GW Trunk-or-Treat 2011

Trick or Treat!!!!

My little Ladybug

Josie and Braden

Josie and Braden with Ms. Peggy

Josie and Rachel

Josie really enjoyed being my helper and handing out candy to people.
She kept saying "This one will be your favorite!"

The Infamous Widick Hayride 2011

Every October, Lane's family gets together to have a weenie roast and hayride for all the kids. We've lived too far away to be able to go....until this year. Josie got to experience her first Widick Hayride. We started out the afternoon by just letting the kids all play for a while. Josie loved raking up leaves at the bottom of the slide (or truthfully, having someone do it for her), and then sliding into them. She did that for a really long time! Granddaddy built a huge bonfire and we roasted hotdogs for dinner. Then we had s'mores for dessert....Josie wasn't a big fan of her s'more. She actually took it apart and ate everything separately. Go figure. One it got dark, we loaded up in the back of Granddaddy's truck (filled with hay, of course) and drove around for a while. (Shhh....we know it's illegal. But Granddaddy went pretty slow, and we stayed on country roads!) We sang songs and the kids all loved throwing hay out of the truck.
After living so far away, events like this mean so much more to us now. I am SO thankful to be closer to family and that Josie is making memories to share with her cousins.

My Little Bed-maker

For the past two mornings, Josie has made her bed all by herself! (Without me ever asking her to do it in the first place!) I've never said anything to her about making her own bed. I guess she sees me making our bed every morning, so she's learned by example that that's just what you're supposed to do. She does a really great job of it, too! I'm not tempted at all to go behind her and "fix" it. I just hope this spirit of "willful tidiness" will continue as she gets older! So proud of my growin' girl!!!

Fall Fest and Nashville Zoo

On Saturday, our church had "Fall Fest" as a community outreach event. We had all kinds of fun activities on the church lawn: a bouncy house, a HUMONGOUS inflatable slide (which Josie and I went down about 5 times. It took me an hour to talk her into it, then she loved it!), a car show, awesome food, face painting, a petting zoo (complete with a camel!), and pony rides. It was a lot of fun and it seemed to me that we had a TON of visitors from the neighborhood. Please be praying for our church as we follow-up with those visitors and continue to share the love of Jesus with them.

Josie's face while looking at the petting zoo from a "safe" distance.

Josie and her new friend Rachel with the goats.

Not a fan of the pony ride.

Josie's favorite event of the day (other than the slide): popcorn.

Today we met my sister-in-law, Mary Anne, and her kids (still on Fall Break) for our first trip to the Nashville Zoo. This zoo didn't have as many animals as the Houston Zoo, but it was very nicely maintained and laid out. I must say that the playground area is AWESOME, and would be worth the membership fee just to have access to that all the time. Seriously....there's a huge castle/fort with a 3-story tunnel slide. So cool!!! We had great weather and it was such a nice day to walk through the zoo. Here are some pictures:

Josie in the garden at the "farm".

We got to go inside this bird "sanctuary" and feed them nectar from little cups. I don't remember what kind of birds they were, but they were very colorful and pretty. They would land on your arm and eat from the little cups. The kids all loved it!

This picture totally makes me laugh. My niece, Faith, had just tried to pet the bird that was on her hand and it pecked at her. I just happened to get her reaction. :-)

Josie and John Derrick watching the elephant. We wanted him to stick his trunk in the water and spray, but he never did.

Josie's transformation from being deathly afraid of the goats on Saturday, to being in an open pen with them and brushing one on Monday. Go figure.

The Pumpkin Patch

My sister-in-law had asked if we could get together and do something while her kids were on Fall Break. I wanted to take Josie to a pumpkin patch, and found a great website for one in Lebanon (where they live, about 40 minutes from us). So, we all went to the pumpkin patch together and had a great time! It was really warm today (I think the high was 85), so it wasn't exactly a "crisp, fall day", but we all had a lot of fun. The place we went to was called Lannom Farms. They had all kinds of activities for the kids. We started with our picnic lunch. Then we saw some animals (chickens, donkeys and a baby cow). There was a water pump station, a corn crib, a cow-milking station, corn maze, hay bale maze, trike track, hay hill, soybean maze, hayride, and other games. Josie had to be talked into the hayride, but admitted at the end that it wasn't so bad. She really liked the cow-milking station and playing on the slides. She helped me pick out two BIG pumpkins for us to carve, a pretty veined pumpkin, and her very own little pumpkin.

This is a lot of work!

Milking the cow

Corn!

Playin' in the corn crib (we actually found some of this in her clothes when we got home!)

Hay Bale Maze

That black tunnel is a slide that goes down the other side.

Swooshing out the bottom of the slide! It was really fast!!!

Their faces certainly portray their excitement. We did this "smaller" maze, while Mary Anne and Faith did the 3.5 acre corn maze that was supposed to take 45 minutes.

Grow little pumpkin, grow!

Slam dunk!

