One more thing

I am stalling...

If there is any chance that I can check my email or my blog comments while away, PLEASE do not say a word about what happens tomorrow night on LOST. I am praying that I can stay in a bubble until I get home to see what happens.

Tyler has cried 2 times already this morning about us leaving. Emily says, "I will miss you, but I'll be fine." About 15 minutes ago, I announced, "I have everything ready for you two to go. Now it is time to work on me." Tyler said, "Are you starting to pack for Honduras?" Good grief. What does he think I've been doing for a month?

There is a website for the people we will be working with.
It is www.rnmhonduras.com.

Checking out

I am checking out of the blogging world until probably next weekend. We leave Thursday morning and I have so much to do that there is no way I can blog tomorrow. We will return late Thursday night if there are no flight delays.

I have heard that there might be some team updates online. If you are interested, check sycamoreview.org and click on the student link. Maybe you'll hear how we are doing!

Keep all of us in your prayers over the next week. Pray for...

*Me to be calm during flights
*Me to not get sick on the bus
*SAFETY
*Good weather
*Everyone to get along
*Jesus to be shown to everyone, everywhere we go
*Our families while we are away

See you later!

The ducks

My mom's school hatched baby ducks 4 weeks ago. There were to be many more ducks, but due to a tragic mishap, there are only 2. My mom duck-sat this weekend. Emily chased and chased those poor babies! Tyler had very little to do with them, except for telling Emily to catch them! And, yes, Emily is wearing rain boots. Her newest fashion craze, to my dismay.

May, in a nutshell

Why is May always so hectic? I was looking through my pictures and calendar and it is amazing how much ground we cover in May...

Soccer- two practices a week, plus 2 games a week means LIVING at the soccer fields...



Senior Sunday, with the 21 graduating seniors this year. YIKES!

Parties galore...end of 2 soccer seasons, birthday parties, graduation parties, etc.

Program, program, program...costumes, practices, favors, diplomas, reception...





Mother's Day at the zoo


A visit from Gran

End of the Year Carnival for Preschool



Tyler's Field Day






Lindsay's baby came early

Shots, plus a hit nerve, for Honduras

Preschool dinner at Rosebriar

Haircuts

Tyler's last day of first grade


Memorial Day at the Nana and Papa's (Few pictures taken before the monsoon hit!)





Endless laundry, cooking, cleaning that is called life

Packing, packing, packing for Honduras

Stalling by writing huge blog entry while I should be packing more...

It's almost time...

Brent and I, along with about 30 of our dearest teenage friends, plus some other blessed adults, are leaving for Honduras Thursday morning. And when I say Thursday morning, it might as well be Wednesday night. We have to be at the airport at 4:00 am. Not my thing...
We have been planning this trip since Christmas...raising our funds, getting our shots, trying to figure out WHAT to take to Honduras, and it is finally here. We are still a little fuzzy about what to take, since our space is limited. We have a suitcase of supplies packed as one of our bags. Brent and I both started actually putting things in bags today to weigh them. Maybe by tomorrow, I will be done with that!
Lots have asked what we will be doing in Trujillo, and we feel pretty confidant that we know exactly what our plan is now. Of course, that is sure to change! We are mainly there for construction work, with a little VBS and such thrown in. We are doing some repairs on a school, getting a pediatric clinic closer to opening, and repairs on a home for disabled children and their families.
The kids are going to Brent's parents. That means 2 more suitcases to pack! Will I ever get this done???

I have lots of blogging to catch up on before we leave...we've had lots going on at the Patterson house!

Square to my ears

That is how Emily told Shelli to cut her hair. Shelli and I just looked at each other and shrugged. What does square to her ears mean??? After some questions, this is the haircut we ended up with. Essentially, it is my haircut, just with curls. It looks really cute. FYI, her outfit was my first sewing project of the summer! I have spent my first days of vacation finishing all of my unfinished projects before beginning anything new. Tomorrow...smocked bubble gum machine jumper! (If I get my real work done first!)

Program Frame

This is a close-up of the frames that I did for my class.

Program night

Our program and graduation was last Thursday night. It went very well, but I have few pictures since I was actually IN the program. I am sure someone has graduation pictures of Emily somewhere! Gran came from Nashville and the Ramseys came, too. Nana and Papa and Becky and Joe were there as well.

Psyco dog

I have lots to post about and tons of pictures, but I had to do this first. Our dog is so odd. Lots of weird quirks. If she is not getting the attention she thinks she deserves, she goes upstairs and gets one particular doll out of Emily's dollhouse so the kids will try to get it away from her. Every single time. Same doll. Today the kids were outside playing and didn't take her and she went upstairs. A little while later, she came downstairs with the doll. She dropped it when she saw me. She knows I am too tired to chase her down. We need the Dog Whisperer.

More Zoo pictures

We had so much fun at the zoo on Mother's Day. Here are some more pictures. I always take way too many pictures...The last one is of Becky and Joe with Emily, not 2 strangers carrying her away.

My Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day, everyone! We had a fun day at the Patterson house. I got to sleep a few minutes later than usual and Bren fixed the kids their breakfast. Then, they brought me my presents in bed. Tyler had made everyone trace their hand on a piece of paper and then write something they loved about me on it. I also got a
"E3C" player (MP3 Player) as Emily says, and some windchimes. After church, we ate chinese with mom, dad, and Becky. Then we came home and changed and went to the zoo. Joe and Becky went with us. It was the prettiest day and we had so much fun. We stayed until they kicked us out and then went to TBCY, where moms got free yogurt! Yeah! We had our best visit ever with Cranbeary the polar bear. Check out the amazing pictures. He played with Tyler and Emily forever.

