Opportunity to Help Soldiers Returning From Iraq!

I just sent this out via email and hope that those who didn't get it in their email box will pray about helping, pass it on to friends and family so they can pray about and hopefully help us! Thank you and God Bless Christy



Hi I'm sending this out to many of you in hopes that you'll find it in your heart to give to our unit's single soldiers. We have I believe it's 80 some single soldiers just in our company, we are planning currently to supply new sheets, pillows, and little goody basket, and personal hygiene items for them for their first night back.

If you're interested in helping welcome home the Headquarters Company of 54 Engineer Bn single soldiers home, please respond to me. We're accepting sheets, pillows, checks, & personal hygiene items. We know it's probably easier to just write a check which I can let you know who to make the check out to. We will happily take pictures of the soldiers rooms.

Our soldiers will be home the last 2 weeks of October! We are definitely excited, and we're down to aprox. 8 weeks until they come home. I hope you'll find it in your heart to help us wives out as we try to make the first couple nights for the soldiers home as comfortable possible. They do all have sheets, but they've been packed up for a year and will be smelling musty and need to be washed, so it's nice for them to come home and find a nicely made bed and comfortable new pillow to sleep on!

Email me: My3gifts@aol.com

If you know anyone else who you think would like to help (friends or family) PLEASE share my email address with them and have them email me! If you can not please just be in prayer that we're able to get enough donations so we can do this for our soldiers...the least we can do is give them a set of clean sheets and a pillow to sleep on after sleeping in the desert, on a flimsy mattress about an inch thick, and working every single day for the past year.

Thank you and God Bless
Christy....Proud Wife of my Soldier Chad 10 months down...2 to go!

Jack is 3

Jackson turned 3 today! I can't believe my baby is 3! He's so different from his brother, but they're best friends. I feel so blessed to have my boys love each other so much!
We had his party on Saturday and he had a blast! All the pictures here are from Saturday. We had it at the Yellow Ribbon Room, which was perfect! I didn't have to clean my house and get all stressed over that and clean up there was simple as can be!





Jackson's showing off Fergus, who's one of the many trains in the Thomas line. He's crazy about Thomas! Today he got his big gift....a Train table! My friend Julia had it and her kids have hardly ever played with is, so she was going to sale it and when I offered to buy it, she gave me a great deal on it! It's in perfect condition and Jack loves it! He was so excited he could hardly talk! So he'll be getting lots of Thomas trains and tracks for his new table!




This was the popular gift on Saturday. Jack went crazy over his new Superman!

















Jack opening his big Thomas gift from Mamaw and Papaw! He loved it and it's already been played with many times! LOL I love that little smile on his face! It just captures his orniness so perfectly! LOL











Here's his wonderful cake! I hated cutting it, it was so cute! My friend Julia just makes the best cakes! She did a wonderful job on his cake, it tasted it so good!








I still need to get the pictures from today/his actual birthday downloaded from my camera. I'll try to do that tomorrow so I can share those on here too! :)

God Bless

Numb

I know this feeling, I've felt it more in my life than most women my age ever have. The numb feeling is not a bad thing, so don't think it is. It's a feeling I truly believe God gives us to get through those horrible days that we have to after someone we love dies and we have so much to take care of. When Jordyn died, we flew from Va to Kansas with in 28 hrs of her death. She died on a Monday and on Tuesday we planned her funeral, it was just something Chad and I could not bring ourselves to do while she was alive....some parents of children who are dying can, some can't...there is NO right or wrong way, you do what you can.

We went in on Tuesday, my parents there to support us, but they kept quiet as Chad and I made all the decisions. Her funeral was just as we wanted, I can say now over 6 yrs later there's nothing I'd have changed about her funeral. We picked her casket, which was a beautiful white casket, with silk lining and a beautiful little silk pillow with ruffles on the edges. She was a very girly-girl and had she been alive, she would have loved it. I know this may sound morbid, but well this is part of my reality, my life, and at times I just have to go through it in my head. Her casket had angels on every corner, they were little/petite so beautiful and perfect for our precious girl.

