My Mom

Yesterday my Mom would have been 58. She has been gone for almost 25 years, and I have have spent most of my life without her. But I remember her birthdays and always look back on what I have left of her - pictures mostly. I was so young, there aren't many memories. From everything I've been told, she was an amazing woman, full of faith in God and love for her family and friends. I try to remember that and her birthday instead of the loss and grief. Even being absent from my life, she has had an amazingly large impact on me - as a mom should. I would not be the person I am today, who God wants me to be, if my life had been any different than it was and is. So, to not be to philosophical, I am exactly where God wants me to be and so is she. I look forward to the day I can see her, healed. So, anyway, this is just my way of saying I love and appreciate my mom.

In this picture, my mom is pregnant with Ronda. Do you see the look on her face - I can almost hear her saying, "Ray, what are you doing with that thing?"

I had to edit this picture to remove the large thumbprint from the corner! This is my brother Randy. I noticed in this picture the sweet look on his face. Just lost in his mommy's face. Do you see it? And she looks so happy - holding her son.

Obviously her wedding day. I think she was 18. I wore this dress on my wedding day as well.

I don't know when this was taken - at my Grandma Gathagan's house, I assume - maybe before mom and dad got married.

This is me, maybe a day or two old? It makes me happy that she looks so happy. This picture has taken a beating, unfortunately.

Mom and Dad - so sweet. I wish I could remember moments like this.

Me and Mom on the floor. I have no idea what the context of the picture is, but I like to imagine we were doing something fun together. I do know it was in our living room in PA.

Staying at home

So, everyone knows that all stay at home moms have loads and loads of free time and that we just sit on our couches and eat bon bons while watching soaps. Or, no, sorry, we actually talk on the phone to our other mommy friends while the kids watch Barney on TV, right?

I don't know about other at home moms, but I stay busy - all day, every day. With work, chores, all the kid things in the day, and other commitments, there's not a lot of playing time. HOWEVER, there are days when I just can't make myself do what I know I should be doing, and those are the days I guess I fit the mold of the stereotypical at home mom.

Today, for instance, I have 9 pages of shops to publish - I mean right now at this moment as I'm typing this. I have been so busy for so many days, I just wanted to take a day to do stuff I like doing. That, I have to say, is the best thing about being at home with the kids. I can take a day if I want (though to be honest, I'll have to work twice as much tomorrow to make up for it, but let's not think about that now).

I played my clarinet this morning for about 2 hours, cleaned for almost that much time and after getting Kathryn and working for a while (yes, I guess even on a play day, I can't completely ignore responsibility!), I took some pictures of a beautiful butterfly that caught my eye bringing Lucy inside.

So, maybe there is some truth to the stereotypes of the S.A.H. mom....at least on my part.

I thought these pictures turned out really well, so I wanted to share them.

The Awana year begins

Unfortunately, I have been a bit scatterbrained the last few weeks, and have forgotten to take my camera to the recent Awana events at church. Our slide show at the end of the year will be missing KICKOFF pictures, but hopefully no one will notice!

Thankfully, our Awana year is off to a great start, so the time I have to spend on it during the week will go from more than 10 hours (!!!!!) to maybe an hour or two a week (with the exception of theme night week once a month and store night one week every other month!!!). I can also get rid of a lot of stuff I had been storing at my house until the club year started, so we can almost completely open the front door now without hitting anything (I do still have to keep some stuff at home!)

We had our Awana kick off last week, and it was not as amazing as I had hoped. Don't get me wrong, it was great because we had a really good turnout for the first night and the most of the kids came back tonight for our first regular-schedule club meeting, so I assume they enjoyed themselves. There were just a few annoying snags that I didn't foresee - such as the consequences of the drought we are in. The grass was SO dry it popped the balloons the game director had planned several games around when they touched the ground. Game time was not as exciting, since a lot of the games just didn't work. On top of that, it was really hot - 95+, and the kids didn't want to stay out for games. Unfortunately, we don't have an indoor game space, so they just had to "suck it up" and finish their time until we were ready for the dinner.

