Drama Queen's kindergarten teacher sent home a note along with a drawing of a turkey on cardstock. It said that the entire family must participate and together decorate this turkey (or another one of their choosing) and each member of the family must sign the back of the turkey.

Here' the picture of our little "turkey" and yes, we did sign his back.

57 pages in 4 days!

Scrapbooking has been a hobby of mine since I was 16 (maybe even before)... The first actual book I have, the front page says "Welcome 1986" and talks about my sweet sixteen... That means that I've been scrapbooking for more than 1/2 of my life! phew... what I tend to do is go a few months with good intentions, collecting scraps of things, organizing pictures, getting things ready, and then finally, after several months, I finally get around to scrapbooking and it's a marathon session. So it has been for the past 4 days.
See, November in our house gets really crazy... First is Laughing Son's birthday, then Thanksgiving and a trip to the in-laws. Next comes all the wonderful frenzy that is Christmas time, with parties and extra things at school. Finally, there is Drama Queen's birthday four days before Christmas and finally the big day arrives.. Of course, then we have New Years and my birthday... So, within 2 1/2 months, we have LOTS to scrapbook, which is why, every year around this time I make sure to catch up on my books and this was the weekend.
You know, a friend says she's begun using online photo albums... you upload the pictures, choose layouts and then voila! they're printed and sent to your home... I'm considering doing that ... I made a 100 page book of pictures -starting with when Jethro and I got married and ending last fall - for each of the grands and great grandparents. They seemed to be big hits! Well, for the time being, I still have way too much invested in scrapbook supplies to go for that!

Locks Of Love

So, while I was busily learning how to be a cheer coach, I was neglecting my blogging and some things have happened.. I just received an email from a friend up in New York and she was offering some encouraging words about how sometimes she lets things get to her like I was doing.. anyway, she mentioned that she recently cut her daughter's hair (which the last time I saw it 2 years ago was almost waist level) to send to locks of love and that reminded me that I hadn't posted our pictures yet or blogged about our little locks of love hair giver...

Drama Queen, while she is tall for her age (98th percentile) she is still petite.. I don't understand exactly how that works, but it's true! Specifically, she has a very small face AND VERY LARGE HAIR! :o) Her hair is so thick and grows so fast!! Well, Jethro hates it cuz it's always in her face.. we talked about it last summer and he really wanted it all cut off, but of course, she's the consummate girl and wants "my hair to touch my toes." In an effort to reach a compromise, she agreed to keep it pulled back off of her face when Daddy was home.. that worked for a while, but still, at night, after bathtime and before bedtime (hmmm... when Daddy's home) she would have it down and it would drive Daddy crazy..

Drama Queen is pretty self-aware of her prettiness (a bit too self aware, in my opinion) and she connects a lot of that to her hair.. So, between Daddy wanting it cut and my wanting her to recognize that beauty that lies withIN people, I thought about Locks Of Love.. I took Drama Queen to their website last year and showed her all these little girls who have no hair and explained how she could help them by cutting some of hers off.. I didn't give her an option, I said that when her hair reached 10 inches (the minimum length) she would get it cut, giving her Dad what he wanted, teaching her that she's beautiful even with short hair and helping a little girl all at the same time.. Well, we talked about it often and visited the site a few more times and within a couple of months, she was so excited about cutting her hair for Locks of Love she would ask me at least once a week to measure her hair to see if it was long enough yet!

Well, it got long enough.. I must admit that even though I had 9 months to prepare for this moment, I wasn't prepared!!! I was a bit nervous too, about her reaction. Nothing to be worried about! She was all smiles the whole time! and she LOVES her new do!!! And me? well, I made her wait to get her hair cut until AFTER school pictures, but once I saw how cute she looks when you can actually see her face!!! I had the picture people do re-takes!!

Learn more at www.LocksOfLove.org

The Day After

Uneventful.. no crying, no thunderbolts, no huge important phone calls... just life.. what was the name of that t.v. show in the 90's? nah, nah nah nah.. life goes on... "Life Goes On" that is the name.. there was a kid named Corky who was autistic and his sister Kellie Martin (of ER fame).. anyway, that was today.. Life went on...
My husband, who is, in fact, the very best husband in the entire world, offered me last night to start putting up Christmas decorations this weekend.. I usually have to drag him kicking and screaming to get down the decorations sometime after we return from his folks' house on Thanksgiving... and eventually they make it down and it takes me a week to put everything up.. This year, he's trying to cheer me up, he offered to get things down THIS weekend.. and you know, I am going to take him up on it... we've both been talking Christmas for a couple of weeks now and why not???? there are no rules and regulations on when Christmas season can start and why not start a bit early?!? I'm actually very much looking forward to decking the halls, so to speak.. I even started my Christmas cards tonight!! hot diggity dog!!
Christmas is my very favorite time of the year, hands down.. and this year, I was a bit concerned since Santa is bringing a Wii and very little else, that perhaps I wouldn't be as "into the spirit" as I usually am.. but with a super supportive husband like mine, how could I be anything but?

