Monday, September 29, 2008

20 years ago today.....







A little dark-haired, dark-eyed baby girl joined our family. Casey was exactly 2 weeks LATE, (which may attest to why she's never on time now), and weighed in at 8lbs, 4oz, and measuring 22 inches long. Now she's 20 and in her 2nd year of college, where has the time gone?

Happy Birthday, Casey!

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Random things about me.


This was on my cousin, Jamie's, blog. I thought it might be fun. Please leave a comment if you decide to answer on your blog--I'd love to read yours...

"35 odd things about you"

1. Do you like blue cheese salad dressing? No!

2. Do you own a gun? I personally don't "own" one, but I can use the 20 gauge and Chris has quite an assortment. Oh, I can use Austin's .22 also.

3. What's a favorite drink at Starbucks or other specialty coffee house? Grande French Vanilla Latte.

4. What do you prefer to drink in the morning ? Coffee, it's the first thing I do, my kids have learned not to even talk to me until they see a cup in my hand.

5. Do you do push-ups? If you mean the little orange sherbety things that come in the frozen ice cream treat case, yes, if you mean exercize, no, I lift a 43 lb 4 year old, that's my bicep workout.

6. What's your favorite piece of jewelry? My wedding rings. I had a fabulous pair of silver hoop earrings I wore alot, but that evil "Wildfire" ride at Silver Dollar City stole one of them from me. If you know a pirate who needs one silver hoop, I have one, its mate is in the dirt below Wildfire.

7. Favorite hobby? Photography

8. Do you have A.D.D? Probably...Casey (DD) says I have ADOS..Attention Deficit Ooooh, Shiny!

9. What's one trait that you hate about yourself? Just one? I have several traits I don't like, but I'm working on them.

10. Name 3 thoughts at this exact moment: Casey needs to get her rear in here and get the kitchen cleaned up, I wonder what that loud crash noise coming from the basement was?, If I slip off to bed will anyone notice?.

11. Name 4 drinks you regularly drink. Coffee, milk(I force myself to drink a little, tiny glass before bed every night, water, Diet Dr. Pepper (though I've really cut down on that in the last couple of months.)

12. Current worry right now? Will Mom, Greg, Stacie, and the rest of the mission group make it home safely. (and one more) Will Casey's recent ex-boyfriend cause problems for her when he's home on leave in October. He's been very nasty and threatening on his MySpace. (oh, and just in case he reads this...see the above post about firearms, she now knows how to use them all, and Chris says she can load the clip on the .22 pistol as fast as he can)

13. Current hate right now? My 7th period class (I don't hate the kids, but I really hate their behavior), my right big toenail (ripped part of it off with the door 2 days ago), my flab...not just one area, but the all-over general distribution. (maybe I should start thinking about those push-ups....not the orange kind, the icky ones)

14. Favorite place to be? at HOME with my family. I think I could almost be a hermit...especially if there was a grocery store and Wal-Mart in my cave...or hermitage (?) Hermitage...was Andrew Jackson a hermit at some point???? (It's the ADD kicking in, don't worry)

15. Do you like to travel? Sometimes, but my favorite part of travel is coming home.

16. What color shirt are you wearing? A faded, Ouray, Colorado t-shirt I got on our vacation 3 years ago.

17. Do you like sleeping on satin sheets? NO! I tried it once and kept sliding off, give me cotton anyday!

18. Can you whistle? Not well, and not in any particular tune, about the only whistling I do is with 2 fingers in my mouth and 2 different "notes" when I'm trying to get the dogs to come back to the house. (you'd think the dude on the bicycle would choose another road to ride down, he goes by our house and is immediately chased by a blue-heeler and a 3 legged hound dog. I guess they don't like men in bicycle shorts....)

19. Favorite color? Oh come on! I'm an art teacher, I can't pick a favorite...but if you want to buy me something my kitchen is done in dark sagey greens, cinnabar & cobalt (Fiestaware colors, and ecru or off white (okay, the official color swatch said tea-stain, I figured with 3 kids anything that already had "stain" on it couldn't be all bad, now the rest of their stains will blend).

20. If you could would you be a pirate? No, I'd hurt myself with the cutlass, and there's no way I'm climbing a little rope ladder to a crow's nest! Besides, aren't pirates supposed to take things from people? I'd be the only one who captured a ship to give things away!

21. What song do you sing in the shower? Most recently it's been "Praise You in this Storm" just because that's my son of choice at the moment, but I'm sure it will be songs from our Christmas cantata...as soon as I learn them.

22. Favorite girl's name? I picked out Casey Lynn for DD, but that could really go either way, the other girls' names I had picked out were: Lydia Allison (but I ended up with an Austin) and Jordan Angie (got a Logan Wade, instead, there's a really cool story behind the Jordan Angie name, too, Chris's grandmother was born in Jordan, AR and her middle name was Angie. Wanna know how we picked out Logan....it's a good cowboy name (guess who picked that one).

23. Favorite boy's name? Austin Lance & Logan Wade

24. What's in your pocket right now? lint...maybe an old Kleenex if I really want to dig (I'm wearing my "jammie pants" as Logan calls them)

25. Favorite bedsheets as a child? I don't know why I remember this, but I had the coolest set of sheets with Picasso sketches (doves and olive branches). I LOVED those sheets! Picasso sheets...I guess I was destined to be an Art teacher.

26. Worst injury? Hmmm, I've had a few stitches, I guess the worst one was when I was 16 and fell off a bucking chute, I had around 25 stitches in my arm with that one. (don't ask, I wasn't riding, I was sitting on it and decided to get off..I'm NOT graceful, 'nuff said). There there was the time in 3rd grade when I fell off the teepee on the playground at Flippin Elementary....and in 4th grade when a bee stung me on the tongue...(yes, I'm serious, I had my mouth open and it flew in, that's how)

27. Do you love where you live? Absolutely! We built our house on our farm and have been here a year and a half. I love it! I don't ever want to move, ever, ever, ever.