So what has made me go back there tonight? My uncle. My dad is #5 out of 12 siblings. His oldest brother who was the 2nd child, died yesterday morning at 8:10 am. My dad was holding his hand. What a precious gift my dad will have forever, to know that the last person to feel him alive was him. They were very close. For a large family, we really are close. I can still hear my Uncle Duane singing "Go Tell It On the Mountain, Over the hills and everywhere, go tell it on the mountain" or "She'll be coming around the mountain when she comes" those two songs are just stuck in my head with his beautiful baritone voice singing them.

I talked to my parents today. They were getting ready to go to the funeral home for the families first viewing. I know that had to be so difficult for all of them. Ten of the 12 siblings would be going and my Grandma along with spouces and I'm sure cousins (I'm thinking my brother, but honestly not sure forgot to ask). It honestly feels so unreal. I just can't imagine going back home and him not being there. He and my grandma bought the house I grew up in from my parents when my parents built a new house that was 1/4 mile off the road (my grandma's house is right by the road), they bought the house 7 yrs ago. Dad said that Duane made them laugh many times that last day of his life, but he said there were a lot of hard times too. I'm truly thankful they all have those moments of lightness to go back on. I kept crying when talking to my dad and his voice kept cracking. Jacob talked to him and said "Papaw, I'm so sorry that your brother, Uncle Duane died. I'll miss him". My dad had to get off the phone. For over a year now, we've known Duane was going to die. A good amount of that time, he had a good quality of life, and I'm so thankful for that.

It honestly doesn't seem real to me, being in Germany definately helps that feeling. It's hard. Even though I've buried my own child because of cancer, I have no idea what to say to my Grandma. I am waiting to call her until everyone's left and she's left to the reality that her child is really gone. I don't think it matters how many yrs or how prepared you are. The fact is we're not supposed to bury our children. EVER. My grandpa died over 27 yrs ago, for the first time in 7 yrs she'll be living alone again. I'm thankful my dad and brother are less than 1/2 mile from her, but I worry about her. She's going to be 80 this year and this past yr really took it's toll on her. I didn't think we'd go back to the states in this first year, but my heart's starting to tell me that I need to start praying and listening if God thinks I should go back to visit my grandparents (my mom's dad is alive as well). I don't think I'd ever be able to forgive myself if I never saw either of them again. I love my grandparents so much and although I know long before I'm ready they will be in Heaven, I want more time with them.

Uncle Duane....I love you and I'll miss you. I'm so thankful you're painfree and in Heaven with our Lord now. You will NEVER be forgotten.

My Uncle

My uncle died this morning. Please keep our family in your prayers. My mom called me about 15 minutes after he died. She said it was very peaceful. My dad was holding his hand and the last person he talked to was my grandma, telling her he loves her. Most my dad's siblings were there all the day before and all night. Everyone was able to say goodbye to him. I truly can't imagine going home and him not being there. Every family gathering memory he's there. I'm thankfuly he went peacefully, he'd been in some terrible pain the day before, but thankfully they were able to get it under control. He sang some yesterday evening, got to a point where he was loopy (because of one of the meds he was on), was actually giggling and mom said everyone else couldn't help from giggle as well with him. I'm truly thankful they have those memories to hold onto. I'm sure my Grandpa and Jordyn welcomed him to Heaven. It just doesn't seem real to me.

