Believe~

I don't quite know what to think, I don't know what to pray, I just know that I should Believe. Believe, Believe, Believe... and I do.. I believe God is pure goodness. I believe God loves deeper and bigger than my brain can hold. I believe God is the same today as in the days of old. I believe He is who He has always said He is. I believe He is the comforter. I believe we can't know Love unless through Him. I believe we can not handle pain unless through Him. I confess that there is peace in laying down and holding my hands up and saying..I really can't do this, please take it..and I can thank Him for always, being.... I believe, I believe, I believe.....

AFRICA!

Well tonight I went online and just booked our flight to Africa!! I just can't believe we really get to go...We are going March 12-24th. We get to have an 11 hour layover in London and Cole and I are hoping we're allowed to leave the airport and cruise around London and be fancy and have tea. If we can't then we'll be fancy in the airport with Diet Coke... We are both so happy and I'll be sending out a letter next week with all the info!!!!

Mozambique we are coming for you....

Danger!

Another week of school is going by and things are still pretty crazy..I've still not been able to be done with the dentists. Cole gets to go in today and he said he just might be feeling sick later in the afternoon and he just couldn't go to the dentist if he is so sick. I had to go to dreaded school curriculum night last night. You have a half hour in each grade where they tell you that they are going to teach your children to read and do math and all the normal stuff they have to teach them..So, being there from 6-7:30 was so AWESOME! Especially when I sat by some parents in the 5th grade class and they asked if I was here for my brother...weird. CJ had soccer practice and when I got home I found out that this year they get to pick the names that go on the back of their jerseys. Usually it says CJ....the other girls picked names like, their first name, skittles, M n M's, speedy..ect..ect.. and my daughter picked...Danger!!! She kills me!!!!!!!!!!!
I am going back to work at the preschool, I am going to be the Music teacher every Friday. I am excited about it and I think it'll be fun. I'll bring my guitar and hopefully the kids will like all the songs I make up about how preschool sucks.... Other than music class that is.

This first week of school is MAD!

This back to school week has already been making me CRAZY and it's only been since TUESDAY!! I am back and forth to that dang school three times a day picking up and dropping off kids. I miss the bus something terrible... Every single night of the week we have practices too. And they are two hours each. We can't even get me started on what Saturday's with 4 events is going to look like..WOW, when the kids have official homework next week I really might take to the bottle. Or something more up my alley like entire gallons of ice cream for every meal. I took Cole and CJ to their well child visits yesterday and the unexpecting nurse and doctor were so confused in regards to my son and his jokey, mcjokester mouth. First the nurse weighed CJ and she finally hit the big 60 lbs even! She was so happy because she has been trying to out weigh her brother for a year. So they ask her how old she is and she smiles and says I'm 8! Then my son steps on the scale and he was trying to leave his shoes on when she caught him and made him remove them. He stepped on to his worst day yet...he only weighed 58 lbs. Then when the nurse asked him his age, he says... Uhh I'm 8 1/2.... She says ok great and writes it in.. I have to stop the woman and say he is kidding and she was just confused..lol Then when the doctor was asking him a million questions about school and what he eats and so on.. please know that I am DYING of embarrassment because every other thing that comes out of his mouth these days is a joke. The poor doctor is so confused.... I give the child death glare and mouth.. NO MORE JOKES! Come on!! The doctor asked him what grade he's in and He's saying this.. I just started at Lee's Summit West High School... So she writes it down.. UMM HELLO! I have to tell her, sorry he's in 5th grade... This year he has gotten ridiculously funny and smart funny and he makes me laugh all day.. Adults are not going to like him, I am trying to teach him to turn it off at the doctors and when Adults are being serious.. CJ had a tooth pulled today and she was very brave... I thought Kendall's check up was today but we found out when we got there that it's next week and so Kendall's face of pure fear melted and she proceeded to do a happy dance around the front office, singing about how happy she was. Kendall has been brushing her teeth three times a day at least, to get ready for the dentist. She is afraid of the needle making a hole in her face because of cavities and sometimes crys nightly if she gets to thinking about it... I miss summer now.. WAAAAAAAAAAAA

Back to School

Here are the babies getting bigger.. Cole starting 5th grade. CJ starting 3rd grade and Miss Kendall starting Kindergarten!!! They had an awesome first day. CJ's friends wanted to know why she brought her brother's backpack to school....well it's her backpack. Kendall was super excited that there were fruit loops for snacks. Cole was thrilled that the teach said there won't be real work until next week.

Officially Invited!!

I received an email from the Pemba, Mozambique center to officially invite Cole and I to visit them! I have all the information I need to start planning now. I contacted a travel agent to see how to get it all going. I need to get passports, Visa's and lots of other stuff..Dang I am really bad at planning so this will be a serious challenge for me. I am feeling very honored and grateful to God to be able to go. Being able to stay with and love on orphaned kids who are the poorest in Africa...Could there be anything better??

Last night Cole's team got to be on the Chief's field while the players were warming up and they got to walk through the tunnel and they thought it was pretty cool.. Well other kids did.. Cole was like, yeah it was cool, with the complete I could have been playing XBOX and it been just as cool tone. Nate took the kids to the pet store and to the Star Wars Clones or something like that. They are trying to talk him into getting a cat. Let's hope that doesn't happen because we would have to get a divorce.

W-O-W!

