Ready for Christmas!!!

I know we still have a few more months before Christmas arrives, but I was going through a website that was given to me by a sweet dear friend, Amanda DeHoog. Its www.hubbardscupboard.org. I have found a daily activity starting December 1st teaching children about the birth of Jesus. Oh how excited I am to do this with my kids! Its going to be an awesome time for our family celebrating and learning more and more about our Savior, Jesus Christ! I know that last year I had posted a blog about doing fun family traditions. We did do some things, but this year is going to be great!!! I hope to carry out this tradition every year with the kids. We are even going to start some new traditions with my parents, my sis, and her girls. We have made the decision this year to only buy for the kids. No more buying for the adults. At first, I will admit I struggled about giving this up. It was my selfish human nature side screaming at me saying no, because I LOVE getting new clothes. Do you see how ridiculous that last statement is, how self-centered I can be? Yuck, I hate that!!! When I chose to silence that side of me I realized what a great blessing this would be. One because we won't have the financial burden of buying for everyone, two the stress that goes along with trying to find the "perfect" gift, and three, the best one of all, seeing our family serving together for God's glory. We haven't worked out all the details yet of what these new traditions will be, but we are all seeking the Lord to direct us in what He desires our family to do for His kingdom. Its going to be great!!! I honestly, don't think I have ever been this excited about Christmas before. Its because we are making it all about the true meaning of Christmas, making it all about JESUS CHRIST!!!

A Magical Evening!!!

Last night was amazing!!! My parents took the kids and I to Disney on Ice at the Oklahoma State Fair. I knew it was going to be lots of fun, but it way surpassed my expectations. Growing up my grandparents would take their 4 grand daughters to see Disney on Ice. I LOVED it then!!! To experience something with my kids that was so fun for me as I kid well, I was just giddy!!!

We got to the fair about an hour before the show began. We walked around the fair for just a little bit then decided to go on in so we could check out all the cool souvenirs for Disney on Ice. We came home with lots of souvenirs. Jaycee brought home a program with lots of games and awesome pictures, a hand held princess light spinner, a Minnie Mouse purse, and a Tinker bell mug. Jackson got a orange cone shaped CARS hat, a Mickey Mouse hand held light spinner, a Mater plush toy, and a Mickey Mouse mug!!! The mugs came with sno-cones in them!!!

Now, to the show!!! The first act was Disney CARS! Jackson was in Heaven. He loved it!!! He was in his chair screaming and pointing as Mater, Sally, Ramone, Flo, and Lightning McQueen came out on the ice. These cars are life size remote controlled cars. INCREDIBLE!!! The second act was The Little Mermaid! It was so enchanting! The colors were beautiful! These ice skaters are really incredible. You get so mesmerized by the story and the characters that you totally forget that they are doing all of this on ice! Its so fun to see your kids with their different personalities in how they react to things. Jaycee didn't leave my lap all night. She took it all in and was so serious while watching every moment. I can't wait for Byron to be home for lunch to listen to Jaycee tell him all about it. It was fun for me to sing along to all of the songs and very thankful that Jaycee didn't mind me singing them! The third act was The Lion King! Timon and Pumba were great! They are such funny little characters! After them they had a short intermission. The finale show was Tinker Bell!!! Absolutely phenomenal!!! The colors are breath-taking! Both the kids really really enjoyed it! I will treasure these memories forever! It was a flitteriffic evening!

The List!!

My book list is getting insanely long!!! Where did this all come from??? I hated reading when I was younger! It was definitely not something I did just for fun. For me fun was being in the gym with basketball in my hand! I was never into reading fictional books or really anything. I have always loved History, especially U.S. History. From time to time, you might have found me with a book about some one who had played apart in that. Seriously, that was more likely due to the fact that I had some sort of research paper to do. I didn't know anything about The Chronicles of Narnia, until they came out as movies. I still haven't seen or read the books. I have never read a Harry Potter book, or any other famous books from my childhood. None of that stuff interested me. Probably, the first book I read outside of having to do some report was in college. I read Pat Summit's book, Reach for the Summit. She is the head woman's basketball coach at the University of Tennessee. I really enjoyed that book, honestly reading wasn't on my lists of that was enjoyable to do! Now, as I am getting older I LOVE it!!! I would love to just curl up all day long and read a book with a cup of coffee by my side. I can't believe I even just typed that! I never would have thought those words would come out of my mouth! I am glad that I have found this new love for reading, I am still pretty limited in what I like to read, but there are so many books out there to read in my 2 categories I can't imagine throwing anything else in the mix!

My 2 categories for my book list are Christian and Politics. I have already read some excellent books in both categories and look forward to reading more. My favorite author in Christian books is Max Lucado! Outstanding writer, truly gifted by God! Here is my list!!!