Venting

Ok I'll start off nice and go into venting soon, oh I promise. VBS is almost over. Thankfully. I will say that the 8 months give or take of Awana is FAR LESS exhausting than the 3 hrs a day of VBS is. I'm truly wiped out. We ended up having a lot of teens volunteer, which in a way is great, because they're also hearing about Jesus, granted most if not all of them know him, and hopefully have given their life to him, but lets just say that a good amount of them think it's 3 hrs of social time. I seem to have a couple rather popular teens helping me out in my group as crew leaders so I have ended up with teen boys (who want to goof off) and teen girls who just want to talk join us. Today I pretty well had it and talked to the director over the Ele. age kids and told her that, and she said to feel free to just kick them out and if they don't like it and want to give attitude to tell them they can either see her or just go home, but that she's standing behind me 100%. Craft time seems to be the worst time these teens "join" us. This is also the time the crew leaders needs to be helping the kids out the most. The lady who is leading crafts is great and while I was helping kids the other day, she walked in (she was late) and got after a girl who was actually instigating the younger ones to misbehave. It was rediculous. So tomorrow, the last day I will NOT be nice. I warned my crew leaders that if their friends came in, they WILL be kicked out of the room. I also reminded them that they're crew leaders and that they need to be helping the kids or them being with us is pointless. I have honestly really great crew leaders in adults and teens, the 2 adults I have both said they'll HAPPILY kick the extra teens out (lol) they've been getting on their nerves as well. Otherwise, it's really been a great week for VBS. We have some great kids in our group, and I pray that at least a few of them are close to giving their hearts to Jesus who have not yet.

Ok, now with my vent. I post on a board that I've been posting on since I found out I was pregnant with Jack. It's definately had plenty of fights, disagreements, and just plain ugliness. There's also been amazing friendships made, bonds, and just pure caring. I've also been saddened by the women who just simply deny GOD. They do not believe there even IS a God...yes true athiests. One woman her mother was a devout Christian, but because GOD did not cure her mother from her breast cancer, and she went to be with him, there's obviously NOT a GOD. @@@@@@@ I've prayed for her, but I struggle with liking this woman. So anyways a person brought up a Pagan way of finding out if you're having a boy or a girl and asked the board what we thought about it. I said it wasn't up to stars and charts, it's only up to GOD. Of course this woman who I just spoke of a moment ago said "actually it's all up to the male". One I know my science and 2. It's STILL Ultimately UP TO GOD. He knows WHEN everything is going to happen, etc. Then a person who's proclaimed she's a Christian says that we should respect everyone's different beliefs and that just because "S" doesn't believe in GOD doesn't mean we should push our beliefs on her. What????????? I am just utterly disgusted. This is what we're dealing with ....PC with Christians. I'm not going to play that game. I just can't. It just watched a video last night and it talked about how many Christians today are more worried about being Politically Correct than standing up for Christ and God definately showed me that tonight. I'm honestly still so angry I can't see straight.

At what point are people going to realize that being PC is NOT going to get them to Heaven? I'm just honestly disgusted and furious right now. WHEN do people think it's ok to stand up for Christ? In church, not in quite a few. Definately not in business, because you'll be infringing on someone elses rights and beliefs, and rarely in one on one conversations.

I'm starting to shake just thinking about it again. AHHHHHHHHHHHHH I want to scream and tell them how STUPID they all are and that if they don't get their butts in gear and realize that the ONLY WAY to HEAVEN is through Jesus Christ...they're going to spend an eternity in Hell. Why doesn't Hell scare more people? It should. It's not this rediculous "hell" people have conjured up in their tiny little brains, this is eternity of true and utter misery. Any misery we've felt physically or emotionally has NOTHING on what an Eternity in Hell is going to be like. I know I should feel more pity for them, I do pity them. I'm also just ticked though. I just think for so many they're not going to get it until it's too late.

We have VBS this week! I'm so excited! We spent our afternoon decorating the gym and rooms we'll be using for the week. The older kids got to help! Jacob loved it, he helped one lady make a cross and then he came and helped cut out cactus's, tape them and flowers up, and helped move out mats out of the room too. He did so great with another little boy (who's new the area).

