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!