out of the mouths of babes.

I love my son Bobby. He’s awesome.

He says the funniest things sometimes. I’ve decided to refer to them, affectionately, as “Bobbyisms.” Some Bobbyisms are just slips of the tongue; others are akin to Jack Handey’s “Deep Thoughts” of old. Here are a few Bobbyisms…

“So, what are you going to go over me with?” (said during school, when he meant to ask me, “What are you going to go over with me?”)

“What’s that old saying? ‘All lunches cost money?’ Or something like that? Or is it ‘Every lunch costs money?’”
He was referring to the adage, “There are no free lunches.”

“I’d rather pack my own lunch than buy the lunch that they serve [at the co-op that he attends twice a week]. Those lunches may carry a sickness and I wouldn’t want to catch it.”

“We were playing football outside today and the other team won. They were really good. The older kids would create an aversion and pass the ball to one of the little kids who would score the touchdown.”
I'm pretty sure he meant "diversion." He swears now that that's what he said.

He’s very articulate, but sometimes his brain flies ahead of his mouth.

A merry heart does good like a medicine, and my son's an excellent doctor.

kingdom as usual.

We had Bob Jones come to our church Sunday. He had just finished a weekend conference with Kathie Walters down by the Atlanta airport, and stopped at our church on the way back home. We consider him a spiritual father to our church, and he and my pastor’s family are very close. What a blessing he was. I cannot remember everything he said, as it was a great deal of information, and it was pretty meaty. I’ll be getting the CD recording of the service on Wednesday. A couple of things I can remember off the top of my head are as follows:

The Lord is calling us to spend more time laying at His feet. As we lay at His feet, He will go before us and bring us victory in our trying circumstances. (That was a great encouragement, as we are going through a trying time right now!)

In a year (around June), a season will begin where we will cross over the Jordan. We will begin to enter into the promises that we have been given but have yet to see manifested.

There was just so much. It is one of those messages that I will have to listen to repeatedly to be able to really digest it all. I will post more yummy bits of this message over the next several days.

school bells ring.

And so ends our first week of school. Sure, we homeschool year-round, but fall begins a new year in a new grade, as well as the beginning of co-ops. My son is in a new co-op this year that we're trying out called The Hedge. He likes it so far, and so do I. This is also our fifth year at Master's Academy. Luckily, we don't start there until after Labor Day. I have become the kind of person who needs to ease into things one thing at a time, instead of jumping into everything at once. Therefore, having a two week hedge in between one activity and the other is a good thing.

I teach high school Spanish at The Hedge. Pretty easy stuff for me...I really need to get going on writing my own curriculum! It's been "in the works" for over a year now. I will put that on my list of goals for this coming year: "Finish Spanish Curriculum!" We're using Rosetta Stone at school though. From what I've seen so far, it's a great program, allbeit expensive. I always heard good things about it but never bought it because of the price and well, I really never needed it.

I'll also be teaching Spanish to adults out of my home in a few weeks. I plan to have at least one beginning Spanish class, if not two. It will run for about twelve weeks I think. Most of the material I will use will be stuff to help people preach the Gospel in Spanish-speaking areas and neighborhoods. It's a desperate need. I go out on the streets on a fairly regular basis as a translator, and it is an awesome experience. I want to be in on miracles, and what better way to do it than this? But it would be great if a translator weren't needed because everyone spoke a comfortable amount of Spanish.

I'm not sure how often I'll be able to go on outreaches now that school has started, but I do hope to hit some of the fall high school football games! We heard some awesome testimonies at church last year about the goings-on every weekend, but I never went because I was pregnant and perpetually sick and tired. Looking forward to it this year!

Let's hope this school year doesn't kick my butt.

baby steps.

Okay. Today the baby takes TWO steps.

He's so ready to walk it's unbelievable.

I, however, am NOT ready.

Why do the past nine months seem like nine minutes? I'm not ready for my baby to grow up. I can't stop him from walking when he's ready, nor would I want to. I just wish I could get back a few of those precious moments when he was this teeny tiny wonder, lying asleep in my arms. I'd like to go back for a few minutes to the day when, at a month old, he smiled at me for the first time. Or the first time he screamed out in laughter. Or even the moment they put him in my arms, with that tiny beanie on his head and his tiny swollen eyes. My, what a morning that was. I wish I could keep in the forefront of my memory those moments, so that they never collected any dust in my mind, never got fuzzy. The memories of my now almost ten year-old are practically a blur, and once upon a time I thought that would never happen. It's bittersweet. I'm excited to see the marvelous young men that they will become, but hopefully in Heaven I can go back sometimes to when they were my little babies...

$3.50 saved is $3.50 earned.

I sort of re-discovered Starbucks at the beginning of the summer. In the past, I would go there once every blue moon or so, just to splurge on a Chai Latte. But I ended up getting two Starbucks gift cards at the end of the school year, so I was a Star-bucks-spending fool. I discovered my new favorite (and my husband's and son's favorite) drink--the Vanilla Frappucino (read: the souped-up, glorified Vanilla milkshake). My, that's good. My new favorite, however, was soon to be replaced, within a week actually, by my current favorite--the Blackberry Green Tea Frappucino. Now, that's bliss in a cup.

Suddenly, I realized I was going to need more Starbucks money, and soon. I now understood the addiction of so many. But I just could not justify going once or twice a week and spending that kind of money on...a drink. My former beloved Chai Latte fell out of favor with me long ago upon discovering a much cheaper (89 cents!) version at QuikTrip that tasted every bit as good. (The QuikTrip version, by the way, was soon to replace my former favorite there, the French Vanilla Cappucino.)

Here's the rub: there is no QT version of the aforementioned Blackberry Green Tea Frappucino. I'll be getting no Bliss-in-a-Cup for 89 cents. If I want Bliss-in-a-Cup, I'm going to have to pay out the nose for it, by George.

Or will I?

I bought some Green Tea Chai Latte at Wal-Mart the other day. I used to buy the regular flavor pretty often, but had never tried the Green Tea flavor. I figured I'd get some to have with milk in the evenings, like I used to with the Original. So one evening I mixed up my Chai Latte drink--half Latte, half milk, like I had done so many times before, and tasted it. My, that was good. And oddly familiar.
It took a minute before I recognized the flavor; it tasted, uncannily, like my STARBUCKS BLISS-IN-A-CUP!
Then I thought, "Hmmm...what IF....I put some of this Torani syrup in it?....Just a shot....not too much.....It's not Blackberry, but maybe Raspberry will taste just as nice?..."

Nice.

This is certainly not to say that I won't ever return to Starbucks. That would be, well, silly. But.

I'm a bucks-saving fool, now that I've discovered I can knock off my own Bliss-in-a-cup.

my son's firsts.

Two days ago (Wednesday), my sweet little nine month-old baby boy did three things for the first time:
--he tried to take a step
--he clapped
--he tried to talk (prolonged gibberish, not the usual "gah").

Yesterday morning, he waved for the first time (after being waved "good-bye" to first).

I'm pretty excited.

And he's pretty cute.