SUPRISE!!

Are you shocked? Now that you have picked yourself up from off the floor where you fell from the utter shock and amazement that I have actually posted something new, I would like to say: Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! And while I am at it, here are all the other holiday and special greetings I missed out on wishing you during my absence form "blog world/land": Happy Fall, Happy Thanksgiving, Happy Birthday Paul, Happy Birthday Delaney, and Happy Birthday Granny! Awful isn't it that I would let so many wonderful chances go by without a single word or pic on my blog. Want to know why, do you even care? Well I will tell you why. I wrote a great post about fall and our fall festival at church complete with a slideshow, but everytime I pasted the slideshow into my post, what I ended up with was not my family at all! I did this many times, even starting from scratch a few times, all with the same aggravating results. So, to keep my sanity and salvation (lol) I took a break from my blog lest I break my computer!!! Well, once I took my break, I began to feel overwhelmed with all the things I needed to catch up on and just remained out of blog world. I didn't even visit my favorite blogs because of the guilt and conviction I would feel at not updating my blog. So for all of the faithful few who have regularly checked back on my blog, thank you. Thank you for believing in me, for believing that I would one day return to take up this blog and once again enlighten all that read its words on the happenings of my little family!!! So I will be spending the next few days updating, adding photos and hopefully slideshows, and maybe even some useful tidbit of information in amongst the other stuff. Till then, I will leave you with these photos I took today of the kids before our wonderful Christmas Service.

How many people have YOUR name?

There are 3 people with my name in the U.S.A.

How many have your name?

Southern Belles

*Southern women appreciate their natural assets:*
Clean skin.
A winning smile.
That unforgettable Southern drawl.

*Southern women know their manners*:
*'Yes, ma'am.'
'Yes, sir.'
'Why, no, Billy!'

*Southern women have a distinct way with fond expressions*
'Y'all come back!'
'Well, bless your heart.'
'Drop by when you can.'
'How's your Momma?'

*Southern women know their summer weather report:*
Hot, Humid
Hot, Humid
Hot, Humid

*Southern women know their vacation spots:*
The beach
The rivuh (River)
The crick

*Southern women know the joys of June, July, and August:*
Colorful hi-heel sandals
Strapless sun dresses
Iced sweet tea with mint

*Southern women know everybody's first name*:
Honey
Darlin'
Shugah (sugar)

*Southern women know the movies that speak to their hearts:*
Fried Green Tomatoes
Driving Miss Daisy
Steel Magnolias
Gone With The Wind

*Southern women know their religions*:
Baptist
Methodist
Football

*Southern women know their country breakfasts*:
Red-eye gravy
Grits, Eggs
Country ham
Mouth-watering homemade biscuits with momma's homemade jelly

*Southern women know their cities dripping with Southern charm*:
Chawl'stn
Meem fis
S'vanah
Foat Wuth
N'awlins
Addlanna

*Southern women know their elegant gentlemen*:
Men in uniform.
Men in tuxedos
Rhett Butler

*Southern girls know their prime real estate*:
The Mall
The Country Club
The Beauty Salon

*Southern girls know the 3 deadly sins*:
Having bad hair and nails
Having bad manners
Cooking bad food

*More Suthen-ism's*:
Only a Southerner knows the difference between a hissy fit and a conniption
fit, and that you don't 'HAVE' them, you 'PITCH' them.

Only a Southerner knows how many fish, collard greens, turnip greens, peas,
beans, etc., make up 'a mess.'

Only a Southerner can show or point out to you the general direction of 'yonder.'

Only a Southerner knows exactly how long 'directly' is, as in: 'Going to
town, be back directly.' (correctly pronounced 'drectly')

Even Southern babies know that 'Gimme some sugar*' *is not a request for the
white, granular sweet substance that sits in a pretty little bowl in the
middle of the table.

All Southerners know exactly when 'by and by' is. They might not use the
term, but they know the concept well.

Only a Southerner knows instinctively that the best gesture of solace for a
neighbor who's got trouble is a plate of hot fried chicken and a big bowl of
cold potato salad. If the neighbor's trouble is a real crisis, they also
know to add a large banana puddin!

Only Southerners grow up knowing the difference between 'right near' and 'a
right far piece.'

They also know that 'just down the road' can be 1 mile or 20.

No true Southerner would ever assume that the car with the flashing turn
signal is actually going to make a turn.

A Southerner knows that 'fixin' can be used as a noun, a verb, or an adverb.


Only Southerners make friends while standing in lines, . .. and when we're
'in line,' We talk to everybody.

Put 100 Southerners in a room and half of them will discover they're
related, even if only by marriage.

