Highlights from April

Ben has been busy updating our family website. We purchased Cameroon4Christ.com some time ago, but because we aren't web designers, we have no idea how to upkeep this site (maybe someone can give us a lesson in the future). Originally my brother did this for us and we appreciate ALL the work that he has done to help us in our ministry. From prayer cards, to our furlough presentations, to our website and beyond, he has been such a help to us! He is on deputation for his own mission field of Venezuela and working very hard to raise the final support his family needs to leave for the field in December of this year. His schedule is too busy and we don't want to pester him with website updates. So, we recently asked him to link our dot com, to our blog. That way people can type in either web address and it will take them to the same spot. Perfect solution! So, this week Ben has been busy updating our ministry blog! You can see my nice blog button off to the right there, with an easy little link! So, please click that adorable blog button and check out our refurbished ministry blog! (after you are done reading my blog post of course! heehee!)

We were blessed this past week with a visit from our field director and his wife, Steve and Martha Anderson. Their visit was much too short! We enjoyed every minute with them, and wish it could have been longer for sure! The fellowship was wonderful and as always we enjoyed some great laughs. They arrived on Saturday and Martha spoke for our ladies meeting. We had a wonderful group of women. I couldn't believe how many came actually. We served a meal, and thank the Lord we had plenty of food. This photo was taken before everyone arrived. You can still see what a good group we had though.

Eunice, Emma, and I are helping here to serve the food to all the ladies. I'm so glad we had enough! We had a big cooler of jellof rice and then some ladies brought fufu and njamajama and fish. I also brought banana bread and muffins. Every last bit of food was eaten!

Sunday was a busy day as usual. Brother Steve preached in both of our churches. I failed to plan out our teachers so I missed out on both his messages as I had to do Children's Church in both Bambili and Bamenda. I heard they were great though.

Martha kept my kids in line :)

Then on Monday they treated us to lunch at "The Fancy Place," as my children affectionately call it. haha! The Andersons got a kick out of the menu - specifically:

Evidently fish don't come out of the oceans here in Cameroon - they are fabricated in our fancy restaurants!

Needless to say we had a great visit with them and were sad to see them go. They headed to Douala for several days to visit missionaries there, and then are heading back in the direction of Kenya where they will continue to serve as furlough replacement missionaries until May.  We will see Bro. Steve again in July, however. He will be coming with that huge group of 20 from First Baptist Church of Land O' Lakes. We are looking forward to that visit for sure!

The next big thing on our calendar is our annual family camp. That is Next Week!! It is always a time of refreshment and fellowship with missionary friends that we have come to love dearly. Our family has been working on special music and skits for the week. The kids are excited to get together with friends. I will have a lot to update after that weeks is over I'm sure!

On Life, Meat, and Kittens

We are adjusting to life back in Cameroon and it is in full swing! The ministry and home life are busy and there is never a dull moment here! I'll recap some of the last several weeks.

First, I'm happy to announce that we are indeed, MOUSE-FREE! Our Rat Zapper is the bomb, and we also have another form of rodent control.

Way cuter than the rat zapper - don't you agree? :)

The kids are absolutely loving our new kitty, which we all agreed to name Charcoal. We call her Coal for short. We debated naming her Claw...and I'm wondering if that would have been more fitting. That little kitty loves to use my legs as her scratching board! Ouch! She really is very sweet and loves attention. She meow's constantly because she just wants someone to play with. The naming process was a fun one, and the kids thought it was great that they could cast a ballot for their favorite name. In the end, Coal was the winner, hands down. I think the kids just thought the whole voting process was fun, and they didn't really care what the final choice was.

Another fun process about our home life is preparing beef. I've done posts in the past about the time consuming task of trimming and grinding the meat. Thankfully it is a process that we only have to do every few weeks. And I'm so thankful for my husband who takes the trimming part. I normally do the grinding and cleaning up. Our last meat venture, Ben made it to the market as soon as the cow was butchered. In fact, he came too early at first, and he had to wait. I'm sure that not too many people get meat as fresh as we get ours. To prove how fresh it is, watch this!

