Wise Words For You...

Um, lets just say...
"It may not be very smart to try and eat lukewarm oatmeal when
you have a cold-ridden, grossly hacking family..."
Jus' Sayin...

Cookies! With Little Hands...

Hmmm, I guess I should clarify... The cookies themselves did not

have little hands. The were MADE by little hands!

Okay, so maybe the title of this post only made me laugh...
Anyway! Josh, Justin, and Jenna went to see a movie a few weekends

ago so good ol' Aunt Rach and I watched Devyn and Rannon :D

What do we do after we've exhausted ourselves playing

dragon/snake chasing kids around?? We make cookies!

Not only did it keep them in one place longer than just 1/2 second, but

it gave us (but unfortunately them too) a sugar boost to carry on for the

rest of the evening!

Um, except that after watching Rannon eat the cookie dough out

of his cookie cutter... The cookies didn't really seem too appealing

to me.

Cut out by little hands :D

Both the kids were super intrigued by the marble rolling pin.

Probably mainly because it was too heavy for them to really use!

Aww, one of the hearts Rannon made (but he hadn't
rolled the dough enough so it wouldn't cut out).

Of course Rach and I never found the fall cookie cutters...

So the kids used the Christmas, Easter, St. Patrick's Day, and other

miscellaneous cookie cutters that we had.

Very unique cookie maker...

A "puppy"!!!

Ah, those eyes... :D

Love them!

Devyn loves to help me in the kitchen when she's over!

I don't enjoy that at all... :P

More cookies!

And Rachel and I made some of these so we felt safe to eat

them... Yay sugar!!!

A Fall Activity... Corn Maze!

A few weekends ago we got invited to go to a corn maze with the M. family!

When we got there all the boys were playing Mario something on the Wii,

and us three were like "OOoookay we are by far the only "old" people here..."

Plus the only girls too.

So we waited around for the other kids' parents to get there so we

could leave. And took weird pictures to kill time.Criky texting... *what a surprise* NOT!

We got to the farm that had the maze and were quite happy to find

another girl in the group! (and Katie was glad we were there too, she

thought that she was going to be the lone girl)

And we decided to do this maze with no maps!

Oh yes, BEST decision of our lives. Ever.

Dark outside, corn maze, no maps.

We are super smart... Our little card thing we had to stamp at all the 10 checkpoints.

All good here!

We're not "lost".

A checkpoint!
:D We found one!!

Quite fun!

I quit early (I know, I know, I'm no fun...

But I had a poor choice of shoes for the night and had some

very unfun blisters :( At least we stopped for ice cream

on the way home...) And most of the people from our group found

all the checkpoints!

Two Pictures I Took.

Okay, I know I'm no photographer or anything like that

but I took these two pictures recently and liked them so I thought

I'd put them up.

This one is from the day trip we took with the W. girls to Galena.

I stood behind this lightpost so that the sun would look like it was

the light coming from the lightbulb (not thinking about the fact

that no light would be coming from the light part itself it'd just be around

the sides...)

And this one is the steeple of a church in Amboy.

My New Niece?? Or Not...

Josh got a new pet.

An Iguana!
Isn't she pretty?!

She found a new perch!
Somehow she ended up on the top of Dads head...

So I guess she's not really my "niece" but that's a more interesting

title than "Josh's New Pet"...

Football Goin' Aunt...

Cameron was on the 5th Grade Amboy Junior Clippers football team

this year, and I tried to make it to as many games as I could...

That wasn't too many but here are some of the pictures that I got

at the games I did get to go to.

This one is from the one and only playoff game they made it to.Some snacks...
The little girls and "Joshy" :D

Marge felt bad that I was going to have to go "all by myself"

to watch one of the games so she came with me!

It was lovely having her along and she was great company for

the 45 minute drive. Thanks Marge!!
(I had to turn this one black and white because unfortunately the

"lil' red camera" doesn't always take great pictures and the color was

pretty off on this one...)

Yay! 2Cam! Goooo #73!!!

There were two Cameron's on the team so "our" Cameron

got dubbed 2Cam :)

Yes I know, they are fifth graders... They don't like being called cute!

But seriously, they were adorable!

Karley running over to give 'brother' a hug!

So sweet!

Karley and Josh inspecting Karley's little backpack.

End of the last "regular" game.

The little Clipper song? Chant? I'm not really sure

what you call it for football players :/

Sigh. I love this boy...

He's growing up so fast!

Listening to what the coaches are saying...