I know it's going to be a great week and I'm really looking forward to the week! Jacob's so excited! He wanted to look in my bag to see everything we're going to use for this week! I didn't let him, but he's so excited either way! LOL :)

The childcare is also doing something special for the little ones everyday. They'll get a craft to do everyday, outside time, a movie, playtime/free time, and snack time of course. Everyday has a different theme. Jack's excited about it! I think he'll have a great time!

Have a great week! I know we will be!

Weekend in Garmish

We went to a resort this weekend for a chapel retreat in Garmish. The resort is military owned. We love going there, this was our 4th trip down there. It was good and bad, but I just don't have it in me right now to get into the bad I will say that someone who's only met me and my children on 2 occasions and he actually never even spoke a word TO my children, crossed a HUGE boundary with my oldest and right now we're looking at pressing charges or turning him into his unit, but we're still trying to decide what the best course of action will be.

This first picture is of the Olympic Ski Jumps in Garmish-Partenkirchen. On the right is a jump that was built for the 1926 Olympics and I don't have a date for the one of the left, but it was there for the 1972 Olympics.



I went on a hike on Saturday, first we hiked through Partnach gorge, which was absolutely beautiful, then because I was with crazy, hike loving people (notice I italized the crazy part! LOL) we hiked up a mountain (part of the Bavarian Alps). I honestly thought I was going to die. I was having a hard time catching my breath. I did it though, still not sure exactly how, well I do know how. I had some amazing support from the others hiking, who encouraged me and praised me. It was definately a triumph and I can now say I've hiked in the Alps, which has been a dream of mine! Of course I always dreamt it'd be in the Swiss Alps...we'll see if I end up truly hiking them or just finding easy paths to go up there! :)




This picture above is of the gorge. You can truly see the water just rushing through here!





This was taken during the hike....this is probably my favorite picture of the day!

















I'll post another entry in a few of our trip to Schloss Linderof that happened on Sunday...rain and all!

Passive Aggressive People @@

Don't you just love passive aggressive people who in real life can barely share her true feelings about anything, but online she never drops anything. I don't understand people who are one way in real life and the exact opposite online. It's sad actually, that they have such low self-esteem, etc that they can't say how they feel on subjects they claim to be so passionate about, online.

I really don't understand some people. I am not out there screaming my thoughts and views at everyone, yet I'm not one to just shy away from sharing my opinions and views. I know we're all different, yet this kind of behavior really just puzzles me. You just can't have any self confindence it seems to me when you're like this.

If this has taught me anything it's that I can be thankful that I don't fear if people are going to like me or not because of my views. They will like me because they do or not like me. I don't expect everyone to like me and I don't expect everyone to have the same views as me.

I Say It's Hot Here

You may not be able to see that above there...but it calls for today's high as 91 add on humidity, then rain, relief, oh wait...more humidity is back in the air! Tomorrow our high is 86, but because there's rain in the forecast no doubt more humity. Now I'm a Kansas girl, I'm so used to miserable humity, but I'm also a spoiled central air girl and I do NOT like to be sticky, especially come evening time. YUCK. Just yesterday it was saying we were going to be dropping in our temps into the low 80's...but not now. In a few hrs the boys and I will have been here for officially 1 yr. The day we stepped off the plane last July 23 it was in the 50's or 60's...now the day before when we left KCI it hit 100 in Kansas. Let me say right now, although 50 would once again feel like it's freezing...we do have all our winter clothing and well it'd feel good for a couple days anyways! LOL There's no doubt if it's not raining tomorrow, we will be going swimming in the afternoon after church and we'll be going possibly everyday next week. I do not like feeling nasty and sticky. I just feel like once an hour I should jump in the shower, but well that's not exactly logical or possible with the boys. I'm determined we'll have an A/C next year I am telling you this right now, we will not be miserable next year!

