Me, Speechless (Don't Faint)

Another picture of Angela singing. I don't have a whole lot to say. I'm really hungry, so I'm going to go eat!

Talented Kids

For some reason when I first put this on my computer wouldn't let me type! That was so weird! I also couldn't comment on anybody else's blogs or find another website. Anything that involved typing I couldn't do. I had to reboot the system to be able to type.

Anyway, this is Angela singing at our church's talent show. I didn't get a picture of Jeremiah cause I was too busy watching him. He didn't tell me what he was doing beforehand. He wanted it to be a surprise, so I was watching intently and forgot to take a picture. He played his recorder with his legs crossed and walking on his knees! Goofy kid! He couldn't just do a real talent. He had to be silly!
This is a picture he took of his baseball uniform for his facebook page!

Just Thought I'd Check In

I seem to be doing this middle of the night posting thing way too much these days. After the kids school play, Jeremiah's sixth grade graduation, and the end of baseball season...oh, yeah, and shopping for summer supplies that need replacing and moving out to Camp Grizzly again (Phew!!) maybe life will slow down again for a while!

"Random" Drawings

Wow! I have not been taking very many pictures! All of the pictures I just downloaded off my camera are Jeremiah's pictures, so I guess I will copy an excerpt from my new book.

Okay, never mind it's not working. Not really sure why. I'll have to figure that one out later.

Did I mention that I won a blog drawing recently? I didn't! How in the world did I let you miss out on that one!?! I won a drawing on the blog Praise And Coffee!! You can find that one in the margin of my blog at this point! I have all the blogs I follow in the sidebar, so you can click on it. They have a monthly giveaway and I won their May giveaway! I just got my coffee from barista de casa this last weekend! It is delicious!!!! I may never be able to go back to drinking Folgers again!! But of course, that is their goal, is to get you to buy their coffee! If it's not too expensive I might! You can find them on both facebook and Twitter, by the way, if you're interested! If you actually like cheap coffee and don't just drink it cause you don't have a choice, like me, you probably won't like it! But if you like things like Starbucks coffee, you will LOVE barista de casa! I'm telling you, I think it's even better!!! They sent me two flavors and the one I have on right now is called "candy ban." It smelled the best, so I planned to do that one last, but I accidently opened it instead of the "Panama Estate" like I planned too, so that's what I'm drinking this morning!

What I really can't wait for is the cd I won! It's by Laura Story and it's called "Blessings." I can't help but think it's a God-thing that I happened to win that cd! I listened to a snippet of it online (cause I was curious) and the title song starts out, "What if your blessings come through rain drops, what if your healing comes through tears." How timely is that in my life as I'm going through counseling and dealing with very tough things in my past and in my current relationships! Their have been many tears and what feels like rain in my life! I watched an interview with Laura about the album and if I'm remembering correctly all of the songs on the album were written during a time when she and her husband were going through some tough times and trying to figure out how to praise Him during the storms. And she talks about learning to see our circumstances through God instead of looking at God through our circumstances! It just seems to be way too timely in my life for this too have been totally random! I think God Himself drew my name out of the "hat" so to speak! The supposedly "random" drawing was controlled by God!!!

Chloe's Been Baptized!

Well, it's late and I haven't downloaded any new pictures onto my laptop yet. Plus, the camera's dead, so I'm pretty sure I can't until I charge it up!

But, I thought I'd let you know, it is now official! All of the Paparazzo children have been baptized! Chloe was baptized this morning! I will hopefully be able to get my hands on the video and figure out how to put those on here. Since my camera died before it was her turn, the video's on my hubby's iPhone! It's a little late to be figuring that out right now!

So, one parenting goal accomplished. Now for the other 5 million!!! Wish me luck.....or better yet, pray!!! Please!!!

