Birthday, animals, etc...

Dad blowing out the candles on his cake.

Dad eating his cake. :)

One of our Easter pictures. It was terrible outside, which is why we took them inside, but not very many turned out well. This is the only good one. At least I think so.

My presents from Jaja and Grandma. A lot of it was for my hope chest.

The ring Mom and Dad gave me. We all get one on our 16th birthday

Me blowing out my candles. I had the best cake (cream cheese pound cake) ever, too!

Kayla's present from the Hastings. She really loved it! I wanted to include the pic of her when she saw what it was, but I didn't have room.

One of the presents from Jaja and Grandma to Kayla. It's really cool! They wanted a group pic because they were leaving the next morning.

A cute picture... don't you think so?

Erica and I got Kayla Prince Caspian for her birthday

Well, lots has happened. It doesn't seem like a lot when I write it all down, but it's been busy. Dad, Kayla, and I had our birthdays. They were all great! I got a wonderful collection of letters, from so very wonderful women, so thank you!! It means so much to me! I love them all, and you will never know just how much they have helped me. I also got a great book from the Hastings, but I didn't add a picture because the book glared from the flash. Thank you Hastings! It was great! Mom wants me to add a close up picture of my ring, so I may do that later, but I may not. I don't know. Easter was good, too. We had a yummy meal, and I thought Erica's dress was beautiful. I really like it on her. :) Along with all the birthdays, we also had some changes around the farm. We no longer have the turkeys, or the black steer. The turkeys got too mean. And the steer.... well, we couldn't keep him. We took Tavi to our friends house to get bred, again, along with the goats. So I guess he got a little lonely. He jumped our pasture fence, and ran down the street, about 2 miles down. The cops came and told us where he was, then we had to get a stock warden to come get him for us (the trailer was at the friends house). It took us 3 hours to catch him. So then we put him in the backyard. He kept pacing and pacing. Finally, when I was gone babysitting, he jumped the backyard fence. It's a 5 ft tall hurricane fence. We don't have a higher or more secure fence, so we had to get rid of him. On the brighter side, Nancy Grace had some chicks hatch! Only 2, but we bought 6 more and gave them to her. So she had 8 of them. She now only has 6. But they are growing up fast. And Kayla wanted another rooster, because Macho is just too busy with all those hens, so she wanted 2. She got a little 2 month old rooster, and he's terrified still. But he'll get better. I think that's about it.

Catching up

Well, so much has happened lately & we haven't slowed down to share all our happenings; spring is always so busy for us with all the birthdays & celebrating Easter - Resurrection Day. What an awesome day to reflect upon the goodness & grace of Christ our Savior & Lord! He has Risen, he has Risen indeed!!

It has been a silly spring with crazy weather for the garden which is trying to grow but not succeeding very well. :( Hopefully miracle grow will spur it on "to grow and good works." :) My parents left on Good Friday, which took on a new meaning for us (sad Friday) because of their departure. We were sad to see them go; however, we understand wanting to get home to their own neck of the woods. They will be greatly missed and we so enjoyed our time with them. Not just all my Dad's hard work (he refinished 2 bathrooms & also other miscellaneous stuff) but all the day-to-day interaction. The house is so quiet without them - which is saying a lot in a house with 3 teenage girls! We've had 2 birthdays with another to come on this Friday. So I will leave those for their own entries. We will enclose pictures soon. Time to go enjoy family and more chicks hatching - I wonder how many we will have by tomorrow? Shelly :)

Camping and other things

Uncle Ralph and Aunt Shirley came to visit

Brutus drinking and watching the goldfish. I took the camera and snapped some pics of the animals, but this was the only good one.

