Hale Household

Well, the goldfish, Alena, has passed away. It was a tragic Wednesday morning at the Hale Household. Lainey has been so responsible in taking care of her pet fish. She fed her EVERY morning after eating breakfast. Wednesday morning, Lainey headed over to feed Alena, and then said, "Mommy, Alena is not in her bowl." I told her that she had to be in there somewhere, maybe she was just under the orange plant. I went over to help her spot her in the bowl.... and Lainey was right, Alena was not in the bowl! We looked on the buffet where her bowl is placed, on the cute platter that her bowl sits on, all around, and finally Lainey spots her on the tile floor under the dining room chair. OH MY!!! The tears started flowing. She was definitely not alive... she was a bit dry! I had cleaned her bowl out the day before and I guess I filled the bowl up too full because Alena jumped out of her tank and flopped her way down to the floor. It was a sad morning... Lainey cried all the way to school and cried as she told her teacher about our morning. I promised Lainey I would get her another fish on Thursday when I went to the big town.

Galatians 5:22-23, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control."

Ok, I admit it... I am stealing a WONDERFUL idea from my dear friend Anne. (You can access her awesome blog on the side!) Anne shared with us her idea for a fruit of the Spirit plate. So I went to the local dollar store, bought a fruit plate, and tonight we will begin "awarding" the plate to someone in our family at dinner time for displaying one of the fruits of the Spirit during the day.

Last night after dinner, the girls and I got our Bibles and headed outside. Will was doing his run for the day so we decided that we would wait for him on the porch and have a "devo." I shared with the girls Anne's great idea and we read from Galatians 5. We then talked about what each of these nine "fruits" means. Each of the girls shared special things and gave GREAT examples of ways to display these virtues. One of my favorite stories came from Lainey last night. We were talking about faithfulness and how we need to put all our faith in God. Lainey then says, "Mommy, it is like me and you. You are starting to run and workout. And I watch you and tell you I have faith in you that you can run and do good at it!" She is so sweet! The girls and I had some wonderful conversations and then we shared the plan with Will.

The girls talked about the fruit plate a lot last night. As Emiley was remembering to go to the bathroom before climbing in bed she said, "Mommy, maybe I could eat from the fruit plate tomorrow because I remembered to tee tee before bed." I then told her I loved how kind she was being as she got ready for bed and that we would see. After she went to the potty, I went in to kiss her good night. Emiley then told me, "Mommy, I remembered to flush! Does that mean I can now have the fruit plate?" So Cute!!! I am glad they are excited about displaying Godly virtues and the help of a cute plate to have your dinner on!

This morning we reviewed the nine fruits of the Spirit as we were in the bathroom brushing teeth and fixing hair. I complimented Abbey on being Kind to her sisters and putting toothpaste on their toothbrushes for them. She then tells me, " I wish you could learn some gentleness as you fix my hair!" I told her that I would work on it.

Lord, Bless us as we strive to be better at displaying YOUR fruits throughout our day!

Thanks to everyone who called, sent gifts, emails, etc. for Emiley's birthday. The surprise party was a huge success!!! Emiley went over to play with Denver Tuesday afternoon while Abbey, Lainey, and I got set up for the party. We picked up the balloons and border collie cake, cleaned the house, and made dinner for all our guests. Emiley was brought to the house around seven with all her best buddies waiting for her! She was so excited :) It was really sweet and she had a great birthday...I wish I would have captured the look on her face with her arms crossed (in Uncle Gary fashion) as we were all waiting for her in the living room full of balloons and gifts. Those of you who know her well, can picture her look. SO CUTE! And of course, it would not have been a party in Emiley style if she had not been dressed in her favorite pink shirt and favorite red VBS shirt. She had even taken her pony tails out so her hair was a mess..... but hey, she's still adorable and she was the center of attention, just like she likes it. She is now fixed with lipgloss, nail polish, a new purse, a princess pillow, games, a megaphone, some new clothes, and of course the fuzzy phone that she has been begging for!

Five years ago today we were blessed with Ms. Em! She was the biggest baby at 8lbs, 13 oz. She also looked different than Abbey and Lainey did when they were born. She had red hair and green eyes. Her eyes have since changed to brown and her hair is still a very beautiful color of red, brown, and blonde all mixed up. Emiley is lots of fun!! She brings joy where ever she goes...

WOW... What a weekend! Will competed in his first triathlon at Inks Lake. It was amazing. As usual, Will is a great job! He says he had a hard time with the swim, but he came out of the 800 meter swim, took off for an eighteen mile bike ride, and then ran a 5K. He had lots of fun. We left the girls with Grammy and PaPa and headed to the lake on Saturday afternoon. We met up with our friends, lounged by the beautiful lake, and looked at the course for the next morning. We went to dinner in Marble Falls and headed back to the campsite to get ready for bed. Will and I "roughed" it in the suburban. We actually slept great!! It was a cool evening and we took out the third seat and layed down the middle row and got the feather mattress and all set up! It was lots of fun just to be away together for 24 hours!!

