This is my first attemp at putting a picture on my blog, so I hope this works. I need to thank Jane, she sent me "HOW TO" over a week ago. With the holidays and dealing with many days of migrains this past week, I'm just now getting to it.  So here goes.....

Oh my, I think it worked. This is from 2 summers ago, we were at  some place in upper Michigan where they take care of bears. We had alot of fun. The girls were 16 and 4 then.

I need to get some batteries for the camara so I can now take and post photos. Thank you again Jane for your help.

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Thanksgiving night I decided that I wouldn't set the alarm, if I was up, I would go. Well 3 am comes along and I wake up. I'm not getting up, it's just too early, however I could not go back to sleep. So at 3:45 I get up and dressed and leave by 4:15. We live out in the boonies, 45 minutes from the nearest REAL shopping. So about 4:55 I drive up to the shopping, over at Best Buys there must have been 100 or more people standing in line, it's 22 degrees out. I don't know why, but I just started laughing, hysterically. I had tears comeing down. I could not believe that these people were standing there, come to find out, some had camped through the night. It wasn't just at Best Buys, it was everywhere. I came because I couldn't sleep, and I would be free of kids and hubby (sometimes it's not worth it with everyone hanging on you).

I did get a vacuum for our ds-21, some gifts for our neices, and item or two for the girls and some tops for me. Oh yeah, flannel sheets for the spare bed for $15. I love flannel sheets and since his mom is coming this month thought I should get some. The sheets on it right now are cheep thin polyester sheets, Yuk.

I was done  and home by 9:30, just in time for a nap.......

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I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. We ususally go to a friends each year, but decided this year to stay home. I really miss not having the leftovers, and just relaxing in our own home.

We got up and had a bruch. Hubby made the omellets and bacon. I made the hashbrowns and had made the bran flax muffins the day before. We spent the morning watching my favorite series they had on tv, The Anne of Green Gable. My hubby loves it, gets all emotional and everything. Sometimes I think....awh....sometimes I just laugh at him. I told him I wanted this DVD set next year for Christmas. I just started Book 3 in the series, the first two were really good.

For lunch we just had snack foods, chips and dips, some cranberry/pumpkin bread that I made the day before. I really didn't want to be cooking all day, so we thought this would be easy. DD-6 wanted to play games, so we played chinese checkers, I WON!

Our ds-21 came over after work around 4:30. We had dinner, all the usuals: turkey, stuffing, gravy, mashed potaoes, green bean casserole, jello salad, rolls, marshmellow yams, and then pecan pie and pumpkin cheesecake. Yes, it was alot of food for 5 people, but I didn't want to cook the next day or so.

After dinner and dishes, we played balderdash. It's such a fun game. DD-6 couldn't write out any definitions, but she would write the words out on her paper, so she thought she was having great fun too. Then we watched "Incredible", first because it was on tv, but then we put the DVD in because of all the commercials.

It was really a nice relaxing day.

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            I  would like to present myself with:

                    THE DUMMY AWARD

So lets just pretend your daughter just recently totaled her car and the salvage company was coming down the driveway to pick it up. At that moment you remembered that you have a key on your keyring, so you take the key off and throw it in the car with the other spares. No problem, the salvage company takes the car, end of story. UNTILL..... you are leaving to go to Bible class, pull out your keys to start the car and realize you don't have a key to YOUR car. Yes, thats right, I threw my key into her car, she was kind enough to get her key off it earlier.

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This is day 2 for Praying for our Husbands. You can see the whole plan here. Don't forget that we can apply all this to ourselves and our children.

2nd: That he might grow into a man of integrity, who works righteousness, speaks truth in his heart, does not slander, does no evil, does not take up reproach against friends, honors those who fear the Lord, swears to his own hurt, is unchanging in these things, does not charge interest on loans, and does not take bribes.

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My husband is in need of a lot of prayers right now. Appearently he has been having problems with his boss for about 3 years, don't really know the details, but he's just been at him all this time. Usually my husband works alone, does maitinance work on several plants. Every so often, he has several men that come in to do big jobs, last week his boss was one of them. Well the boss said something needed to be done one way, my husband explained that that wouldn't work and how it would work. Boss was not happy, and physically dragged hubby out of the plant outside and let him know that he was not happy and that he needed to learn respect. Hubby is like, "what are you talking about". The other guys there seemed to understand what hubby was saying. The main point is that the boss manhandle my husband. My husband told me that if it had been a few years earlier, the boss would have been in the hospital. My husband is not a small man, he is retired military, trained to kill. He showed alot of restaint. But he is not sure that he will be able to in the future. He has been with this company for 8 years now, we were planning on retiring (again) here.