The beautiful sunset we saw when we went camping at South Toledo Bend

Dad having fun fishing

Kayla had fun too

The fish KK caught

The two lovebirds! :)

Uncle Ralph and Aunt Shirley came over last Saturday. They are missionaries in Africa, and Uncle Ralph is Dad's uncle. It was fun. They stayed for lunch and we talked, and it was very good to see them.We went camping Monday through Wednesday last week. It was Dad's week off from work, and our spring break, so we decided to go camping. It was a blast! Erica took tons of pictures; it was hard choosing which ones to use. We hiked, and fished, and things like that. The weather was great. And the food was good. Dad does really good cooking when we camp. But we weren't technically camping...we were in a cabin. but we called it camping. We started school today. It's no fun, and I miss being able to do whatever, but it's also good to have a schedule and order. We'll see how long I think that way! :)

Jaja's Birthday and the Houston Rodeo

Jaja's birthday cake and ice cream

Jaja and all of us

At the Houston Rodeo. The brown cow at the top of the pic was the Grand Champion cow in Houston.

Clint Black

Clint Black was the performance the night of the Rodeo

Well, first things first. Erica is doing great. She can wear her hose during the day, but has to wrap her leg at night. Her leg is down more than the extra 5% we were praying for. And there isn't going to be nearly as many trips to Houston for Erica. She will have check-ups every now and then, but not very much. Yea! Praise God, and thank you for all of your prayers!! Now for the pictures. Jaja's birthday was March 11, (Wednesday) but we celebrated on Thursday with cake, ice cream, and presents. Then on Friday we went to the Houston Rodeo. It was an absolutely horrible day to go anywhere. It was rainy, windy, and about 45 degrees. It was awful. But we stayed inside for most of the time. We saw lots of cute little animals, lots of pretty big animals, and cool stuff. It was really cool watching the actual Rodeo that night, and listening to Clint Black was awesome. It was a really fun day! We are actually on spring break this week, and next week also. We have been cleaning a lot. Mom made us go through our rooms & clothes & closets. And Kayla started soccer. She is really excited. She has been waiting forever to start. She still needs cleats (very badly) but she is loving it.

New Week

It is the beginning of another long week of traveling to Houston. No complaining - just the days are long. We went 4 days last week & will go 3 days this week & 2 next week. It is 2 hours one way . . . . but we have witnessed God's providence & provision countless times during our driving! Wow, it is so amazing to feel & see His presence in such a visual way! :) However, we received good news today because Erica's swelling has gone down by 4%. Our prayer now is for it to be reduced by 5% more before next Wednesday. This is a God-sized prayer; but I serve an awesome God!!
Mark 10:27 "Nothing is impossible with God"!

Alissa & Kayla are doing their schoolwork while my parents continue to be a blessing by cooking & taking care of the house & laundry. Also, my dad is working on remodeling the second bathroom on this trip! :) The first one turned out fabulous - of course.

We are also waiting for Kayla's garden to grow, I helped her plant it on Saturday. We should have strawberries, squash, okra, cucumbers, peppers, 2 kinds of tomatoes, green beans, lettuce, spinach, carrots & herbs. Come on sunshine & rain!

Erica's birthday pics (I totally forgot to give this thing a title, again!)

Erica waiting for everyone so she can open her present

Another one of her presents

Looking at her present

Smile! You get cake!

You're 18

Well, it was Erica's birthday on the 28th. But it wasn't much of a birthday because she got cellulitus. The worse it's ever been before. She had a fever all day, so it we didn't celebrate. Well, we did, but we didn't have cake or ice cream, and Erica didn't open her presents. Everybody called, an amazing friend, Ashleigh, came over, and all that stuff. We did a lot of other things the next day right before and after church. She had a good time, I'm pretty sure. She went to the doctor in Houston with Mom yesterday. We told them she got cellulitus again, so they asked her to come in. She has to go every week day this week to get therapy. They've given her preventative medicine, and she's doing great. They're approaching her lymphodema differently then the previous doctor did. We're experimenting to see what works best for the swelling to go down. So we'll see what happens. Please keep her in your prayers. Thank you so much!!

Pictures, a birthday, and prayers

Pretty picture of Cleo in the backyard

Another

Beautiful Philly! I love her!

