New Members of the Family!

Zachary David Reed

Naomi Faye Rollins

This morning at 7:57, my sister Aly gave birth to her 6th child!!! Zachary David was 9 pounds 2 ounces and 21 inches long! He is such a cutie! I am a blessed lady to have a new niece and nephew all in the same month! Brittany and Jared had Naomi Faye on December 7th and she weighed 9 pounds 3 ounces! Big babies just run in both sides of the family I guess! Both babies arrived 1 week early to the delight of their mommies and both are doing well! Congratulations Jared and Brittany and Brad and Alyson! Aren't these babies beautiful??

Shepherds watching over their flocks by night...

Anson made his spectacular debut as a musician/actor on Sunday night! He and all the four-year-olds at our church were sheep in the nativity program! I would love to say that he stole the show with his singing and doing all the correct hand motions, but it was quite the opposite! It was all pretty funny, actually... when they were supposed to stand, he crawled around the feet of his peers. And when they were supposed to say their scripture passage with hand motions, he continued to look in the wrong direction and do nothing. But, hey! He was there with a happy heart, a great attitude, and had a great time! When I asked him what his favorite part was, he said "Singing all the songs!" I guess God can hear the songs we sing "in our heart", too! :o) So we will be working on some things, like watching the teacher and doing what he is supposed to do... he is definitely an individual! :o)

Anson and Ella

Here are some pics of their new bunk beds!

Thanksgiving

I have been a blog slacker for the past month! I will try catch everyone up with a couple posts...

Thanksgiving was great here! Both sets of grandparents came to visit us as well as Auntie Megan and Uncle Gavin and Megan's friend Whitney. We had 11 people for Thanksgiving dinner! My parents stayed for the weekend (Dusty's went to their cabin then back to FL) and we went to Stone Mountain for the Christmas festivities! There were tons of lights and a train ride around the mountain and food! It was a fun way to start the Christmas season. On Saturday we celebrated Christmas with my parents since they are going to be in Maine with Aly's family for the real Christmas. (Hopefully Aly's baby boy will decide to come before Christmas!) So there were tons of presents to open and we all had so much fun! One of their presents was a new bunk bed that my parents made!! Anson and Ella are officially sharing a room now and they LOVE their new beds! Sharing is going pretty well, although I separate them at nap time so Ella can actually rest. She gets distracted with all the toys! So that was our Thanksgiving in a nutshell! We just love this time of year!

Disney World!

Two weeks ago on our Florida trip we took the kids for their first visit to Disney World! Most of Dusty's family went with us and we had such a great time! The kids were really good all day... no melt downs from being over stimulated or over tired, good attitudes, and smiles all day! Here are a few pictures from the day:

Fall Leaves

Ella has really enjoyed collecting the beautiful leaves this year. These are a few from her collection! I'm hoping the rain will stop so we can get out and take some more leaf pictures before they are gone! I will also post our Disney pictures soon!

Florida Fun

My budding musician... composing music.

Ella is proud of her new sunglasses!

Well, we made it to FL! Anson, Ella and I drove down yesterday to my parents house in DeLand. Last night I took Anson to his first concert! We went to hear the Stetson Orchestra! Anson LOVED it! He stayed awake throught the first piece (Bizet's L'Arlesienne Suite) but fell asleep during the Shostakovich Cello Concerto No. 1 performed by David Bjella - awesome! Sitting in the audience instead of being on stage was weird but really neat to experience with my little boy! Plus I forgot how hard the seats are in Elizabeth Hall! :o) But Anson loved it and it was worth it. Today he played my parents piano and had to write his own music like the musicians had last night. :o)

Today's highlights were lunch at Bellini's and the Fall Festival at my parents church. Anson and Ella both loved playing the carnival games for candy and jumping in the bounce house. Anson got a strike in pumpkin bowling! He also had a whale painted on his face, which he loved. Ella loved the food, especially. She had an icee and some cotton candy (very little) and a couple bites of a hot dog. Gramma and Papa had to work at the food booths but Auntie Amy and Uncle Andy came to join the fun! I had two tired little children by 7:30 so we were home and in bed by 8:00.

Thanks to Dusty lending me his laptop for the trip, I am able to update this while we are away. More to come!

A Sweet Little Rascal

The fall colors are here!
Look Mommy! A squirrel!