He's going to be looking into another job somewhere here. There is foundry here, a third of  the men in our congregation work for it, in fact the big boss is our elder. He could very easily get a job there. Or there is a cheese factory that he can apply at. Either way it will be $500 cut in pay, maybe more. That is not counting the $6000 overtime he usually gets each year. But it doesn't matter, because I'm very supportive of my husband, he has always provided for us and I know he always will if this is what God wants him to do.

So with that all being said....I need to be praying for my husband. This is an area that I lack in. I found this "31- day Prayer Plan for Husbands" that I want to use to help guide me. It covers alot of areas that will be good for me too. Whats great about it too is that there are verses to read along with each thought. So follow along with me, I will try and post each days, it will help me keep focused and a reminder of what I need to do each day.

1st: That he might become a holy man, a man of prayer, mature in the Lord, growing in his knowledge of the Lord. I Thes 5:23, Col 4:12, Eph 1:18-19, 3:16-19, 6:18.

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....loss her first tooth. She has been wiggling that thing for two months now. Her Grandpa out west wanted to take his pliers to it, her Grandpa down south wanted to tie a string around it, daddy want to yank it with his fingers. But she told them NO. Finally after much hard work of wiggling and playing with it with her tongue, it came out. And the tooth fairy didn't dissappoint her. (her older sister -18, was very quick to remind me of how the tooth fairy had once overslept and forgot her tooth. But with her help, and dh calling from out of town that night, the tooth fairy succeeded in her duties.)

I'm hoping her other tooth falls out soon. I want a picture of her on our x-mas cards with "all I want for Christmas is my two front teeth, my two front teeth.....". I wonder if she will cooperate. Maybe if she starts wiggling now......

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While we were on our first trip out to the west, my husband had to put our toy poodle of 12 years to sleep.  When we got home he told dd-6 and showed her where he had buried him, right next to our standard poodle who died of cancer in the spring of 2006. She was quite upset. More because she would have no one to play with now. She's kind of an only child as her sibblings are 18 and 21.

Well grandpa and grandma thought that it would be nice if she had a kitten, but I had told dh that he would have to make all the decisions this time, I said yes to the dogs, it's his turn if he wanted a cat. Well he couldn't stand that his poor little girl didn't have anyone to play with, so he told her she could have one.

HE IS SO CUTE., and I still haven't learned how to put pictures on for you to see. He's a golden brown persian kitten, who is sleeping on in front of me on the computer desk as I type. DD is just loving him. We do need to get him declawed, especially since we just bought new couches last winter. I think we are going to have a lot of fun with  him.....

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We took our dd-6 shopping yesterday for some pants. We hate looking for pant for  her. She hates to get jeans with zippers and button because she has a little belly and they dig into her. We went to Walmart first, thought I would try their plus sizes. So we got her an 8 1/2, they were huge in the waist for her. This means we have to find a regular size to fit her, we had to get a 14.This is so rediculous, an 8 1/2 is gigantic, and yet a 14 just barely fits. My poor daughter is already having an image problem, she is 6. Yes, she could do to loose 5 pounds, but she is 6 years old. She still has baby fat.

We ended up going to Target to see what they have. Target is now my new favorite store. Guess what, an 8 1/2 with just alittle comfort room, fit fine. The different between their 8 1/2 and Walmarts is about 3 or 4 inches. So I guess I have to check out each store, everyones sizes are different. But I now know that I can walk into Target and pick up a pair on sale knowing that they will fit.

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So for  friday my dd-18 and her best friend (bf)-18 had invited all the girls from our congregation who where going into 4th-8th grade to camp out at our place. We live on 4 acres of wooded land. Everything went great, they had planned everything.

They started invading arriving about 4:00 friday evening. We already had one tent up, and one of the moms brought another tent, it sleeps ten adults, so instead of separating the girls (2 little girls would be slooping with me in the camper), we used the big one for sleeping and the 6 man tent for the dressing room. This would leave the bathroom open more.

The first thing they did was tie die some shirts they each brought, this was a big hit. They had 3 colors and found some instructions on different techniques. They laid these out on the grass to dry. Then they tried to start a fire, mom came to the rescue. We cooked our hotdogs and ate dinner. Then they played hot potatoes with water baloons, and some other games with them which eventually ended up in a water fight. After everyone cleaned up  the baloon leftovers, got dried, they put on their tied died shirts and then we had marshmellows and sang annoying songs that the girls thought were great. I think we got everyone settled down sometime around 11:30.