My Little Juxtaposition

Emily goes from one extreme to the other. She is a princess and a tomboy all rolled up into one mess. She had a soccer game Saturday morning. The field was a mudpit and she was delighted to get all dirty in it. She is very aggressive on the soccer field and doesn't hesitate to get right in there. After her game, she had ballet recital pictures. As excited as she is about putting on shin guards, she is just as thrilled to get all fancy, as she says.

Here are some "Emilyisms" from the past week...

"My hair isn't really curly anymore. It's humpy."

"Mom, now that it's not Mother's Day, I have to tell you that you are the meanest mom ever." (As I was telling her to make her bed for the 100th time.)

"Mom, stop trying to train your daughter" (As I was discussing store behavior with her."

This morning as Brent was leaving for work, he told the kids he'd see them tonight. Emily said, "Where?" What does that say about how hectic our lives are right now?

Emily has also been talking about camp. Our kids have grown up as camp kids. They think they run the place. Emily said she cannot wait for the food court. I don't know if she is talking about the mess hall or canteen, but it cracks me up!

Anyone got an extra 3 year old girl?

My heart is breaking and I do not know what to do. Emily was in bed the other night and looked at me with tears in her eyes. That alone is hard enough when your "four-year-older", as she says, is genuinly moved to tears about something, not just mad that she is not getting her way. She said, "Mama, I am so lonely. I have friends at church and at school and ballet, and I have Tyler, but I need a sister. A brother is not the same as a sister." I quickly kissed her goodnight and came downstairs and cried and cried. It has been on my mind so much for several weeks and this really made it real to me. I would die if I didn't have Becky. I will never be without a friend, ever. Even if she gets mad at me for bossing her. I asked my friend Stephanie, who has a sister herself and a daughter without a sister, if it bothered her. We both started crying. I hurt so bad for Emily that she won't have that.

She brought it up again yesterday. She said, "Is it God that decides who gets another baby?" As I think about it, considering I could even carry another baby to term, wouldn't a 5 or 6 year difference be hard for sisters? And there is only a 50/50 chance it would be a sister. (My luck...I'd have triplet boys) How about adopting a toddler? What if it fell through?

Chances are, we will stay a family of four. I will probably have to play more of a sister role than my mom did with me or Becky. I have been praying about how to handle this and I know I will feel peace either way soon. If you are a girl with only brothers, let me know what helped you with this, or if it even bothered you at all.

I gotta run, Emily needs to know how to spell "No boys allowed."

Sorry, Danna...

Danna got on to me for not posting. The past few weeks have been nuts. Home, school, and family have all been needing 100% of me and by the end of the day, I have no energy to post.

The end of the year program at school is such a huge deal and is one of our big recruiting things as far as getting new kids. Each class (6 in all) performs a song and then we do a finale together and then it's graduation. Of course,having the oldest, the most is expected of my 20 kiddos. We are singing "Yellow Submarine" and have been working on it for about 6 weeks. (Some classes work on it from January on, but that is a whole other blog entry...just kidding, Carol!) We are wearing yellow rain coats and jeans. I found pink and purple rain boots for the girls and blue and orange rain boots for the boys. That should be the end of costumes, but I just couldn't let it go. SO, I dyed 8 white baseball caps orange and the painted the bills blue for my boys. Then I made 12 pink and purple bows for my girls. I had to tie the whole boot/headwear in together. Then I decided that my kids would get hot during the reception in their coats, so I made 20 T-shirts. Plus one for me and Steph. Again, that should be the end of it. But, no. I ordered these blank wooden kid picture frames and painted them to look like our costumes for each child. Plus, we have put together bound books for each child with their artwork from the year. And we have to give each child some sort of gift for the end of the year. Are you tired yet??? I am. I am done with all of it, so this week at school should go easy for me. We do have to make Mother's Day gifts...I hope to keep it simple.

On top of everything, Em, Tyler,and I have had strep AGAIN this weekend. I had so much to do...God's way of telling me to cool it, I guess.

With all this busyness (I have not even mentioned soccer...Good grief), I happily enjoyed my day. It was Senior Sunday at church today and we had 22 seniors. The reception was gorgeous and I poured a mean cup of punch. Let me just tell you the drama of gifts for all these kids. I made the cutest monogrammed sewing kits for the girls. On top of all that fun, I live to be in my yard and this is the prettiest our yard has been since we moved in. We had a blank slate to start over with when we built this house 5 years ago. The builder "landscaped" it, but I need my flowers and I want it to look like it's been here forever. Brent has made me the prettiest garden boxes and I have planted strawberries, tomatoes and squash. We've already had 7 or 8 strawberries. I am repainting our patio table and chairs brown and I got lots of that done today. It looks so good. We are filthy and stinky, but happy. Just the way I like it.

I am going to try to make the most of this week and not worry myself with getting everything perfect inside the house. I want to enjoy my kids and my flowers and my birds and cook-out and live life how I want to live it. Soak up every minute of joy and forget about the rest! Tammy, what is that poem about babies not keepin'? I need to post that.

Danna, I hope this suffices. The program is a week from Tuesday. You might not hear from me until then!!! ;)