Ella and Anson enjoying a cup of hot chocolate

Ella has been in a "big girl bed" for about a month now and she loves it! It took about a week for her to get used to it... one night I heard a muffled cry at about two in the morning and she had actually fallen asleep with her head under the bed and woke up and freaked out! Now, when I go to bed I look in to make sure she is in bed and not under it! A couple times I have found her on the floor beside the bed or kneeling, with just her upper body on the bed. Funny! So going to sleep in the toddler bed is going well, however when she wakes up and decides to roam around her room, she usually gets into mischief. Just when I think I have removed every potential mess-maker from her reach she finds (or invents) something new! One day she used her rocking horse as a stool to reach the baby powder and diaper cream. Her room smelled like a clean baby's bottom! But then came last Sunday... I opened the door to find that she had taken off her poopy diaper and walked through it!!!! YUK!!!! I just stood there in silence, not knowing where to begin! She had literally walked all over her room on her nice cream colored carpet. So I threw her in the tub and when she was clean I started working on the room. Dusty and I were runnning around cleaning when we realized that she had disappeared again... this time, with her new-found stealth abilities, she had pulled a stool up to the kitchen counter, opened up a new box of hot chocolate and helped herself to a couple packets. She, the counter, and the floor were covered in chocolate dust! So back to the tub went Ella as her mother slowly went insane! This all happenned in a matter of minutes! She has a gift of making messes! And she does it with the cutest smile on her face. She has taken this two-year-old stage to a new level for our family. I don't think Anson ever did anything like this. So for now, all stools are out of reach and Ella is watched like a hawk. I really comtemplated placing a bell on her neck because she just sneaks around so quietly. She also does really sweet things like asking to kiss "Mommy's baby" every night before bed, wrapping up her baby dolls in a blanket and telling us to be quiet because they are sleeping, saying thank you all the time without having to be reminded, and giving hugs and kisses when you least expect it. So she's a sweet little rascal indeed and we can't imagine life without her!

Another trip to Dillard House

The beginnings of some fall colors
What a smile!

Ella feeding the goat that escaped

The donkey has a nice style!

The little stow-away about to make his escape!

And the bull's big ol' tongue!

Two monkeys

We love going to the Dillard House in North GA, especially during the fall. The restaurant serves a huge family style Southern meal right to your table and the view of the mountains is amazing! The kids favorite part is going out back to the little farm/zoo where you can feed the animals. They have goats, chickens, a donkey, a llama, some sheep, some rare breed cattle, and horses. This trip to see the animals was hilarious! Firstly, Dusty discovered that when you feed the Texan longhorn, he sticks his huge tongue out to get the food! The donkey preferred to open his jaws wide and askew and show all his teeth. But the young goat was the most clever. He hopped from the rock he was perched on right onto the longhorn's back and got a free ride around the pen! The cow didn't seem to mind which made me think it was a common occurrence. And then just as the big cow got close enough to the fence, the little goat jumped right out and proceeded to stuff himself with the food that was dropped just over the fence and out of all the other animal's reach. It was the cutest thing! Of course Anson and Ella loved having the little goat to chase around. It was a fun way to spend a lazy Sunday afternoon.

Lobster Dinner

Touching the lobster for the first time
He was big!

Notice how my handy apron hides my big belly!

Chef Anson

The finished product!

Enjoying the meal!

Ella warned him! Can you see the shiner under his left eye?

Actually it wasn't inflicted by Ella, but by the ottoman in the living room!

Today, Dusty brought home a 2 pound live Maine lobster from the Farmers Market! The kids went crazy! They loved touching it and watching it swim around in the sink while I prepared the pot of his doom. Actually, you can see by the picture that he was so big, he took up the entire sink (the smaller side). Once the water came to a rolling boil it was time to make him turn red. I placed him claws-first into the pot of water and sea salt and let the kiddos watch him turn that nice red-orange color. It was quite a memorable experience and neither of them seemed too sad that we "killed" the lobster. They were excited to taste him! A couple years ago Target had all this lobster feast stuff in their dollar section and I bought one of everything they had with the intentions of having a lobster party. Well it may have just been the four of us, but we made it a party! Anson had fun helping me set out everything on the table while we cooked dinner. When the lobster was done, Dusty had the honors of of getting all the meat out and eating most of it! Anson ate some and really liked it, too. Ella wasn't interested at all. And me, well, I had a nice spinach walnut salad with raspberry vinagarette dressing since I'm not supposed to have shellfish while pregnant! :o( Maybe next time!

By the way, if you've never cooked a lobster, it's easy!

Here are the directions I used:

Half fill a large kettle with water and add 1/4 cup of sea salt.

Cover and bring to a boil.

Grasp the lobster firmly by the middle of the back (see my awesome example above! :o) with claws held away.

Plunge them head first into the boiling water

Cover. Begin the timer when the water is again at a boil.

Cook 10 -15 minutes for 1 - 2 pound lobster.

Overcooking toughens meat.

Plunge cooked lobster directly into cold water for 1 minute to stop the cooking process.

(I fill my sink with cold water)

Take the lobster out of the water and let it drain for a few seconds and place on platter.

Twist off large claws and pull tail from body section. Discard entire body - no meat there.

Make a slit down underside of tail and serve with melted butter.

See? Easy!!

Dusty likes his served with garlic mashed potatoes but tonight we settled for yellow squash and spinach salad.