28. How many TVs do you have in your house? Three, and I don't get to watch any of them.

29. Who is your loudest friend? I don't know...maybe my friends don't seem loud because I'm the loud, annoying one? (you can agree, my feelings won't be hurt, it's the truth)

30. How many pets do you have? We have 2 dogs, Darrell - our blue-heeler mix, and CJ- our little $40 Humane Society rescue dog that was was hit by a car back in the spring and now only has 3 legs...by the way, he's worth $700 now. I just love him, he's my dog, he doesn't even know he's handicapped.

31. Does someone have a crush on you? If they do, they really need to get a life.

32. What is your Favorite Book? The Bible...as for other books, I can't pick one, but there was one I read over and over in high school "Celia Garth" it was about a Revolutionary war spy who worked as a seamstress and heard all the latest from her "Tory" ladies she sewed for, she then turned around and told the Revolutionary army all those secrets. I had to really do some searching to find a copy since it's out of print now!

33. What's your favorite candy? M&Ms, hands down, any kind, but I'm really partial to the dark chocolate ones.

34. Favorite Sports Team? Viola Longhorns! (especially the 7th grade boys...#33 to be exact) I like the Razorbacks, and Ryan Newman of NASCAR, too.

35. What was the first thing you thought of when you woke up? Please let it be Saturday!

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Good grief!

For some reason the link doesn't show up, so you'll just have to do it one of 2 ways, you can either go to the sidebar "blogs I read" scroll down and click on the "FBC Flippin" blog, OR you can manually get to it by using this address
http://fbcflippin.blogspot.com

Any computer gurus who read this and would like to show me how to link (or hyperlink, or whatever it's called!), please do, then I won't look like I'm completely inept when it comes to matters of the blog.

Oops

Sorry, the blog link didn't work. I'll try it again.

Romans 8:28

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." Romans 8:28

If you ever any doubt that this verse is true, then you need to ask God to open the eyes of your heart and reveal His truth, then you need to go look at this blog. Why are you still reading this? GO!

Monday, September 22, 2008

Praise You in This Storm



Friday night, Logan and I rode with Chris to get a load of hay. As we were driving, we got caught in a very sudden, but scary thunderstorm. It was a small cell, but it was making its presence known. It wasn't long before we drove out of it, and I looked out my window to see the sun breaking through the storm clouds. Of course, I had my camera in my lad and was able to get a shot of the "Heaven hole" (Logan's term). I was reminded of the song "Praise You In This Storm" by Casting Crowns (which is one of my favorite songs at the moment.

For some reason, those rays of sunshine piercing the dark clouds just strenghthened my belief that God is with us no matter what we are going through or where we are in life. The storms of life are many, some take a while to build, but grow stronger and stronger until the are huge, and they seem to last forever...like hurricanes. Others happen so quickly and shake us down to the very core, they leave us devistated with nothing left to do but pick up the pieces and move on....those are the tornadoes. Tomorrow marks a year since one of those "tornadoes" happened in my life. We lost Dad suddenly, without much warning on September 23, 2007, but God was there and brought us through that storm....I guess He is still bringing us through, because I lean on Him every day when I'm at school and look at that little rock building where we lived, and what was more recently, Dad's office. Even in times of trial, God gives us so many joys to look to for comfort. Mom would not have had the chance to go to Nicaragua if God had not planned our lives this way, and even more of a joy, a new little Newton will join our family in late December or early January.

I pray that I never forget to praise God through all the storms and to look for those "Heaven holes". This world is a temporary place, and Heaven will not have storms, but joy, peace, and eternal happiness in the presence on the One True God.

Friday, September 19, 2008


My Mom, isn't she just beautiful!


The mission team from fbc Flippin.

Pray for the team from First Baptist Church in Flippin, AR. They leave early tomorrow morning (Saturday) for a mission trip to San Marcos, Nicaragua. Mom is going with them. Just pray that the Lord will go before them and make a way for them to witness to the people who so desperately need Jesus. They will be involved in a mobile medical care/dentistry group, prison ministry, much interaction with children (mom packed coloring sheets taken from a Bible coloring book and the words she and a friend/Spanish teacher translated into Spanish, crayons, and hard candy for them). They will also have the privilege of be a part of the graduation ceremonies from Rhema Bible College and will have taken Bibles (NIV Study Bibles in Spanish) to be presented to the graduating pastors. A large evangelistic crusade will be going on at the same time with approximately 3-4 THOUSAND people will be attending. During the last crusade over 1100 people gave their lives to Christ! What an awesome thing to see and participate! God is good, ALL the time!

Along with Mom, my uncle Greg (Mom's baby brother) and my cousin, Stacie (Greg's daughter) will be going. Please pray for this group, traveling mercies, Godly wisdom, and great health and enthusiasm.

You can keep up with the pastor's blog here. I'm so anxious to see the Lord at work!

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Fly by post


And since I don't like to post without a photo, here's old Abe. I took this in DC on June 3rd.


I really hate to post without some kind of picture to accompany it, but it seems like I just haven't had time to take them or unload them from my camera if I do.

Since school started I feel like I barely have time to breathe, much less get any additional things accomplished. I'm still trying to find my groove, maybe I've permanently skipped a groove! I was really looking forward to watching Biggest Loser tonight, but I still have progress reports to get out. (yet here I am on the computer?)

Maybe someday I'll have some profound post, but it doesn't look good for tonight. I think I'll go watch the weigh in of BL....maybe have a bowl of ice cream to celebrate.