My sis and her grandbaby, Elizabeth, she is a doll!

My sis and her grandbaby, Elizabeth, she is a doll!

My nephew Will, his wife Nicole and the newest family member, my great niece Elizabeth

My nephew Will, his wife Nicole and the newest family member, my great niece Elizabeth

Mom, me, Barb and Myles (my sis and bro)

Mom, me, Barb and Myles (my sis and bro)

Missie and Uncle Myles (my brother)

Missie and Uncle Myles (my brother)

Missie and grandparents

Missie and grandparents

Missie at park in Brockville,Ont. Canada

Missie at park in Brockville,Ont. Canada

Missie and I went to Canada in October

Missie and I went to Canada in October
Mom and Jim

Part of Preston's room, he has large room, calls it his apt.

Part of Preston's room, he has large room, calls it his apt.
has a recliner and little refrig.

Missie wanted her room lime green and black

Missie wanted her room lime green and black
turned out very nice!

Left side of kitchen

Left side of kitchen

Right side of kitchen (sunflowers)

Right side of kitchen (sunflowers)

Other half of living room

Other half of living room

Part of living room

Part of living room

Part of our dining room, it is a large room

Part of our dining room, it is a large room

Our new home!

Our new home!

Jr.s shop

Jr.s shop

2 car garage

2 car garage

This is the only way it would let me post :(

Here it is December, where has time gone. I just realized this a.m. I have not posted pics of our new home, where we moved to in May. I am really bad at blogging now :( Preston is doing great! He did have a cold, but other than that, he is doing well! We are so thankful for that.Missie loves Union Bible Academy. She has moved into the dorm so she won't have to drive 1 1/2 hrs/day and during winter it would have been hard. She loves living in dorm and having her friends there. She is in choir and absolutely loves that and travels when they travel. She is maintaining a B average, and that is great! It was a big switch to switch from ACE cirriculum to textbooks, but she has done very well. We love our home, and spending our first holidays in it! Will post some pics.

Preston and Missie before surgery

Preston and Missie before surgery

Preston before surgery

Preston before surgery

Preston after his surgery

Preston after his surgery

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Merry Christmas!

I can't believe how close it is to Christmas. Where has 2009 gone? It has sure flew by!

Preston has done soooo good this year. His gifts were even under the tree for quite a while! But yesterday I could tell he was starting to worry about it a little. Today he was a little irritable and I told him I thought we would change our Christmas plans. He asked what I meant. I said instead of us having our Christmas gift opening on Christmas Eve I thought we would do it Saturday. Well, he said, "I can't wait that long." So at 12 noon I went to school and got Missie. We had our Christmas (not the meal, though) and he will be fine now.

Missie got me a beautiful card, the front said: With Love From Your Daughter. Inside it says, Time spent with you Mom, reminds me how special it is that life made us Mother and Daughter...but love made us friends. I don't know what I'd do without you. Merry Christmas. Then she wrote: "I really love you mom, Merry Christmas" and signed her name. It really touched me. She told me the other day that I was her best friend. I love my daughter so much! I didn't really want to have a girl, for some reason. When I found out I was pregnant with her, I wanted another boy; I thought it would be easier since we already had Preston. But every woman needs a daughter! She makes our life complete! She is really close to her daddy, too. Sometimes he understands her better than I do. She is a gift from God.

Here is what the children got:

MISSIE:
from Nana - MP3 player
from Grandma/Grandpa Watson, grey hoodie
from Preston: 2 spoons for her spoon collection: teacup spoon and a Australia spoon.

from me and her daddy:
1. Avon perfume/shower gel that she asked for (Bond Girl 007),
2. another avon plastic case with stuff to put her soap in etc. to take to youth camps
3. 3 dvds: Dirty Jobs (this guy does the dirtiest jobs you can ever imagine, she asked for them, lol
4. 2 books: She Said Yes (girl from Columbine school who died for her faith) & another one about young woman who accomplished daring things like sky diving etc, which by the way Missie wants to do, lol She is a tomboy!
5. Aaron McCarty cd, she heard him at youth challenge and loved his singing!

PRESTON:
from Missie: handheld Connect 4 game

from Grandparents in NC - $10 McDonald's gift card

from Nana - Vtech computer

from me and his daddy:
1. 2 Avon Wild Country shower gel
2. Toothpaste dispenser that you can use with 1 hand since he has a crippled hand and makes a mess when he tries to get toothpaste on his brush. Came with battery operated toothbrush
3. Dvd with animal rescue stories on it
4. Little House on the Prairie VHS, has more than 1 story on it.
5. 2 Magic School bus computer cds - rainforest and ocean.

Missie got me a plastic container with 3 drawers in it, to put stuff in, and stocking with Bath and Body Works stuff in it: warm vanilla sugar hand sanitizer, shower gel, and lotion. Preston got me a cat rubber stamp I have been wanting. My mom gave me $50. My inlaws got me a nice pottery dish - blue.

