Psalms 149:1

"Praise the Lord! Sing to the Lord a new song. Sing his praises in the assembly of the faithful."

I will boost in the Lord my God for placing in Jaycee a heart after Him. I love hearing her sing songs of praises to her Heavenly Father. I can't even imagine the smile that God has on His face as she sings her praises to Him. Yesterday morning she had her keyboard out, began playing (hitting keys), and singing " I know who I am, I know who I am, I know who I am, I am yours, I am yours, and you are mine, Jesus, you are mine, you are mine, Jesus, you are mine." PRECIOUS!!!

Then today, she broke out with her own songs as she ran around the house. Holy God, I love you. Holy God, I love you. Holy God, I love you. Then the second song was I love you, God. I love you, God. I love you, God!!! He puts a new song of praise in our hearts!! Thank you Lord for our children and how through them you can speak to us! No matter where we are or how simple the words are we can sing praises to our Heavenly Father!!!

Jackson becoming a big boy!!!

This Tuesday we will be two weeks into potty training Jackson! I must say its gone far better then I thought it would. I had been preparing myself for the worst, but also praying that God would give me patience and wisdom to communicate to Jackson how this works! God has been faithful to do so! I really thought it would take him a lot longer to grasp the concept of using the potty! On the first day he was already understanding it! Grant it we are not totally out of the woods, but its definitely been a smooth transition with all of us! Thank you Jesus for that! We started out with a little potty chair in the living room. The first day, in the first couple of hours we had several accidents. I had a hard time trying to keep him on the potty seat for any amount of time. Finally, I told him if he could sit on the chair for 5 minutes then he could have a treat. So I set the timer, and in 2 minutes we had success. Well, of course I went crazy jumping up and down! He got to pick between marshmallows or m&ms for his treat! Marshmallows it was! Well, as soon as he finished his treat he was ready to try again on the potty chair! At first, I was making him go sit on the potty every hour. Now, we are every 2 hours. He hasn't gotten to the point of telling me every time he needs to go. I am still the encourager, but thankfully he goes whenever I ask him to. He hasn't had an accident at all during nap time. He usually is down for 2 hours maybe just a little longer. Last night he actually stayed dry all night. He does wear a pull up for nap time, bed time, and any time we are away from home. He has done great going at other places,too! We have transitioned to the bathroom potty now! Which is really nice! Oh, I am making him sit when he goes! Byron will be the trainer in the standing up process, b/c I haven't gotten a clue how that works! We still haven't had success in #2, but I haven't pressed the issue either. Every time he goes I tell him he doesn't have to do that in his undies, the potty is waiting for him to do it there. I am being patient and hopefully he will want to try it soon enough! All in all I am definitely proud of him. So thankful we aren't buying diapers anymore! Yes, we have pull-ups but we use like one a day so that is definitely okay with me!!!

Here is Jackson in some of his undies! He is so darn cute in them! His favorite pairs are of course his CARS ones!

Jaycee's Fall!

A few weeks ago my nieces had come to stay with my parents. Jaycee and Jackson spent most of their time that week at my parents as well. Well, each night the kids went for a run. Kiley is getting ready for cross country and the other ones ran for support I guess! Anyways, the last night they were there they went for a run. Mind you both of my kids were running in their crocs, which of course is not the best of shoes to run in. Anyways, they were going down the hill from my parents. Jaycee was trying to encourage Jackson by helping him along. She kept turning her head to look at him and to reach for his hand. Well, you guessed it, she got her feet tangled up and went crashing down onto the asphalt. OUCH!!! My grandparents were out on their front porch and saw the crash! They jumped on their golf cart and came to the rescue. By the time that got Jaycee and Jackson back to the house both kids were bawling! Jaycee was in pain and Jackson was heart broken because his sister was crying! Thankfully, Keely has a dramatic side to her and she began to perform. In no time at all she had everyone laughing! Keely had saved the night!!! Now, the kids have running shoes, but they just need their cousins to come back to run with them!





Jaycee had a pretty scuffed up little nose and forehead. Her knees were scratched up,too. Thankfully, it wasn't worse! She has healed up nicely! Right now the end of her nose is a little pink, but a few more weeks and her nose will be back to normal!!!

Internet problems?!?!?!

I really thought our internet problems were behind us, but they are not!!! I am so thankful that Byron found the deal that he did with Hughes Net. We have a 30 day trial period and we can return it with no losses if we aren't satisfied. It was installed Tuesday afternoon by late Wednesday morning we had no service. It continued throughout the day until about 30 minutes ago when Byron called to report our problem. Well, come to find out Hughes Net has a daily limit of how much internet you can use. Basically, downloading things! The first day we exceeded our limit therefore causing our internet to go into non working mode. Byron downloaded one CD from Zune Marketplace. I downloaded a few other songs and we watched a few Youtube videos just to see how fast our internet worked. Well, I guess that was enough to boot us over the limit! Seriously?! We are paying $70 a month for service that is that limited!!! They do have a downloading manager that you can set up to download between the hours of 1AM-6AM in the mornings, unlimited downloads!!! Fine, that works for music, but what about other things?! To do anything else I need to be up during that time?! Crazy!!! So I think we will give it a little longer just so we can research more about the last 2 options we have for internet! Hopefully, in that time we can get our money back from Wichita Online so if we do need to pay a hefty set up fee for one of the other options we can do it without feeling like we are throwing money out the window. I know we won't be b/c we do use the internet, but in some since it does b/c we have had such poor results with the other providers. You get a little hesitate as who you should go with and who should get your money! Truly thankful that this is our only problem at the moment! There are a lot worse things that I could be posting about right now, but thankfully I am not! So I will continue to have a thankful heart!!!

