Fall In West Virginia

This is a view from the hay ride up on the hill at Sweet Apple Farms. Aren't the trees beautiful?


I've got a lot of catching up to do so the two posts below are from today.

Mom and Dad's visit

We've been extremely busy. My parents we're here for almost a week and we had a wonderful time. I'm bummed that they had to go back home but am extremely thankful that we had so long to spend with them.

They got here on Monday. They road their motorcycle. Yes, they are crazy but, they have fun. There friends Danny and Kathy road up here with them. They stayed at the Layfette hotel Monday night. We went over their and went to the Becky Thatcher for dinner. If you were thinking of going to the Becky Thatcher (it's a river boat on the Ohio River) Let me save you some money and tell you that it was horrible.

Tuesday, Danny and Kathy went back and mom and dad came here for the rest of the week.
Emma had a tea party like every five minutes. My mom spoiled her rotten playing with her. Mom would go in there every morning and the first thing Emma would say was, "You wanna have a tea party Nonna?" She had a blast. Wednesday. We went to "Sweet Apple Farm". It's a really neat place. And the trees were beautiful. The leaves are changing and it's so pretty!! They had goats, lambs, cows, chickens, and rabbits. We went on a hay ride and froze our rear ends off. We had a really great time though. On Thursday, we went to Amish Country. I thought it was a little over rated but then I found out that we didn't go to the right places. We still had a good time. And, we got a pumpkin for Emma which dad helped her carve while we were at the retreat.

Friday, dad and I road around looking at some houses. We're thinking about buying one to have as a rental. Then we got ready and left for the retreat. Details from the retreat are below. Emma of course had lots of fun with my parents while we were gone and then we took her trick-or-treating when we got back home (Our town did it Saturday night).

Then, Sunday morning mom and dad left to begin their long journey back home :(. We'll get to see them again in three weeks so that isn't too bad. Then Adam's parents are coming for Thanksgiving so that should be fun too.

Well, I've spent alot of time writing this so I guess I better get some other stuff done.

I'm looking forward to your comments hint hint.

Love from above,

Dana

PS, the post below is a post about our retreat.

Orbit: Revolve Around the Son-- Fall Retreat

The Retreat was great! The Theme was Orbit: Revolve Around the Son. Adam did three great, thought prevoking lessons. Everyone got along great (as always). This group does a great job of loving each other. The hotel had a really neat set up with an indoor pool and a hot tub. It looked like a jungle when you walked in. We enjoyed that tremendously. I learned a new game.. Animal Ball. This game is played in the pool and can get quite violent. We were having a great game of very involved Animal ball, when other people, not with our group got in the pool. The teens did not even hesitate when I told them we needed to quit since there were other people in there. They did a good job putting in to practice the things that Adam talked about in his lessons about not thinking the world revolved around us. Like I've said so many times before.. They are a great group and I'm very proud of them.

Lindsey and I found an awesome deal on blue jeans at the mall. They were marked down from $75.00 90% off and then an additional 15% off that. They ended up being like $6.00. We were extremely excited about our awesome fashion deals.

We ended the trip with a trip to a place with indoor go carts and laser tag. We had a girls against guys game of laser tag and the guys beat the mess out of us. I think that Scallywag Tag in Cincinnati spoiled us because no one was that impressed with their laser tag facilities. The go carts however, were a different story. We had a lot of fun racing each other. And, though we tried very hard, we had a little contact where we wasn't suppose to.

Almost everyone in the youth group went. It was a great turn out and tons of fun. Thank you Angie Knost for being a chaperone and thank you Ryan and Jessie Ice for all your hard work!! We love you guys so much!!

Now, let me describe the pictures.

1) This is a picture of most of the people that went. Sorry if you aren't in it. I forgot to get an "official" group picture. I snapped this one while Adam was buying tickets.

2) Picture of some of the girls in the jungle pool room.

3) Jenna and Kylee signing warm fuzzies on our galaxy beach balls.

Real post coming soon

HI,

My parents are here and we're having a wonderful time. I have some great pictures to share with you but I'm missing the cord that connects my camera to the computer. We also have a retreat this weekend that I'm so looking forward to so check back for pictures and a real update.

Until then, please pray blessings on our retreat this weekend.

Love from Above
Dana

A Day Late

Hi,

I realize that I’m a day late updating. There are two reasons for this:
1)I didn’t have anything real amazing to report to you
2)I’m going cold turkey off caffeine and I’m really tired and have a headache.
Anyway, I haven’t been sleeping well and I’m hoping that getting rid of the caffeine habit will help and so far, it has.

Anyway, we had a pretty normal week. MOPS, playdates, church… the usual. We have been working on the alphabet a lot this week and Emma is catching on really well. She has known her ABC’s for a while but we’ve been working on activities where she picks the letter out. I guess if I wanted to stretch the truth a little bit, I could say that she can read because she can pick out the letters I an A and those are words. She has the pledge right now and no longer says Justice frog L. That’s kind of sad because it was cute.