The Last Of The Ball Pit Pictures And A Few Misc. Things

Okay, all the girls wanted me to take their pictures coming out of the slide, and they all have such funny expressions on their faces, except for Christina (from my last post) who seemed to be practically posing. Of course, in general, I am struck by how different Christina is from her cousin, and my daughter's best friend, Riley, who is behind Angela in this picture. Riley is amazingly similar to Angela. They're both tomboys who love to wrestle, have punching contests (just like boys!) and yet they also like fashion, too! They are such an odd combination of tomboy and girly girl! It's quite strange raising Angela, and, as you know, frustrating at times! At a LOT of times, but back to the differences between the two cousins. While Riley is very tomboy, Christina shows up to play in the ball pit in a dress and with her hair all done up!! So funny! Only God would make relatives so different from each other! We'd make them just like us, and that would be so boring!
Of course, Chloe is very much like me (without the fear, which makes it so much more fun.) and I most definitely would not call her boring! She just loves life and wants to try everything! I just really hope she doesn't have the horrid experiences I have had to kill that in her! I love it, and it helps me with my issues believe it or not! It's such a joy to see life from her perspective. When she turned out to have learning issues (that I suspect I myself also have, but were never discovered) and she had to take special classes, she said that she was lucky, because she has more teachers than any of the other kids! What a marvelous way to look at it!

Of course, then there are the very odd and out of place things kids sometimes say. Like they're in a completely different conversation inside their heads. Sometimes I wonder why I talk to them at all! They have such marvelous conversations inside their heads while I'm talking, I'm thinking. I was talking to Chloe the other day about her memorizing her songs for the school production, and she said she was sure she'd memorize them as quickly as she did her lines, and asked me how long I thought it took her to memorize her lines. I told her I didn't know, and she told me it took her two days. I told her, I know you memorize things quickly. "It took you two days too memorize the bible verses I had been working on for over a week! And I read them more times a day than you did!" I proceeded to tell her how her mind is like a sponge at her age, and she chimes in with, "Yeah, like scabs." .....What in the world?? Where did that come from??? LOL

Our Neighbor And Me At The End Of My Rope!

This is our neighbor, Christina. This is the best picture I've got of her. She's really cute! I have to admit, I am having a rather hard day today. I'm at the end of my rope when it comes to my daughter, Angela. I love her, dearly, you know I do, but every time I do something for her she doesn't like something about it. And when she doesn't get what she wants she screams her head off. We're about to give up on her, and just let her do what she wants. Of course, we can't actually give her everyTHING she wants! I'm not sure Bill Gates could afford to do that, but provided it doesn't cost much, she's getting what she wants. If what she wants are parents who don't care, she's about to find out what that's like!

A Million Watt Smile

Now, that's a smile worth a million bucks! Now....give me a million bucks!!!.....Come on, what's wrong with you?! Where's my million bucks?!! Not the best picture in the, but that is a million watt smile!!! And Jeremiah says for every watt I get a million bucks! LOL! JK!.....Okay, Jeremiah's not kidding!.....He's just going to have to keep dreaming!

Girls And Their Love

She's so fun! I love her so much! You know, in her young life she's already led two young girls to the Lord! One of those being her sister, who's getting baptized this Sunday at Bridge Bible Fellowship in Moscow, Idaho! We're so excited! No, Chloe did not pray with me! She asked her sister! Those two are so close, it's amazing! Me and my sister HATED each other! I mean, knock out drag out, fighting! All of my brothers and sisters and I could not stand each other! So, it's very different for me having two girls who love each other so much! They share a room. They have bunk beds and often at night when they're supposed to be sleeping, I can hear them whispering to each other and giggling, and I know I should probably get on them for not sleeping, and I do, sometimes, but sometimes I don't. I just smile to myself and walk right on by! I love that they have so much fun together! Of course, they do fight, as well, sometimes. Don't start thinking they're perfect. They're not. But, sometimes, I even go in there after they've gone to sleep and find them on the same bunk with their arms around each other, sound asleep. It just makes me want to cry tears of joy, they love each other so much! They're laughing and probably screaming at the same time, but they're not mad or upset, I promise!

