New Beginning

I have begun a new and long journey. You can read about it here. Thank you all for the blessing of your prayers, concern and love over the last 2 weeks. It has blessed me beyond measure!

Sad ending, new beginning

Several of you that read my blog already know the ends and outs of my life over the last week.
This week and its holdings changed my life...forever.
This will be my last posting on this blog. I will close it here and start anew somewhere else...some day. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, I'd love to talk with you, eventually. Call me next week sometime and I will update you on how to find me. I will not be putting that information here.
"Peace for today and bright hope for tomorrow,"
Tamra

My Brave Boy

My sweet brave boy has wanted to jump off the diving board all summer long. Our pool doesn't have a board, so he hasn't had as many opportunities to build up his courage as I would've liked. But yesterday he mustered up the courage to jump. And once he jumped once, he couldn't get enough. He jumped like 20 times. It was great. It's so fun watching your kids try and do new things. Once it was time to leave he said, "Mom, all this time I didn't' know what I was missing by not jumping off the diving board. I want to do it all the time now."
Thanks to Pam, Conner and Erin who invited us over for lunch and swimming yesterday. What fun! And thanks to Amy for watching my children so I could go see her husband (Dr. Bean) about my troublesome tooth! What sweet friends I have!

Summer is nearing the end. Enjoy those hot swimming days while you can before it's time for long sleeves and cocoa. Have a great weekend everyone!

Rude Awakening

This morning I was awaken...
rudely awaken by a 2 and 1/2 inch cockroach crawling across my neck.

Enough said.

Good News

Well, what can I say? God is good. He always does what is best for His children. We've walked the path of trial over the last year and half (has it only been that long?) of Chris working 70 hour weeks. I'm proud to announce that this time of trial is coming to an end starting September 2nd! Chris was FINALLY promoted to Assistant Manager! YAY! He deserves this. He has been deserving of this promotion for a while in my unbiased opinion, but those Starbucks people just had to figure it out!

Thanks to all of you who have been praying for us. We so appreciate your love and concern.

Happy Birthday to 3 sweet friends

July holds so many birthdays for so many special people in my life. Unfortunately, I kind of let them come and go without enough recognition. So better later than never...

Happy Birthday Ann!
You're a sweet, godly friend that I was so blessed to meet over a year ago. Talk about providence bringing 2 people together! Thanks for getting on the plane that day!
Love you!

Happy Birthday Mindy!
Words could never put our friendship in perspective. You are a sister to me. You have been used as an instrument in my life to sharpen me, encourage me and ever so gently rebuke me. I hate that we live so far away now, but we know that miles could never separate 2 sisters in the Lord. I love you my dear friend!

Happy Birthday Laurie!
Thank you for always being the friend that makes me and mine feel so loved and special. You are my scrapbooking buddy, my accountability partner and my sister in the Lord! I can always count on you whenever I'm in a bind. You define loyalty.
You know I love you and cherish our friendship. You are my dear sweet friend! You're the forever kind! Love you Laurie!




Make a wish!

Kindermusik

Well, as of tomorrow my Kindermusik summer camps are over! What a relief to have one more round of classes completed and kind of sad all at the same time. Several of my students will not be returning until next summer because the mommies teach school and are about to go back to work. I am excited, however, to get some of my students back who took a break over the summer! I'm praying for another year of growth and blessing from the Lord on my little business. What an awesome job I have! I mean, it doesn't get much more fun than this! Here are some pictures of some of my classes so you can get a glimpse at what Kindermusik looks like in action.

Village Class
Birth-18 months

"Bubbles, bubbles, landing on your nose...Bubbles, bubbles, landing on your toes...Bubbles, bubbles floating to the floor...Pop them! Pop them! Now we'll blow some more!"


"Time to put the eggs away, eggs away, eggs away. Time to put the eggs away. Thank you, thank you! Thank you boys and girls!"


"Are you sleeping, are you sleeping brother John, brother John? Morning bells are ringing, morning bells are ringing. Ding, ding, dong! Ding, ding, dong!"

Our Time
Ages 18 months-3 years





Imagine That!
Ages 3-5 years


This is my little summer camp class. This class is usually huge, but this summer it was only these 3 sweet girls and Benjamin. What fun we had! I wish you could hear them sing. One of the sweetest sounds on earth is a preschooler singing his or her heart out!


We went "camping" today and this is the campfire we made. Pretty cool, huh? Wood (rhythm sticks) were gathered in the woods, scarves made flames and flashlights lit it all up. We sang campfire songs as we sat around the fire!!

Worth One Thousand Dollars

Well we just returned last night from West Columbia, Texas. That was the last stop on a whirlwind trip of the Houston area (really, what one of our trips is NOT a whirlwind??). It was great! Tuesday we drove in and met my parents in the Woodlands. We had dinner, went to a movie (Cars, which was super cute!!) and then went to see my granny afterwards. It made for a late night for everyone, but we had to pack it all in, ya know?

Here are the kids late that night with my granny Johnson. She always has Mardi gras beads for them to play with. Not sure why. She loves them so much!!

It was funny...in the theater while we were watching the movie, Cait tried to sit in one of the chairs. Because she is so little, her little legs couldn't hold it down. It was sort of folding up and closing her up in it. She started yelling, "Help me! My chair is bwoken!" We tried to tell her that it wasn't broken, but she insisted on visiting every chair on our row. She would climb up in it and say, "Nope, it's bwoken too." And every time there would be any upbeat music during the movie, she would get off my lap and start dancing right there in front of us. It was the cutest thing you've ever seen!
So, the next day, Wednesday, we spent inside because there was a monsoon in Tomball. You couldn't even see out the windows the rain was coming down so hard. Made the kids kind of stir crazy so we ventured out to the Chick-fil-a in Tomball. We let the kids play in the play area for over an hour. Mom actually sent me to go get a pedicure in town while she watched the kids. What a treat! Thanks mom!! I needed that peace and quiet.
We were supposed to go that night to Sugar Land to visit Chris's family, but they had been watching their other grandkids for the past 2 days and they were worn out. So we stayed another night at my parents.
Thursday we went to see Chris's sister, Aimee and her girls. Then we went to see my Granny Kemp and have lunch with her. We had such a great visit. What a blessing that time was to me! Afterwards, we headed to Sugar Land for dinner and to get the kids settled. I left Benjamin and Cait there with the Perkinsons that night so I could go to my sisters and set up for the garage sale early the next morning. We were up until 1 am finishing our pricing and signs and such. It was fun to hang out with Danyel, Ryan and my cousin Michelle though. The next day, in 130 degree weather with 98% humidity we had day 1 of our garage sale. We had a super turnout and made over $600 the first day! Day 2 my mom and the kids were with us and we had another great, but hot day. When it was all said and done between us we made over $1000 dollars!!!! Is that possible that junk could be worth that much money??? It obviously is to the people in West Columbia, Texas!
I came away with $300 for my stuff. I was pretty pleased with that! It was fun and totally worth it! I AM glad to home to my hubby though and looking forward to our normal routine this week!! Looking forward to catching up with all of you too!

This is just a portion of our "stuff". This is halfway through day 2 when SO much had already sold.


More STUFF!!


Aren't I lucky that I don't have to post what I looked like on that day if I don't want to. It's MY blog! My cousin Michelle, mom and Danyel. We all looked pretty rough. Hey! We worked HARD!


The kids swimming while the garage sale was going on. The life of a kid...all play!