At 5:30 am my husband leaves for work and wakes me and the two little ones up. I had told them that they could only wake me up when it was light out. I should have checked to see what time the sun came up. Told them I to give me another 30 min. got to sleep thru till 7:15. I was incharge of breakfast. We had pancakes with strawberries and whipcream, bacon and sausage, juice, watermelon.

After breakfast the girls filled up another 200  baloons, played some more games and again another waterbaloon fight. Then we boiled eggs for egg races. Had lunch, played charades, cleaned up the yard, and then everyone went home around 2pm. The best part was they let me play in everything too.

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My dd-18 and her bestfriend(bf)-18 have planned a camp at our place for the girls at our congregation between the grades of 4th-8th. I was just told the count of who is coming.....ALL 15! Never did I think everyone would come, maybe not a convient time or something. We have two tent, one that depending on how cosy they want to be would fir 6-8, the other will fit 4. So they have to get anther tent, which they have been offered, sometime between now and tomorrow. They planned, invited, made the menu and who would bring what, have activities for them to do. I don't really know what all will be going on, I'm just here incase two of the girls go into afilation shock, ican't say it right, so I can't spell it right. I did tell them I would do breakfast. Of couse I will have extra stuff in case they didn't plan enough, that's what a moms for , right?

We did invite one of the sisters who is dd-6 age to come and spend the night. I figured that would keep dd-6 out of trouble. The three of us will sleep in the camper, and I 'm sure I have some things in the craft box that they can do.    I'll give you and update later....

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Well, I got up alittle late, my dh got up earlier than I. He surprised me by cleaning the kitchen up. Yes, I am one of THOSE women who go to bed with dirty dishes. It's just easier for me to do them in the morning and spend the evening with dh reading or watching a movie.

At 9:30 we left to go to the parade, we are a small town, so it's nothing like when I was growing up. There was the highschool band, they only march in two parades a year, and the city band, which is a bunch of volunteers. We go mainly to support the veterns (we have a veterens home nearby) and to get candy.

Then we went to lunch at a local pizza place and went to see a movie after. I can't remember the name, it was the one where the rat becomes the chef. It was funny, cute, clean, rated G. We all liked it, but if you can imagine rats cooking your food......yuk!

Later today-  I just read this  www.homeschoolblogger.com/fallinglikerain/349584/  persons view on this movie.She saw some thing that if I wasn't having a migrain at the time, I might have questioning myself. So if you want another person opinion on it, go to her site.

After Bible class we went to watch the fireworks. They do it over the lake on the opposite side of the city park. Usually we go to the park to watch, but this year it was just dd-6 and I, so we joined some friends from the church and went to the graveyard to watch. Their extended family meets in the area every year, where all the "Browne's " are buried. There was a couple hundred people up there watching.  One guy said he was asked what they were doing that night. He told them," you know the usuall, wife and kids are going to meet her family and watch fireworks while sitting on a bunch of dead people",

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We have been asked to join in on starting a new congregation. The congregtion we go to right now is about 130 attending, we have been going there for the last 7 years, ever since we moved into the area.  It is located about 15 miles northeast of us. I really love it, lots of young folks. Since we started attending there 7 families started homeschooling. I teach the 2/3 grade class on Wednesday night.

There is a family that is wanting to start another congregation about 7-10 mile southwest of us. So far we are only looking at 4 families. There isn't another congregation that way (Church of Christ) for at least an hour away. I've always wanted to be apart of something small, it kind of forces you to work, because everyone is needed. I need this, I'm one of those who needs to be pushed. The main drawback is there will be no one for my dd-6 unless a new family start to worship with us. She's young enough that I'm not worried about her spiritual side of not wanting to come because there's no one her age, but she will be lonely for a while. However we do get together at least 2x a week with other kids her age. I will just need to make more effort with this. And I will just have to pray that God will bring us more families.

My husband hasn't made a dicission yet, I know this will be a big growth on his part esspcially. When you only have four men to run the service, he would have to have sermon ready in case someone is sick, always ready at a moment to do a class, a prayer, lead the Lord Supper. I can see the benefits spiritually for him. He has stated that maybe he would preach when he retired. This would be a great jumping start for him.

We will have to pray about this. I know God has a plan for us, and I know we need to grab opportunities when they come along.

One of the bennifits of belonging to a smaller congregation is you are closser to each other. Sometimes I feel lost in a larger group. I want to personally know each person, and you can in a smaller group.

I'll keep you updated.....

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It's been awhile since I've logged about whats been going on....This past week ...