We had the guys night/ girls sleepover on Friday. Both events had a great turn out (probably another reason why I’m tired). We had lots of fun and very little sleep. The rest of the week with the youth group was our usual events. Small groups on Sunday and Heart to Heart on Tuesday. Heart to Heart didn’t go quite as well as I was hoping. Emma kept getting behind me doing “Where is thumb kin”. That was pretty distracting. Anyway, we talked about the passage that says, “His strength is shown in my weakness”. I guess maybe I needed that lesson more than anyone. That page gets a lot of wear in my Bible.

My parents are coming up here. They will be here Monday. I’m very excited about that.

I do have some funny things that Emma did to report:
The three of us were in Toys R Us and Emma announced that Adam pooted. He’s gonna love me for telling you that one.

I told her that we needed to go to the store. She said that she just wanted to stay home. I told her that we could probably go to McDonalds for lunch while we were out. She said, "Can I take a break at McDonalds".

Also, the batteries in my camera are dead and I can’t find the charger so I will put a picture up later.

Love from Above,

Dana

Crazy Week

Picture: Emma and Anna at our play date

Have you ever had one of those days? Well, I've had one of those weeks.

Before I start into my week, I will say that we went to the Zoe Conference with Brian and Angie Knost and had a great time. My mom drove to Nashville and got Emma (I have wonderful parents) and then my mom and dad brought her back to me Sunday.

Ok, now for the craziness....
Matt Wilson had flown to Nashville and road back to WV with us. If you know Matt, you know that he is 6ft7. This becomes important, I promise. Well, we stopped at Chuck E' Cheeses so Emma could have a break. (Thanks to Matt for being such a good sport). It was very crowded. There were like six birthday parties going on. Anyway, Adam and Matt were talking and I took Emma to play in the climbing tubes thing. I stood at the slide because that was the only way down. Well, she was up in the tubes for a while without me being able to see her so I began to get a little worried. I started to walk around trying to see in the windows and couldn't see her. I began to get very worried. I got Adam's attention and he came to the slide. I decided that the only thing for me to do was to climb up into the tubes. I got up in the tubes and couldn't find her. At this point, I organized about ten three and four year olds into a search party. We were all crawling through this maze of tubes looking for a little girl in pink and orange and yelling Emma. This picture seems somewhat amusing now but seriously, this was the most frightening moment of my life. By this time, I was in a full on panic. I was in a full panic and was in a maze. Not good... Since everyone had heard me yelling for my daughter, everyone began to look. I slid down the slide and began to look around. The first thing I thought was to check the bathrooms. So I ran screaming into the bathroom. Then the manager came out and began to very calmly and slowly ask me what Emma looked like. I wanted to hit the guy. I seriously was in the middle of a nervous break down and he was talking like a gay guy. Anyway, about that time Adam came around with Emma in his arms. Matt had spotted her climbing unto a skee ball machine. Thank you God for making Matt tall enough to see over everything in Chuck E Cheeses. Emma will not be getting in another one of those things until she’s twelve. I spent the rest of the trip trying to think of things to tell Matt to prove to him that I was in fact a good mother. But, I’m pretty sure that he’ll always see me as the crazy woman crawling through the tubes at Chuck E Cheeses screaming her head off.

Monday:
We tore down wallpaper at the youth house. We discovered at least five different wallpapers in the many many layers. Maybe more. It's still not finished.

Yesterday:
I left my cell phone on my car and drove off with it on there. Adam went to get it replaced for me only to find out that I had opted not to get insurance.

Today:
Well first, this is the second time I’ve written this post because my computer did something funky and I lost the whole thing.

Emma and I had a play date with my friend Julie and Emma’s friend Anna. Anna is about six months older than Emma. We had a wonderful time. Emma doesn’t usually have girls to play with. But, in the two hour period we were there, Emma pooped four times. And we’re potty training so it wasn’t a pretty picture. I know you may not want to hear about my child’s poop but when you become a mom, poop talk is a normal part of every day life.

Then church…
Our church works with a government subsidized apartment complex. I’m so proud to be apart of a church that does this sort of thing. The kids from this complex are bussed to church. What an awesome opportunity!! I will take a moment to brag on our teens here. Our teens are great. They along with Ryan and Jesse Ice (our interns) go to the Powell Apartment complex every Thursday night and sing songs and do crafts and stuff with these kids. If it weren’t for their hard work, these kids wouldn’t be at church.. Our teens are great!! But, these kids don’t exactly know how to act in church and I had eight of them. It was a crazy night. But, when we were leaving, this kid, Tyrell asked me “Do you want me to come back?” I said, “Well of course I do Tyrell”. He said, “Will you be my teacher?” And so I’m thanking God for giving me the honor of being one of the people that get to show this kid Jesus. And so I’ll pray, somewhat reluctantly, that next week, God will bring me twice as many.