In the South, y'all is singular, all y'all is plural.

Southerners know grits come from corn and how to eat them.

Every Southerner knows tomatoes with eggs, bacon, grits, and coffee are
perfectly wonderful; that red eye gravy is also a breakfast food; and that
fried green tomatoes are not a breakfast food.

When you hear someone say, 'Well, I caught myself lookin',' you know you are
in the presence of a genuine Southerner!

Only true Southerners say 'sweet tea'and 'sweet milk.' Sweet tea indicates
the need for sugar and lots of it -- we do not like our tea
unsweetened. 'Sweet
milk' means you don't want buttermilk.

And a true Southerner knows you don't scream obscenities at little old
ladies who drive 30 MPH on the freeway. You just say,' Bless her heart' ...
and go your own way.

To those of you who are still a little embarrassed by your Southerness: Take
two tent revivals and a dose of sausage gravy and call me in the
morning. Bless your heart!

And for those that are not from the South but have lived here for a long
time, all *y'all *need a sign to hang on *y'all's* front porch that reads 'I
*ain't* from the South, but I got here as fast as I could.'

Just a little Southern humor for all my Southern Sisters out there. We know who we are!! By the way it is hard to raise daughters to be Southern Belles while living on the West Coast, but I am tryin' my best!

Kids say such funny things!!

Thanks to my Dad for sending these to me. A reminder of the innocence and sincerity of children is just what we need right now. Hope everyone gets a chuckle out of this. I did! Have a blessed day!

Beautiful days and Old friends

Well, apparently I was in a nostalgic mood tonight without even realizing it. I was sitting in the living room listening to my two youngest play as loud as they could on two Kindermusik harmonicas and I started to hum a tune and then sing. "It's a beautiful day, a beautiful day. Sunshines come into my heart to stay. It really doesn't matter what the weather men say. It's a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful day."

That song took me back many years to when I first heard one of my best friends sing the song she wrote for a school contest. So I began to try to remember all the words and didn't take me long to remember this:

"Somewhere it may be raining; somewhere the cold winds blow;

somewhere it may be snowing, but this one thing I know:

It's a beautiful day, a beautiful day. Sunshines come into my heart to stay.

It really doesn't matter what the weather men say. It's a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful day.

Somewhere over the rainbow, I've been told,

there lies a place called heaven. Streets are purest gold.

Some day I'm going to go there but till then,

I'm going to walk in God's sunlight . . . and live every day for him.

It's a beautiful day, a beautiful day. Sunshines come into my heart to stay.

It really doesn't matter what the weather men say. It's a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful day."

I love that song. It may have been written by a child, but the words are oh, so true. What a beautiful day every day is when we are serving God. Growing up, our church motto or theme was "Serving God is Beautiful." Of course there is wonderful song that goes with that theme,

"Serving God is beautiful. Serving the King of kings.

I serve Him because I love Him you see.

Serving God is beautiful to me."

(written, I believe, by Sis. Ronda Hurst, my pastor's wife at that time in my life.)

Life will present us with challenges and problems, trials, etc, etc. But you know what, it's still a beautiful day, a beautiful life, because the King of kings is in control and He is making me into what I need to become to fullfill His purpose. My life is about more than the day to day obligations or even the plans I make for the future. It is about the eternal purpose of God. That is important to remember when trials want to drag me down or I want to worry about problems. I just need to cast my cares upon Him. After all He cares for me and loves more than I could ever fathom. He has a plan for me and a future, plans to prosper me and keep me, and not to harm me. So it is a beautiful day, no matter what the weather man or any other man or devil, might say, because I am walking in God's sunshine and living every day for Him!!

Okay so after I spent some time singing the kid's song, I started trying to remember another song my friend wrote as a young teen.

"I wish you well. I wish you well.

You're my very special friend, and I wish you well.

Wherever you may go, I want you to know,

We'll be friends forever and I wish you well.

If I could paint a picture, here is what I'd do,

I would paint a rainbow and a bright sun, too.

And when the paintings over, a story it will tell

Of happy ever after and I wish you well.

I wish you well. I wish you well.
You're my very special friend, and I wish you well.
Wherever you may go, I want you to know,
We'll be friends forever and I wish you well."

I may not have remembered every word correctly, but I wanted to say a special message to my "very special friend." If you are reading this, I want you to know that I haven't forgotten. No matter where we are in life right now, the water that has passed under the bridge, I still remember and I still count you as a special friend. I don't think you came to mind so strongly tonight for no reason. I believe God laid you on my heart in a special way tonight. Maybe one day we will have the chance to get together, to catch up, to watch our children play together, but if not, you are still in my heart and prayers. Love you, girl!