Christian:

Fearless: Max Lucado
Any book of Max Lucado that I haven't had a chance to read
Family Driven Faith: Voddie Baucham
The Pursuit of God: A.W. Tozer
One Thing: Chuck & Pam Pierce

Politics:

Arguing with Idiots: Glenn Beck
5,000 Year Leap: W. Cleon Skousen
Liberal Fascism: Jonah Goldburg
Culture of Corruption: Michelle Malkin

Each time I get on Amazon.com or Christianbook.com I see more that I can add to the list! Maybe for my birthday and Christmas I can hand out my list so I can receive enough books to last me for the year!!! If you have any books you think I should add to my list please let me know!!!

Wonderful Weekend!!!

Last week I posted about our upcoming weekend, well it turned out fabulous!!! We all had a great time in Texas! We left out Friday afternoon. Byron got off work early that day due to the fact that it was raining. We desperately needed the rain around here and we got 3 days of it! YAY!!! The timing was great because both kids got a nap in on our way down to my sister's. The kids slept for about an hour and finished the trip off by watching Madagascar and eating Skittles! We met Amy and Keely for dinner. Kiley was with her volleyball team watching the high school volleyball team play. Friday evening we just hung out and enjoyed ourselves.

Saturday morning started out with Starbucks coffee, yummy!!! For us who live in the sticks Starbucks is an amazing treat! The closest Starbucks is an hour away, and unfortunately we have no local coffee shop providers! So I am always thrilled when I can get my hands on a tasty white chocolate mocha!!! Okay, back to the rest of the morning. The kids of course had a special treat in chocolate milk and donuts!!! DELICIOUS!!!

After breakfast we were off to watch Kiley and her team play in their volleyball tournament. Can I tell you how much fun volleyball is?! So sad that Oklahoma isn't a big volleyball state! The very large schools in Oklahoma have it, but its not really that big! Now Texas is a different story!!! Its a very big sport there! Its a great team sport that is indoors, which is a huge bonus for fans, its exciting with lots of action, and its a relatively easy sport to understand. Kiley's team is a pretty good little team, too!!! This is Kiley's first year to play. She is doing really well. She has such amazing athletic ability so once the concept of the game really sinks in she will do great! By their 3rd match I think she really started to understand the game and built up some great confidence. The bummer part is we missed out on her 3rd and 4th matches b/c the kids needed naps and then Byron and I went to the concert. Kiley's team did a great job and won their tournament!!!

Now, to Saturday evening!!! Byron and I had a great time at the Brad Paisley concert despite the rain! Thankfully, we had stopped and got ponchos to wear. Our seats were right on the edge of the covering. Even though we did get some of the rain, the covering did help. Unlike, the grass area those people were soaked!!! They didn't care a bit, that might be due to the fact that they were a little intoxicated! Jimmy Wayne and Dierks Bentley were the show openers! Jimmy Wayne has a great voice, but neither of them were too impressive. Brad Paisley was INCREDIBLE!!! I can definitely understand why he has one several entertainer of the year awards! He is an amazing guitarist. He played at least 10 different guitars during the show! The technology they use during the show is phenomenal! Its by far one of the best shows I have ever seen! If you ever get the chance to see him live I encourage you to do so!!! Unfortunately, I have no pictures to share! 2 reasons why I don't have pictures! The first is that on our tickets it stated no cameras, no video recording, etc. So I am always leery as to what that means. Of course, everyone had their cameras. Secondly, with the rain I was afraid of ruining my camera. I just got it for my birthday in November so I would have been sick if something would have happened to it! All in all, it was still a great night listening to Brad Paisley!!!

Sunday, we made a few stops at some stores and headed home. The kids were awake the whole drive home and did fabulous!!! Byron came home and went to work for a little bit on one of his side jobs, I got things put away from the trip, and the kids played! We had a great, great weekend!!!

Oklahoma Critters!!!

I really shouldn't be posting about all the "lovely" critters in Oklahoma, b/c it will make you all not want to come visit us, but its our life so I will share!!!

A few weeks ago on Saturday morning Byron and I were cleaning out our gutters. Our neighbors, Danny and Wanda, were watching the kids for us. We had finished scooping out most of the icky stuff out of the gutters. So I got off the roof and started cleaning up the area around the bottom of the gutters. At the Northeast corner of the house, we have a plant called monkey grass. Its a low to the ground spreading type of plant. Well, I heard a sound come from the grass. At first I didn't really think much of it, b/c we have some many critters in Oklahoma that make noise it usually doesn't bother me. I really thought it was a locust in there just moving its wings. For some reason I decided to take a peek to see what was making the noise. I was being very careful. I grabbed the ends of the grass and pulled the plant apart. I saw the middle part of a snake slithering around in the plant. I calmly backed away and told Byron we might have a rattlesnake in our flowerbeds. While he was climbing down from the roof, I ran to his truck to get a shovel. He grabbed the shovel and began pounding on the plant! I had picked up a rake and started pulling apart the plant in sections. Thankfully, the snake showed himself. Byron got him pretty good and then I pulled him the snake out with the rake and Byron finished him off by cutting him in half. Well, it wasn't a rattlesnake but a copperhead snake. Which both are poisonous snakes! I thought from the noise and his coloring it was a rattlesnake. It was a copperhead. His shape, length, and design of his body was definitely like a copperhead. I know it has my Heavenly Father warning me that something dangerous was around. I am so thankful that I was obedient to hear and didn't shrug it off. Our neighbors have killed several copperheads this summer, and last summer Danny was bitten by one of them on his foot. He was on crutches for a week and was really really sick. Needless to say, we are very careful when we got outside. We look everyone around and most of the time we wear shoes. They mostly appear in the summer during the end of June to August. It gets so hot that they come up to find water and shade. They are usually spotted in the early mornings or really late at night. Regardless of the time, you must always be on the look when you are around rocks. Thankfully, we don't have a lot of rocks or heavy loaded flowerbeds. They won't come around dogs! So our back yard is safe!

