Archives for January 2009

WHAT IF? or WHAT IS!

Have you ever thought about the difference in those two phrases?
Just one little letter….an f or an s?
Which do you think about?

What if?
What if the moon dropped on my house?
What if the kids got really sick?
What if my husband left?
What if I stopped homeschooling?

What is…..
(reality, that is!)
My husband loves me.
My kids are great.
My life is full.
My house is blessed.

My 8 year old and I have talked a lot about What if and What is lately. He’ll sometimes ask me at night…
"Mom, what if I never go to sleep?"
"What if God really isn’t there?"

Deep questions.
"What if" questions.

So I thought about how many times I think about "what if?"
Yuck.
I’m sure God would rather me think about what is than what if.
What if just takes us nowhere, leads down a dark path, makes us worry.

That is unless you are trying to change the world. Then "what if" really works, doesn’t it?

Pondering life…

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Posted: January 8, 2009 by Julie |Category: Our Family, Our Lives | Tags:

It’s all in the expression!

It’s all in the way you say it……

Tell your kids you love them today.

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Posted: January 6, 2009 by Julie |Category: Parenting | Tags:

Fred the rather large cat

Much to everyone’s dismay we started school back today. We actually had a good day. Tomorrow we have to finish up before 1pm Spanish Classes.
I get to go to the grocery store by myself!!

But before I plan to far into tomorrow I wanted you to meet Fred….Fred the fat cat. He outweighs our dog by about 6 pounds.

Fred……lying around

Fred….well, lying around some more.

And here’s Fred….well, he’s actually up and lurking around in this photo. Outside in the sunshine too. Funny thing about Fred. ….. As fat as he is he’s a pretty quick old fellow. I mean he’s only about 3 years old!

He’s a beautiful cat with striking colors. And he’ll hunt you down for a neck scratch!!!
Have a good day!
julie

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Posted: January 5, 2009 by Julie |Category: Chuckles | Tags:

My Half Brother and Sister

Here is another piece of my family. Five and a half years ago I was blessed to meet my birth parents. On my mom’s side of my extended family I have a brother and a sister….Jill Allene and Jeff. Over the holidays I traveled to Raleigh where we all gathered at my uncle’s house. So here we are in all our tall-ness glory. Our heights respectively are 6.2 6.0 6.8
Yep, we grow ’em tall in the south.

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Posted: January 5, 2009 by Julie |Category: My Adoption Story | Tags:

Some of the Family

I wanted to share a few pictures of my family with you. We had such a good (but too fast) time in NC visiting them. We’re a crazy bunch but what family isn’t? I also have a few to share of my birth family. But I may have to transfer to the new computer first.
Here’s my mom….
(She’s beautiful isn’t she?)

Here’s my dad and my dog…

Here are my nieces….
Aren’t they beautiful?

Here’s me and my prince…

And here’s a picture my sister took of all the cousins…

Here’s my crazy sister (see where the girls get it?)

And here’s baby girl…

More to come!

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Posted: January 3, 2009 by Julie |Category: Our Family, Our Lives | Tags: Christmas

Hello and Happy New Year

The New Year brings two things for us.
The New Year and my husband’s birthday. He’s a New Year’s baby. Our oldest son is a Christmas Baby and our second born missed Valentine’s Day by just hours!

So yesterday we celebrated my knight’s 45th birthday with steak, homemade mac and cheese and a cake that has been officially named after him by our neighbors.
It was a good day. College football, a campfire, and steaks!

Last night I promised my son that we’d get into his YUCK canister. I found this at Hobby Lobby and would recommend it to anyone. What fun. Last night we made YUCK (just one of the things you can do with it).

We started by dumping a very small package of polymer crystals into this jar and adding warm water. It was amazing to watch the crystals grow to over 150 times their weight within an hour. (This is the stuff in disposable diapers are made of.)

By nine o’clock last night we had a jar full of these! Mushy, gushy, slimy glory! The kids loved it. As we read about polymer not only did we find out that they are simple strands of molecules that expand when you add water but we also found out that drought-ridden countries are using them to mix in the soil to water crops. Cool, huh??