I know, I know - gross. But, hey...that is my life here. :)

One exciting part of our ministry is the recent growth of our church plant in Benakuma. God provided a piece of land through a member in the church. This man donated some of his property and the people in the church got excited about building their own building! They began making mud blocks and as the rainy season drew near, Ben and a group of men from Faith Baptist Church in Bamenda, went out and helped Faith Baptist Church of Benakuma build the walls up.

The whole church got involved from the men right down to the women and children. In fact, I think the women had the hardest job! They carried buckets and buckets of water from the river back and forth to the building site, which according to Ben was a good little hike straight up and down a hill!! And the kids...they were just having fun playing in the mud! lol!

Here is a glimpse of the process. Mud bricks, mud mortar. Ben hard at work - or playing in the mud himself. I'm not too sure which.

And this is as far as they got on the last trip.

Since then, TomMike went out to help install door and window frames and put up the rest of the walls. Our church in Bamenda voted to help provide wood for the rafters and zinc for the roof. The people are SO excited. Actually, the whole village is buzzing about it. It is obvious God is doing this work because the people out there literally have nothing. It will most certainly be God's church!

So that pretty much sums up our most recent events. We had a wonderful Easter Sunday last week. We have been enjoying the arrival of the rainy season. It always seems like it will never come, but Thank God it does! We are anticipating the arrival and visit of our field director, Bro. Steve Anderson and his wife Martha next week. I have a lot of cleaning up to do before they get here. That is one bonus of company - the house gets cleaned! haha!

Some of the next big events on the agenda are our annual family camp the first week of May and then we are anticipating hosting a group of 20 church members from First Baptist Church of Land O' Lakes Florida! That is going to be one exciting time! I can't wait to update that visit!

Pesky Little Critters

When someone says, "Africa" what comes to your mind?

Probably animals - giraffes and the like.

Or maybe you think of all the scary little critters that probably make their abode here. I'm guessing a lot of people think of snakes, and while snakes do live in Africa, I honestly haven't seen that many in over 7 years of living here. I dare say someone who lives out in the western United States has seen way more snakes than we've seen here in rural, Bambili.

I'm sure spiders would probably cross your mind as well. And yes, we do have a lot of spiders. My kids know me well though, they always tell me, "But mom - you like the spiders, don't you!" And I answer, "Yes I do!" Spiders eat all the other critters that I don't want in my house - like roaches for instance. Spiders don't bother me at all.

Of all the little critters that find their home here in Cameroon, however, this is the one I hate the most:

Maybe you just screamed when you saw that picture...I know I stifled a squeal when I saw them on my parlor floor! It was actually Faith Ann who found them first. Kate and I were working in the kitchen one Sunday night, and Faith came in and said, "Mommy! There is a mouse on the floor." I was like...huh? Really? She seemed a little too calm for her to be saying that. I mean, if I'd just seen a mouse, I'd be screaming in the parlor...not running in the kitchen to tell someone first. So, Kate and I were a little doubtful, but walked to the parlor to see what she was talking about. Lo and behold, there was this tiny, hairless creature scooting it's way blindly across the floor. Yep...a mouse had just had babies. Ewww!!! Fortunately for us, I guessed that we had killed Mama mouse the night before and that is why baby mice were on the move. They were probably hungry and looking for their next meal. (Kinda sad when I put it like that.)

So, I disposed of the babies in the trash can outside. It was a little sad, but I kept reminding myself that little baby mice grow up to be big mice, and big mice can do a LOT of damage.

For example, here is one of the girl's quilts that their Grandma made for them:
It was almost as if this mouse methodically chewed each thread to take out all those seams. Most of the seams look like a seam ripper was taken to them. Wierd!

I'm not sure if it was this same mouse, or another mouse, but one of them had a fetish with plastic toys. At first I found them on the floor of the parlor with body parts chewed off (Eeyore lost his face). Then, on the night we found the baby mice (one of them was actually still inside the fire place trying to crawl out) I discovered these guys:

Yeah, one of these crazy mice actually dragged Prince Charming and a Littlest Pet Shop into the fireplace! Craziness! So far I've only rescued Prince Charming. He was near the front and I'm happy to report, he is in tact. I'm sure Cinderella will be happy that her love isn't maimed in any way. I've yet to discover how Faith Ann's little ostrich is faring.