Okay, now you know you're going to get a lecture, right? I've told you before, I'd just stick with my personal writing and journaling and not even bother with a blog if I didn't want to hear from you, so talk to me! And if you read my blog, but are not a public follower of my blog, please consider doing that. I love to know who's reading these posts and even tell me a little bit about you. I'm a stay-at-home mom and I don't get out of this little town much, so I like the reminder that there are other people and other places out there. I really can't wait to move to a more diverse place, so I can get to know some new people and more of them! I'm way too much of an extrovert for this area to be able to handle me! :)

Scary Kids

Okay, so they're definitely having fun! The little girl in the back is my next door neighbor, Chrisina, by the way. Okay, now they're starting to scare me!

Balls In Space???

I know you guys are probably so sick of the ball pit pictures!!! But you know what, I'm not! I love them! I love these girls! Even the one's that aren't mine, although not as much as mine! There are two I'm rather partial to! Sorry, but it's the truth. Besides, I think it's so funny that they decided to start throwing the balls at me while I was taking pictures! it's so funny, how they all look like they're floating, like planets out in space! Jeremiah even said when he looked at them, "Could you just imagine a ball pit like this on the moon!" That would be so much fun!! Floating around with a cage full of balls, also floating! That would be pretty cool!!!

They really were having way too much fun! It's too bad the one in this picture that belongs to me is now grounded. Long story, and I'm sure she would prefer I not tell you about it, so I won't.

Expressions

Some of the expressions you can catch when you randomly snap pictures are just downright hilarious!!! I think she was quite determined in this picture! She looks like she's aiming!

Right at me, too! Should I be worried?

More Joy!

Does it get any better than this?

Me, Studying? Who Would've Thunk It....

I'm on the family computer tonight, not the one I put my pictures on tonight, so no pictures tonight. You just get me talking. I know, it scares me, too. The pictures are sort of a crutch and a way for me to remember the good times when things are hard. Two weeks ago (I think?) I found some books I've been wanting, but couldn't afford, used on amazon.com. I ordered 2 books, The NIV Exhaustive Concordance and The Expositor's Commentary Volume 10. That's the volume that includes 1 Corinthians, which many of you know, I have been studying at length all year, and will continue doing. I started over at chapter 1 verses 1-3 in the last few weeks. I also finally sat down and read the entire book straight through once, which is what I should have done in the first place. My concordance has arrived, but I'm still waiting on the commentary. That's okay, cause with the method I'm using, you look at commentaries last, so I don't need it yet anyway. I did need the concordance, though. I haven't used it yet, but I'm sure I will soon. I'm also reading a book I had no idea what so rich, that has been on my bookshelf for years! It's called "Systematic Theology" by Wayne Grudem! What inspired all this studying? Why Beth Moore, of course. Who always inspires me, duh? Well, okay, most of the time she's the one who inspires me. She's the one who inspired me to take up writing again, after having been discouraged so much when I was younger from my first love (writing and reading). Well, not so much reading, but the two sort of go together, it seems. I don't know a single writer who doesn't also love to read! Also, she's the one who got me interested in in-depth bible study. Not just the book version, but actually attempting to glean something from the scriptures through intense studying using other resources myself. I never really cared to do that before. In fact, it took an enormous amount of energy to convince myself to even read the bible! Now, I can't get enough!!! I'm hungry for the Word!!! Thanks, Beth Moore! I don't know how you do it, but you do! Anyway, I'm having a blast and I never thought I'd ever be interested in this sort of thing!

True Joy!

That's the only thing I could call this given the expressions on their faces! By the way, the girl with the british flag shirt is Angela's new best friend, Riley. They used to hate each other, now their best friends. Go figure?! Preteen girls! What can you do with them?! I guess throw them in a ball pit and snap pictures!!!

Balls Galore!