Just one more post about me and my Funny Farm and then I promise I will move on! This morning the neighbor's dog was over for a visit. Actually I think he followed Will home from his run this morning. Anyway, as we were walking out the the suburban this morning we saw the little neighbor dog eating Jasper's (the horse) poop off of the driveway. Emiley almost threw up, Lainey ran off screaming, and Abbey was trying to "shoo" the dog away. I was yelling, just get in the car....... let's get to school! Then we get to school and Abbey has forgotten to bring the jar of 200 frog eggs to school that she and Lauren found yesterday in the pool. They were both quite upset so I said I would run home and get them and be right back. I come home, search the sun room (which is where I last saw them hide the frog eggs from Lainey and Emiley), and cannot find them anywhere. I look in the garage (which is now super clean after last weekend and my GREAT hubby working on it), outside the sunroom, under, on, in, on top of everything! Cant find the eggs, so I go back to the school, drop off Will's breakfast muffins he forgot this morning on my way, and ask Abbey where the frog eggs are. She says, "Oh I forgot to tell you. I put them in my room behind my dresser!" Oh did not look there :) They are not allowed to eat or drink on the carpet or in their rooms, but I guess a jar full of water and 200 frog eggs is OK. Anyway, I come back home, find the eggs right where she said they would be, and go back to the school TO MAKE HER DAY!!! I love my girls and would do anything for them... just glad we took the eggs to school so I do not have 200 tadpoles and later 200 frogs in my house!!!

As I have said many times before, I feel like I live on a Funny Farm. We have a horse who thinks he is a dog. He greets us each morning by looking in the sunroom waiting for us to come out and feed him. The horse will eat all his food and then go scare the dogs and cats away from their food and eat their food too. The "lovely" horse also insists on pooping right on the driveway.... He has 10 whole acres to poop in and he insists on pooping on the driveway or sidewalk! Then there is Rusty Rooster... He begins crowing at 5 am... standing on the front porch. He follows the horse out to be feed and eats anything he drops. The rooster also poops on my front porch! (Do you see the funny farm in all of this... sometimes I dont laugh!) The rooster roosts at night in the DOG house. Our cats are OK... they are just lazy. They lay on the porch and wait for me to come out with scraps. Jack is a good dog... He takes runs with us, but gets into the neighbor's trash and we get ugly phone calls. He has also gotten into our other neighbor's goats. Oh my!!! Anyway, we have also had an occasional peacock and other rooster, lots of grasshoppers, a couple of snakes, praying mantice, fire ants... but the best visitor, pet, to the funny farm appeared last night. As Will and I were laying in bed visiting about the day, I hear something crawling around in my "to do" corner. I have lots of pictures in baskets and boxes and Wal-mart sacks in the corner of our room that I hope to sort and put in albums this year. ( I am not a scrapbooker, but need to get them into albums and organized) Anyway, something live was in one of those bags. So I quickly turned the lamp on and there it was ....... a FROG...... in my house, in my bedroom. The girls have been playing with frogs for weeks. Hopefully this one just got in by accident and the girls did not let it in to "live." I havent had a chance to ask them yet. I thought this sort of thing was only suppose to happen to mommies of little boys :)...... Oh NO, it happens to me on the Funny Farm! At least it wasnt a snake!

Well, I dont really have a lot to post about right now, but Amy told me this was sure a long time with no post... So here goes a post recapping since last Wednesday. Last Wednesday, I had a dr. appt. (maybe more on this later) so the girls got to spend some time with Grammy after school. While they were there, Lainey talked Grammy into making some bird ice cream with her. Lainey said this was something she saw on TV months ago, but this was the first I had heard about. So Grammy, being the awesome grandmother that she is, got out the ingredients that Lainey told her (from her memory) and made some bird ice cream. They put it in the freezer for her to take home and put out at our house.

The day is finally here! Emiley has been waiting all summer to go back to preschool. She loves school... well at least socializing at school... and has missed her buddies. These are the "terrible three". They could get into lots of trouble if they really wanted. All of us Moms are quite worried about them as they grow up! They are all talkers, social butterflies, and cute as can be! They were so excited to see each other this morning and greeted one another with huge hugs at the front door... All Emiley could talk about was Taylor and Bailey and how they had missed each other. Emiley said she hardly got to talk the whole day at school (I dont believe that because she would have gone crazy if she could have not talked for four hours)... but she couldnt talk because Bailey was talking too much... They are so much fun and such good buddies!

Will, Abbey, and I ran on Saturday morning in the Dove Festival Fun Run. While I was running, I left Lainey in charge of the camera at the finish line. This picture of Abbey and her fellow second graders is the only decent picture that was on my camera because I took it. Even when I finished with the race, Lainey would not hand the camera over.... so we got over fifty shots of Saturday morning during the race and the parade that looked like the following...