Parenting By The Book

I am reading the best book with my Mom to Mom group at church. It is by John Rosemond - a long time syndicated columnist on parenting and psychologist - and most recently a Christian, hence the title of the book. It is great to hear his frank words on how so much of the "psychology" of raising children that came out of the sixties free-thinking era is a bunch of "doo dah"!!
For instance, What is self esteem? Good for your child, right? REALLY?? God says that the proud will be humbled. What we should desire for our children is a humble heart, not a proud, "self-loving" spirit. Besides, the psychologist in John says that people with high self esteem often have terrible trouble dealing with any failure in life because they have been built up so much by well-meaning parents/teachers. How much better to teach them to rely on God for strength and not on "their own inner strength". Who would you rather have as a friend, someone with high self-esteem or someone with a humble spirit? Just some thoughts...
But here is a funny quote (of which there are many funny parts of the book, too, not just the heavy stuff :o)
"God in His infinite mercy has distinguished us from animals in many ways, but one of the most significant to our discussion: He has not allowed human offspring to grow to full size in one or two years. Imagine the consequence to the mother who denies her five-foot-ten-inch-tall, 165 pound two year old child a cookie before dinner. Not a pretty picture! God is good!" :o) :o)

Sometimes there are days that I feel like all I do is yell "No... Stop that..." etc. At the end of the day I feel like a "big meanie". I don't know how any mother could be as loving and patient as all the great moms you read about in the books. But I just heard an encouraging story about Ruth Graham (You know, Billy's wife...) and her daughter. Her daughter was feeling like I do a lot of the time and asked her mom "How were you able to be so patient and loving and kind while raising all of us? You never lost your temper!" to which Ruth replied "I just prayed every day that God would erase those memories from your minds and by His grace, He DID!"

So there is my new prayer! That God would erase all those impatient, "mean Mommy" memories from their little minds! :o)

Well, Dusty is teaching a seminar at church today so the kids and I are off to the mall! Let's hope we don't have any memory-erasing moments today! :o)

Our Little Preacher

I was happy to catch this one on video! So many times they will say or do something cute or funny and I can't find my camera... but this time I heard Anson say "Come sit down, Ella. I'm going to read you a Bible story". That was my cue to get my camera. (Notice Ella holding her baby :o) He has come a long way in his story telling since this post in April of 08! I have a feeling that Ella (and Asa) will be preached at a lot throughout the years!

Anson and Ella do get along pretty well most of the time but they are also starting to realize that they can bug each other. Like today in the van, Ella was making a spitting sound with her mouth and Anson asked her to stop. First he asked nicely, "Please stop that Ella". When she did it again and again with a little smirk on her face it escalated to a "STOP IT, ELLA!" Of course that is when I get involved with a "Both of you stop!" followed by a short speech about doing things that make each other happy instead of mad. They will get it one day. They may be 23 and 25 but they won't irritate each other as much! :o)

The Maine Crew

This is a recent picture of my sweet nieces and nephew in Maine. For some reason (or 5 of them!) Aly doesn't get the time to send pics very often let alone time to do a blog! :o) And just imagine that there is one more on the way to make it an even 6! They found out that their newest addition is also a boy and due around Christmas!! So I am earnestly looking for little boy sewing patterns and cute boyish material. Fun! On top of being a (pregnant) full-time Mom of 5, Aly is also homeschooling all the kids. It makes me tired just to think about it! :o) They live in Beautiful Bass Harbor, Maine.

In the picture: Rachel (11) Rebekah (almost 10) Emily (almost 2) Laura (almost 7) and Joshua (5 1/2)

World, Meet Asa! ..............It's a BOY!!!!

Well, I guess the Lord really did speak to Anson! I went for our untrasound today and the first thing I saw on the screen was the second picture... he was showing off his little boy parts! :o) I said "Oh, it's a boy!!!" The ultrasound technician was impressed that I saw it right away and concurred! It is a good thing we saw that first because for the rest of the time he had his legs crossed at the knees and had his hands over his face. I think he wanted us to leave him alone! :o) He is very healthy and everything is where it is supposed to be developmentally. So today we are praising God for another son! We are naming him Asa Leslie... Asa is a Biblical name and he is in the lineage of Christ (He was a good king of Judah) and Leslie is my grandfather's name, my father's name and my middle name! Anson was very excited and enjoyed calling people to tell them "we're going to have a baby boy!" Ella is excited too but can't put it into words quite yet. :o)

Ella's Birthday

Anson helped me make and decorate the cake!
Ella clapping at her birthday song!

"I'm two now!"

After clebrating her birthday twice in Florida a couple weeks ago, Ella finally had her "real" birthday yesterday! It was just the four of us, one cake, and one present and she loved it! She loved us singing to her when we brought out the cake and she loved her present too so it was a fun time! Thanks for all the "Happy Birthday" phone calls! She learned by the second or third call to say "thank you" after someone sang to her! :o)