Missions Conference

We had missions conference over the weekend. Friday night was a service, Saturday night was an International Banquet and a service, and Sunday was regular services. We had a good speaker and several missionaries to give presentations. For Sunday School we had a missionary speak. His name is Tim Smith and he is a missionary to Turkmenistan. Boy, does he have some interesting stories to tell. For about 3 years worth, he got thrown out of the country every 3 months and was told never to come back. Each time God worked and he was able to return. Very interesting to listen to. Daddy actually got to help him put together his presentation for Sunday night.

The international banquet was not as well attended as past years. I'm not sure why. I made meatballs (buy them at Wal-Mart and throw them in spaghetti sauce and "viola" Italian meatballs). Someone made a taco ring that was really good and looked easy. (Check out the next few days post to find this recipe and one other)

It was a good conference, just long. The services tend to be longer and it makes it seem like we didn't have a weekend. But college football was on Saturday and FSU played and won and so did PSU, so it was a good football weekend.

On a side note, I was in 2 year olds for Friday night's service. Those of you with kids will understand this. It is so hard to be in nursery with your own child. They are always worse when you are there. My K girl was very badly behaved. I was very close to paging Daddy to come deal with her. She did get dealt with when we got home, but never cried despite being spanked. She is going to be the stubborn one.

Mr. Literal

My blog-savy friend is an elementary teacher. She has a little boy in her class that she calls Mr. Literal. When she says "The light is turning on"--meaning they are starting to understand--he looks at the lights.

My son is our Mr. Literal. Case and point: He is presently listening to Steven Curtis Chapman's song called "Dive" Its lyrics are referring to taking a leap of faith and "diving in." My C wanted to know what the song meant. I didn't even try to explain because I know exactly what he would say. "But Mommy we really aren't going to dive into anything, are we?"

Later he asked me if I had ever seen the Disney movie Aristocats. Me: "No why?" Him: "Ya know that song in the movie--'everybody wants to be a cat.' I don't want to be a cat. Why do they sing that?"

Anytime we use a "saying" (ants in your pants, bouncing off the walls) he wants to know what it means. Most of the time our answer is "It's just a saying." It's just easier that way.

He also has been asking deep medical questions lately. Sunday he wanted to know "why we have fingernails." Today it was "why do boys have titties?" My answer? That's just how God made us.

Compass the praying mantis

My kids were outside yesterday playing. It was beautiful! They found a praying mantis on one of our patio chairs. They spent quite a bit of time just watching it. So I decided to take a picture of them and it. They are kind of cool insects. Listening to them while they were watching this bug, I found out that they had named it Compass. Not quite sure why. But oh well. At least they are learning about nature. The pictures of the kids are from Saturday while Daddy was mowing the grass. K made her own riding lawn mower. Pretty smart of her. (She was being a grump and didn't really want her picture taken.) The other pix is just a good pix of C. My kiddies are cute.

Dorothy Nemo

Remember back in the summer, the class that C had on Wednesday nights? The one that we bought a cricket for? Well the teacher for that class got each of the kids a small goldfish to bring home. How nice of her (very sarcastic). Well that fish got named Dorothy (Elmo's fish) by C and Nemo by K. So thus--Dorothy Nemo. Well just like any pet, who took care of it???? ME!!!!!!!!! I fed the thing and changed its water. K sometimes would sit on the counter and talk to it, but C never did anything with it. This is all background to the following story.

Last week I was once again changing the water for the fish. I put fresh water in a bowl and poured the fish into it. I then poured the stinky water out of the fish bowl and filled it up with fresh water. I then went to put the fish back into his bowl, using a fish net--when he jumped out of the bowl, missed the net and went down the drain--the side with the garbage disposal. I squealed! I started to put my hand down in there to get it out but couldn't bring myself to do it. I can't stomach the thought of touching a squirmy fish with my hands!

Of course, C ran over and asked what happened. When I told him, he ran off and started crying. Meanwhile, I was afraid that the fish would clog my pipes so I turned on the disposal. :) I know, I know. I did NOT tell C that part. I actually told him that the fish could probably swim down the pipes and would be OK. In fact he probably was in the pond behind our house making new friends.

At first I was kinda mad at C for crying over a fish that he never had anything to do with. But then I saw how upset he was and felt bad, so I comforted him. He cried for about 20 minutes over that dumb fish. Then dumb me suggested that we get a new fish. Daddy looked at me like I was crazy when I told him that part.

As of today, C has not said anything more about getting a new fish and I am not going to suggest it. I even put the empty fish bowl away out of sight. Maybe he will forget (wishful thinking, I know). So that is the story of how we are once again----pet-less.

How to schedule a post

I have a few friends (don't laugh Sissy) that were interested in how to schedule a post. So I asked another friend. :) (I have many friends.) I thought I would put the info here for others and so I would always know where the info was. Isn't that smart of me? :) And I"m actually going to schedule this to post to see if it works.

When you are in the "create" tab and have finished typing your post, there is a blue link at the bottom (near the area for labels) that says, Post Options. Click that. That drops down a section that has Reader Comments on the left and Post date and time on the right. You can change the date and time to what ever you want. Then click, "Publish Post". In your post list (you can check that by clicking the "Edit Post" tab) the post should appear with the word, "scheduled" in italics red at the top of the list.