the many adventures of newmanland...

our little daphne went to preschool for the very first time last week. she has been so excited all summer long to wear her "pink backpack and go to school with ellie".

tuesday morning she got up and was ready to get her clothes on and head out the door before i ever had my feet on the floor. i was able to slow her down long enough to feed her and put her hair in a ponytail.

henry was excited for her as well. he told her that she would have lots of fun and meet new friends.

i can't get over how fast they are growing up!!

now i want to share with you a few other events from our last week...

here is event #1: i don't know if you can see what is going on in this pic but she is admiring herself in our mirror. whenever daphne has gone into my room and been quiet for any length of time i get nervous. she has a tendency to find nail polish and attempt to paint her toes even though my floor has been painted in the process. this day i went in with this yucky feeling in my stomach because i just knew she had painted something that could not be fixed. i walked in and to my surprise there she was putting on makeup. she found the mascara and so she put some on and now she looked like a puppy with a black circle around her eye. i love her but she sure can get into mischief!

event #2: as i worked on anna's birthday party invites i realized i needed some tools from my scrapbook stuff in the other room. while i was away i began to hear the sound of plastic hitting the tile floor in the kitchen repeatedly. as i walked around the corner i found my youngest in the sippy cup cabinet unloading each one and testing its durability. when she stopped she turned, looked at me and started laughing. what a cutie she is. she laughs and her whole body laughs too. she can smile with her eyes and she just gets more precious by the day. i can't believe she will be 1 in less than two weeks!
finally event #3: my kids love to do "crafts". that is code for creative mess. this activity has at times included paint, glue, pom pom fringe, pipe cleaners, colors and lots of stickers. in fact so many mediums are used for their "craft" time that i created a bucket for them. henry and daphne decided to get out the bucket the other day and start playing.

**side note- the day before we had gone to the dance boutique to purchase daphne's tap and ballet shoes and of course she had to use a disposable sock to do so. somehow henry confiscated the "sock" and it made it home.

back to the story- the kids were enjoying themselves as i worked on laundry and other chores. when i came into the kitchen i found them in only their underwear with stickers all over themselves. that is funny but what made me really laugh was that henry had taken the previously mentioned "sock" and put it on his head like a hat. all i could hear in my head was "son, you have a pantie on your head".

adventures are many in the newman household!

fantasy shmantasy...

it's that time again. oh yes, tis the season of fantasy football. i think it might be the dumbest thing ever! i am sorry if you are a fantasy sport player but it is lame. let's recap how it works.

1) person spends larger than normal amounts of time "researching" players and their stats in order to come up with a draft list.
2) person takes an entire evening/night away from his/her family in order to sit around in a room "drafting" players onto an imaginary football team.
3) person then "manages" his team weekly in order to gain some status/bragging rights amongst the world of fantasy players.


i don't know what it is, but i truly think fantasy football is stupid. every year when draft night rolls around i have this deep seeded anger about it. if my husband were going to hang out with his friends i wouldn't care but for some reason when you put together the gathering of people who are going to pretend to have a professional football team for over 5 hours then it really bugs me.

i do realize i must get over this struggle and try to look at it as ross hanging out with his friends but man, i can't get past the fantasy football part. fantasy shmantasy...

michael buble, big green trees and thoughts of home...

i must say that though i am from the great state of Texas country music is not one of my favorite genres. i can tolerate it but when i am flipping through radio channels i never stop on country or what might even resemble country.

that being said, the other day my sister called and asked if i had a few minutes. we all know that as a mom we can answer "yes" to that one moment and in 2 seconds everything goes haywire and my attention is needed elsewhere.

when she called i had a few minutes and so she had me sit in front of my computer and log in to a photographers website. this amazing houston photographer had taken pictures at a wedding that my niece and nephew were a part of. as i looked at the pictures a beautiful song was playing and what i thought was a country song turned out to be the song "home" by michael buble. then i saw my nieces and nephew all dressed up and i began to cry and cry harder than i have in a very long time. these wedding pictures are phenomenal! the green grass and huge trees made me long for my home in Texas. my sweet family there has changed and grown up so much since i last saw them at thanksgiving a year ago. oh how i miss them!

the last several days i have gone back to the site with those pictures and i have thought about many things. like how sweet it is to be so in love and oblivious of what life will bring. i saw jenny & michael (the bride & groom) and thought about our own wedding day. i never could have imagined a little over 9 years ago what was ahead for us - the joy, the pain, the redemption, the sadness, the adventure, the great love, the depth, the grace, the abundant blessing.

home is a destination when you play a baseball game, it is the destination at the end of a long and busy day. home is a dwelling place, a place of refuge. where is my home? i have a home waiting for me in glory. i have a place with Christ in heaven where i will one day reside with the Creator of those stunningly picturesque nieces and nephew of mine and those beautiful Texas trees. my temporary address for now is here in arizona but my home awaits me in heaven.

dorothy had no idea how right she was when she told toto, "there's no place like home".

