Dear Will.I.Am

Happy birthday, my sweet W!! 6 years old!! Craziness. Pure craziness.

I mean, just yesterday you were the teeny tiny little 6 pound 6 oz. bundle of joy we took home from the hospital.

You were 9 months old, holding up your arms to me saying "hold you..."and then patting me on the back to reassure me you were actually holding me, too.

You were a 1 year old with your adorable "buddha" belly and 2 tooth grin.

You were 18 months old, making everyone crack up with your animal sounds.


You were 2 years old and obsessed with all things "Melmo" and with Blanket.

You were 3 1/2 years old and STILL not potty-trained, instead making me and your daddy INSANE because of your stubborness. And yes, you started preschool (hey - don't ever tell the preschool director you weren't potty-trained when you started, ok? It was kinda sorta against the rules, just a little bit).


You were my young padawan who quickly grew into a real live Jedi Knight!


And now, here we are at 6. Kindergarten is almost a thing of the past. You continually amaze me, my son. We start the year with hesitation and trepidation and anxiety....but you have taken this year and you have blossomed. You are stronger, wiser, you are more confident than ever before (even though you think your new bike that you got for your birthday goes too fast, even with training wheels...). You have a weird mix of a very structured little engineer type mind and this creativity that just floors me. You recently tested into our school district's gifted/talented program AS A KINDERGARTENER...a rarity, I'm told.

You are a social magnet, I've decided. There is something about you that draws people, young and old, to you. And I am pretty darn sure that something is your heart...you love Jesus like a mad man. You continuously amaze your daddy and I with how in-tune you are with your Jesus and how it's just the norm for you and you don't see it as anything other than the ordinary. I won't ever forget the day you asked Jesus into your heart at 4 1/2 years old. I'm pretty darn sure you have some prophetic giftings in there that just pop up at the most extraordinary times. I've learned to listen carefully when you talk because God often uses you to give me a message.

You are obsessed with your Bible. You constantly have it open, reading as much as you can...and while you are only 6 and in kindergarten, you can read as well as most 2nd or 3rd graders. A few weeks ago, you announced to me that you had finished reading the WHOLE Bible. And it was awesome. :) Made me smile. While you may not have read every word in your Bible, I'm pretty darn sure you turned to almost every single page and at least stared at it awhile. Every now and then you'd announce to me "Mom, I'm in Numbers now...Mom!! It's Jonah!!...Mom, I'm in Izzy-ah (yes, Isaiah)..." And then there was the day where I heard from the back seat "Mom - it's HO-ZA!" I'm thinking, where in the world did he hear someone being called a "hoser?" What did you say, son? "Mom, right here in my Bible, it's HO-ZA!" Ah. Hosea. Yes it is.


You LOVE to get your worship groove on. During worship, you stand in your chair on the front row, jammin' out...raising your hand and telling your God how much HE ROCKS! Your favorite songs right now are "Counting on God" and "So Good to Me"...you worship with reckless abandon, which is so out of character for you...you are my cautious, anxious one normally. God's doing something in you, my son. I can see it.


And you have an inborn (inherited) love of justice - and you are exploring what justice means. I hope you learn the difference between God's definition of justice and the world's definition of justice at a much younger age than I did. You are all about what's fair - whether it benefits you or not. You think of what's fair to others, you are concerned with everyone getting equal opportunities, even if it means you don't get something you want. And you don't like it when things aren't fair...brings to mind a recent random conversation I had with you...quite random.


We are at home from church, just you and me, on Easter Sunday. You were running a fever. A had gone to church with Daddy. Out of the blue, you look at me and you say"A says when she farts, that it's me or Daddy...but it's her, Momma. She thinks she never ever farts. That's not fair." I almost fell in the floor right there. Oh, how I love you. Oh how you make me smile.


And speaking of your sister, you have such a funny relationship with her...you adore her and she is your best friend, but at the same time, you are no longer her doormat. You still get "snookered" by her mental gymnastics on occasion, and when you do, it hurts your feelings and we are likely to see tears. But there are other times when you stand up for yourself and put her in her place. I mean, she may be taller and older than you, but trust me. You are one stubborn dude...and as for physical strength, Daddy's been playing "trade punches" with you (I'm told it's a guy thing), and he can attest to how strong you are, dear W.



So, happy 6th birthday, my son. I am so thankful to God for putting you in our family. Thank you for still choosing the most random moments to tell me that you love me. Thank you for making me smile every single day of our life.

The 3 Week Escape....

If you have been reading this blog for long, you know we have 2 bearded dragons - Randall (mean and ferocious and blind in one eye) and Renny (smaller, less ferocious, and a girl). They both reside in A's room, even though Renny is technically W's pet.