Well, I SHOULD get to bed since I'm sitting here yawning, no one to chat with, and it's after midnight! Someone send me some cool weather. (Yes I know it's miserable in the states, I bet most of you have A/C too and at the least you can walk into about any store and have it! Very few even large stores seem to believe in A/C in their stores! I don't get these people! )

Swimming

Today the boys and I had a great day! We went to the pool with a friend of ours and her 3 kids! I didn't think about grabbing my camera for some odd reason, it's really unlike me I take it almost everywhere I go!! They have a swimbad (pool) just off post and it's great! I could kick myself for us not going before this, it's insanely close and it's HUGE! There were A LOT of people there, but it didn't feel crowded at all. They have this HUGE slide, but amazingly it doesn't go into DEEP water, it's just about 4 feet deep is my GUESS. (Jacob could stand in it on his tip toes). First I took Jacob up the slide with Julia (friend) watched Jack in the baby pool) we went down the slide twice! Then Julia went down it with her oldest daughter, while her youngest initially was being held by her son, but and Linda I know you'll be shocked by this one...Hannah wanted ME! So I held her and she almost fell asleep in my arms and was actually content! Julia came back after going down the slide and her and Faith playing in the deeper water for a few and then we decided for all of us to go down the slide! The kids had a blast! Jack LOVED it. I held him and we just flew down that slide, the faster we went the more Jack loved it! LOL Jacob went down by himself and had a ball! We went down the slide probably 4 more times (me and Jack) and Jacob I can't even count how many more times he went. Then we went to the wave pool, and got to enjoy the waves, then we went back to the baby pool for a while. The kids played in the sand too. No day is complete without playing in the sand for my boys! It all washes off and they're happy and carefree, which is how kids should be...not being afraid to get dirty, wet, etc...just enjoying life!

We got home and I made dinner, Jacob crashed out on the couch and Jack was laying back on their little spiderman couch eating an apple and watching tv for a few minutes. Jacob woke up for dinner, he was so tired he just got up and went to the playroom and sat on the floor and cried. I'm really not sure why he went in there, but I told him he needed to eat because Jack was eating from his plate as well as his own. Jacob was still upset (over tired I am sure) but he finally came and ate dinner. They got ready for bed and I read them a story and they both went straight to bed with 100% no arguments. They were both out in less than 5 minutes! I've decided that at least 3 times a week the boys and I are going to the pool. Julia and I are also going to start walking the track earlier in the morning (8 am...ugh I'm NOT a morning person at all) and then we're going to walk over to the pool (it opens at 8:30 AM! Crazy!!) we're going to take turns swimming a few laps, then just playing in the water for a while, then we can walk home. We'll prob. do the pool after the walk once a week, since the other day that we walk we have German language class, so we can get in an hour of walking then the class.

I'm thinking probably Sunday after chapel and nap time I'm going to take the boys to the pool for a few hours. I'm going to just buy the family pass, since I think with in 2 maybe 3 weeks it'll be paid for. Next year I'll buy it as soon as the pool opens and there's a good chance we'll just go swimming every day. I told Jacob that the only way we can go to the pool is if he gets his school work done. So on the days we go he'll have to just ignore Jack and work. I have preschool things I've been working with Jackson on, so I should be able to help keep him quieter than he'd be if he were just playing.

I really wish it'd cool off right now. Actually I'm wishing I'd have bought an A/C that a lady I knew was selling a couple months ago for less than $200.00...oh what a fool am I!!!!! It got to 100 degree's today and it only feels like it's in the low 90's right now, of course I'm in a 3rd floor apartment and there's absolutely NO WIND, so it could be cooler outside, but it's just plain uncomfortable in here. Next summer I'm just sucking it up and buying an A/C if I don't find a used one before that. If we have one next year I can close all the doors and keep the living room area cool and then at night bring it into the hall between the bedrooms and close the door so the bedrooms are nice and cool at night. I'm still not sure what German's, well European's in general have against A/C!! I just don't enjoy sweating, call me crazy! LOL

Have a great weekend!