I opened my email this morning to find out that Cole can come with me to AFRICA!!!! Now starts the process. I sent in the info they wanted and now I wait... We are thinking of going somewhere around March 13th-23. It's quite a time away! Time for me to get some money and time for me to pray.

Fischer jams COMMIN AT YA!

Getting our groove on at Super Walmart

Today I took the kids to get all their school supplies for when they start next week. I had three long lists because every grade needs different supplies. I felt pretty crazy with all three of them and three different sheets and one pen. Kendal didn't understand how come her list was so short and she just was DYING to get her hands on her own, "Vinder" as CJ calls them. Also known as Binder's. Which I was mistakenly in my old age just thought they were called Folders. It went off pretty painless and we managed to get it all done in an hour. There were some fun moments when CJ was hugging her Joe Jonas notebook and Cole is telling her she better not kiss it or there is something seriously wrong with her. Cole picked out this more high tech Binder and put it in the cart and when he saw that it was $14.00 he went and grabbed a $3.00 one and swapped it out. I saw a new one in the cart and asked him why he wanted the other one. He says he just doesn't want me spending that much on his binder..oh man..how could I resist putting his high tech binder back in the cart!! We bought a globe so we could start praying for Africa and Kendal just thinks its so funny that America is in so many pretty colors. When we got home the kids started organizing all their stuff and CJ took her binder and then came back a while later with it decorated like the pictures above! It just made me soft...The picture of the person is her. It's been such a wild experience as the kids get older. They are so aware and so brave. I love to hear them talk about God and think about God and tell each other what's up when they have it wrong about God!! Kendal was talking about how we are all bad sometimes and CJ says, well Kendal Jesus isn't included in that he wasn't bad, EVEN WHEN HE WAS A KID!! I just sit quiet and let it play out and love every minute of it. Our church is taking school supplies donations for Children's Mercy Hospital tomorrow and so I took the kids out late tonight(because like I'd really remember when I was already out today at Walmart)to get crayons and pads of paper. They just thought it was great to each fill up a basket(the hand held ones) and be able to take those tomorrow. Before bed the kids and I layed hands and prayed for the sick kids who would receive these to be instantly healed when they touched them! Cole said, wouldn't it be awesome if they started growing hair immediately?? Ok.. that would be AMAZING!!!

Pray Pray Pray... please??

I am seriously praying and planning on trying to visit Mozambique within the next 6-8 months. I have been researching Iris Ministries and I contacted them to see about starting the process to come. I would need to visit shorter than what is usually expected but God knows how my heart is burning and there is to be no antidote until I am there. I have wanted to be in Africa before going to YWAM and after YWAM so badly. God had other plans but lately I have been getting more and more crazy in the heart and head thinking that time could be soon. I inquired about taking Cole with me as well and am still waiting to hear about that. Thinking that would be an incredible spring break/11th birthday if it works out.
If you could pray with me, that would be amazing. I will update as my correspondence with them becomes more clear!!!

A smaller place means a bigger mess

So it's only been a week that we've all been living together in this new duplex. And I was thinking, well since we packed mostly everything this should be so much easier to clean. Well that just seriously is not what's happening. Not only are most of the floors white linoleum which is so super fun, there just isn't room to send anyone away or out of sight to play with stuff. The girls room is downstairs but basically I can use a normal(as opposed to yelling their names at the top of my lungs)voice and they can hear me. So it's no quite as far away as needed. In my other house we had the toy room all the way downstairs and at the corner of a long hallway. I wouldn't even go down there for DAYS to see demolition. Now I see demolition just about every 5 minutes. The kids are cleaning up and messing up and repeat, repeat, repeat. It's been fun being close though. We've had fun this week being in one another's faces. My son is being the DVR master and had recorded 20 hours of the Olympics that he never watches. Delete, Delete, Delete.... The girls have made an agreement to switch every night which side of their bed to sleep on. Then they have a ledge above their heads where they keep baseball caps on and they move those each night as well so that their cap is directly over their heads..interesting.. Mr. Bosley is absolutely loving being the only dog around and having the kids back. Nate is having a really rotten time with one of his stores at work which could completely cost us, so, so much money. Prayer appreciated there.. But, there is so much PEACE. God is so amazing and money is really lame. Whatevs to the Benjamins...

Back from Vacation

It's been a good three weeks in Cali... I got to drive around and check out the new scene for the next season of our lives. I got to see old friends and their new babies which is so wild to see. I got to get prayed for by a bunch of wild hearts at tithemi and have some healing done physically and in my heart. I had a grown up sleep over with no actual sleep. I had the best time talking and laughing with my growing son. Lots of snuggles and kisses with my sweet girls. I got to miss my love Nate. I got to eat lots and lots of Del Taco churros and chocolate cakes. I got to have a moment with someone I've loved but have been disconnected to for years. I got to cry and eat bakers at midnight. I got to kiss and hold my brother's beautiful daughter who is full of life. I've had some pain and some pain taken away. I got to watch every Law & Order ever made. I was able to come back with some definite hope and a feeling of excitement for the things God has coming our way...It's been a good three weeks in Cali...

Bring it

I love this picture of CJ, to me it's one of those pictures that can be an image of so many things and this image is how CJ approaches life always and how I am feeling at the moment. So many changes coming and just throwing my arms open to let the waves of of it all crash over me. Exciting and terrifying but never dull.