Cute Pixie

KK riding Cleo-girl

Me trying to stop Cleo

The wind is blowing me over.

Tonight was very cool. For those of you who don't know, yesterday was Erica's birthday. Yesterday was also the day when Erica got cellulitus. And the worse she has ever had it before. Her temperature was 102.5; her average is about 96.5. Her leg was swollen, very hot, and and red all the way down to her toes. Needless to say, it wasn't very much of a birthday. She didn't get to have her favorite dinner, and she was sick all night. This morning she didn't go to church, and literally almost everyone prayed for her. She was feeling much better today and she opened her presents, but that was all we had time for. (I'll show y'all pics of that later.) Tonight at church, someone, a teenager, was asked to come pray for the youth. No one was picked out, Pastor just said, whoever feels called. A young man came to pray. He prayed for all the teenagers (the sermon was focused on them) and then he prayed for Erica. It was very touching. I can't describe how glad I am that he remembered my sister and prayed for her. There are no words for the gratefulness I felt. Many people came up after and said they were praying for her, and lots of sweet gestures of kindness were done for her. We were all very thankful. As for the pictures, there isn't much to say. It's just your average Saturday pictures.

Fun stuff

This is Jaja and the wonderful hope chest he made for me

the inside

At Some Other Place

The "Line"

Tavi, the nosy girl

Well, I have a couple more pics of things, so I thought that I should split it into two entrys. First, there are the pics of my hope chest from Jaja and Grandma. It's my 16th birthday present, and Jaja made it for me! I love it!! And below that are the pictures that Mom took of us at a soup kitchen. We serve there on Friday once a month. It's really fun. We make all the food (and it's really good, too!) and then we serve it, and clean all the dishes. It's fun! Then the bottom pic is of Tavi smelling out Jaja's truck. We brought it into the backyard so we could pull out the stump from Hurricane Ike. And we got the stump out! This is crazy! I keep forgetting to give the entry a title. So I have to publish it twice. I'll eventually remember.

Our weekend w/out Mom (mostly)

Kayla having fun with Cleo

Smile!

Running

Cleo and me plodding along

The cute goats

Cleo in the woods

Pixie giving Kayla the "come outside with me or I'll die" look

Pixie and Brutus fighting. Bru won.

The beautiful flowers that Jaja and Grandma got for our sunroom. They smell wonderful!

Sawyer. He looks harmless enough, but he charges everyone all the time.

Well, we had a fun weekend. Mom went to a Wholehearted Mom's conference in Dallas with Mrs. Hastings and Mrs. Platt. She had so much fun! I've heard all about it. But she left early Friday morning. Dad and us 3 girls went to watch the Hardin-Jefferson Hawks, Silsbee Tigers basketball game Friday night with the Blanchards. It was so much fun! We lost (the Hawks) but it was fun to watch. Then on Saturday, Jaja made these incredible cinnamon rolls! I loved them! Then the vet came to give Cleo her shots. I went out about 40 minutes ahead of time to go halter her, and put her in the backyard to make it easier for the vet. I took the camera, snapped some shots, and then tried to halter Cleo. It didn't work. She wouldn't be caught. Eventually, whenever I went near her, she took of running. Literally. She galloped across the pasture. So I couldn't catch her to save my life. So then the vet came and she wasn't haltered. Erica had to come out with her wrapped leg, and lure Cleo with sweet feed, which I really didn't want to do, but oh well. So that was interesting. Then later, KK and I rode Cleo, and she was pretty good. It was fun. And right now, our computer is broken. It's got a virus. Jeremy Downs fixed it for us, but Dad has to finish it tonight. Mom's Apple never broke, though. Mom won't really let us use her computer, cause we mess it all up, so this is the first time I've been on the internet in a long time. It was great. And Pastor Raymond is doing sermons on Do Hard Things on Sunday nights, and he asked Erica on Saturday if she would go up on stage and answer a couple of questions. She did, and she did awesome!! :) I'm so proud of her.