So, my man, my mighty good man, comes home today from a super intense, hard day at work (well, okay, they had a golf tournament today).. he hands me a gift card to Best Buy.. evidentally, his foursome WON!!! how super cool is that!! they were -11 and the closest anyone was behind them was -5... not too terribly bad, if I do say so... and my sweetie, knowing that I'm a little blue as of late comes home and gives me HIS gift card, that HE won!! (of course I accepted it.. after all, Christmas IS right around the corner!! :oP )

small vs big

Well, it's been so long since I've made a post, it seems as if whatever I say ought to be very important.. well, it's not.. I'm struggling a bit and what I have to say seems rather unimportant!!
For so long, my life has been enshrined with a certain amount of safety... I've been the Children's Ministry Director at my old church (and yes, while there were certainly times of difficulty, it was all safe in the confines of my church)...
Recently, I've made the foray into the "real" world... and it's been quite an adjustment for me... I was (and still am) convinced that God wanted me to get involved with the PTC (read PTA/PTO whatever) at our new school... The principal at our old school said she was asked to give the principal at our new school recommendations and she did.. and my name was the only name she gave.. I prayed about it and here I am, president of the PTC... I know that I'm a natural leader and I've even learned over the years (with lots of errors made) how to be more of a leader and not so bossy (a process I'm still going through each and every day)... But man oh man, has this been a learning experience!! There are 6 distinct women on this board and each of us has our own idea of how things should work... most of the time it is a lot of fun to get to be so involved in what happens at my kids' school, however, like all things, there is a down side... there are disappointments and "things that should be done differently next year" around every corner.. For the most part though, I'm truly enjoying the challenges of PTC..

Another experience I'm going through is being the Cheer Director of our children's sports organization... I'm also Princess Kickapoo's Coach.. I shouldn't be her coach, since I never was a cheerleader (I did Drill Team in High School), however, a coach for her squad never materialized and so many a weekend was spent watching YouTube videos of cheerleading!! ha! The girls on her squad, 6 of them, are awesome!! I absolutely love them and will so very much miss seeing them each week now that cheer is over!!! The part that is right up my alley is the director part... that means paperwork, ensuring that everything is as everything should be, and keeping everything behind the scenes running smoothly.. and I thought that everything was going well, until 10 days ago!!

There was an email sent by someone trying to be helpful and trying to get volunteers (as this is an "all-volunteer" organization)... well, her wording was a bit harsh and then the emails started to fly... then I started getting calls from people complaining about one thing and another and as I was defending the person who sent the original email, I was told, "I don't know why you're defending her when she calls you a b**ch on a regular occasion!" Then another call came in verifying what the previous person had said.. All told, it appears that one particular person didn't like me and she evidently spent some time telling moms exactly how she felt.. many moms have come to me to say that they don't agree with what she said and in fact think I did a great job, but all I can seem to focus on is the one in 24 moms that wasn't happy and that spoke ill of me..

Then today came.. and as much as I tried to avoid the news and any reports of "early polling" the uneasy feeling came into the pit of my stomach as I realized where our nation may very well be in the next few years... I can honestly admit that I think I have been intentionally in denial of the fact that an extremely liberal person is being elected as president!

Between the PTC junk and the cheerleading junk and now the election stuff, I have had a knot in the pit of my stomach for literally 10 days... I was thinking of sending an email out to say that I was taking a vacation.. from life!! I just need some time to re-center myself...

The first words out of Jethro's mouth today as he heard my cries of pain were, "Have you been having your quiet time?" How Prophetic!!! of course my answer was, "No." I guess God uses what He can to get your attention.

In the midst of all my self-centered "feeling sorry for myself" a couple of other things happened.. I got an email from a friend who sent a link to an aquaintances CaringBridge account... This was not my first foray onto their site, but it certainly was enough to get me crying in a good way.. These folks, used to live here, he's a doctor - did Drama Queen's anesthesia when she had her tonsils out- have 3 kids and one of them is in pretty bad shape.. The worst part is they have absolutely no idea of what is wrong with him... They have seen specialists all over the country and he's getting worse... then I got an email today reminding me to go check out their site.. well, a few days ago, this precious 8 year old got baptized!! How awesome is our God!!! Here I am feeling sorry for myself that some random mom doesn't like me (oh my!! the world's at an end!!!) when I read this awesome blog of this wonderful family who is keeping their heads held high in the worst of times... What I want more than anything is to be someone worthy to be called "His"...

I don't know.. I don't know what to say.. what is too much to share and what is enough? who reads my silly blog but my father and me anyway?! I want to be an inspiration (what NOT to do --ha ha!!) and I want to be transparent to show others my failures so that they may be better able to succeed... but I'm feeling pretty low right now.. and pretty unsuccesful in that endeavor...

anyway, to read a truly inspiring and heartbreaking story, check out this blog.. http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/grantd... I ask only one thing.. that you'll be praying for them!