How to DO the WHO do!

Hee Hee......that just sounds funny! AnyWHO......(i'm killin' myself here!!) LOL OKAY....enough with that....on with what I am here for today! A couple of you that read the post below wanted to know how we accomplished this great up do, so let me tell you, it was super easy.

Here's what you need:
1. Plastic cup (sized to match the amount of hair you have)
2. Your own hair (hee hee)
3. 1 scrunci

To accomplish such stylish do, simply brush some hair forward, place the cup in the center of the top of your head, bring hair up from all sides and secure with the scrunci!

On a small child you might try those little Dixie cups....would make for a smaller do, but would be just as much fun!

Now was that easy or what!!! So, now go make your WHO do!

Girls Night Out and My Ballerina

Well, it has been a week and a half now and I am FINALLY getting some pictures on here from our first ever GNO! I guess it really should have been called GNI since we stayed IN all night. Anyway....for some reason most of the pictures I took came out too dark, so these were some of the better ones. Just showing some of the fun we had.

My princess stayed with us! She was a hoot..... I think in this picture the time was about 12:30 and yes she was still running!!

Here she is eating her "mushmellow". That's what she calls them!

Some of the girls wanted to straighten my hair. You know it has only been curly since having both kids, mainly since Rachel! Anyhow, as they were doing it, someone thought it would be funny to turn me into a WHO. So with they accomplished that with help if a plastic cup and a scrunci. Then in the picture below is one of our girls....she has long hair too and a lot of it, so they did the same to her!

These two were a hoot, you'll see their handy work below. They decided to tape two of the girls that went to sleep to the floor! I have to say I did have a little to do with that....helping at least!

These were some other helpers! They had the tape ready when we came back for it!

Displaying their handy work!

This is the "All Night Crew" Not one of us went to sleep. Oh, there is also the one behind the camera.

My princess being woke up to head home! Would you believe that she stayed up til 2:30!!! I am not joking, that girl is a party animal!

After we got home Rachel and I went straight to my bed and slept til 12:00! Could have slept longer, but my dear hubby just had to mow the grass!!! LOL

The pictures below are of Rachel. I had to practice getting all of her hair slicked back for recital in a couple weeks. SO, with the help of water and some hair glue, we got it back. For some reason she wasn't wanting to give me a smile, so she was trying to frown!

Then after I snapped a few shots of her, she wanted to take one with her "brodder"! Look at him all beat up! He is ALL BOY!!!! He never goes a day without some kind of scratch or bruise!

What was I thinking??

WOW...I haven't done one of these in a very long time, but tonight we are having an ALL GIRLS lock-in at the church. I am not sure how many girls will show up yet....10....20....who knows! All I know is that we are going to have a blast. BUT I will be so tired tomorrow! LOL

We have movies to watch, games to play, food to eat (you gotta have snacks for a sleepover!), and I have spent part of the day gathering up discount cards to a lot of shops in our mall. Pretty good ones too! One of our mothers is also going to get a gift card to either Bath and Body or Bath Junkie. That will be a big hit!

The adults are also going to put on a "what NOT to wear" show. So pray that goes smoothly! Then I will tie that show up with a Bible study from 1 Timothy 2:9 and a discussion on how we look at ourselves vs. how guys look at us and more importantly on how God looks at us.

So, keep me in your prayers tonight bloggy friends!

Pictures

Ok, I was FINALLY able to load all these pictures! WHEW....it took a while! As you can tell I have not had my camera with me at work in a while. These pictures are all from the month of April.

Come back tomorrow for an update on my doctor's visit. I wanted to wait till I took Rachel for her hearing check this afternoon. That way I could post them both together. Oh, Timothy's eye appointment was scheduled this morning for Tuesday, 29th of April...next week.

So, let's get started.....

These first few are from Tables On Parade. The women of our church all decorate tables and the men serve us dinner. We have special music and a speaker that night as well. This is my table. Simple, just like me! :) There were some AMAZING tables for sure....However, I didn't get pictures of them all, there were so many and I was too busy getting mine together and hosting it as well.