As I said though, of the 32 that came for the kick off, 26 came back tonight for our first real Awana club meeting of the year. SO they must not have thought it was as bad as I did. I guess I will say it was marginal, and start thinking of a better plan for next year.

The kids loved the new take home bags - they get a couple of neat toys (Oriental trading company!) and I get to send home all the papers that always seem to get lost between church and home with dates, rules, etc.

Everything went really smoothly tonight, although, as always, I saw ways I can improve my part in things for next week. We have a really great team of leaders, and I can see we are going to have a great year. A lot of kids have actually already finished their entrance books and are starting on their handbooks! When leading the leader prayer meeting and dedicating the night to God tonight, I could just see that we are going to impact these kids in a positive way, and plant the seed towards their eventual relationship with Jesus as their Lord. It is humbling to have a part of that. I just want to do my best to please God and make it as easy on Him to do the watering and fertilizing as I can.

We traveled to Cary yesterday for the annual ministry conference. The host church, Colonial Baptist, was SO big, a few in my group (me included) actually got lost in the building trying to find one of the classes. We eventually found our way around, so no harm done, but it definitely made me appreciate my little church with its 12 classrooms and 2 building campus (200 person sanctuary and fellowship hall!). We had 7 people in our group, so we didn't quite make the 70% needed to earn a plaque, but it was a really good group, and I think we all got some ideas for ways to improve our methods. We were encouraged and reminded that our mission is to reach boys and girls with the gospel of Christ and train them to serve Him. We were reminded how important it is to reach a person while they are young with that gospel. I think we all came away energized and ready to get started with our kids. We also had a lot of fun on the ride there in back - with Jason driving way too fast, riding in that shaky bumpy church van. We were definitely NOT one of those church groups you see moseying down the highway, taking their time about things. We had fun and learned a lot - it's going to be a great year!

Purble Place

Today is a preschool teacher workday, so it is just me and Kathryn. While I was waiting for it to get late enough to make some phone calls, we played some Purble Place on the computer.

She loves this game. You have to make cakes - and make them look exactly like the picture on the screen. She likes to remind me how smart she is when she gets it exactly right.

Kathryn's 2nd 4th birthday party

Our kids are so lucky! They get two parties every year for their birthdays (and normally a small just the 4 of us party on their actual birthday). Here are some pics from Kathryn's party.

Kathryn's party

Kathryn's first day

Today, Kathryn started preschool. She will be in a preschool program at Julian's school, which she could get into because of her speech therapy. She will have speech therapy 2 days a week, and the other 3, she'll get to play and do all the normal preschool stuff. She was super-excited to go this morning. She has been anxious to carry her new Dora backpack somewhere since we bought it a couple of weeks ago.

Julian was almost as excited as Kathryn was for her to be at his school. Although they will not see each other during the day at all (the preschool kids don't leave the room except to go to their own private playground), he really wanted her there. Now, don't get the wrong idea, he did not want her there so she would be close to him, or some loving brother/sister thing. He told me he's glad she'll be at school because now she won't be able to watch movies without him while he is at school!

Regardless of the reason, Julian was very helpful this morning, and buckled Kathryn for me. This will be her last week riding in a car seat. Next week, she'll be 4, and will graduate into a booster seat!

We were all up bright and early to get ready - we are definitely not used to having to get all 4 of us ready before 7:30 am! But, I think it went well. I did forget to give Julian his lunch money, but was able to fix that when I went back to get Kathryn at 11:30.

When I dropped her off, she went straight to playing at one of the stations, and did not even think to take her backpack off or say bye to me. There was another little boy that was not as excited to be there, and his screams scared some of the other kids a bit, but Kathryn was perfectly OK with me leaving her there. She actually was not ready to go home when I went to get her - she will be the only one staying half days, so she was the only one leaving. She wanted to stay there for lunch and nap, but I just am not ready for her to stay 5 full days at school.

