5

Need I say more? My baby, my youngest, my littlest one is turning 5. She'll start school next year. She's halfway to 10 and a third of the way to 15. My ovaries are twitching and I can't do a thing about it. I don't want her to grow up and I do. I love to see how she changes every single day and I love to see how she's still a very little girl. At the moment, pink is her favorite color but she won't play with baby dolls and prefers trucks and trains. She brought home a snail from preschool that is now our family pet. She loves Henry and talks to him every single day. She quotes movies and says the most hilarious one liners.

(After using the bathroom)

"I'm drier than the outback!"

I enjoy her quirky personality and possibly even encourage it on occasion.

Baby girl, we love you very much and have a happy birthday.

The fever

Just when we had figured out a way for the four of us to attend church together, Katters comes down with a fever. Figures. Maybe next week....

The Church Search: Volume 687

Last Sunday's venue took us to a smaller congregation that was 95% Mandarin Chinese. We stuck out a little bit and the words to that one song about Asian believers kept going through my head. The praise and worship was rocking. I was very nearly sold that this church was it after the praise and worship, but then the really horrible bad thing happened. It all started with a seemingly innocent visitor card. No big deal. Little did I know it would bite me in the rear a few moments later.

After the praise and worship the service took an interesting turn. The lady doing the announcements introduces the girls and I to the ENTIRE congregation. First and last names and even suburb. So much for visiting quietly. I was horrified! I could have lived with the introduction had people not swarmed us immediately after that. Imagine the most hyper, chipper, person you know and combine it with the most annoying person you know. Now, multiply that by about 50 people. That was what surrounded us. After the welcome wagon crowd dispersed, a lady comes to sit beside me and explain what's going on in the service. She was not on a welcome wagon high and I thanked Jesus for that profusely. I liked her. That's also how I found out the congregation was 95% Mandarin Chinese. I bet you thought I made that one up, huh?

The pastor gets up to speak and to be honest, I was a little tense and a bit wired after being swarmed but that man has perfected the monotone sermon to the point I relaxed completely and started dozing off. Oh dear. These people know my name and the suburb I live in. I can NOT fall asleep in a service where they all keep turning around and giving me little 'welcome waves.' Lord help me.

And he did. Mariska starts having a little coughing fit. Perfect chance for escape. I mumble something about her asthma to the lady beside me and out the door we go. Once we're in the car I pull out Mariska's puffer and she gags a little then immediately stops coughing.

"I just had a hair in my throat."

I'll let you believe we went right back inside and finished listening to that sermon.

The Church Search: Volume 482

Today’s game, church fans took us to a very large venue. The original venue for the morning was changed at the last minute due to some unforeseen circumstances, there were missing accessories, clothing items and books. Read on...

As we are finally ready to walk out the door and have just enough time to get there I start looking for my nice shoes. You know, the red ones, that go perfectly with what I’m wearing. Arghhh! I can’t find them. I tell myself that it’s not that big a deal, I’ll just wear my dressy black flip-flops. Not fantastic, but God doesn’t care about my footwear choices. Now we are in the car and headed down the road. Thanks to the shoe debacle we are running a few minutes late. No problem, we can just sneak in the back door and sit on the last row. Spend our first Sunday going unnoticed and it gives us an easy exit if they start doing anything crazy. I'm really starting to like this plan. Oops! I have forgotten my bible. Not that big a deal really, we’ll be in the last row, no one is going to be paying attention to my lack of bible, lateness, or my footwear. We hope. Things are going well, the girls are excited and we are almost there when Mariska makes an announcement.

“I’m not wearing any undies.”

(Imagine an immediate illegal u-turn complete with squealing tires.)

Okay then, we’re headed home again to grab some undies, proper shoes, and a bible. After we’ve abandoned the original venue that looked very promising, we head to the larger one. They have an 11 o’clock service which means we’ll make it with time to spare and all necessary, ahem, items.