After church:
Emma was taking a bath and the door bell rang. I ran to answer the door. It was a woman from church dropping something off. Then I heard Emma screaming in the bathroom. I ran in there to find that she had poured a bottle of shampoo on her head. I wet a washcloth and handed it to her. She stopped crying and I went back to the door. Emma started crying again. Becky kindly told me she’d let me tend to my child and I went back to the bathroom. Shampoo had gotten into her eyes. I got her out and washed her eyes the best I could. She stopped crying but flatly refused to get back into the bathtub so I could wash the shampoo out of her hair. I then cleared everything off the kitchen counter and told her we were going to do it like Nonna does it at her beauty shop and rinsed her hair in the sink.

But really, after losing her on Sunday, this all seems so small. I really doubt that anyone reads this novel but writing it was definitely therapeutic and certainly cheaper than a shrink.

Before I go, I do have to share with you a couple of…..

Funny things Emma did:

On the way to Nashville, Angie road with me and Adam road with Brian. Emma was sitting quietly in the back seat while Angie and I talked ninety to nothing. Emma piped up and said, “Excuse me”. It may have been one of those things where you had to be there but we lost it.

And, she can say the pledge but instead of justice for all, she has justice frog.

See you next Wed.

Love from Above,

Dana

PS: I spent two hours writing this twice. You could at least leave a short comment

Hilarious

You guys have got to see this. This is the funniest thing I've ever seen. Seriously, whatever you have to download (It should open with Windows Media Player) to view this, do it.
Direction: Click the link below. It will take you to another web page. Then look for the link that says click for video on that page. For some reason I couldn't do a direct link. I want to see some comments on this one people.

CLICK HERE for video.

~~Dana~~

Potty Training

How is it that I'm the only one having trouble sleeping?



Picture: Emma and Connor at MOPS



I've always wanted to be a mother. Most things have come very naturally to me. It's like I'm finally becoming what God has always intended me to be. And then, potty training... God has a funny way of keeping us humble.. Emma is a very smart kid. She has been calling her skin her epidermis for a year now. She can name all of her body parts. She can name about five of her body parts in Spanish. She knows her ABC's. She can pick most of them out when she sees them written. She can count. She knows all her colors. And, she can explain to me in essay format why doesn't need to use the potty. Yesterday, I said, "Emma do you need to TT in the potty"? Her reply, "I don't want to right now". I said, "Emma, big girls TT in the potty". She says, "I don't care". So then she TT's in her underwear and says to me, "It's ok momma, I can change into dry underwear". I will like to say here that I think a lot of mothers rewrite history with their children. It's funny to me that I know so many mothers who say their children were potty trained by two but I know several, several two year olds at the moment and not one of them are potty trained. I feel very fortunate to be living in a place where people move slower. Seriously, that's frustrating when you are going through a fast food drive through that isn't at all fast, but when it comes to potty training, the pressure is off. Most people here don't even start until closer to three and alot of their children aren't trained until more like four. I like that. I sort of look at it like this: Once she's potty trained, that's the end of her not having responsibilities. And that's the beginning of growing up. And I want to keep her a little girl as long as possible. So there, now it's in writing I won't be able to say, years down the road, that she was potty trained early.

Yesterday, we went to our first day of MOPS. I absolutely loved it!! Emma loved it too! It was so much fun. For those of you that don't know, MOPS stands for Mothers of Preschoolers. It's a Christian based organization. The kids go to their own classes and do crafts and games and a bible study and the mom's do the same thing.


Funny Things Emma has said:

Adam and I were reading the story about Adam and Eve to her the other night. When we got done, she said, "Now let me read it to you". She opened up the book and said, "Adam and Eve, don't eat the fruit".

Yesterday after MOPS, we were eating lunch with Adam and I told Emma that we were going home to take a nap. She took my face between her hands and said, "Honey, don't say that".

She is staying with my parents this weekend. We are going to the Zoe Conference in Nashville and mom is going to drive up to Nashville to get her. When I told Emma this she said, "I'm going to Nonna's, you stay here".

Last but not least: She told me, "Connor has a baby brother, I want a baby sister". You people are about to see that she doesn't get everything she wants.


YOUTH GROUP: I'm loving it so much. Last night we had Heart to Heart and we discussed how we were going to decorate the youth house. We are going to go with charcoal, light gray, and aqua. I'm really excited about getting started. We have such a great group. They are growing in so many ways. I think they have a few growing pains along the way every now and then but I think God has great things in store for this group. "I thank God every time I remember them".

Well, I guess that's it for now.

Love from Above,

Dana