Let's Party!!

Today was Caedmon's 4th birthday party! We had 19 adults and 11 kids at the party! It was INSANE in my small house, but our huge backyard was put to great use, even though it was HOT!
Caedmon is SMITTEN by sweet little Megan!

Too bad I missed the pic of the little boy who LICKED Caedmon's cake about 30 seconds after this picture!!

This was the cake table that had a train running around it, the cake in the middle and the party favors (train hats, train whistles, and train suckers) around it!

Caedmon and Cambree enjoyed getting to spend time with their cousin Andie!

Train decor everywhere!

The bounce house was definitely worth the money!

Cucumber sandwiches, turkey sandwiches, chips, dip, pasta salad, fruit salad, etc!

Opening gifts was chaotic with all those people! Ou shy little Caedmon got really overwhelmed and just wanted to crawl into a hole!

Each year he loves opening his card and $2 bills from Grandma!

Grandpa and Mama Dee

Paw and Big Maw

Happy Birthday to Daddy!

I'm a little behind with this post, but my dad had a birthday last week, and we got to drive down to Temple to spend some time with him!
I made him a Domino cake. It was actually a turtle cake with German chocolate cake mix, pecans, caramel, and chocolate chips! If you're a "42" player, you know that it's the 6-4 domino. If you're not (like my sweet sister) then you just get confused and think Dad was turning 64 (he's not..)!

An African theme of gifts--a "Big Five" tie and the African game Mancala

Is it just me, or does Grandma look mischievous in this picture????

Cake time!

This Saturday is Caedmon's 4th birthday party (birthday is June 2nd). I think I went a little overboard, reasoning in my head that this will be his last party in the USA! So I invited tons of people, rented a bounce house, have tons of food, etc. With cooking, cleaning, family coming, etc., I figured I better get the cake made and put in the freezer so I will have time to do other stuff!! I think I get better each year! :)

Wedding!

This past weekend, we went to Lubbock for my best friend's little sister's wedding. Bethany was 2 years old when we moved out there and met their family, so it was SURREAL having my own 2 year old at Bethany's wedding!!

Sonny & Bethany at the rehearsal dinner

Not sure what he was doing, but I definitely got it on camera!

Papaw holding Cason, Mama Sue, Christen (Andrew's wife), and Matt in the background

Whitney, Bethany, and their mama Robbo :)

Siblings Whitney, Andrew, and Bethany

Cambree was just there for the cake!

Me and my girls :)

Blu did the first part of the wedding so Bethany's dad, Ben, could walk her down the aisle!

School's Out!

Caedmon just finished his first year of preschool! He did great all year and never once complained about going--it's so fun when they love school! His end of year program was fun to watch, although Caedmon is VERY shy in front of people and mostly he just stood with his fingers in his mouth! :)

Time to share

I have been fairly careful (sometimes even secretive!) about what I share on this blog since I know there are some in our church and community who read it. However, I feel at peace about sharing openly about what is going on in our lives regarding our future.

After MUCH prayer, confusion, rebellion, more prayer, and finally peace--we are moving back to Zambia. We are heading back as independent missionaries to begin the New Day Orphanage in Mapanza, Zambia. We will leave our job as youth pastor at the end of July and head to Bangs, Texas, where we will spend the next six months traveling, speaking to churches, gaining prayer and financial support, and of course packing/crating. We plan to return to Zambia in January of 2010.

Everyone we have talked to has been so supportive of this, and most seem not at all surprised that God has called us back to Africa. Africa is in our blood--the friends, the smiles, the children, the poverty--it is in our blood and forever in our hearts.

I want to share with you our new website so you can see all that we're up to. www.newdayorphanage.org

Please lift our family up in your prayers during these next few months as we all adjust to tremendous changes in our lives.

God bless, and we hope you come along for the ride!

Tornado!!

We were in a tornado this weekend! Tornados have always fascinated and terrified me. I grew up about 12 miles from the town of Jarrell, where the F-5 tornado of 1997killed several people, so I always pay close attention when bad weather comes and take tornados very seriously!

This weekend, we were spending time with family in Brownwood/Early, Texas. We were in Early on Friday night at Blu's brother's home, watching tv. 6 adults, 5 children under the age of 4. Out of nowhere, we hear this big boom of thunder. We ran outside thinking it was a space shuttle or something because we had no idea storms were coming. Sure enough, we saw some dark clouds and it started to rain a little bit. Cloud (Blu's brother) rushes outside to pull in his 2009 Maserati. While he's gone, we hear a loud noise that we knew was hail. Cloud then rushes in and says that when he pulled his car in, the radio had sirens going off and said there were tornados in Early and we needed to take cover. We got all of the kids into the hallway and watched out the windows as trees blew so hard. Then, everything got still. At this point, we all moved to the big window to see what was happening!! Then, the wind started again and this time we got really scared and moved to the closet. The kids did ok but were not happy about being in the closet with the lights off. We had no tv, no internet, and couldn't get a radio station so we had no idea what was happening. Finally, around 10pm things calmed down and we ran next door for some matches. The neighbor informed us that a fence blew into his windows. Limbs were down everywhere. As we drove back out to Lake Brownwood from Early, we saw that buildings were missing siding, signs and poles were leaning, and limbs were all over the place! There was no power at the lake either until almost 1am. We then found out that there were 4 confirmed sightings of a tornado touchdown at Early High School, DIRECTLY across the street from where Cloud's house was!!! Kroger lost part of its roof, Higginbotham's lost its roof, and Hastings was damaged pretty bad! Cool, huh!!! I've now been in Hurricane Isabel in Virginia, an earthquake in Acapulco, and now a tornado in Early!

And, now, as a reward for reading this long blog that was a slight exaggeration of actual events but mostly accurate, you can receive access to some privileged information! www.newdayorphanage.org Enjoy! :)