Missie got her daddy a pair of warm pj's for winter, and the Guinness Book of World Records 2010, and Junior's parents got him a nice coat to wear in the winter to church. My mom gave him $50.

We may still receive a pkg. in the mail but we have received enough if we don't. God has been so good to us to give Junior this job right here close to home. We are thankful for His many blessings. I praise Him. I told Jr. I really enjoy the Christmas events at church! Sunday night Missie's class preformed their play again and then the choir sang. Missie and I both were in the choir. This Sunday a.m. is the children's church program in a.m., and Sunday night is a service with communion, carolling after the service, and we all eat together at the Pitts Building! Preston is so looking forward to this! It is great to be part of a big church with lots of activities. Missie has a friend whose dad pastors another church in our town, and she invited Missie to their school's Christmas program tomorrow night. So Missie and I are going there and Preston will stay here. He does fine for a couple of hours.

Tomorrow is Missie's last day at school until after the New Year. And it is party day! She and I will be baking cookies in a while for her to take. She has all of her teacher's gifts ready to go, and the girl's gift (they draw names in her class.)
So it is an exciting time.

God bless you all, and I hope you all have a wonderful Christ-centered Christmas!
Merry Christmas from our home to yours!

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Wow! It's Almost Christmas!

It is hard to believe how close to Christmas we are!
I am glad my shopping is done, gifts to relatives have all been mailed. And I even sent out Christmas cards this year with pictures! I am getting good, aren't I?

Missie and her class did great at the school Christmas program. She was sad that Junior had to work, but guess what? They are doing it again at our church on Sunday night, so her daddy will get to see it and see her perform. She had a main part in the program and did super! Our daughter is talented in sooo many ways. They are having to leave out a couple of scenes due to space, but I don't think she was really very active in those scenes anyhow! And she and I are in the choir and we will be doing our presentation after the play on Sunday night! She is doing super in school, and her volleyball team won 2nd place in the tournament they played in MI. She is so happy to be in here and in school for her high school years. She attends special events at UBC with a family who live in Frankfort and who have a son attending UBC. The mom teaches at our school and Charles graduated from our school last year. With Jr. working 2nd, I can't take her there anymore for special events. She loves UBC. She can't wait to attend there when she graduates from high school. She has started piano lessons again, because she wants to learn to read notes. I encouraged her to do this because I wish I didn't play so much by ear and more by note. I am not knocking the gift God gave me; but it is easier if you can read notes as well. I am glad she has a ear for music and also a good singing voice.

Believe it or not, after we took Preston off the klonopin, he is doing so much better and the generic buspar is working for him! God is soooo good. He was having trouble falling to sleep at night so the psychiatrist upped his bedtime medication. He is doing great this year and not worried about gifts, and told Missie we were going to open our gifts this year on Christmas Day. Usually we have to open them early so he can relax but so far so good! We are so proud of him. I feel God knew we needed a calm peaceful Christmas. When Missie was courting, she had planned to fly to ID for Christmas to spend it with the Giffords. But since they broke up, she will be here with us! I wanted her to have a wonderful Christmas with James and his family, but we would have missed her. So we will all be together for Christmas. Next year, Lord willing, I plan to go to Canada for Christmas if the weather permits. Preston is enjoying watching Christmas vcr's and dvds this year. I get them for him at the library. I found him a TV with a VCR built in, the TV doesn't work much but the VCR works great, for $5 at the Salvation Army. So now he has a bigger screen to watch his VCR's. He still loves his computer games as well. We take him out at least twice a week usually, one of those times being to church on Sunday night.

My step-dad was shoveling snow and had a weak spell and felt he was going to fall, so he went down on one knee to prevent falling completely, which was very good thinking on his part! So us kids, his and moms, have put a stop to his shoveling. He is, after all 82, so it is time for someone else to do it! He loves to keep active, and he walks a lot, but that is too much we felt. He and Mom are going to go to Jim's son's with he and his wife and Jim's daughter and husband on Christmas Eve. Then mom and Jim and Myles and Carol will spend part of Christmas day together.

Junior's job is going well. We are soooo thankful to the Lord for this job. And it is close to home! We are so thankful for God's faithfulness. It seemed for a while we had made a mistake by moving here, but God has been with us and kept us alive, and things are looking up! He seems to enjoy it pretty well. They did his 30 and 60 day review all in the same night, and are happy with him and his work! He is currently working 6 days/week. He had to get a letter from our pastor as to why our church stands against Sunday work, so that he wasn't penalized for not working on Sunday when they told him he had to. So the Lord answered prayer in that area. Another man from our church works there too and had to do the same thing. So they are willing to work with them on their religious beliefs.

Well, it is time to sign off.

You all have a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year if I don't get back here before then.