Happy belated Thanksgiving and stuff!!

Hi! It has been a while and I apologize for that. I did find my cords, so we will see how our new DSL does downloading stuff.

Ok, where to I start? Since I last wrote, everyone came down with the stomach flu, I got to see Misty and her family the 15th, I got and still am getting over an eye infection, the Missouri tigers won the north big 12!!!!!, we went to Grandma Violet and Grandpa Clyde's for thanksgiving, Nathan decided to take his name back to Nathaniel, he met a new McDonald friend who actually came over to our house. I think that sums it up about. :-)

The week I left off, I went out to Tuttle to see Misty Williams. She had invited me to an Arbonne party, but when I called her, she said it was actually so she could just visit while everyone else ordered product. It was nice to see her and her daughter Dacia. I saw Josh a couple of times as he was watching the OU basketball game. She will graduate in May with a degree in deaf interpretation. Dacia already knows all the alphabet and certain phrases. It is cute to see her. She is 2 but has her daddy's legs, so she looks 4. The following weekend, Chris, and Nathaniel went down with the stomach flu. This week Hannah had it.

The week of thanksgiving, I was designated as Hannah's home room mom for her class, so I went to the kids thanksgiving parties and took pictures. Hannah has made some really close friends, which I am thankful for. She talks about Kaia, Jenny, Allison, Sarah and Brianna a lot. I think she and Kaia are "best friends" . Nathan's class they all get along well, but 2 boys have adopted him into their "friend club". Blake, now called Jeffery, and Zach. Which reminds me. In his class, there are 2 Nathans, so in order to help Mrs. Carson out, Nathan decided to be called Nathaniel, so she wouldn't have to call them, "nathan c and nathan k". Well, when he did that, there were also 2 Blakes. So, Blake E, who is one of Nathan's new friends decided to do the same. His real name is Jefferey, so now he is Jeff. It is funny. They have a good time in there and I like that for him.

AS for the eye infeciton I am fighting, I have no idea except maybe it is leftover pink eye form Nathaniel, but its been going on for a while, so we will see.

Lets see, thanksgiving week, the kids were out wednesday, but it was supposed to turn cold, so I took them to the park and to Mcdonalds for supper before we cleaned and baked all wednesday. A lady offered me a place to sit and we began to visit. Her grandson was running around with Nathaniel. His name was Braden. He and Nathaniel had so much in common and we exchanged phone numbers to see if we could get together and play sometime. Well, friday morning, they called and they were in town and wanted to know if they could come over and play. We said sure and so the boys played trains and board games and hot wheels. Hannah drew pictures and Sharon, the grandma brought over a huge brown bag full of unshelled pecans. So we talked and shelled pecans. It was nice.

As for thanksgiving the day, we worked wednesday on hannah's baked mac and cheese, nathan's apple crisp, my green bean casserole, and Chris' carmel cream cheese brownies. We took all that up to Piedmont around 10. WE helped Aunt glenda set stuff up and Hannah proceeded to stick herself up to grandpa Clyde. They looked through her pony coloring book and she showed him her my little ponies. He showed her his new project, a yearling foal named Dolly. WE ate food and visited with Codie and her little girl as well as Aunt Lisa and everyone except Lisa's family and ours left to go to other families houses. Lisa, Charlie, Jerry, Greg and us stayed with grandma and grandpa and watched the first half of the cowboy game. By then it was getting dark and so all of us headed home. In the leaving, I left my purse at Grandmas, so yesterday, I went carefully up there and spent the morning and afternoon visiting with her and helping her with a couple of projects before eating sonic and visiting some more. It was a really special visit and I think I am going to make sure to do that at least once a month since it only takes about an hour to get there.

Finally, this last weekend, we stayed up to cheer on the tigers and jayhawks in the big 12 game!!

I was cheering for both for different reasons. Both of them are underdogs, and I am a sucker for underdogs. It was an awesome game and the tigers won!!!! Now, this weekend they MU tigers will play the OU sooners. Chris has to close, so the only one here cheering for the sooners will be Nathaniel. :-)

We are slowly adjusting however, we all still really miss St. Joe. Hannah the other day started crying in front of her classroom door and said she missed Mrs. Kingery. I started crying too, because I miss everyone there too. I told her that God promises to walk with us and that He was the strength that keeps me going somedays too. It was so hard to make her go when I can totally understand. And in thinking about Christmas, and what we were going to do together as a family, it just is so foreign here. WE know that God is good and in control, so we continue to rely on his strength to keep pressing on.

Chris' job is getting easier just becasue he and Joe have come to some understandings which make them work really well together and there is a good support system still in St. joe that Chris is leaning on when it comes to situations here. Continue to pray for him, though, as his schedule due to the holidays is crazy. He closed last night and was home about 1:30. He had to be back in and in disguise for some issues at 9:30. He puts on his vest and works his normal shift to close tonight and then he closes tomorrow too.

