They're lucky I didn't leave them there!!

Where??? At the zoo!! Some days these little monkeys drive me nuts, but I love them to pieces! We had a great day at the Nashville Zoo yesterday with our home school group and some of our good friends. It was a beautiful (and kind of HOT) day, and we enjoyed ourselves so much! At the end of the day the kids and I were all exhausted, but it was SO worth it!
The other kids we walked around with--my friend Amy and her 4 boys, along with Amy's sister-in-law and her 3 girls. The adults were definitely out-numbered this day!
I LOVE the flamingos!
My kiddos in front of the giraffes (wayyy back there!)

Jordan chose the carousel animal with two baby gorillas, and she was the middle baby gorilla!! Lawson had been saying all day that he wanted the giraffe, but in the end he chose the flamingo.

I was excited when a passer-by asked if we wanted a picture with the three of us in front of the sign! What a great way to end the day!

Retreatin'

Over the past several years, Jon and I have gone on many trips and retreats with the youth group at church, and we have always arranged for someone to come stay with our kids or for our kids to go to someone's house. We just want to make sure that we are going to spend time with the teens, not use up all of our time taking care of babies/kids.

The weekend after we returned from Honduras, however, was the last big retreat that we will get to do with the youth group and we had just spent a solid month with the kids. We didn't want to ask family to come watch them, and we didn't want to just leave them, so we decided they were big enough to take.

They did GREAT!!! They sat quietly during the quiet times, and they played like big kids during the playing times. They slept great in the bunk rooms, and they had a ton of fun! We got several compliments on how well-behaved they were, especially how they sat quietly during the worship times. I was SO proud of them! One thing's for sure, though, this is a definite sign that they're growing up!!

On the bus ride there...they had talking to the teens and playing their Leapsters...
During one of the class times for the teenagers I took the kids out by the campground's lake. They had fun walking around on the dock and then playing on this huge muddy hill. I cringed at first, but hey, they're just kids, right?! And clothes will wash. Mostly clean.

We were supposed to be playing "Mud Football." The kids were super excited about this and we brought special clothes just for them to get muddy and gross. When we got to the field, though, it turned out that it was just going to be "Wet and Cold Football." They were a little bummed, but they still had fun squirting each other with the hose and getting wet on this wonderful 50 degree day!

Jump Zone

We went to Jump Zone with our home school group, and the kids always have fun at any place where they can run, jump and get sweaty!! I had fun because I got a chance to use my new camera!



This was a busy day! We had our field trip, then I had to get ready to go to a fun girls-get-away weekend with some of my closest friends, then Sunday night when I got back it was time to do some hard-core packing to get ready for our month-long family trip to Honduras! Busy, busy!

New Camera!!

While we were at Fall Creek Falls, our camera died on us. Even with a freshly charged battery, the shutter wouldn't come out and we couldn't see or take any pictures. I was so sad that our camera had broken, but I was also super nervous--Our big trip to Honduras was only one week away!! How could we go spend a month in another country with the kids and not have a camera to document it all?

I had finally decided that I was just going to ask a friend if we could borrow their camera for the month, and I was okay with that. I just really wanted to come back with some pictures! I was shocked when some amazing friends who knew about our broken camera surprised us with a brand new camera that they had bought for us!!! It totally caught me off-guard and I couldn't believe that they would be so generous and thoughtful to recognize what a blessing that would be to us! Thank you, special friends, and thank you God for giving us such special friends!

This is one of the first pictures we took after we got the new camera--we were just messing around at home but this one came out pretty cute!

Fall Creek Falls

We were so excited when we asked our friends Sunny and Jason if they wanted to go on our church's Family Get-Away at the end of January! I had always wanted to go, but our kids have always seemed so small that the whole trip would just end up being a hassle. With us moving later this year, and the kids getting so much bigger, I thought it would be the perfect year to experience this trip, and it was GREAT!!! The weather was BEAUTIFUL and we all had so much fun together--kids and adults!

We drove up to Fall Creek Falls on a Friday afternoon/evening. We spent some time playing some board games while everyone else was arriving, then we went back to our cabins to get settled down for the night.
Abby Kate and Jordan were super excited to be having a slumber party in the floor! We did have some excitement in the room as there were hundreds of ladybugs fluttering around, as well as one pesky wasp that we finally murdered!!
The next morning we got up to eat breakfast then tried to plan out our day. We decided to spend some time at the park in the morning, then we had to go back and make lunch for everyone. We decided to hike the trails in the afternoon.

Me and Lawson at the playground.
Jordan showing Jackson on the map where she thought we were going. So cute--they always end up paired together.All 5 kids in front of the Fall Creek Falls sign...
Lawson and Joshua. They're best buds...
Love this little guy...
My boys...
Sunny took these pics for us at the smaller waterfall...Love them

The four big kids...can you tell they're used to their mommas making them pause to pose?? :)
We went on "The hike that never ends." It seriously took FOREVER and it was pitch black when we came out of those woods!! When we got to the parking lot, ours was the only car left! I'm glad we took flashlights, and I'm glad we didn't die on the Indiana Jones bridge!! We had some groaning, some crying, some laughing along the way...it really was quite an experience!!

Here's the big kids taking a rest...
Taking another rest with the hiking sticks they'd gathered.
We had such a great weekend with some of our very best friends...I'm so thankful we had the chance to make these memories together!

Greatly Commissioned

Well, Here goes nothing...

Most of you who read my blog are close friends of mine, and there are several of you who read my posts when they feed onto Facebook. Some of you may have heard about our story, and our plan to move into full-time missions this year, but some of you may not know anything about it.