Happy Birthday, Jaci

Happy 1st Birthday to Jaci! Her birthday was yesterday, but I did want to wish my little niece a very special happy birthday. You are so precious to us. Denae always tells me her name is Jaci when she is "pretending" to be a baby (like she has to pretend to hard. She's only 2 1/2 lol) We all love you bunches!!!

Happy Birthday to a great father, Poppa, friend, advisor, mentor, man of God, and the list could go on and on. Hope you had a wonderful day and enjoyed the little seranades you got from your grandkids today. We all send our love and we can't wait to see you at Thanksgiving. You have been the best father a girl could wish for and I appreciate all of the help you have given over the years. There are so many little things that I like to look back on from my childhood and most of them involve my daddy (and mom too, but this post is about you lol), like you playing games with us and the neighborhood kids on Melinda Lane (t-ball, toss-the-tennis-ball-over-the-roof), wrestling and playing keep away and football with you in the living room (3 kids against 1 daddy) you teaching me to ride my bike, the stereo cabinets you made each of us one Christmas for our new stereos, the smell of the wood shavings in the garage when you did your wood working (I still love that smell because it reminds me of you)learning how to drive with you in the passenger seat, the feel of your hand on my head and the sound of your voice as you prayed for me on many, many occassions, and walking down the aisle with you at my side on my big day. You were always there at each big moment in my life and all the not so big ones too. And you still are, because even though you can't always be with me in person, I know you are always there in love and support. I love you and happy birthday. Love, your 'baby girl'

First of all, let me say a very happy birthday to a very special man: my hubby! Kevin's birthday was yesterday but due to a busy weekend with Ladies Conference and Retreat, I didn't post yesterday. But, I do want to say what a great guy I am married to. He watched the kids for me so I could take off on his birthday and go to Retreat. And he didn't complain at all. I want to say, I love you and happy birthday!!


Second, all I can say about Ladies Retreat was WOWOWOWOW. It was absolutely awesome! Bro Todd Nichols preached Friday night and Saturday and he had a word from the Lord for the Ladies of the Rock. It "makes me want to shout, Hallelujah, Thank you Jesus, Lord your worthy of all the glory and all the honor and all the praise!" I am so excited to think about what God's doing right now in us and with us. What a revelation to realize the power that God has given us is being exactly how He made us to be: meek, compassionate, virteous. A miraclulous change will take place in our homes and our lives when we learn this truth that the world tries to twist and manipulate into something crude and loud and ugly. And we are waiting on God's promise, not allowing the birth of an Ishmael, a mocking spirit, but waiting for God to fulfill His promise in our lives. And the spirit of prayer that moved on our ladies group this morning was phenomenal and life changing. Like I said, WOWOWOW.

I am excited about next year, especially with the format being the same: Conference services on Friday night and Saturday at TRC with Food and Fellowship at the Retreat hotel Friday pm and Lunch after service Saturday. We had a blast at the hotel after service this year. I was up til 3 am playing games and talking. Fun, fun, fun!! Jill did a great job getting it all together with her team of helpers. Anyway, I am marking my calendar for Oct 9 and 10 next year (sorry, Kevin, its your b-day again, I know, but hopefully the changes you see in me after this retreat will make the sacrifice worth it!! love you!)

And anyone who can make it next year, needs to plan on it. The sacrifice of time and money (which is minimal) are worth it when you come away with your spirit renewed and refreshed, your mind set on the promise of God, and your heart clean and full of the Holy Ghost.

Happy Birthday to a Special Lady

Happy Birthday, Mom!! We love you so much and miss you everyday. Wish we could be with you on this special day, but since we can't, know that we are with you in our hearts and are sending all of our love your way. Hope your day is as wonderful as you are.

You have had a tough summer. I think you were in the hospital more than you were out of it. And you had just moved into a new house. And you were trying to study for your big CTR Certification test through it all. But through all of that, you had the faith and the strength to lean on God and you persevered! You are getting better, slowly but surely. You passed your test and are now a CTR with a great new job. I am proud of you. You have showed me time after time that if a person trusts in God , giving it her all, she can accomplish anything.

You are an amazing example and mentor, a lady of God, a devoted wife and mother. You are a Proverbs 31 woman. I am blessed to call you mom. Kevin has the best mother-in-law (even he says so!!) My kids have the most loving and wonderful grandma in the world. You have been there for us through thick and thin, loving us and supporting us and encouraging us. Have a very happy birthday with many more to come. We love you bunches!!

A New Story

Delaney recently wrote a story and wanted to post it on my blog. Hope you enjoy!