So, as you can see, mice are destructive. Very destructive! They not only ruined one of Grandma's quilt, they also ruined one of Great Nana's quilts. They ruined many of the kids toys and just caused an overall big mess with mouse droppings everywhere. The first week here was spent trying to eradicate our mouse problem and cleaning up after the messy things!

The first part of the week, I put down those mouse glue pads. They usually work quite well, and so I figured if I laid enough around, I'd surely catch these mice. The first night we did in fact catch one. After that, however, they kept avoiding those pads...or escaping from them. One night I knew one of the mice had been stuck, because he left behind the end of his tail! That is when I decided to get serious.

Many years ago (probably 5 or 6) I'd purchased a product to kill mice - The Rat Zapper. I will shamelessly put in a plug for this amazing product.

When I first bought it, I set it up outside and just knew I'd catch a ton of mice! After a few nights of no kills, I was extremely disappointed in the product and it sat on the floor, at the back of my pantry for literally years. Well, at this point I am desperate to get rid of these mice, so I put batteries in my zapper and tested it with a metal screwdriver to see if it still worked and we set it in the kitchen that night and baited it with pancakes. Imagine my excitement the next morning when the red light was blinking on the top of the device, indicating a kill! Yippee!!! However, this mouse still had its tail intact. I knew there was another. We set it up again the next night, baiting it the same way. WooHoo!! Two for two! And this one was missing part of his tail!! And then finally, the same Sunday night that we caught the baby mice, I walked through the parlor late - at 11 p.m. - and saw a mouse scurry across the parlor floor and into the fire place. I went and grabbed my zapper and set it right outside the fireplace, this time baiting it with pizza dough. Sure enough - first thing in the morning the red light was blinking again. 3 for 3!! I'm not sure why I didn't catch any mice with it when I first bought it. Maybe I put it in an area where there was no mouse traffic. But even after it had been sitting through major climate changes for about 6 years - the electronics in it still worked like a charm!

So, I'm happy to report that as far as I know - we are mouse free. :) I discovered the hole that the mice had chewed in one of the door frames that was allowing them free entrance into our home. Ben filled that with cement and I think we are good to go. I am not worried however, since I know my Rat Zapper does the trick...and on top of that, we should be getting a new kitty within a week or so which we are all (especially the kids) excited about!

We're Back!

How does one sum up an entire 7 months in just one blog post. I'm not sure! But, I'm going to try and at least give the highlights.

My last post from my old blog was just days away from our furlough. It highlighted our amazing netcaster's seminar. It was definitely a busy time - I was attempting to pack up the house while Ben was working so hard in Bamenda, but we got everything ready and were able to leave for Douala on July 7. We actually traveled with a group from the Netcaster's team, which was a lot of fun.

Just getting out of the airport was an answer to prayer. Days before we left, we applied for our 10 year residence cards. We were told that the kids didn't need anything, but when we got to the airport and tried to go through security, they went round and round with us about not having exit visas for the kids (just another way for them to make money). We went to the police commissioner's office located in the airport and the kids and I stood outside and prayed...HARD! The Lord answered and that man let us fly that night even though we should have purchased an exit visa for each of our 4 kiddos. In the future, we will buy one whether we need it or not! I was never so happy to get on a plane! It was late and Faith and Emma crashed as soon as we got on. I had no idea that our flight had a quick one hour hop to another African country until we got on there, but it did! We landed somewhere in Africa (I can't even remember now) and the entire flight crew changed over! I'd never seen that happen. A whole cleaning crew got on the plane and vacuumed and cleaned seats and bathrooms. I was frustrated b/c I didn't want Emma and Faith to wake up with all the commotion. Can you believe they slept through all of that! Most of the plane reboarded with new passengers and a new flight crew and we were off to Brussels. The flights were crazy long, but we finally made it to Chicago. We had a long enough layover to meet Ben's parents at McDonalds in the O'Hare airport before hopping on our last leg to Atlanta.

My Dad and brother, Jason, picked us up in two van's. Jay emptied all the seats out of his van for our luggage and the kids and I piled into my Dad's van for the ride home. Most of the kids were asleep before we even left the parking garage! haha! Two hours later we arrived home - Home was a beautiful house that God provided for us for our furlough. I've never lived in a house that nice in the states before! A family in our church moved onto a new ministry in Florida and put their house up on the market. They came to my mom about us living there during our furlough. God ALWAYS provides for us and it is always so exciting to see how he does it! We walked into an adorable home that my mom and dear friend, Beth, worked so hard to decorate and furnish for us. Many of our friends let us borrow furniture so that we had a home to live in! It was wonderful! And so our furlough began!