You are my refuge, my hiding place, my home, oh Lord. to dwell with You all of my days is more than i deserve. who am i? i am your child and You are my Daddy.
i will ever praise You.

off to school...

it has happened. my precious 9lb baby boy has grown old enough to walk through the doors of kindergarten.

monday afternoon our family went to school so that henry could meet his teacher. he was so excited and yet quiet. i could tell that seeing familiar faces made the unknown not quite so stressful. his teacher, mrs. schmidt, is just what we had hoped for- she loves Jesus with all of her being and her primary goal is to help give this room full of 5 yr olds a biblical worldview. she has such energy and a smile that comforts. we pray for her daily and are excited to know her more as the year goes on.

monday night, i found myself in the kitchen preparing a lunch for henry. i had it all planned out- half a sandwich, yogurt, chips, raisins, juice and a moon pie. henry has been looking forward to having a moon pie in his lunch almost as much as he was looking forward to going to school. my mom rarely made me a lunch for school but i had friends who would share theirs with me and i never wanted that for henry. it has always been a big deal for me to provide a great lunch for my kiddos.

as tuesday morning came i got up around 5:30 so i could get myself ready before the kids got up. when i went in to wake henry up i knew that he would be groggy and a bit grumpy (just like his daddy in the mornings). much to my surprise he popped right up and said, "hi mommy. it's my first day of school, right? i'm going to go take my shower now." he was so excited! everything went smoothly- he got dressed, brushed his teeth, ate his breakfast and got his new big boy backpack. we headed out the door, dropping the girls off at a dear friend's house, and then- we hit traffic. we actually were a little late the first day of school. i can't stand to be late. i get this anxious feeling in the pit of my stomach and then i get antsy. much the same as i feel arriving at the airport and just not being sure how long it will take to go through security and get checked in and then board the plane. i realized it was time to pray for my boy's day and so we turned off the radio and began to pray for all that was ahead. it was then that i started to get a bit teary-eyed. we pulled in the wrong parking lot and had to hike to the other end of the campus and then without any hesitation henry ran into his class. he didn't bat an eye- i had to stop him so i could grab a picture.

day 2 he popped out of bed with the same enthusiasm and he even offered to set the table and help me with the laundry before breakfast. he let the dogs out and was done with most of the chores before his food was even on the table. once we got to school though he had some slight hesitation but only enough that he asked if i would give him a hug and a kiss outside the classroom. he is growing up and and i am seeing more and more the blessing my precious son is.

am i enjoying the quietness of my home? yes. do i miss he and daphne arguing? no. do i miss him during the day? immensely! i find myself watching the clock that last hour excited to hear how his day was and what he did in class and with his friends. he even brought home some homework yesterday and will have math homework four days a week. he loves it. one of his buddies was mad the first day because he didn't have homework yet and another little friend was mad because he hadn't learned to read that first day. i know this year will be filled with many new adventures and i just look forward to seeing how God is going to grow and shape our little man.

Lord, i know you are going to do great and mighty things in henry this year. thank you for what you are going to do in his life and ours. we praise you and thank you for henry's teachers and his school. thank you for their servant hearts and their undeniable love for you. may you help henry to grow in wisdom and in stature as this year continues. i love you, Lord.

please don't ever give this stuff to my kids...

i am going on record that i think moon sand is from the devil!! yes- you read that right. moon sand is a pain in the neck and if you ever give my children this stuff know ahead of time that i will be taking it back to target/walmart/big lots/ where ever they will exchange it.

last week my kids were filling in their responsibility charts almost full and i told them that i would get them a special treat once the entire page was full. this promise prompted me to pick up the much desired moon sand while at target. let me tell you the commercials make this stuff look so enticing even for me. i love making sand castles and i love play doh so this must be a great invention. the kids on t.v. are playing nicely, sharing with one another, enjoying some great time inside without mess. all this being said i bought the double pack, came home and put it in the cabinet.

today my kids successfully filled their charts and so i told them they could have their special treat- moon sand! they were so excited. the mom that i am knew that there was a chance for a small mess so i diligently laid out brown paper bags on the table and gave each child their long awaited moon sand. i went off to do some chores and was so pleased at the sound of harmony in my kitchen.

for maybe 30 minutes henry and daphne played well together. then it happened. i heard the awful mad yell of my eldest daughter so i knew it was time to go into the kitchen once more. when i came around the corner i found that the image of what moon sand is on tv and what it truly is were not one in the same. in fact moon sand is from the devil, oh wait, i mentioned that already. all over the table, the floor and the children were different shades of blue and green sand. sand is sand in case you get misled by the advertising. sand is still made up of tiny, minuscule grains that go everywhere.

because i have been known to wig out over mess that comes with creativity i bit my lip gathered what moon sand was not on the floor and took the children outside where they played until they could bear the heat no longer. meanwhile i swept and swept and swept sand until i could no longer see the blue and green layer across my kitchen floor.

many of you are thinking to yourself- of course you put the children outside with moon sand... well you watch those commercials and ask yourself if you think it will be as messy as your heart of hearts knows sand will be. i was bamboozled.

side note- i did try floam and floam is great!! way better than their advertising.

as for other going ons around here- we are 6 days away from henry's first day of kindergarten. we have orientation this sunday and we meet the teacher on monday. he is so excited as am i!

our yard has been rather over grown for quite some time but this past weekend a friend of ours who is a landscaper came and did miracles in our yard. our yard looks so big now! i liked the yard before but now i love it!!

other future house projects include- talking with ross' dad about some framed bulletins for the playroom. he is a great craftsman and so i want to see if he can build what i am imagining in my mind. we shall see...

i am also beginning preparations for anna's first birthday! i can't believe we are about to celebrate one year with our precious baby girl. she is still wonderful and a joyful little girl. (tonya- i am going to order her pictures this weekend or monday...sorry for the delay!)

i haven't taken many pics lately but we are going bowling tonight...i will try to remember my camera. i know next week we will definitely have new pics to share!!

till next time...