On Our Trip to the Redwoods (Beginning of June)

On the way to the Redwoods we went through Bigfoot country and the kids enjoyed that! We went to the Bigfoot Museum and saw the foot casts made of Bigfoot. As we drove Annalina thought she saw Bigfoot MANY times in the woods!! Ross decided he and Uncle Ben would go hunt it with guns because they were BRAVE!! The drive through that area is Beautiful. We also got to see Paul Bunyan with his ox "Babe". That was neat because Brian has seen is MANY, MANY years ago and now the kids got to see it. Annalina learned about Paul Bunyan and his ox in school this year as did Gabriel last year when they studied "Tall Tales".

My Over Zealous Cleaners . . .

Today I heard Annalina say to Ross "Let's clean the house". I thought, well that would be great if they picked up the toys without being asked to! The kids like to AT TIMES be praised for "initiative"! Well, it didn't actually work for me today. I heard Carson start to cry and went out to investigate. The older kids had gotten bleach wipes and in their zealous cleaning they saw Baby Carson and decided his FACE and HEAD needed a cleaning!!! I cleaned his face and head off with a wash cloth and he got a red mark around his eye but the red went down. Annalina and Ross were trying to "help" by cleaning their brother but I informed them bleach wipes were not the thing to use!!

Many weeks ago Ross came one night and asked me to take care of his Daddy Bear (special bear that grandpa and grandma Johnson got him because Daddy was gone so much). Anyway, I agreed to take care of him. Weeks went by and just recently after Ross had gone to bed he came to our room with Daddy Bear and said "Daddy Bear is to hard to take care of. Will you take care of him for me?" Hmmmm, we replied "Would you want us to ask someone else to take care of you because you were hard?" The reply was a resounding "NO" and the resolution was for him to keep Daddy Bear and the 2 of them went to bed. Hmmm, if he lives near us in his adult years we may be seeing a lot of his children!!! :-)

May 29th: Big Day-End of school, Kindergarten Graduation, and Gabriel's 7th Birthday!!

Gabriel's Birthday was the last day of school, May 29th, and so Annalina's Kindergarten Graduation was on on the same day. Both kids got a sweet treat for their special day!!

Annalina's Kindergarten Graduation

Whew! Annalina graduated from Kindergarten! She was a trooper to say the least. She went into Kindergarten to young and into a difficult kindergarten (uses 1st grade level in phonics and math). It wasn't easy for her but she did it with a lot of inner fortitude. She missed her Daddy, saw her Mommy going through a lot, and in class she had to really work but she made it through the rough year and ended up a very good reader!! I am writing this in July and the graduation was in May (29th) but the other day Annalina said to me "my life is all fun". I was very happy to hear that that is how she views her life!! I thought back to how hard it was months before now when her Daddy was gone etc. It is good how kids live in the moment and not dwell on the past!! The picture in the middle above is Annalina with her teacher Mrs. Jung. Mrs. Jung is a master teacher which is why we put Annalina in school this past year! We knew we were moving and we didn't want her to miss out on a start to her education like Gabriel had.

Trip at the end of May to the Animal Ark Zoo

May 2009 (trying to get my blog caught up!) The weekend before school let out Auntie Flo and Auntie Grace came to visit for the weekend. We decided to go to the Animal Ark Safari Park. The kids really enjoyed seeing the animals. Ross' favorite, to my surprise, was the Raccoon!!! Gabriel really enjoyed the bear named Yogi.

Overheard Conversations of Annalina to Her Brothers . . .

Annalina was talking to Ross at lunch and she said "Do you know what I want to be when I grow up?" (for a long time it was a fighter pilot).  Then she said "I want to be a singer in a church and then I can tell people about Jesus." Interesting, that was a good pick for a way a LADY can minister in a church! Her Auntie Theo does that. Ross replied to Annalina "Jesus loves you Annaweena." Annalina said "God loves everybody Ross even the enemies, He never changes his mind, He can do anything He wants."

When I heard her say this it reminded me of shortly after Carson was born another conversation I overheard her saying to Carson. She told Carson "God is true . . . He made everybody . . . He put you in Mommy's tummy . . . He left Mommy on the earth to put you in her tummy . . . . fold your hands and then you talk to God but you don't be silly (talking about prayer). What a little girl she is. Her Grandpa Johnson has said she is a "speaker of truth".

This past weekend we took one of Gabriel's friends for a trip to Sacremento with us and Annalina was evangelizing him in the van (we were in the van many hours). She had a captive audiance!!

She sung a song at the end of the school year that was so great. "The Word of God is like an itty bitty seed scattered all around, The Word of God is like an itty bitty seed scattered all around!"

(dress worn in the pictures above is from her Auntie Flo and Auntie Grace and their sister wore it when she was a little girl)

A Precious Moment From My Day . . .

I have so much to be thankful for. A Loving Husband and Daddy and 4 Beautiful children. Thank You Lord. More than I ever could of dreamed of.