Chloe was throwing the balls right at me! I thought the middle one turned out kind of cool!

Kids In The Ball Pit

Last week, one day after school and after dropping Jeremiah off at baseball practice, I took the girls to Bumpers at the mall, where they met their friends and I paid for all of them to play in this bacteria infested mess, and tried real hard not to think of it that way! I just started snapping pictures and these are only two of them. Most of them didn't turn out all that great. I hope you can at least get the idea from this picture that they had fun! They had so much fun! It's the best 4 dollars I ever spent!

Last Pic of Easter and My New Book

Oh, so prim and proper! Notice the hands in the lamp. She is soooo grown up (she wishes!) They are pretty fantastic, these girls and their brother! So fantastic! They gave me more flowers for Mother's Day than I had vases to put them in! Not too mention the fake one's that they made at church, and the cards....oh, and the chocolate bar my daughter got me. Also, a wonderful mexican dinner! The Vandal Nachos at San Miguel's are sooooo good! Mmmmmmmmm! My love for mexican food grows every day (along with my wasteline, but let's not talk about that)!!!

What have I been up to these days? Well, I'm so glad you asked! I'm writing another book! I know, I know. I haven't even finished the first one, but this one's been a long time coming! This is the one I'd been planning to write at some point since I was in high school! I just really didn't have any hope to offer to go along with it back then! It really came back to me that I should with my new Christian perspective several years ago when I started my recovery through CR. It was brought back to my attention recently that I really should write a book about my life, really more of a compilation of many fun and some not so fun stories from my life. Growing up and raising kids, so that I am doing. I've only made it to kindergarten so far and it's already three pages! And that's with very narrow margins!!! Maybe I'll do a copy-paste thing of a few sections on here of that sometime like I did with the original draft of my first book. Anyway, that and being sick, and being pampered for Mother's Day and having kids on a four day weekend that I had to drag around to keep entertained, has been my life recently!

Matching Dresses

Yes, as someone already observed, the girls allowed me to buy matching dresses for them at least one more year! Shall we go for yet another year? What are the chances of Angela being happy to wear the same dress as her little sister when she's 11 years old and in 5th grade? Anyone want to weigh in on the possibilities. I do like that Angela is at least trying to look happy in these pictures. They're not the best, but even with a not so good camera, used by a not so good photographer (yours truly), I am always struck again, by how beautiful these girls are!!! They think that Josh cleans his guns every year to prepare for deer hunting, but little do they know he's practicing for when the boys come knocking on the door to see his daughters :) Even though she's only sort of smiling, I actually think she looks really cute with this expression on her face, and dangerously beautiful, as I mentioned before!

I do have to say that Angela did refuse any possibility of cute little white flats with bows, like the one's I bought Chloe! Oh, no! They had to be black heels, little diva that she is!

Angela In Her Easter Dress

As you can see from these pictures, Angela was just thrilled (sarcasm) to have to sit down and have her picture taken! Moody little thing that she is these days. Hormones, you gotta love 'em...not!!!!

Chloe And The iPad

She insisted that I take this picture. This is what she was doing that she really would have preferred over having her picture taken! Nope, not some fun, Eastery activity! She was playing a dress-up game on the iPad! It's official, my girls are divas that are addicted to technology!! It was really important to her that her virtual doll have the perfect outfit for Easter! Oh, boy! What am I going to do with this child?!?! On a more personal note, I'm still having problems with my sinuses. At this point I have no idea if it is from the cold that I had, or allergies or both. What I do know is that I am feeling sad and lonely, which is very dangerous for me. I need to be able to keep my chin up and believe that God has big plans for me and keep remembering whose child I am!

Chloe's dress

Well, here's one picture of her in her dress! She was very excited and it was making it very difficult to get good pictures of her. Sorry, I've been away for a while! I got a really awful cold this week, and even had to cancel my counseling appointment! My sinuses are still driving me nuts!