From the planting of a seed that brought a desire to work in the mission field to a crazy turn of events that led us to what seems like the very place we were looking for, The ways we have seen God grow our little ideas into a big step of faith for us to take just baffle us!

There are several stages of the story that leads to our 'here and now', and about 8 1/2 months ago I started a blog that I used to journal some of my thoughts and emotions along the way. So many things have 'worked out' as our ideas and plans have come to fruition, and we believe wholeheartedly that it's because God is blessing our efforts. While we can't document everything, I've tried to write down how everything started and the highlights along the way.

Up until now that blog has been a private one that only Jon and I knew about. We've been talking about it, and we think the time has come to invite our friends to read the story and follow along on the journey if they choose. Feel free to back up to the beginning and 'catch up', or jump right in wherever you land...the choice is yours. (For those of you who already read this blog, the two most recent posts on the new blog may be familiar...I felt that they equally impacted our personal life as well as our mission journey, so I posted them in both places.)

We would love to have you join us and if you're interested in keeping up with us bookmark the site or put us on your blog roll.

Greatly Commissioned
Our journey to one little part of
'all the world'

If you keep up with us and this crazy adventure our family is going on, please do us a favor and keep us in your prayers too. We believe that God hears prayers and that His power can do mighty, mighty things.
And for a teaser...Lord willing, it won't be long before we have a family picture from Honduras...stay tuned! :)

Other stuff to do when it's cold...

So we've been inside for a couple days now (with only sporadic outside playing) so here's some ways we made these snow days special fun for the fam... (I wish I was ambitious enough to say that all the laundry was done and the school work was done and the house was clean, but we've just had lazy old snow days around here!)

They love to watch movies in their tents...
Jordan made a train...Lawson put on his conductor's hat and watched a movie. (We've had an overdose on movies these past couple days!!)

Lawson worked on his Legos that he got for his birthday. We haven't really delved into the Lego world yet, but Lawson really enjoyed following the directions and building this house. I imagine that we'll be headed into the endless abyss of Legos in the next few years for sure! :)

In the midst of our move, this old Nickel Hockey game that I made in 9th grade Woodshop unsurfaced...Well, the kids LOVE playing this with whomever will play it with them--they even play it with each other! Jordan just randomly flicks it wherever, but Lawson is pretty good at getting goals!
It's been fun to let ourselves get caught up in the the feeling of having a few days off of everything. We've all enjoyed it!

Now...I have to go do some laundry... ;)

Southern Style Sledding

Monday morning when we woke up to almost a foot of snow, it wasn't long before our friend Ryan texted Jon with the question, "When we goin' sleddin'?" Well, Jon and I started trying to think about what we could even use as sleds. Ryan said he had a kiddie pool. We had a small plastic storage tote. Those things might be worth a try, but we needed something better. Growing up, we had a full supply of sledding discs, toboggans, and other sorts of items perfect for going down a hill...but here, we had to resort to finding any sort of flat smooth slippery item that might go down a hill. Jon called a tire store to see about getting an innertube, but the manager said they were closed. We went out to play with the kids (see previous post for those pictures) and Jon told me that the manager called him back and said the store would be open in the afternoon if he wanted to come in!! He went up there and bought a semi-truck innertube and blew it up and 'Voila!' a sledding tube!

We went over to Madison Square Mall and sledded on the big hill between the upper level and lower level parking lots on the front side (by the old Belk store). The mall was closed except for Buffalo Wild Wings, and in the whole time we were there we only saw about 6 or 8 cars drive through. We had a lot of fun...the guys and Lawson sledded, Jordan played in the snow, and the girls took pictures...

Trying to get the thick snow packed down into a slippery sledding path...Playing in the snow...
Lawson went down in the pool first. It wasn't quite slippery enough at first, and flipped several times!
Next he tried the storage bin. Still not quite there...
Next, he went in the tube!
Wheeeeee!!!!
The guys had turns too! Here's Jon in the tube:
In the meantime Jordan built herself a little snowman...she was pretty proud!
How many guys does it take to make a jumping hill for the sledding path???
My sweet girl!
Some of the servers from Buffalo Wild Wings came over with a couple serving trays to sled on. They went down our path, then when they got cold (because they had regular clothes on) they left a tray for us to use. (The tray was pretty good because it was very slippery, but it was kinda small for the big guys to sit on!) Ryan trying out the tray...
Then they got innovative. They were tired of their bottoms dragging on the snow, so they turned the pool upside-down over the tube and went down sitting...then Jon went down laying. I love that he is laughing in this picture!
Lawson going down on the tray...
Whoaaa!! He got some air!!
Jordan only tried to go down once. Maybe this is why: :)
But everyone had a turn when it came to flipping...here's Ryan wiping out!
There came a point where all the guys were standing at the top of the hill talking, and Jon let Lawson go down on the tube 2 or 3 times in a row...I hollered up, "Why is he going over and over? Give someone else a turn!" And all the men said, "We're good!" And Jon revealed the secret: "We're tired!!!" That's the problem with sledding...it's fun to go down, but then you have to hike back up the hill!

Here's Lawson near the end of the sledding adventure. Getting that tube back up the hill is tough, especially for a 6 year old after over an hour of going up and down over and over!
Jordan busying herself by trying to fill up the kiddie pool...
Lawson pegging Jordan with a snowball...
Since we were actually with other people, we actually got a picture of our whole family! We hardly ever get a picture of our whole family!
The snow is fun for a while, but anyone ready for grass and flowers and sunshine yet???? :)