Here are the kids after we finally got home that night. They were dying to smell the roses in the car. So as soon as we got home, just barely in the back door, Timothy insisted that I put them on the floor so he could smell them!

Now, this next set of pictures are just a sample of the ones I have from the Sage conference at Green Acres Baptist Church in Tyler. If you all haven't heard of Sage, then go check them out! Great girls ministry! The theme for the weekend was Simplicity: feedom from chaos. The talked about ways to simplify your life so that you have more time to focus on God and your relationship with Him. They also do a fashion show/slide show of ways to dress/not to dress. The girls we took had a great time....although, several of them didn't even want to go!

This is Nolen. He was our bus driver. You can tell he was very excited about the weekend! LOL I snapped this picture and told him that it WOULD be posted somewhere at some point. So, Nolen, here it is! (He said I was wrong for taking this shot!)

Merritt Johnston is the main speaker. She is awesome. The girls loved her.

A time for praisin' and worshipin' our Lord with the ALL GIRLS Sage band! Our girls thought they "rocked!" Megan Charles was the "lead" singer for the group. She is on staff at Green Acres as their Girls Minister.

Rachel's 1st Tea Party! She had a blast....well...to be honest, she was very shy and reserved for the whole thing..... They had princess dresses for all of them to wear and then they had two young girls there doing hair and makeup....Rachel insisted that she sit in my lap while they "dolled her up". Then she made her way to the table. The mother of this birthday girl had gone to different garage sales and thrift stores/antique shops to find (a ton of) tea cups and saucers. They were all cute! She put them all on the table at each place setting and then the girls got to choose which one to sit at; this is the one that Rachel chose.

The special prize for the party was that Cinderella came! The girls were so excited! Rachel finally smiled! But she was still hesitant of Cinderella until Mommy talked to her too.

Now for my little MAN....well, Sunday before last he decided that he wanted to wear a suit with a tie just like Daddy does. We had this coat, shirt and tie that someone had given him a little over a year ago that had been hanging in his closet. It HAD been too big for him, but not anymore! However, the shirt would not button around the neck! It fit him perfect everywhere else, but would NOT button around the neck. He was very upset about it but still determined to wear the tie....so I did the best I could....I clipped that little Veggie Tale clip-on tie to the next button down.

What's a Momma to do on a Sunday morning as she is trying to walk out the door (already running 15 minutes late!!) and her little man is upset!

Isn't he handsome!!! Sunburn (from t-ball and the first "warm/sunny Saturday in months), bummed chin and all!

Well, that's it....actually there were many other pictures to share....but these were just a few to highlight the month so far! (there is still more of it to come...)

Self Defense

I may have mentioned to you all that I was going to a girls conference this weekend. I will post about the conference itself later today or in the morning. For now though I wanted to talk about some basic self defense things that were mentioned at the conference that have been on my mind.

During one of the sessions they talked about "Things every girl needs to know" and one of those things included some basic self defense techniques. Some of them you may already be exercising, but I am going to share them with you just in case you are not.

1. Always walk in the middle of the road between the isles of the parking lot. What I mean is, don't walk right up next to the cars. It only takes someone about 2 seconds to step out, muffle you mouth and throw you into a car if they want you bad enough. If you walk in the middle of the isle, then they are less likely to come after you for fear of someone grabbing you.

2. Always carry your keys so that a key or two are poking out from between your fingers. This gives you your own little weapon.

3. When fighting back, don't go directly for the gut. Go for the face! Attack any exposed skin you can find. When you think about it, if you go for the gut, or the mid section, then you have layers of clothing to get through. If you go for the face, you can cause some pretty good harm pretty quick!

4. Carry some kind of personal defense spray. I found some online here Blackhawk Gear . Along with many other items that could be used. Those of you with hubbies in the military or in the police force should check out that site. It has some pretty good discounts on items they could really use! I may go to that site to get Carlton some more Under Armour.