All in all, it was a good morning. She loved being there, and I wasn't too torn up about leaving her. There were a couple of teary moments - for me, not her - but such is life! When I got back to the house from dropping her off, there were 3 reminders going off on the computer for work stuff, so I just started working and was mostly finished when it was time to get her. Pretty good deal. I hope it continues to go this well, and that she won't get tired of it.

STAR reading results

On Thursday, Julian's teacher sends home his papers for the week, so today I received his first week's work. Inside his stack of papers, I found this. This paper says that Julian, in his 1st week of second grade is reading at the level of a 5th grader in his 5th month of school.

Since I had next to nothing to do with it - I'm sure it is 99% genetics and/or physiology - I think it's OK to share with the world (or at least 15 or so people that read my blog) that I feel so blessed to have such a bright boy for my son.

Update on first day of 2nd grade

Julian had a wonderful day at school yesterday. Christopher was as excited to see him as he was to see Christopher - friends reunited! He said they did a lot of math work in class, and he ran a mile around the track. He had pizza for lunch (which he was still wearing on his face when he came home), and kept his yellow star all day. He was excited to go to computer lab today, and to wear his Myrtle Beach shirt, so he could show Christopher where he went on vacation.

He said Mrs. Woodall is very nice, and he actually made a Christmas card to give her (at Christmas, of course), last night while I was at Bible study.

(This must be our house, with the purple chair, yellow walls and the slim Christmas tree. Did you notice the cord for the lights? And the floor?)

And he attached this post it note to it, to remind himself.

(Can you tell he has a somewhat forgetful mother? And that we make reminders for everything here???)

Recall

I was pleased to learn this morning that Kathryn's Dora toys are not affected by the recent recall. Apparently, only those manufactured since May of this year are affected, and she has had her Dora house for maybe 2 years now. Here is the link to check your Mattel toys to see if they are OK...the site was very helpful.

Mattel Recall Information

2nd Grade

Today was Julian's first day of school - 2nd grade! It is so hard for me to believe that he is 7 years old and this is his 3rd year of school. It is wonderfully exciting and yet also heartbreaking to see him being so independent. He told me this morning as I cleaned up his breakfast dishes, "Don't worry, Mommy, I'll wash my own face and stuff today", and off he went to get dressed and do just that - all on his own.

I know, not a big deal, but to me, it IS a big deal. Our job as parents is to teach and train them in the way they should go, and then have faith in what we did and what God will continue to do - and let go. I am so glad that God is empathetic and compassionate to us, and lets it happen in stages, so we don't wake up one day and, with no warning, lose the baby we once held in our arms.

My baby is definitely growing up, and I am so proud of what he is becoming, but at the same time, it's scary to see him letting go of me little by little. I can see Friday when Kathryn starts preschool, it is going to be a long, lonely day.

On a less sappy note, I wanted to mention in the picture above that he was almost unbearably excited to wear his new shirt (Cars), new shoes (unfortunately not Cars, although that is what he asked for originally), carry his new backpack (Cars) and use his new lunch box (you guessed it - CARS!). He really likes Cars.

At 7:15 this morning, Julian was completely ready to go, and followed Jason around as Jason got ready for work. He couldn't wait to get to school and see his best buddy, Christopher.

I can't wait to hear how his day was - only 30 more minutes and we can catch up on what we did today. I hope he's not too mad that Kathryn and I washed the car without him this morning....

Kathryn's 4th birthday

Kathryn's birthday is not for a couple of weeks, but since we are expecting a new baby in the Fink side of the family and just don't know what life will be like for the Finks in a few weeks, we went ahead with the party this weekend at our monthly Fink day. We played in the pool for hours before coming in for cake and ice cream - and presents, of course!

I was so proud of Julian in the pool. He has been hesitant in the past to explore much in the water, and really wouldn't go far away from the edges unless he had a firm footing.