We arrive and I’m skeptical. It just looks too big. There are a lot of people. Crowds of them. Even with the crowds, I find the girls classes easily, they settle right in and I head off to the auditorium. On the way, I nearly stop in my tracks and get trampled by the crowd behind me, because what do I see on a wall outside the auditorium? A large map of the world with the 10/40 window highlighted. Hmmmm, okay I could get used to this. It reminds me of Hillcrest. I grab a seat down the back and start checking it out. There is a stage and a full band and praise team. I’ve got high hopes for the music. The praise gets started and I like it but I’m not that excited about it. I don’t recognize any of the songs. They do sound fantastic, just not familiar. After the praise one of the pastors gets up and introduces a couple that moved to Australia from India 30 years ago. Now they are headed back to a state in the north east with a population of 90 million and of that population only 0.02% are Christians. There are 450,000 villages there and they have a goal of planting a church in each one. Well, I’m all covered with goose bumps now. You know what they do next??? Just like at Hillcrest, they lay hands on them and pray as they send them out to the unreached to do their work, everybody gathers around or just reaches out a hand from there seat. It was amazing. For a few minutes, I felt like I was back in my next to the last row, sitting near the Baker’s and Thompson’s at Hillcrest.

I still don’t know if this is a winner yet, but it is showing a lot more promise than I originally thought. Now, we just have to get Fern a Sunday off to see if he likes it too.

And make sure everybody is wearing undies before we leave the house.

What you don't want for Christmas

Remember about eight months ago I mentioned we had bought a car? I also said something about taking pictures, but I never managed to get around to it. Well, two weeks ago I found a reason to take pictures of the car and we got a really bad Christmas present all at the same time!



Meet Maggie. The girls named her and we loved her. She was in excellent condition and was a great family car. She was truly a member of the family and she will be sorely missed.

Maggie
1997-2008
You were loved.

I'm getting a little choked up here. Give me a minute.


Better now. (sniff)

First of all it was NOT my fault. A boy failed to give way. By boy, I mean a 20 year old and we all know that I am like twice his age which gives me the right to refer to him as a boy. So there.

I was taking the girls to swim lessons so Daddy missed out on this little adventure. They took us to the hospital by ambulance as a precaution because Katters had a stomachache and we both had nasty marks from the seat belts. Mariska was just fine and more concerned that she was missing her swimming lesson. I still have a sore back, but I think that is probably expected after a car accident.

Now we're past all the serious stuff, let's have a laugh about all of this!

1. I changed my drivers license to an Australian license all of one month before the accident.

2. One month after I first got my license when I was a teenager, I had a very similar accident. A woman ran a stop sign and pulled out in front of me.

3. I will never change my license ever again.

4. When Katriana was one month old, we had just got a newer car before she was born, a Mitsubishi that was similar in color and model to Maggie. We were rearended.

5. NO more Mitsubishis!

It has certainly made our holidays a little more interesting this year and I had to make up some very creative Santa stories considering half of the Target toy department was in the trunk at the time of the accident. The girls got a very long tour of the ambulance while I stowed the gifts in the trunk of a friends car that happened to be driving past. They knew something was up, of course, and I think they both have some serious doubts about Santa.

I wonder if you can work 'crushing a child's belief of Santa' into the insurance settlement?

Probably not.

Merry Christmas!

Had we not lost the camera, we would have sent out Christmas cards using these pictures.

Have a very Merry Christmas!

I shouldn't admit this but,

After having the camera for just over two years, reading the instruction manual, losing the camera and finding it again, I have just now realized a few things:

1. The camera can take video (In my defense, the manual never once mentioned video and you really have to maneuver around the menu before you find it.)

2. The camera also does photos in black and white, sepia, and other color filters.

3. The camera is just plain ole' awesome!


Yes, I have been playing around with the camera a bit lately and there are many photos uploading as we speak. I will be resizing and posting in the next week or two...

Maybe.

I make no promises, all 2 or maybe 3 of you know how that usually goes.


Merry Christmas!!!

Lost and Found

Our camera was lost for a few weeks. I was mourning the loss especially hard due to the holidays coming up and all the memories we would not be able to capture.


I was also pretty sure I lost the camera, so I was feeling REALLY guilty as well. The camera was a gift from Holly before we left and I have a BIT of a history of losing things.


Well, yesterday afternoon I get a phone call from Katter's teacher. The camera had been located in the writing bag that was sent home with us a month ago. Yes. One entire month and we only realized the camera was missing for two weeks. The children who had the bag after we did never mentioned the camera because they thought the teacher had put it in there. Needless to say, once the battery was recharged we got to view some interesting photos.

When I got the phone call there was actually some screeching and very happy noises on my end. (yes, the teacher thinks I'm nuts, but I'm cool with that) The noises weren't all for the camera being found, they were because I didn't lose it. Fern was the last one with the camera and the writing bag. It wasn't me. No sir, I'm innocent!!!! :)

Remember this?