Last night we had a nice stingin' scorpion run across the living room floor! Jaycee, Jackson, and I had been in the floor playing games. Jackson was causing some trouble so I was going over to discipline him when Jaycee screams "BUG ON THE FLOOR"! I turned around and screamed "STINGING SCORPION DON'T MOVE"! Byron ran and grabbed a shoe and killed it! This is the first one that we have seen at the house. It was maybe 3 inches long. They hurt really bad though if you get stung by them! I hope that stinging scorpion was the last one for a very long time!!!

JUST A MOM?

A woman, renewing her driver's license at the County Clerk office was asked by the woman recorder to state her occupation.

She hesitated, uncertain how to classify herself.

What I mean is, explained the recorder, do you have a job or are you just a?

Of course I have a job, snapped the woman.

I'm a Mom.

We don't list “Mom” as an occupation, “housewife” covers it, said the recorder emphatically.

I forgot all about her story until one day I found myself in the same situation, this time at our own Town Hall. The Clerk was obviously a career woman, poised, efficient, and possessed of a high sounding title like, “Official Interrogator” or “Town Registrar.”

What is your occupation? She probed.

What made me say it? I do not know. The words simply popped out.
I'm a Research Associate in the field of Child Development and Human Relations.

The clerk paused, ball -point pen frozen in midair and looked up as though she had not heard right.

I repeated the title slowly emphasizing the most significant words.
Then I stared with wonder as my pronouncement was written, in bold, black ink on the official questionnaire.

Might I ask, said the clerk with new interest, just what do you do in your field?

Coolly, without any trace of fluster in my voice, I heard myself reply,
I have a continuing program of research, (what mother doesn't) in the laboratory and in the field, (normally I would have said indoors and out.) I'm working for my Masters, (first the Lord and then the whole family) and already have four credits (all daughters).
Of course, the job is one of the most demanding in the humanities,
(any mother care to disagree?) and I often work 14 hours a day, (24 is more like it). But the job is more challenging than most run-of-the-mill careers and the rewards are more of a satisfaction rather than just money.

There was an increasing note of respect in the clerk's voice as she completed the form, stood up, and personally ushered me to the door.

As I drove into our driveway, buoyed up by my glamorous new career,
I was greeted by my lab assistants -- ages 13, 7, and 3.
Upstairs I could hear our new experimental model,(a 6 month old baby) in the child development program, testing out a new vocal pattern.
I felt I had scored a beat on bureaucracy! And I had gone on the official records as someone more distinguished and indispensable to mankind than “just another Mom.”

MOTHERHOOD
What a glorious career, especially when there's a title on the door.

Does this make grandmothers, Senior Research associates in the field of Child Development and Human Relations. And great grandmothers Executive Senior Research Associates? I think so!!! I also think it makes Aunts Associate Research Assistants.



May your troubles be less, your blessings be more, and nothing but happiness come through your door!


I received this as an email from a friend the other day! I thought it was so darn cute!!! I am so thankful to have the wonderful career of being called a mom!!! So thankful for all the "associates" God has placed in my life to help me along the way!!! My 4 greatest gifts from my Heavenly Father, is His Son Jesus Christ, my incredible husband, and my 2 precious babies!!! I am so humbled and honored to be called a Child of God, to be known as Mrs. Byron Lohrer, and Jaycee & Jackson's mommy!!!

Giddy for the weekend!!!

I am so ready for the weekend!!! My wonderful sister is giving Byron and I a date night! WOOHOO!!! We are going to the Brad Paisley concert Saturday night in Dallas, TX. She had gotten the tickets, but her boyfriend is out of town this weekend so she is giving the tickets to us!!! HOW AWESOME IS THAT?!?!?!?! Byron, the kids, and I will head down Friday after Byron gets home for work. We will spend the day with Amy and the girls. Kiley has a cross country meet and I believe a volleyball tournament as well. It should be a pretty eventful day! I am just praying that Jackson will cooperate and be good for Amy and the girls. Lately, he has relapsed into being a very big momma's boy. Last week, he cried when we left him at my parents house. He LOVES my dad and my dad had to pry Jackson off of me so I could leave! He was fine after I left, but its weird that he is going through this phase again! I am sure Amy and the girls will do a great job of keeping him entertained and I hope with Jaycee being with him he will be okay!

Anyways, we have 4 sleeps until we head down to Texas!!! Hope I get some great pics to share with you all!!!