"Look Mommy, I'm walking on the hay!" (repeat 50 times)

First Day of Preschool

My little girl is growing up! Yesterday was Josie's first day of preschool. She's going to a Mother's Day Out program at Crieve Hall Church of Christ on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9:30 - 2:30. She's also going to our MDO program at Granny White on Wednesday mornings.
It's going to be good for her to be in a classroom with some other kids her own age. Her classes are small (only 5-7 kids), so she'll still get lots of attention. She was so excited when I dropped her off yesterday. She loved carrying her backpack and her own lunch box. In the classroom, I had to MAKE her stop playing and come tell me goodbye. Then, I went to the car and cried.
I went to the grocery store all by myself. Then, when I sat down to eat lunch, I realized that I was alone in the house for the first time in 3 1/2 years. Wow, it was quiet. But I got the rest of the kitchen unpacked without interruption. It was the fastest 5 hours I've experienced in a long time! Before I realized it, it was time to go pick her up again!
When I picked her up, Ms. Katy said she did great all day, and that she never cried or even really asked about me. A little girl in her class brought in cupcakes for her birthday. They talked about colors, the letter C, and finger-painted apples on a tree. Josie said they had Goldfish for snack, and I'm sure she was happy about that. She did NOT take a nap. (Nap time has been HORRIBLE since we moved, so I wasn't surprised.) She said her mat wasn't comfortable and Ms. Katy let her sit at the table and do puzzles. So, we'll work on that. ;-)

Greater Things

For those of you who don't know, over the last couple of years I've settled into a very consistent exercise routine. I exercise rather intensely for 45 minutes to an hour, six days a week. It's not about losing weight, it's about being healthy and doing something for "me". I get up early in the morning before anyone else is awake. This keeps my "me time" consistent and uninterrupted. I've done several different programs including P90X (twice!), TurboFire, Chalene Extreme, and Physique 57. But my all-time favorite way to break a good sweat is to go for an old-fashioned run.
I remember a time when I used to HATE to run, but now I love it! I think my love for running is tied into the spiritual connection I feel with God when I do it. When I can get away from the house on a long run, it's one of the few times that it's just me and God. For a while now, I've had my exercise schedule strategically set up so that my run day is on Sunday. It's the perfect way to start a Sunday....I think of it as my Sabbath morning "sacrifice". I've really come to treasure that special time to think and pray (God, please, just help me make it to the next stop sign!). I always have Christian music going on my I-pod, and there's always something He has to say to me through one of the songs. Today, that song was "God of this City" by Chris Tomlin.

Shortly after we moved to Houston, I began working as a nanny for the Lackey family. I'll never forget the first Wednesday night that I drove all of the kids into "town" for church. It was my first real experience of Houston commuter traffic. We were headed north into the city, so our side of the freeway was fine. However, the south side of the freeway headed out of town was just PACKED with cars. Thousands upon thousands of people in all those cars crawling their way back out to the suburbs. As I was noticing all the traffic, "God of this City" came on the radio and as I listened to the words of the song, I broke into tears. I felt so overwhelmed at the daunting task of bringing God's love to a city of so many people. It was like God was revealing to me the enormity and the importance of our role here. So many people who need the love of Christ. So many people who need to know that life can be and is SUPPOSED to be so much more than working, spending an hour and a half in traffic, and barely getting to see their families every day ... only to get up and do it all over again the next day. Since then, every time I hear that song I think of that moment.
So once again, this morning when it unexpectedly came on my I-pod during my run, I thought about that same moment. But this time, God used that same song to give me a different message. You see, I've been feeling really guilty about our move to Nashville. Don't get me wrong....I'm really excited about getting to Granny White and seeing what God has in store for us there. But I feel guilty for leaving West U because I still see so much work that needs to be done here. Honestly, this time it was a message about humility. The truth is, I had a lot of plans for what I was going to do at West U. I was taking over the preschool program. I was revamping the children's worship. I was starting Bible Memory Challenge. Now that we are moving, some of those things are not going to happen. The realization that MY plans for West U are different from GOD'S plans has been a tough pill to swallow. Or even more humbling---was I even seeking out God's will in making those plans in the first place, or was I just moving forward with what I thought was best?
Regardless, this morning I felt God telling me to let the guilt go. God is the God of Houston. He is the King of these people. There is no other God like Him. And He will do whatever He wants to do in Houston....with or without me. I guess the big lesson is this: God is God. I am not. I'm just Kristen. I don't have the magic answers to solve all the problems. I just need to listen and do what God says when and where He says to do it.

Father God, thank you so much for this lesson in humility. I know that Your plans are higher and greater than my plans. Your thoughts are so much greater than my thoughts. Even when I demand my own way, You will always accomplish Your purpose. I know that greater things are still to come in Houston. Jesus, I pray that every soul in this city would come to know you as their Lord and Savior! I believe in YOU, God, that YOU will shine light into the darkness. And wherever You choose to send me, God---whether it's Houston or Nashville or Antarctica, I pray that my service will glorify Your name.