Sarah has been accepted into an internship at the zoo! I so wanted to do that when I was younger.  I guess I can do it vicariously through her.
• Rachel won a 5th place in a drama competition among 70 schools doing a classic Dr. Seuss skit.  Her talent for facial expressions came in handy.  She'll get to fly to Sacramento and perform it with her partner for the Governor.  Pretty cool, huh?
• Jacob .  . . 1 day!

It does my heart good.

A little Texas love

It's funny, but after we moved away from TX 9 yrs ago, we had no desire to go back except to visit family.  So I was surprised to feel such a connection when we visited last week.

Besides my family, there are some other things that I truly love about Texas.

It's rustic

 I loved the fluffy clouds that dotted the sky as far as you can see (from an overpass that is).

 The Las Colinas Mustangs

 Lots of farm land

 Longhorns 

 Sonic (I know they are all over now, but I knew them first in TX; their tater tots are the best!)

boiled peanuts (really a southern thing but I've only really had them in TX except for this last time; we left before this batch was done, bummer)

 Rocking porches to watch the fireflies

Small towns with old brick buildings

My new love, garlic knots, yum!

And Texas pride.

Yea technology!

Good Thing:

Do you know what I love about technology?

I love that when I clean out boxes of papers, I can throw

out anything that is easily accessed on the Internet. 

This file was replaced by this.

Wonderful! 

You want how much money?

Another shocker for us!  Joseph went to the DMV to get his license and register his "Beemer".

It wasn't surprising that he had to wait, fill our papers and get shuffled around while there.

But what was surprising was that since he had just bought his car in May, which makes it only 5 months ago, California requires you pay an additional sales tax on new purchases 6 months or less.  It's to keep people from going out of state to buy their cars with cheaper taxes. They charge the tax according to California ($4000) then subtract the tax that we paid in NC ($1100)

So Joseph had to pay $2900.  Really?!

Holy cow!!!

Good thing;  My roses continue to bring a smile.

All Hallow's Eve, aka: Halloween

Finally, a picture of our little elf, Matthew.  He's such a good sport.  Everyone seems to give him a hard time about being short.  He decided to just go with it.  What a good guy.


Our little angel.


We didn't have a picture of Rachel before since she was at a drama competition.  She and her friends dressed as the Dora the Explorer characters.  She is "Swiper" the fox.

Can't you just feel the love?

Good thing:  I had chocolate today!!  I haven't had any (on purpose) since June.

It was great, but my tummy and fat cells don't agree.

Abby-isms

(Mmmmm... you look tasty)
just found this off an old sd card

• Abby and I were standing in the post office the other day when a man and a woman walked in after us.  Abby studied them, or more specifically the man's pot belly, then whispers (thankfully) to me "Is that man gonna have a baby?"
•  After dropping Esther off at school, we drove up the hill and as we crested, we could see the whole valley.  Without hesitating, Abby says, "Wow! It's beautiful!" in her most astonished voice. . . .           I needed that. 

"Good thing":  I started exercising again, finally!

hard lesson for Abby

This is the result of a hard learned lesson:  ask Mom before going next door to play.

"Good thing":  organized my closet, hung towel hooks, reconnected with my best friend, and was inspired by church leaders speaking at General Conference today.

Safe and sound

"Good Thing":  The very fact that I can look in the rooms of my children and see them sleeping there safe and sound is a very good thing.  I pray that the Lord will continue to show his tender mercy in their behalf.

boxes & trees

After a stressful day of running around for the kids & errands then trying to make things work with a new (not hooked up right) dryer, I'd like to mention a couple of  "good things":

• first off is that my large pile of moving boxes are gone!! Yea!!
• I'm so excited that we have fruit trees.  I've always wanted some.



Even though they are pale yellow, they taste pretty good.



grapefruit tree

 tangerine

 orange (I'm told I'll have to fight the squirrels for these, that is, when they turn orange)

 fig

 lemon and lime trees too (a Sprite tree....no, they are separate trees)

It's a "good thing"

We have a little tradition at the dinner table.  Usually I ask the kids if anything interesting happened at school that day.  But I found that since we moved to California, there is a plethora of "interesting" things happening that don't really seem to be helping with our transition. So I decided to change the question to "what good did you see or experience today" (because of course, good can always be found).  I think it has helped.

The last couple of days, I've been in need of hearing those good things too.

My pace has slowed since everything is settling down.  Mom left on Monday,

and I've found my thoughts going back to North Carolina, my friends, and my "country" life.

So to remind myself of the good that I see here (yes there is a lot of good), I'm going to 

make a point of including a "good thing" each day.

Today, my good was found in Abi.  She is such a ray of light bouncing here and there.

She can't help but make me smile.