Good season boys!

:D I had fun watching them (and getting to hang

out with Josh during the games...)

Its late.

Its late. When its late I think. When I think... sometimes I talk.
When I talk I ramble. When its late, I'm thinking, and I'm rambling...
Well, normally I end up here to, well, whatever it is I do here. It's not
really talking, so I guess write?

I don't have great wisdom. I don't really do well talking to people.
I haven't been bless with superior skills in any particular area...
But I wish I had the words. I wish I could figure out how to say it and
truly just be that "light coming on" moment.

I wish I could explain just how much God loves you. How he passionately
desires a relationship personally with YOU. If I was an artist, maybe I'd
even try to come up with a picture of what it looked like!

The fact that any bad thing that I've ever done is completely forgiven and
forgotten, and that although I've never did anything super great and even if I
had it wouldn't change a thing about how God cares for me blows my mind!
Why he would ever place the value on me that he has I can't even comprehend!

I read a book a couple weeks ago that although it wasn't about how God loves
us, in fact, it was about something else entirely, it really stirred up emotions in
me like not a whole lot of things can.
And after that I was reading in my Bible and came across verses about God's
love for every one of us and since my heart was already soaring it just really touched me.

I wish I could share my experience with you.
I wish you could have even just a little piece of what I felt!
I only understand this teeny, tiny little aspect of how God loves me, and I know
he love us each the same, whether you know him or not.
But just hear this (yes, I know this is writing, and you can't "hear" it).
God loves you SO much! More than you can even imagine (and I've seen some
pretty big imaginations!) Look for him. He wants you to know him personally!!
He has placed immesurable value on you!

Oh, and happy Sunday!
Enjoy this last week of October!

Grrr!

"They" have changed the way you edit posts for blogger! :/
Now I have to figure this out all over again! First I change stuff, now they've changed stuff...
Grr, oh well, this is supposed to be easier. Maybe in a month or so I'll figure this out :P

What A Wonderful Day!

:D I had a wonderful day today!
Slept in 'till 8, had lunch in Dekalb with some of Mom's side
of the family, then went for frozen custard (which was absolutely
wonderful!!!) Did a little shopping, read a great book on the drive home,
came home and spent "quality" time with my sisters (which included
Rachel on her computer, and Criky and I both on laptops with Me on
my bed and her sitting on the floor next to mine) We so rock! Then we
took Taffie out for a walk because she SO wanted attention that she was
being annoying, and then came back for some after dinner popcorn and
TV time!

It kind of dawned on me tonight that I miss calling Grandpa and telling
him about the wonderful time I had (and showing him the neon orange belt
I bought just because I could...) :(
He would have loved to hear about the stuff I did, and what everyone else
did, and how the van drove, and what the gas prices were, and why didn't I bring
him back custard?!, and "Yep, you've sure got a good little dog!", and wondered
when I was coming to see him because he had a little project for me to do... :D

But anyway, that's not what this post is about.
I am so thankful that I got to have such a wonderful day!
The weather was great, the company even better, and well, you can't beat custard!

Lovely Afternoon Walk.

I've been so enjoying this wonderful weather that we have been

having that one day I went for a long afternoon walk. I went on some

of the gravel roads that run between the farms that surround Eldena.

It was beautiful!

Of course when Rachel and Dad heard that I was going for a walk they

decided that they wanted to come along too... So I let them walk together

and I lagged behind taking pictures of whatever I deemed 'pictureworthy'

that way I got my "Becktime" and we all could enjoy the great temperatures!

Even with the clouds the sky was just so pretty!

So blue and when the sun was able to shine through...

(Happy sigh) Ohhh, so good!

Wandering around, taking mindless pictures...

Digital cameras are awesome...
I 'let' them walk with me for a while...
Good deed of the day done :P

Corn. The pretty much one and only landscape of the area...

Well, that and soybeans anyway.

:D If you couldn't tell, I liked these flowers!

This one just made me feel all "fall-y".

Shadows (just 'cuz there cool).

Another "fall-y" shot.

These pretty Morning Glory's were growing along a fence that was

surrounding a soybean field. And a little further they had started

to actually grow throughout the field! It was SO pretty to see the bright

colors amongst the dead/yellow-brown soybeans.
(Do I get extra points for using the word 'amongst'??)

SUPERBEEKO!!! :D

:D Eldena!

A split apart tree that we decided Rachel needed her picture taken in.

And then headed home.

Yay for lovely weather!