TRAVELING:
Much of our furlough was devoted to traveling. This furlough Ben made many of the trips alone. I visited most of our churches last furlough and we were also offered an opportunity to put our kids in school. So to avoid too many absent days, I stayed home more than normal. We still did travel though and I was able to see so many of our wonderful supporters. We were also in about 7 new churches trying to raise additional support, so it was nice to meet new people as well. When all was said and done, our family traveled about 30,000 miles! Again, a lot of that Ben did alone and part of that mileage was a trip to Washington state for a missions conference! God provided a van through a ministry in Missouri, BMTM. We paid a monthly lease and they took care of everything else. It is a great ministry and we had the most amazing van! It had a built in TV that folded down from the roof. What was so awesome about it was it was hooked up to a VCR in the console between two of the passenger seats!! haha! It was dated, yes, but it worked like a charm. Ben's mom collects VHS tapes from yard sales, so we had no shortage of movies to watch while traveling! God provided some new support from some individuals and a few of our supporters increased the support they were already giving! We are at about 92% support right now, and still lack that 8%, but we know that God will provide what is still needed in His time! If you are interested in seeing our update presentation, feel free to watch it below. My blog has narrow margins, so if you want to see it in the full screen format, you can just click the link and it will take you directly to youtube.

SCHOOL:
Our kids had the awesome opportunity of going to real school! :) Not that homeschool isn't real school - but you know what I mean! haha! They got on their cute little uniforms and got up at the crack of dawn only to bring home loads and loads of homework every day. Suffice it to say, they are so happy to be back with mom as their teacher! lol! I'm being funny really, because the truth is they loved school. Emma and Faith especially. They all miss their teachers and their classmates. It was a wonderful learning time for all of us. I was able to see some things that I need to change. For instance...it took Drew weeks to learn to put his name on his paper. I don't make him put his name on his paper of course! I only have one 5th grader in my school so I know what papers are his! But, I see now it is an important skill to learn. They were overwhelmed with remembering what subjects were for homework and how to keep track of projects, but by the end of the first semester we were actually getting the hang of things. I wouldn't trade the experience for the world. They made friends, went on fun field trips, learned life-long lessons and just plain had fun. Not to mention - I loved days where I was by myself! It was wonderful! lol!

FAMILY:

We loved spending time with family - the biggest highlight of our furlough. We lived about 5 minutes down the road from my Mom, which was wonderful. We were about 5 minutes away from my Grandmother, and about 10 minutes away from my brother and his family. We enjoyed all the special times of getting together. The cousins are old enough now that they play so well together. It was fun when Drew, Sam and Lukey got together with their Nintendo DS games. They'd link up and play one another. I enjoyed getting to know my nephews and niece better as well and especially fell in love with little Jude. He was just a baby the last time we were home, and he is such a stinkin' ham! I love him! And sweet Ellie as well, who was born while we were on the field this last term. I just loved getting to know all of them. I absolutely have to share this video my brother did of his kids. It is all his kids (they are all the fair skinned ones) and the Arce's kids quoting John 3:16. You will get a kick out of the ending. I could watch it a hundred times over - it just doesn't get old!

Now seriously...isn't that adorable??

VACATION:

A visit to the states isn't complete without some good vacations! Ben and I enjoyed a week getaway at a gorgeous cabin in the mountains. It was so nice, but I kept saying throughout the week, "Oh, the kids would just love this." Next time we want to take them with us!

In December we went to Florida with my parents and had a blast at Disney World. My Dad went with us, which was a rare opportunity, and the kids loved having him share all the special memories with them! The weather couldn't have been more perfect and the crowd levels were low. It was a great week. I even got my kids on a bunch of roller coasters! They are all hooked now!