Washington Trip Summer 2009!!!

Well, since its been a while since our trip I am going to post my favorite pics from the trip! Hopefully, I can keep the picture posting under control, but I have lots of pictures!!! We had a great time on our trip!!! It seems like it was forever ago though! We miss our family and friends like crazy! This past week didn't help with the Northwest Washington Fair going on! We did survive though!!! Thanks again to everyone for making time to see us while we up visiting! You all are such a blessing!!! I am so thankful for technology and for the internet!!! TRULY THANKFUL!!!

Can I get a......

Woohoo! Amen! Hallelujah! WOOT! WOOT! We are back in business with internet!!!! We finally cut the cords with Wichita Online! We are still dealing with them on what we should have credited back to us and also we are holding their antenna receiver as leverage for us! They have had poor service all across the board. We are pleased to know that many others are giving them the boot as well!

We ended up choosing Hughes Net Satellite provider. Byron, found a smashing good deal that in the end we will not be paying for any installation costs. It is the more expensive monthly payment, but we made some adjustments to our coverage with our cell phones and now we will be paying less for internet and cell phones combined then we were with the previous set up! We just had it installed today and its been working great! Oh, the other grand part of choosing Hughes Net its a 30 day guarantee. If we aren't completely satisfied then we can return it! So we are super pumped!!!

I have so many posts going right now in my head that I think I need to make a list of everything I need to share. Starting with pics from our Washington vacation. Then I will update on Jackson's potty training, Jaycee's accident (minor), and other things!!! I just thought I would let you all know that I will be joining the blogging world once again!!! YAY!!! I am so excited that I can finally read and leave comments on all of your blogs as well!!!

Pictures!!!

Jackson's bedroom and new haircut!!!

Update!

As you all can tell we are still having serious issues with our internet! They have been out 5 times in the last week, each person has been someone different. I think Byron has finally convinced me to pull the plug on them and say our good-byes. I am highly frustrated with them and I don't think we are being told the truth or do I think we are being treated right as customers, but I hate they thought of loosing the $200 we paid for installation. Then we will more then likely pay around the same amount for another internet provider and our monthly bill will increase. I have continued to hold out hope that the issue would be solved and we would not have to go through all of this mess. Thankfully, Byron is going to handle the discussion of us quitting Wichita Online. I am praying that we find favor with them and we are credited back for not having service and also that we will be able to get the installation cost back because they can't provide the service they said we should be receiving!

I am blogging from my parents house at the moment. My nieces are here so we are all relaxing and enjoying each others company! I can't believe how grown-up my nieces have become. Kiley, I believe, has now passed me in the height department. By no means am I tall, but she is 12 so that means something. They are both such beautiful young ladies!!!

Byron hasn't had to work as much at the electrical job site, lately. He has finished the new part of the house, and is now more dependent on the owner of the house for help. Which, it has made it nice to have him around a little more and for him its not quite as stressful.

I have been busy around the house. We had a storage building on the back part of our property. Byron and my dad moved it by the carport. I painted the storage building to match the house and all I lack is painting the door red. I also got Jackson's room painted. After 2 1/2 years of life he finally has a little boy's room! He LOVES it! Its done in none other, but NASCAR stuff!!! What can I say the boy loves his cars!!! He thinks his room is so very cool! Hopefully, I can get some pics posted of it before I leave mom's house today!

Both kids are doing great! Jaycee is growing up way too fast on me. She is now getting the hang of dressing herself. Which is probably been well overdue, but I didn't mind dressing her and she wasn't interested in doing it. She also ran last night with my nieces. Kiley is running cross-country this year. So she has already started running to prepare for it. Last night, they ran from my parents house, down to the pipe racks at my grandparents. If you go down and back twice its a mile. Jaycee ran down and made it almost half way back. So we might have a runner on our hands! (Hopefully, she will wise up and choose a more fun sport!) LOL!!! Jackson is about to embark on the adventure of potty training. Next Monday is the goal to begin!!! Please, keep us in your prayers! I am a little nervous b/c he is a boy and I have NEVER been around a little boy when they are being potty trained. Jaycee was so easy, too! The Lord has been giving me peace about it and I know that it will be okay. We are going to try it and if its not clicking then we will stop and try again in a month or so. I am not going to be stressed and I am not going to make it stressful for Jackson. Hopefully, it happens and we will be DIAPER FREE in the Lohrer household! I will no longer have any trace of babies in my house! My heart is sadden by that, but we are moving on to better things and enjoying new adventures!

By the end of the month, we will start pre-school at home for Jaycee. They do offer a 4 yr old program at the local school, but its everyday from 8-3. I was not ready to send my precious little girl away all day long. Once school starts we will be in it for many many years!!! I am really looking forward to working with Jaycee more and teaching her things as well Jackson, too. Any advice or activities from you moms out there that would be fun to do please pass them along!!!

Hopefully, by September we will have internet that is dependable and I can re-join the world of blogging!!! Until then this will have to do!!! Blessings to you all!!!