Well, about 3 weeks ago, Renny disappeared. I didn't really fret because she has done that before and dug under the sand in her terrarium to hibernate for a week or so at a time. So no big deal.

A week after she went incognito, Dear Hubby decided to change out the bedding in the terrarium and put in some kind of coconut shaving stuff that Walter's World of Pets sold him for reptiles. So he needed to dig Renny out. Except Renny was not there...she was nowhere to be found in her shared terrarium with Randall...he sifted through every last piece of sand - afraid an avalanche had buried her or that Randall had decided to turn carnivorous and eaten her...nothing. Not a trace of Renny. No clues. She just disappeared into thin reptile air.

Our next thought was she got out - or someone let her out (umm, maybe a 7 year old who happens to love all things reptilian?) - or someone forgot to close the lid good after giving them water? Oh, great...you know how much I love the reptiles. So we started doing a search for her...we looked under everything. We checked behind every door, we looked in closets, in shoes. Nada. Where could she have gone and how long had she been gone? Yikes.

Well, 3 weeks go by and no signs whatsoever of Renny....until last night. About 9.30 pm, A comes RUNNING in telling Dear Hubby and I that she found Renny! WHAT? She says "I did! She's right here! I'm holding her!" Sure enough she was.

"I was laying in bed and I heard this scratch, scratching from my closet. I thought - could that be Renny? So I got out of bed and went and looked! And there was Renny! Sitting in my baby doll basket on a baby blanket!!" Ummm...how many 7 year old girls would go investigate a strange noise coming from their closet in the middle of the night? I would have screamed like a girl and asked my daddy to come get the boogie man.

So Renny came home after her 3 week escape. There is no telling what she did for 3 weeks but it would make a good movie, wouldn't it? So many questions I'd like to ask her - what did you eat and drink all that time, Renny? Where did you hide out? Did Rosie (our new puppy) come sniffing around and you scared her off? And where did you poop, so I can clean it up?

And don't worry, Rowdy Girls Mom...plans have been put into action to finally move Renny into her very own terrarium this week. No more bunking with the Mean and Ferocious One, Randall. Probably why she ran away in the first place!

The Earth Destroyers!

I should have posted this last week, but the week before tax day was a VERY long week for me at work...so here's a great A&W story from last weekend (our weekend in Austin)...

We were staying w/the Rowdy Girls and, unfortunately, A&W didn't get the memo that we are supposed to sleep in on Saturday mornings - especially when we are guests in someone else's home - so as not to wake the Rowdy Girls at 7 a.m. SO - I held A& W prisoner in our room - trying to keep them quiet (Thanks, C, for having books in your guest room for my kids to read!)...turned out to be a pretty awesome time to get to just listen to my kids rattle on about life and how they see it...

Anyways, on to the Earth Destroyers....I asked A for an update on how Earth Squad was going. She said it was going great - they had 4 new members. There was just one problem. The Earth Destroyers. I'll give you one guess - yes, the 2nd grade BOYS. Anything that a 2nd grade girl finds fun, a 2nd grade boy will find a way to mess it up - on purpose. So the boys started a club called the Earth Destroyers. Their mission...to harass and mess up the Earth Squad in any way they can. They steal their trash bags, for crying outloud!!! They purposely drop trash on the playground and then hold the girls back from picking it up! "How rude...and how NOT Earth friendly!", says A.

I then probe a little deeper, trying to delve into the psyche of my 7 year old daughter. "Why do you think they do that?"

"They say it's because we are popular, Mom..." She says this with a wrinkled up nose, like popular is a dirty, nasty word that she can't even stand to be in her mouth.

"Hmmm...." I say..."What does it mean - this word "popular"?"

W is quietly sitting by doing his own thing during all of this, but he decides at this point, he has something worthwhile to add to the conversation..."It means you are like FABULOUS..."

I'm still recovering from W's comment when A, without skipping a beat and as serious as she can be, says "I'm fabulous but I'm not popular...." (No self esteem issues here, folks!)

So, while trying not to laugh so as not to ruin my chance to learn something about how they think, I ask "what DOES it mean, then, A?"

"It means you are like bossy and tell everybody what to do, Mom."

Of course it does. Popular girl = Mean girl and she hasn't even seen the movie!

May it always be so. May you always be the champion of the ones who can't champion themselves, A. And I think you are fabulous, by the way. :)

Yea, Earth Squad!

"I pledge allegiance to the Earth.

I promise to keep it clean and keep it green.

I promise to never litter again in my life.

To Earth Squad! Yea!!!!"