MINISTRY:

So now we are back and there are some adjustments in our ministry. While we were on furlough we received a call from our co-workers that they were planning to come off the field. They actually left one week before our return here. So, there is a big hole in the ministry that we are praying will be filled with some of these men in our churches. It will be a very busy term for us however, as we carry the load of two families on only one set of shoulders. While we are looking forward to the Cameroonians to fill in the gaps, I also feel that team missions is a wonderful concept and having another American family to work with and fellowship with is a big help. I'm praying that God will give us another like-minded family that can work along side us!

We are getting settled again, and while our house is livable, it still has some work that needs to be done. The first week was spent cleaning every nook and cranny. I had to wash every single dish, cup, plate, fork etc... in the kitchen before we could even us it. We had to vacuum out all the cabinets and wipe down all the shelves. Everything was so dirty and mice had free run of our home as well and they did a lot of damage. It was difficult the first week because we didn't have water. That has since been taken care of and now my kitchen is functional, and I have just about washed everything there is to wash - minus a few curtains. We found the mouse's entrance and Ben cemented that and I think we are ready to go again. School starts back on Monday and whether I'm ready or not, I need to get back in the routine. We are ready for a 2 1/2 year term and excited to see what God is going to do! He is the strength in our weakness and He will get all the glory for what happens here in Bambili and Bamenda!

So, I hope that you will continue to follow me as I give updates! I appreciate my readers more than I can say! I love your comments and look forward to reading them!

NetCasters

If you aren't familiar with Netcasters, I'll briefly explain it.

You are probably familiar with the little Sunday School song, "I Will Make You Fishers of Men." That is what this program is all about. It is basically an intense training course on how to effectively share the Gospel and lead people to Christ. Those who participate have to memorize a ton of scripture and steps on how to share the gospel. There are training sessions every day to equip. One day I plan to take it myself. It is very time intensive and bringing the kids to Bamenda from 7:30 in the morning until 8 pm. every day it just impossible at this point. When they get older though, we will definitely take part.

So the first day there were 60 people in attendance. That day is just straight teaching. Nobody goes out for "Catching-Catching" as they call it. On the 2nd day, our church had 80 people in attendance! Wow! We even had a few come all the way from Benakuma! One of my Sunday School kids is even taking part in the program (11 or 12 years old) and Ben said he is so bold it is unbelievable! :D After a morning of training, the group pairs up into teams of 2 or 3. The head of each team is a believer who has experience sharing the gospel, and they go out. Basically they go door to door, or business to business. After a couple hours of sharing the gospel, they come back for testimony and praise time. On day 2, Ben's group was busy sharing the gospel with a group of men and he was late and missed the entire testimony time. He finally heard an amazing testimony yesterday (day 3) and I had to share it on my blog.

A group of 2 Cameroonian guys went out to share the gospel. On day 2 it was really rainy and stormy in Bamenda, so it is amazing how many people recieved the gospel that day. Anyway, David was sharing the gospel to 3 guys and they listened, but basically ended the conversation with ... We need to think about it. David kept pressing them with the fact that today is the day of salvation. He gave an example and told them, that at any time, lightening could come down from this heavy storm and strike them dead. If they didn't repent and believe the gospel, they would spend eternity in hell. He told Ben yesterday that right at that very moment, lightening struck the spot where those three guys were standing - and literally knocked two of them off their feet! One man said he felt the lightening strike his hand! You better believe that right that second all three of those guys bowed their heads and put their faith and trust in Jesus!!

It sounds unbelievable doesn't it! God works in mysterious ways! :D

Yesterday the group was down to about 65 and they had another amazing day of "catching-catching" Tonight the Netcasters group that came from the states to teach this program is coming over for dinner. It is Emma's birthday, so she wanted to celebrate with a crowd. And there are about 20 of them! So she definitely got her crowd! lol! I made one cake and now need to make another one. I've got ice cream ready to freeze and I'm making taco soup and serving it over rice to make it go further along with cornbread casserole. Hopefully it will be enough food. And thank the Lord - both the power and water came back today! I'm in desperate need of both!

June Update

Oh man, there is a lot to share...so I best get right down to it!

I have been enjoying our summer break. I am still keeping the kids busy with their vacation station books. We are also really focusing on learning our times tables, since Drew has a weakness in that area, and Kate should be memorizing them now too. The kids are doing well and don't mind the bit of school I push on them each day to keep them caught up.