A Butterfly's Wish

By Delaney Reighard

Once upon a time, a little butterfly larva was eating food. Then a big butterfly flew by her. The little larva said to the big butterfly, "I want to be like you, a big butterfly."

"Well," said the butterfly, "You have to do a lot of eating, turn into a pupa, and then form a hard case around your body, which is called a chrysalis or a cacoon. When you emerge you're a beautiful butterfly!"

"Like you," cried the larva.

"Yes, like me," said the butterfly. On and on the butterfly flew to find nectar.

The larva obeyed the butterfly. She ate and ate and ate until she was ready to be a pupa. When she was a pupa, she formed a hard case. Then when it was time, she emerged as a beautiful butterfly.

Now she will tell her children what she did and tell them to tell their children what will happen in their life.

Can you tell she was studying the life cycle of a butterfly in school?

She also illustrated her story, but I wasn't able to post those pictures.

Darilyn's Award

Darilyn received an award at the monthly assembly. Her teacher honored her with a Sightword Superstar award because she can recognize and spell all of her sightwords (about 70 right now) and also the Math Whiz award because she has the highest math grade in her class. You go, Darilyn! Mrs. Askins, her teacher this year and last year, told me that Darilyn is also very responsible in class and is the type of student you want to have in class. We have a parent/teacher conference tomorrow and I am expecting to hear great things about Miss Darilyn.

Accepting her award certificate from her teacher.

Mrs. Askins, Darilyn and the other 2 award winners

Miss Darilyn proudly showing off her award

Darilyn showing off her empty space in her mouth. She recently lost another tooth. This one on top as you can see.

In Honor of Our Heros

Happy Anniversary to Me and Kevin!

September 13, 1997 Kevin and I pledged to spend the rest of our lives loving, honoring, and cherishing each other. We are now 11 years and 4 kids later. Still in love, still committed, still excited about what the future holds. I love you, Kevin! You are a wonderful husband and father and I am so blessed to have a life with you! It just gets better and better!

Camping Out

One of the fun things we did this summer wast to camp out in our backyard. We set up the one room tent, which I then filled with airmattress and pallets from wall to wall. We cooked out (hot dogs, an all time family fave). And then we made smores, yumm! The kids love it! And it was very affordable lol! (Denae was actually asleep on the couch for a lot of this, but did wake up in time for a hot dog.) After playing chase in the dark, we let the kids change into their jammies in the tent (Kevin and I cheated a bit and used the house to change) We then piled up in the tent, enjoying the night sights and sounds through the tent window, which included watching a search helicopter fly around with its big light shining looking for someone (thankfully the helicopter was not very close by or our camp out would have been over). After a bedtime Bible story we snuggled down to sleep. At least most of us did. I think Delaney and Darilyn whispered for hours. Everytime I woke up, they were whispering, had rearranged their "bed", or had changed into the next days clothes and back into jammies. Good grief! You'd have thought they didn't share a bed every night! lol But all in all it was great fun and I think we will do it again.

A few more pics of the kids

On our way to church on a Sunday morning. I took a picture of Delaney, too, but where she was standing there was too much shadow so it didn't turn out.


Delaney received an award at the first awards assembly while I was in TX. It was for Academic Excellence. Great job, Princess!

Hey, I'm back!

Well, technically I've been back home for a couple of weeks, but I haven't been back on my blog for a while. It was so good to see my mom and dad and brother and his family in TX, but I sure did miss Kevin and the kids. Kevin came to the airport to pick me up and he brought Denae with him. My goodness, was I ever glad to see them! They had a good time while I was gone, but I think they were glad to see me, too! lol

The girls got their school pictures taken and back already. I think they turned out really cute this year. They wore their new cowgirl shirts. The bottom picture is the whole outfit that shows in the class pic. I took it before I sent them to school.


After I got the girls school pics, I decided to try to get some pics of Dallas and Denae so Grandma could update her picture frames with something more current than Dallas at 6 mos and Denae at 6 mos (I am horrible at getting new studio shots of the kids by themselves). These turned out really cute too, and the ones below are my favorites. I love the one of Denae looking back and laughing at Dallas because he said cheese in her ear.

And, the girls are doing really well in school. Delaney got her first progress report which they send out every month. She has straight A's. Darilyn got a great report as well, but it didn't actually have any letter grades or precentage points. They should get their first report card at the begining of Oct, right before they go off track for 4 weeks.