Fathers day was also celebrated with dh 50th birthday and our 12th anniversary. We were actually quite tired with company and things going on the previous weeks  that we just vegged out. We had a cake that dd-18  made for dh. She found this card that told about dad's in abc form. It was funny and difinately him. At the bottom of the card she wrote that she was glad she had picked him to be her dad. (Dh and I were married when she was 5, before we ever started dating, she asked him if he would be her dad.) He also got a new bbq and apron to go along with it, and he asked for a remote control helicopter that I got for him.  Ds-21 gave him a card with some money in it, again the card so appropriate for dh. The kids really came up with some funny ones. Also, dd-18 gave dh and I some money to go out to a movie. Now we're just waiting for someone to be off work to take care of dd-6 while we go out.

Concerning my neck and shoulder....I am seeing a physical therapist 2x a week. I am having to learn how to have good posture and do exercise several time a day, when I remember. It is helping, no longer haveing pain shooting down into my elbow. When I'm on long driving trips, it makes it worse. I think I will need a pillow on those trips. 

Started school up again this week with dd-6, we took a 6 week break, just too much to do during that time. We have a good 4 weeks before we go on a 4 week vacation (just me and the girls), so I want to get in as much as possible, and then keep up on her reading and math while we are on our trip.

I have also been listing books on various sites to sell, sold a few more this week, hoping to sell a few more this next week. I'm setting the money aside for dd-6 schooling. I know that if I get rid of all the extra stuff and all Jr.and Sr. high books, her schooling will be paid for  for the next 5 years. Yes, at one time I kind of had an addiction to buying books and things for school. You never know, one day I just might use that.......

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Everyone is finally gone, my b-i-l and s-i-l left Sunday morning and my m-i-l left this morning. Tuesday and Wednesday my m-i-l and dd-6 and I went to Lake Superior, Ashland. They have a great visitor center there with a look out tower, a mini museum, theater and 3/4 mile nature trail. They have activity sheet for the kids to do while there and a great book store. We had a great time. Took about 6 hours to get there. We never really had lunch, just stopped every so often for a local snack. Some of those places have great pies. I have to say, the driving was not the best thing for my shoulder/neck area. I'm paying for it today. Not sure how my therapist is going to be to thrilled about that tomorrow.

We went to a gift shop that had little santas painted on driftwood, so while we were at the lake I found about 20 pieces that I'm going to paint for ornaments to hand out to family members. I did something similar on cinnamon sticks about 10 years ago. They were a big hit.

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I started physcial therapy this morning for my left shoulder/neck/arm. They are having me do some exercises at home and therapy 2x/week for the next 2 or3 weeks. I've been having problems for several years, but the last week, to the point of wanting to take some major pain meds. Hopefully it will work.  Just have to pray that God will help me get through it all.

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We're getting ready for the graduation picnic this Saturday. Every year the graduating families from our congregation host a picnic for everyone. We have four kids young adults graduating this year, so the expense will be divided among the four families. We are planning for 125 people. Each family will have 7# of sloppy joe, 3 large salads, a desert, 8 bottles of soda. I also had to buy all the plates, cups, forkware, napkins, cake, chips, hotdogs, tableclothes......These items plus what others have bought, the cost will be divided.

I still need to finish making my dd-18 announcements to those who live out of the area ( a total of 100), finishes start dd-18 scrapbook, and get the house ready for guest who are vegetarians. We eat meat around here. Right now I probably have about 300 # of meat in the freezer.

I should probably get some things done....

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We got to the camp site about 5pm, I had to back the trailer up. I'm not very good at it, and  it doesn't help that dh always insist on giving hand directions in my blind site. But we got it backed in, then noticed that the utilities were on the other side of the camp, so we had to push the camper sideways. That was fine, our backs were toward the road.  I wish our backs were toward our neighbors, 4 young adults and someones mom. The first night I went and asked them to turn down thier stereo with crude languaged comedy. I just let them know that we had a young child and the camp on the otherside did too, that this was a family camp. They turned it down. The next two nights they played some kind of word game, their language wasn't very nice, and some topics were a bit off color. So in the evening we would put dd-6 in the camper with a movie to watch. DD-6 did makes friends with the little girl on the other side, they played guess who, and jenga. We ate smores and popped popcorn in our campfire popper. Dh and dd-6 went swimming twice, not my cup of tea. We will be going back for the weekend prior to 4th of July, it really is a nice camp if you get the right neighbors.

We did use the heater, bbq, and frig. Learned that we can travel with the frig hooked up to the battery, and then change it to gas or electric. That will be nice when we go on our month long trip this summer. We do need to practice and get some speed at setting up and putting down the camper.

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