My daughter, A, is at it again...she and a friend from her class have decided to devote their recess time to helping make the Earth a better place...they have spent several recesses picking up trash on the playground and now have formed the "Earth Squad" - a group of 2nd grade girls who spend their time thinking of ways to make the Earth cleaner and greener. I am not kidding. The little pledge above? That's straight from A's mouth as she was eating supper tonight. That's the pledge the girls take in Earth Squad every day while holding up 4 fingers. I have no idea where she gets this stuff. Really...we use the reusable shopping bags and we recycle, but that's about it, folks. I now am aware that Earth Day is coming up on April 22nd, thanks to my daughter. So what do you do to celebrate Earth Day with a 2nd grader? Suggestions?

In the meantime, W is learning all about dinosaurs and volcanoes and Teddy Roosevelt. Kind of random, isn't it?

Christmas '08 - yes I know I'm late.

Okay, I know I haven't posted since the infamous day when the Red Raiders forgot to show up their bowl game and let a stinkin' SEC team make them look silly...I've been in denial and trying to purge that memory from my mind...

But, in the midst of that, I have neglected to tell of our Christmas at all. A very good Christmas...lots and lots of traveling but got to see so much of our families, that it was worth it...

Here's a few of my favorite pics:

A got a real live MICROSCOPE for Christmas! She loves it!

A & W with my Grandmother - their great-grandmother.

Dear Hubby & W, playing with Football Man, W in his ever so cute underoos!

Dear Hubby, getting all choked up as he opens up his gift - a goat through Samaritan's Purse for a family in a third world country...this is what he asked for.

A just being goofy.....and kind of scary if you look at it long enough!

Uncle Kyle threatening to throw W into the Guadalupe River!

My angel boy - okay, so he's not an angel boy...but he looks like one in this picture so I'm sticking to my caption....

A in her new helmet - to protect her noggin' when she's roller skatin' on her new purple skates!

I also got to be part of a very special event this year...it was our first Christmas without our Ma...last Christmas, none of us would have guessed we'd be spending it without her this year. My mom, aunts, and uncles (my mom is the oldest of 8 kids) decided to take everything that my Ma had left on this earth (which was about $1200 - and that's including her IRS stimulus check from 2008!) and use it to make some special memories this Christmas. You see, my Ma, from the world's perspective, was very poor...she had very little in the physical or worldly sense...and yet, somehow, she is the richest person I have ever known.

Anyway, our family rented a lodge at a camp ground near Fredricksburg and all that could met there the weekend after New Years...there were 53 of us there. This is just my aunts, uncles, and cousins, people...there are lots of us. Anyway, it was a very nice time on Friday and Saturday...but there was just something missing to me - my Ma. I was really dreading this weekend because I knew it would be so hard, that I would miss her more than ever and her absence would be so real...the easy thing would have been not to go. But I knew I needed to, and I knew we, as a family, needed to get through this together, so that's what we did...

Then, on Saturday night, a really cool thing happened. I love my family, I have always loved my family...we have always been very close and stick together through thick and thin...but there was some unspoken fears floating around that now that Ma was gone, that closeness would begin to erode away. Saturday night changed all of that. Most of us ended up sitting around outside, with a fire going in a big grill (burn ban, no campfires!), just talking...and when I say "just talking" - I mean talking in a way that people started sharing crazy childhood stories, laughing, talking about all of the lives my Ma had touched, how she had been the hands and feet to Jesus for so many and then telling each other about those specific individuals that Ma had touched ...that evolved into many of us sharing our feelings about Ma, about losing her, about what this family meant...one of my uncles had gotten a single word from God to describe Ma and her life - Vast. Vast in the sense of how large God had made her territory (Prayer of Jabez, anyone?)...vast in the sense of how deep and how wide and how amazing her love was for all of us...vast in the sense of how far reaching her influence was and vast in her legacy and in her love for Jesus. We prayed together, we sang together, we laughed, we cried, we listened to one of my uncles play the harmonica....the sense of our common ties was so strong, you could feel it...and the sense of how much Ma loved all of us was just as strong...

I left that weekend feeling like I had re-bonded with my roots, with my zany, eccentric, beautiful, and amazing family. I left there still missing my Ma but feeling a peace that I haven't felt since she died. I left there knowing Ma was smiling at us from Heaven, saying "I love you more!"

The only picture I have where you can see most of us...we were playing the "Right" game - a very strange little tradition Ma started many years ago.

Tough day

It's a tough day to be a red raider...heck it's tough all of the time!
So many ups and downs, it's like riding a roller coaster. Final score
34-47, Ole Miss.

Question

Any one know what "hoddy toddy" means? That apparently is ole miss's
battle cry but we have no idea what it means.....thought graham was
going to make that rushing TD...that would have been awesome.

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