Actually last year was the first year he was tall enough to stand away from the edge without going under. Well, with floaties on, it is really hard to get a head under the water, so we encouraged him to try swimming - real swimming. I took him to the deep end of the pool, which is only about 6 feet, I think, and told him I would be right beside him, but I was going to let go of him, and he needed to kick. Of course he screamed and yelled and tried to claw his way back to my neck, but after a few minutes, he realized he was swimming on his own in the deep end - no cheating by putting his feet down this time! He loved it and from then on, we couldn't keep him in the shallow side. He and his cousin Evan spent most of the day running and jumping in and of course racing from one end of the pool to the other. It was great race to watch- a 5 year old and a 7 year old doing the doggy paddle.

Evan has always been much more comfortable in the water than Julian. He is a really good swimmer.

Kathryn normally takes it pretty easy when we're there - staying at the steps and playing there, unless she's riding around on someone's back. This time, she used a dive toy as a shampoo bottle, and we all had to go sit on the steps and let her give us a bath and wash our hair (really all she did was pour water on top of our heads!).

I also have to say, my brother, who will be a new Dad in just a few weeks, was awesome with the kids on Saturday. Every time I turned around he was playing some game with one of the little ones. I suspect he was having a good time too, but I could just see how much fun he is going to be as a Dad. Because of that, I won't post the really GREAT picture I got of him jumping in the pool with a goofy look on his face. (Even though he was being the typical big brother and constantly splashing me in the face while we swam and totally deserves it!).

It was a really great day - the weather was good all day, the water temperature was perfect, and all of the little kids played well together the whole day. Kathryn had a really great pool party!

Eewwwwww

Ok, really nasty, but really kind of neat to look at too. This one got a couple of sprays of 409 after I took these...I know, it's bad, but the last time I had a soft heart towards a spider, we had about 300 babies in residence outside the kitchen door.

UNO!

This was just a really good picture of Jason and the kids playing Uno the other night while I made dinner.

The big 3-0

Yesterday was my birthday - the big 3-0. It does not seem to be that big of a deal to me, but everyone asks "Does it bother you?" "Are you OK with it?" Well, I can tell you, I am a fan of having birthdays, since I am definitely not a fan of the alternative - no longer having birthdays.

I have finally gotten tired of hearing the tributes to Elvis and seeing Priscilla and Lisa Marie all day talking about "that terrible night". It's always been a neat tidbit of trivia that I was born the day Elvis died, but now, it's just annoying.

Anyway, we didn't do anything big for the birthday, but we did have an excellent chocolate cake - you'll see from the pictures that Kathryn REALLY enjoyed it.

At last!

Tonight was the deadline for the other front top tooth to come out, and we did it - in less than 5 minutes this time, I might add. And he had a lot of fun saying "S" sounds after the final tooth came out.

More Beach pics

We just got these back - they were taken on the 35mm. They were taken at the observation deck at the campground we stayed at, right before we left. Unfortunately, there were no other people around to take our picture all together, so just pretend we are all 4 standing together - that's what I did!

They didn't scan so well - they are really grainy - oh well.

Pappy's pool

These pictures were taken in June when we went to my Dad's house. Of course we have just now gotten the pictures developed. The pool was WAY too cold for the adults, but the kids had a great time. You can't even tell looking that these pictures that they were turning blue and were shivering when they got out!

Listen to this song...

I loved this song. Take a listen...

ENT visit

After seeing Dr. Rosen today, we can all breathe a collective sigh of relief - for now. He said Kathryn does NOT definitely need tubes!! Her ears looked really good today (after 12 days of antibiotics so far); he didn't mention fluid, although now that I think about it, I didn't ask...I guess I will assume there was none.

We will go back next week for a hearing test, and if that is OK, we can continue to "wait and see" if she will outgrow these issues with her ears. She will be 4 in 3 weeks, so he has hope she will not have as many issues this fall and winter as she did last fall and winter (and the fall and winter before that, if we're counting). Of course if she starts to show that she is going to keep fluid in her ears again or that she gets infection after infection again, then we'll have to rethink tubes.