They also mentioned some other techniques, but that would require me making a video and posting it here, but I am not to that point in my blogging capabilities yet. (Hopefully soon!)

Anyway, hope you learned something new, and hope you find something at the site that will help you!

Sex and Dating!

Carlton has started a series titled "Sex and Dating". A very good one I might add. It is a video driven series that he got from Blue Fish TV. It was written by Hayley and Michael DiMarco. Here is the trailer for it.



I hope it comes up on your computer, because it doesn't on mine at work. But then again we have so many filters here.... If you couldn't watch it then go here

Anyway, it is a really good series. Last night we started with the first video lesson on Boundaries. Really the kids made many more comments than we expected them too, so it made it a lot easier for him to speak.

After the video he asked them some questions that related to the two teenagers in the video. Questions like, "Why do you think she couldn't leave him?", and "Why do you suppose he had so much control over her?", and "Do you think she really thought he was "the one" and they would get married one day?"

The responses to these questions hurt my heart. Girls would say things like, "She loved him. She thought they would one day get married. She thought he loved her. He became a habit for her." And the guys had comments like, "She let him control her. She let him take her away from her friends. She didn't tell him "No."

Did you notice what I noticed???? All their responses started with SHE. To that, I ask, "What?" Why is it that SHE have to be the one that says no? Where was the responsibility on HIS part?

I will tell you that my hubby also heard that reoccuring word too and he made it a point to tell them that he heard it. Then he told them, "IT TAKES TWO" Not just two to "get it done" but two to "keep it from happening!"

Sure there are the giggles, pointing, cutting of eyes and red faces, but those that commented when he asked questions really suprised me. Most of their answers were right on! Most of the questions last night were not ones that really had a right or wrong answer either, so that made it a little easier for them to comment.

The main jist of last night was reminding students to set boundaries and to set them now! If they haven't started dating and even if they had. Set those boudaries and draw the line. Let whoever you are dating or will be dating know how you feel. Tell them where your boundaries are and dare them to even put a toe over the line.

It was really tough for a few kiddos to sit through the first video, and to listen to what Carlton had to say afterwards, because they have already had sex. It was obvious on some of their faces. Carlton made sure to tell them that there was no reason for hanging on to that guilt if they were ready to seek forgiveness and to start over. My heart really ached for them. I do hope they open up and talk about it, if not in front of everyone (who most already know) then I hope they pull one of us adults aside to chat.

I was very proud of my man for some of the things he told them. He reminded them all that God wired girls with very sensitive hearts. Hearts that need to be protected. Hearts that belong to God. He reminded them that girls are emotional beings. He told them that once a girl has sex with a guy she becomes so emotionally attached to him that it is almost impossible for her to ever forget about him. Then he told them that God made her that way for the purpose of keeping that bond in marriage.

He told the guys that they are to treat girls with the respect that they deserve. He reminded them that he was once a "young man" and that he KNOWS the thoughts they have and the feelings they get.

Then he asked them this...."Tell me something, what is a guy that sleeps around with a lot of girls called....."
PLAYER ................... PIMP .................. THE MAN ............ those were just a couple of the names that they all threw out. All names that in our culture today are "positive". Then he said this while shaking his head in agreement, "Okay, okay, now tell me what is a girl called that sleeps around with a lot of guys....."
HO ........... SLUT ........... SKANK .......... again, just a few that I could remember. But those were all words that are negative, that tear down their character. Then he asked them....

"WHAT'S THE PROBLEM HERE?????" Then he went on to say that what is wrong for one should be wrong for the other! He reminded the guys toward the end that every girl they date is someone's future wife and that furthermore, their future wife might be on a date right now. Then he asked them, "How would you want your future wife to be treated?" I wish you could have seen the look on some of their faces.

This started last night as a 4 week series, however, since he already had to break the first week into 2 weeks, I think it might take a little longer than he expected!

Please pray for him and all us other adults that will be interacting with these kids.