Ben found a special treat in Bamenda a couple weeks ago. They are long gone by now, but we managed to stretch them out for a few days anyway:

Yummy! Who doesn't love Lucky Charms?! It is my favorite cereal...or one of them anyway. I'm kind of a sugar cereal fanatic.

The kids have also been doing well with their piano. They love their teacher, Miss Sarah and she has been such a blessing to teach the kids each week. One of our favorite days of the week is Tuesday because we go up to the Needhams for piano lessons. Check out this dinosaur of a fruit that Aunt Barb had on hand:Last week the kids finished up their final piano lessons and Sarah held a piano recital as well. It was so nice. Our three kids prepared music and there were two Cameroonian girls that Sarah and April have been teaching. Sarah also played some beautiful solo numbers.

The kids did a great job and we got the whole thing on video for the grandparents as well. :D

We have a new restaurant we have been going to on Mondays for the past few weeks, Friman's. It isn't really new to us, but we don't take the family there very often until recently when my girls have gotten a hankerin' for Fufu and Njamajama. It is a very typical Cameroon dish that my girls love. Kate and Emma are really funny - they make the perfect pair. Kate prefers the Fufu, and Emma the Njamajama. So, they eat a bit of both, but end up swapping for their favorites near the end of the meal.Well, most of you know that our furlough is fast approaching. 17 days to be exact. :D In preparation for furlough, I wanted to get a suit made for Drew. I figured buying him a suit in the states would cost near an arm and a leg, and we got one made for 30 bucks. It isn't finished yet, but I've seen how well the suits look here, so I have no doubt it will look professional when it is finished. Here is a shot of the suit man measuring Drew.

I am also going to get an outfit made for myself - something I've never done successfully. This time I have a trusted seamstress, Mirabel. She came to the house today and took my measurements - I can't wait to see the finished product. Here's hoping it fits ok! :D

This past Friday we had a meal in our home for our church leaders from both Bambili and Bamenda. I'm always a little nervous hosting Cameroonians b/c they don't ususally like my cooking. I figured I'd go with a favorite all over the world, Spaghetti. It was a hit!

Something new that I learned on this night... Cameroonians like butter. I put it on the table thinking...maybe some of them will have it. I know my kids will anyway. My kids barely had any and the rest of them took down an entire cup of butter for that meal. Wow. I also had french bread of course, to go with the butter, carrots and green bean medley (that sounds so fancy - really just carrots and green beans steamed together) and carrot cake for dessert, which they also loved. We had a great time of group prayer after our meal. We are so thankful for these leaders in our church and are just praying that one will step up and commit to becoming a pastor for one of our churches. Please pray with us.

This past Sunday we had a wonderful baptism service. Brother Walters was baptized.

This man has an amazing testimony of God's miraculous work in his life. His first and foremost miraculous work was his spiritual birth of course, but he also had a brush with death and God spared him. And amazingly enough, his brush with death occurred in America. He came to the states many years ago as a student. Late one night he picked up a man needing a ride. Unfortunately he could tell immediately this man was on drugs. The guy pulled out a knife and made him drive to the nearest ATM machine. He demanded that Bro. Walters pull all his money out of the bank, which he did at several thousand dollars, and gave it to the thief. They got back in the car and the man told him to take him back to where he'd picked him up. Somewhere along the way, the guy must have had enough presence of mind to realize that he could be identified unless he did something, so he took his knife and slashed Bro. Walters throat. The man ran off, and bro. Walters made it to the nearest phone booth, dialed 911 and the next thing he knew he woke up in the hospital several months later. The doctors told him that when they found him, he was clinically dead. And of course he was in a coma for some time and they never knew if he'd ever wake up. Thank God that this man received two new lives - a physical one and a spiritual one.

The last thing I want to mention is something very important taking place this week. Our Bamenda church has the privilege of hosting a Netcasters seminar. Pastor Mark Gilmore from Falls Baptist in Wisconsin has come out with a team, to train believers how to share the gospel effectively. The days are full - from 8 in the morning until 6 in the evening. All the sister churches were also invited. We are running our bus from Bamessing all the way to Bamenda and back each day. Pray that the bus keeps running. Pray for fruit that remains as hundreds of Bamenda residents will hear the gospel this week. And how encouraging it was for our church to see this group on the first day of Netcasters:

Thank you to so many of you who read my blog. I really appreciate it. I hope it has been a blessing and help in keeping up with our ministry. I also hope to see some of you on furlough in just a couple of weeks!!