So we will go back and let Kathryn wear the funny headphones and listen for the "birdies" again. Hopefully this time Julian will hold to his promise to sit quietly and read while she does the test. The last time he got a little jealous that she got to sit in the soundproof booth with all the gadgets in it, and he had to sit in a chair outside. So he ended up IN the room with us, which was not ideal.

Please keep Kathryn in your prayers. If only we could just wait this out without surgical intervention. That would just make my year!

Cornerstone church, CA

I am speechless (well,nearly) after reading this blog. I found this on Andy’s blog . Be sure to listen to the video too. This just seems like the kind of church Jesus would be proud to call his bride.

Shaun Groves' blog

Cornerstone church website

This just brings home that the church is the people of God, not the building they meet in.

Incredible!

Crockpot meatloaf

I love crockpot meals in general because they make it so easy to have meals that taste slow cooked or like you put a lot of time into them, when they are really quick to make. Tonight we are having crockpot meat loaf, I found this recipe somewhere online, I can't remember where. It is really good, although, if you like crunchy edges, this may not be for you...

*1 lb. Ground turkey (we use ground turkey, but I'm sure it would taste fine with ground beef as well)
*2 eggs
* Splash of milk
*2 pieces of sliced bread (I have substituted 1 hot dog or hamburger bun for this as well, and wheat works very well)
* A couple of shakes of salt, ground pepper
*Onion powder, garlic powder (I don't like onion in meat loaf - if you do, you can use real onion for the powder). I use just a small shake of garlic and twice that much onion.
* Ketchup (or barbecue sauce - I have used both but like the ketchup better)
* If you like chunky meat loaf, you can probably add green pepper, etc.

Beat the eggs.
Slice bread into cubes, add to egg. Mix until all bread is covered in egg (add a splash of milk if you need it). Add salt, pepper and onion and garlic powder to bread/egg mixtures and mix well.
Add ground meat to egg and bread mixture and mix it up with your hands. It is OK to still see some chunks of bread after mixing.
Dump meat mixture into crockpot and form into a loaf (I try to keep the loaf an inch or so away from the edge of the crockpot - it leaves a place for the fat to go while cooking). Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
Squirt ketchup over loaf until it is completely covered, even ketchup with a spoon.
Cook in crockpot on low from 5 to 7 hours, on high for no more than 3 1/2. (I always put together while the kids are eating lunch, and it is ready when Jason gets home - 6 hours on low seems perfect for us, but longer might make it crunchy, if you like that).

It only takes about 5 minutes to put together, and is a kid favorite in our house...I hope you enjoy!

Ear Tubes

Kathryn failed her hearing test yesterday. Again.

Ms. Beth, her speech therapist came to me with paperwork stating she had failed, and requesting she be taken to the doctor for evaluation. Again.

Poor Kathryn. After meeting with an E.N.T. specialist at the beginning of the year, he agreed we could "wait and see" what happened - give her time to grow and hopefully it would resolve itself - it had been several months since she had an infection, but the fluid just wasn't going away. I am hesitant about anesthesia, and didn't want to do surgery unless it was obviously necessary. She has been in speech therapy since March, and really, there has been only one set back - an infection in May, I think or maybe April. Things seemed to be going well, and I thought we would be able to avoid tubes altogether.

It has been a good spring/summer as far as illness goes in our house. No more weekly or at least bi-weekly trips to the doctor. But, this is the second ear infection since we decided to "wait and see" with the understanding that if there were more infections, or if fluid came back, we would go ahead with the tubes. With fall and winter approaching it is probably best to get this resolved quickly. So, we have an appointment with the E.N.T. specialist on August 14th, and I'm sure he will recommend tubes before school starts. I am so sad for my baby that she'll have to go through the surgery, but I know she is in God's hands, so there is no point in me worrying over it. I trust Him.

And on a positive note, I am so thankful, as I always am, that we live in a place where it so easy to access medical care when it is needed. It is such a blessing - and something I try not to take for granted. So many children just like Kathryn are not able to run to the doctor and get a prescription for Augmentin or easily set up an appointment to have a surgery that will make their lives easier. So, I am very thankful my family's needs are supplied.