I have started doing preschool with Dallas and of course Denae has to join us. It is going really good. We are working with Dallas on letter recognition. We have flash cards that we use with capital and lower case letters. He is doing well and is starting to try to write some of the letters, too, although at this point it is more like drawing the letters. Denae has flash cards too. They are actually first word cards, with a picture and the word below it for begginner readers. She just tells us what is in the picture. For the cat, dog and horse she also gives us the sound it makes. She also "blows out the candles" on the pic of the b-day cake after telling us it is cake. And the gift card is a 'prize.' Anyway, it is fun for her to have her own pre-school cards and she stays out of Dallas letter cards and the girls' math and sightword flash cards.

I am going to post some more pics in another post, but before I close this one, I wanted to welcome back my long lost neighbor and friend, Kim. She is finally home from visiting her family in Oregon for a month (I wish!!) We missed you!

Howdy from Texas

I've been in Texas for the past couple of days spending some time with my mom and dad. Kevin stayed home with the kids so that I could come check on my parents and help them in getting some things done around the house. Not totally a vacation, but still a break from the normal day to day. First, a praise report! My dad's diagnosis on the tumor came back benign! Hallelujah! The roots are there of course, but we are claiming a complete healing. And my mom is doing better, although still in recovery. I was able to help her get her house cleaned and get some stuff unpacked. The kids really wanted to come, but it was just better they didn't this time. When I was telling the kids that I would be flying to TX, Denae looked at me with her big blue eyes and said, "I come too?" It was so sweet. Then she spent the whole day before I left running around the house in excitement saying, "I go fwy!(fly)" The girls gave me a little letter before I left saying that they wished they could come and that they were praying for me and grandma and grandpa. They also drew a picture of an airplane on it. When I talked to Dallas the other night, he wanted to know when I was coming home. He also wanted to know why he couldn't hear my mom and dad when I was talking on the phone. I guess he thought they should be as loud as the kids are when mommy is on the phone! The kids are being really good while I am gone, or so I have been told. Kevin's mom and dad came down to help him while I was gone. I guess Denae's potty training wasn't going as well as it had been, but with her mommy gone, I guess that's to be expected. Anyway, I'll post more when I get home, but I have really enjoyed my visit 'home.' As Kim said, "Home is where the mom is!" I think that is true no matter how old we get! Hopefully I'll get to bring all the kids and Kevin back for a visit, maybe next Christmas. I can always dream, right?

Denae's 'Up-do'

All fixed up for church, just like her big Sisters!

Prayer Request

For those of you who don't know (and even those who do), my mom and dad have really been through it the last couple of months with my mom being in and out of the hospital with surgery, etc. She is doing a lot better and is at home, but still needs prayer to continue getting better. However, recently it has come to light that my dad has lumps in his right hand. It turned out that the dr thought they were most likely benign tumors and he had surgery to remove them on Thursday. During surgery, the doctor discovered that it was actually one very large tumor that had grown extremely fast and did not look good. He wasn't able to remove all of the roots as they went to far into the muscle, etc. and to do so would have cost my dad use of his hand, especially his thumb. This is very important to his livelihood as a millright. Anyways, the surgeon called a pathologist to come in to look because even though they originally thought the tumors would be benign, he no longer was certain of this due to the speed of growth and the look of the tumor. Now we have to wait 5 days to find out the results of the labs to know if it is malignent. If so, the dr will have to go back in and remove the rest of the roots, which will mean Dad won't be able to use his hand like he needs to. And of course, cancer treatment. Please pray for my dad and my mom, that God will intervene in this situation for my dad and continue to heal my mom (and for me, because I am going crazy worrying about them but am not able to be there).

First Day of School

For those of you who do not know, my girls are in year round school, track D. Their track, as well as tracks B and C, started back to school on July 21, two weeks ago. So, they are already hard at work in school, even though summer's only half over. And for those who might feel bad for them, we actually like it, especially when October and February get here and we get 3 and 4 weeks off. Anyways, this year Delaney is in 2nd grade and Darilyn is in first. Darilyn has her same teacher from her 1st/kindy combo class last year, Ms. Askins. We really like her, so I know Darilyn will do well this year. And Delaney has Ms. Gaskins. She really likes her so far this year too, especially since Ms. Gaskins gives her students 'smart sticks' aka red licorice, for being smart and doing well. I think Delaney has gotten at least one everyday for things such as asking if stories can be past down 'from generation to generation' to coming up with 24 ideas for a story during a brain storming session (the page only had 14 lines, so she turned the page over and continued writing on the back) So far both of the girls have brought home great work, but as Delaney told Darilyn, "This is all review from last year, so it should be easy!" I think they are doing more than just review, but I am very happy with their work so far. And as to how Dallas and Denae are doing without the girls, well that is stuff for another post. In fact, a few more posts, probably!