Well, I also forgot in looking at pictures, that Nathaniel lost another tooth. He just pulled it out himself and was so proud. And we decorated the house for Christmas this last weekend. that was fun for all of us to do together. Well, am going to finish up posting picts. Included will be pictures of when mom and dad were here to help move us in. they will be here this weekend for dad's birthday and the huge train show at the fair grounds. we are looking forward to that.

going to go!! all our love!

a quick update

Hey! Just to let you know, the plumber came by Friday and come to find out a piece of the toilet itself had fallen into the pipe below the toilet. Enough "stuff" had gotten clogged around it that when that fateful flush happened, the toilet shifted and the water backed up and shot around. he completely took the toilet, however, his company did't have a replacement one at the moment. The soonest he could bring one was tuesday. so, the smell of the sewer is all our master bathroom is. We got a rug doctor so we could wash the junk out of the carpet and that helps with the smell. along with keeping the bathroom door shut.
And, that day that I wrote where Chris had to go in early. he ended up having to also stay until 2:30 the following morning helping check in 2 delivery trucks. Be praying for him. His new postition is really wearing him out. yesterday he was the manager to handle ever customer complaint, so all he did for 12 hours was hear people gripe about how they weren't satisfied for whatever reason. And he did that all on minimal sleep. I am afraid he will get sick or something just because he isn't getting enough rest and when i pack him a lunch, he usually doesn't eat it or he eats it when he gets home at 3am. on top of that he is frustrated with certain people in his life right now who have been really negative and not understanding and they are pushing him and his patience button. he really wants to enjoy the kids when he sees them and really misses being a part of our family. he said, "i was really glad when you were coming down because i would see you, but it is almost harder now to be here and see you for just a while and then have to leave and be gone away from you all for days in a row"
so, if you could pray for him, I would appreciate it. he needs it now more than ever!!
Ok, going back to bed. got up to take some allergy medicine and it has kicked in now, so I need to get some rest. We are headed to Clay and jenn's church. Chris has to be at Lowes at 9 and work till close, so we figured we would go into town and see them and maybe get some groceries and stuff. will write again later. just wanted to update you about the exploding toilet and give you the prayer request for Chris.
till next time, leaning on "the rock of my salvation".

What a week!!

Ok, I guess I should start from last Thursday. We got the kids enrolled in school. They got to explore the building while I filled out about 20 sheets of paper. Then we headed to Piedmont to see Chris' grandparents. They were going to show us Grandpa's new model airlplanes and test fly them. We had a great afternoon of visiting and laughing and then we ate supper at Fire mountain. We split ways and they went home and we came back to Norman.
Friday was Chris last day off, so we went to the library and hung out at home. Saturday Chris went back to work and the kids and I hung out here and unpacked more boxes. We met Jenn Atchley and Eli at burger king for supper and to catch up. It was a lot of fun! Sunday we went to Journey church again and then spent the afternoon watching the nascar race and went to the mall to play at their play area.
Sunday I was starting to have a hard time thinking about letting the kids go. Nathan's teacher seemed super nice and we hadn't met Hannah's. I was really nervous, scared, sad, etc.
Well, Monday came and Nathan woke up with crusty eyes. Yep, you guessed it, pink eye. That was what I suspected, so since we dont' have a doctor yet because we don't have insurance yet, we went to the urgent care. I walked Hannah to school first and then Nathan and i went. $90 later, we had eye drops. Doctor said he could go to school the next day if his eyes had cleared up.
Well, we did that tuesday, however, after looking at Nathan's load, he is definately being challenged. Grading starts here in 1st grade. In Missouri, they don't do that until 2nd. Anyways, so there will be a lot of studying. He has daily homework that I have to sign. Wednesday I was feeling sick, so after sending the kids to school, I came home and slept all day. I felt better in the afternoon, which was good, because "after school special" story time was at the library and "1st Wednesdays" at Journey. We went to both of those. Then today our landlord came by to do a "move in inspection" which pretty much consisted of us listing things that were already scuffed up or stained when we got here. That way when we move out, we dont' have to take the blame for it. Kids and I were looking forward to a fun night when out of no where, the master bathroom's toilet started spewing water from the bottom of the toilet. We called the maintenace line and they told us to shut the water off and keep a minimun use on the water till they could get to us in the morning. So, $50 later with a new shop vac, I spent this entire evening sucking up sewage out of our carpet. It had leaked into the living room, the master bedroom, the hall and of course, the master bathroom was covered in about 2 inches of filth.
So, when I title this, what a week, I am telling you, God has drug me about 30 different directions. On top of that, the district manager came into Chris store and ripped all the new zone managers a new one, saying that if the store looked that way the next time he visited, he would fire all of them. Chris stood up and said, "None of us were trained very well and haven't been here long enough to know what we are doing. You can't threaten our jobs when we haven'g even learned them yet." He said the other zone managers were like, "What are you doing? Yoiu are going to get fired today." It will be interesting to see what happens from here on out. He got called in early today and recieved a warning from the store manager for being too mouthy. He wasn't going to write him up because he liked him and wanted to give him a chance to learn. He left me a message saying, "I hate my job. I wish we had stayed in missouri". I had to remind him that we can't go back, we have to keeping stepping forward." That is hard for me, considering I have had the hardest time being behind this move. It seems like when I start to feel like I am finding my nitch, something like an exploding toilet brings me crashing back to reality. I am nothing. I am a speck of dust and my life is only but a breeze. On my own, I am nothing. The only way I can do this is if I am doing it fully and completely trusting in God and taking Him at His word. Swallowing His promises whole and making them what my life is about. As I was sucking sewage up tonight, all that crossed my mind was the song, "I will praise you in the storm." And an image of my kids singing the psalms and dancing crossed my mind. I wish I was more like them. Innocent and willing to lift up His name, even when things aren't the way I want them.
Anyways, so that is where I am. I am hoping you week was one that was more calm and full of God's peace. I am working on the pictures of the place. I haven't found my cord yet, so....
Well, until next time, trying to trust in Him with EVERYTHING!!