May Update

I absolutely love rainy season. My favorite time of year, and it is now in full swing. Today it was rainy, and is now breezy and very cold! I love it! In fact, if it weren't for the fact that I'm cozy in my kitchen with the oven and burners going, I'd be snuggled under a blanket with my warmest socks and sweats on! It is like a cold fall day (which is my favorite time of year in America by the way).

The last few weeks since family camp have been busy, but not nearly as busy when the kids were in school. We have been spending the mornings doing our "vacation station" books. They are awesome workbooks put out by BJU press, that give the kids a review of what they have learned about over the past year. It will hopefully keep them sharp so that when they head back to school, they won't forget what was learned this year. We have also been studying the states. The kids can sing the 50 Nifty United States song and we have been quizzing capitals and other facts of the first five states. We delve into California next and I'd love for them to be able to fill out a map of the US and also know the capital city of each state...but we will see. I bought some candy, and if they want a piece they either have to answer a question about one of our states, or they have to sing for me! lol! I have been working with the kids on music and they have a lot of songs prepared for our furlough travels. My mom is anxiously awaiting their return so they can sing in church and she can beam with pride and joy! They are doing a great job and I'm so thankful for kids that truly love to sing!

The kids have been taking piano lessons too, and we had a really fun day at piano lessons this past week! Rosemary Craven got some horses together and after the kids had their lessons they rode horses for a while. Then we had a picnic lunch outside on the grass and after lunch the older Needhams kids took my kiddos down the water slide! We forgot our camera, but I'm pretty sure that Abby Sanderlin got some pictures, so I'll have to beg them off her. They had a blast and slept like babies that night! They were so exhausted!

I tried something new this past week that I've never tried before...making donuts!

I used a biscuit cutter to cut the donut and a bottle cap to cut out the centers. When I'm home I'll pick up a donut cutter. They are really cheap and it will be fun to have one to make donuts. I was surprised at how easy they were! And the family loved them!

I also wanted to share this picture of my Mom on mothers day. She and my aunt took my grandmother out to lunch. I love this picture of of all of them!

I spent the early hours of Mother's day up sick...blech! Ben was gone for a three day weekend to Benakuma to encourage the churches out there. It was just me and the kiddos. They spent the morning doing who knows what while I tried to catch a few winks of sleep to make up for my long night. They did watch movies and I do know that they made a mess! Oh well...thankfully nothing bad happened! lol! But, I did get a really great early Mother's day gift before Ben left for Benakuma...

Yeah, I scrapped it! haha! I have been thoroughly enjoying my Kindle and have already read two books that I got for free! How can you beat that!! My scrapbook page tells the story of how I came across my Kindle earlier than I should have...Oops! Mom sent it to Ben in a package and she had wrapped it very carefully with Ben's name on it. I was going crazy when the box came, opening up everything...I didn't even think twice when I opened that package! Before I'd even gotten all of the brown paper off of it, I saw what it was. Ben walked in about that moment and I said, "I don't think I'm supposed to see this...am I?" It was originally an anniversary gift, but he knew how much I wanted it, so he switched some things around and decided to give it to me for Mother's day. What a guy!! I'm so glad he did too, b/c I am really enjoying it!

I wanted to share this adorable picture of Emma and her new smile. Her front teeth are coming in and she looks so cute! I just grin everytime she looks at me. It completely changes her whole look!

She and Faith Ann suck their thumbs, and and since Emma's new teeth have started coming in, I have determined to make them quit. I have this nail polish called Mavala Stop. It worked for Kate who was a die hard finger sucker (she sucked her pointer finger) and so I know it will work for Emma and Faith. It is a big pain, b/c they have to be careful about picking up food even or the stuff will get on it. I told them I didn't care if they had to experience a little bit of discomfort...I was going to get them to stop! It is ruining their teeth...Hopefully it will work quickly.

Well, less than two months until furlough...and counting! We are getting excited and definitely looking forward to it! I know the next two months will fly by really fast. They always do.

Until next time!