Update: The toilet didn't need scrubbing today.

Just to let everyone know, the toilet at PWOC didn't need scrubbing yesterday. But my real toilet still needs scrubbing...I should probably go do that now...

Scrubbing Toilets

I received an email this morning reminding me that I had volunteered myself to help out in the child care area during my Protestant Women of the Chapel (here forward known as PWOC) Tuesday morning Bible study this coming Tuesday. I had totally forgotten, as I had put my name on the list back in June around the time this was going on. I am more than happy to help out because I have the twins in the program (Sean hangs with me right now) and I feel I should give back to the program that gives me so much (peace, quiet, and sanity). When I was younger, back before I had kids, I thought working child care/church nursery was a great thing to do and a wonderful ministry. Then I had kids...the child care/nursery became less of an awesome ministry and more of a neccessity in my eyes. And a much less desirable place to be. Hey, I'm ringmaster of my own circus 24-7, I don't want to run a circus full of other people's kids too. In spite of the fact that the nursery is the least of my favorite volunteer jobs, I understand the neccessity of it and want to bless other moms so they can have some sanity. Because let's all face it...everyone needs a break from their toddlers now and then. Apparently, I am not the only one who feels like child care is next to toilet scrubbing in the line of chores....way at the bottom of the favorites list. Our child care chairwoman has a difficult time keeping enough volunteers to keep child care going some weeks. And let me explain...we have PAID workers, but our budget only allows for a certain number and if our ratio of workers to kids gets too big we have to rely on volunteers to step up and help out. With that said, its usually not neccessary for anyone to help out, but some weeks we get a really big crowd and have to have one or two extra sets of hands. This shouldn't be so difficult, but it has been. A dear friend was in charge of this for part of the year last year and wanted to pull her hair out because she couldn't get any help. I'm struck by the fact that Christ tells us to "serve one another in love" (Galatians 5:13). Just like we scrub toilets so our families can have a healthy, clean home, so must we "scrub toilets" for our sisters in Christ. Do you have a toilet in your life that no one wants to scrub? Maybe you should just step up and scrub it. It will most definitely bless someone else and maybe they will want to give a blessing to someone else next time and step up and scrub that toilet.
All this talk about scrubbing toilets reminds me that I have real toilets of my own that really do need scrubbing....a mother's work in NEVER done. Now where did I put that bowl brush.....

Walking through Darkness

Sometimes bad things happen to good people. It's a fact of life. Two people who have devoted their lives to God and would make the world's best parents are left childless. The high school coach/Sunday school teacher gets a horrible form of cancer that is hard to beat. We know these people. They are friends, relatives, loved ones. We cry out to God and ask "Why, Lord?? Why would you let this happen?" I've often found myself saying that. More times than I care to count. I used to think it was that my faith wasn't strong enough to be able to look at a dark situation and be confident that the best would come from it. I've learned that it isn't the case, that even the most devote followers of Christ often cry those words. And it's okay. He may not answer us right away when we cry out that question, but it's okay to ask. Job cried out and asked why. He was a man of great faith but still wanted to know why God would take everything from him. So asking why isn't a problem. What we can take away from Job is the fact that Job had great faith and knew without doubt that God was still God and there was a reason why. Because of his faith, Job continued to praise God, despite of his lack of understanding why. We should follow Job's example. God has a great reason for everything. Even dragging us what feels like a million miles from where we want to be. Today, I am going to choose to be like Job, praising God even when I don't understand why.
God uses the darkness we walk through for good. Isaiah 61:2 claims there are "treasures of darkness" and He uses them so that we "may know that I am the Lord, the God of Israel".
The next time darkness falls in my life, I want to choose to praise Him in spite of the darkness, know that the darkness holds riches that will form me into a better person, and a more faithful child of God.
If we can get through the darkness, God has promised us better things on the other side:

I waited patiently for the Lord;
he turned to me and heard my cry.
He lifted me out of the slimy pit,
out of the mud and mire;
he set my feet on a rock
and gave me a firm place to stand.
He put a new song in my mouth,
a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear
and put their trust in the Lord.
-Psalm 40:1-3

Classic beach bum (without the beach)

So I've been really bad about posting as of late. Can I help it that this gets in my way???


Life in the Hawthorne house is busy, to say the least. A newborn, potty-training twins, a second-grader getting ready for school to start and a husband who not only works but also goes to school full time keep me SUPER busy (go figure). Not to mention church choir, praise team, teaching Sunday school, the ladies ministry, Tuesday night Bible study and PWOC tuesday morning Bible study as well as the PWOC board (I'm the outreach chairwoman). Oh and of course there's this in order to make a little spending money. I have a list of excuses for not posting as often as I should. But, then again, in the words of my high school's boys' basket ball coach, Chuck Claxton, "excuses are like feet, we all got 'em and they all stink." So I will continue to try to blog, because I like it, because it helps you keep up with us, because it gives me an outlet. You people are like my very public diary (don't worry, I won't be sharing anything that secret with you). I will continue to post and try to do it as often as possible. I'm not sure when the next post will hit, but in the mean time, check out the blogs listed on the right. There are plenty of great blogs to read until I have time to give you some more of my own!

You ask, I deliver...because I'm good like that

Recently, a dear friend pointed out that I had not shared many pictures of my sweet new boy. I told her I would get on that and refrained from pointing out that she had not shared pictures of her sweet, slightly older baby boy either....not that I'm counting the days since the last picture (23 days if you're curious).

Anyway, here are some pictures of Moose for your viewing pleasure...

This is Moose at his very first baseball game...he was super interested in watching Noodle play ball.


The next two are of Moose's first bath...not so fond of it...much like Itchy and Scratchy were.


Here is another picture of all our "brats". Moose was a novelty...not so much now, the twins just think he's in the way a lot.
That's all for now...Moose is hollering for his mid-morning snack.

Our new neighbor

Life in the military has its share of ups and downs. One of them being moving all the time. We live in military housing here at good ol' Ft. Lost in the Woods so all of our neighbors are also military. Moving trucks are a common occurrence and it's no big deal to see two or more in the neighborhood on the same day. New neighbors are a given in our life, and they run the range from nosey to friendly to nasty to down right stand-offish. Our newest neighbor seems to flex between nosey (or maybe just really curious) to stand-offish. Check him (or her, we're not sure) out.



He lives in the trees behind our house and often spends his evenings perched on the powerlines that run back there. He seems very curious about us when we choose to hang out on the back patio. I think it disturbs him that Mr. Smartypants was cooking his cousin, the chicken, the other night.

Wow, It's been a while

Okay, so it's been a while since I've posted anything consistently. I'm gonna try to do better (yes, I'm aware I've said that before...I'm trying, cut me some slack). I have several ideas for some upcoming posts so I have material. Before I get to the really boring pointless stuff I'll do an update on the Herd's recent activities...

Noodle is in Texas at Granny and Granddaddy's house cruising his new go-kart courtesy of Granddaddy. If I only had pictures to share with you. This of course means the twins are back from their adventures with Granny and Granddaddy and Mimi and David. So life has somewhat returned to normal around here. My living room is always a mess and I never have enough hours in my day to get all my housework done. I'm too busy yelling at the twins to quit coloring on the walls. Moose is growing like a weed. All the boy does is eat and then he'll eat some more. I'm often tied to the chair for two hours at a time. I'm curious to see what he will weigh at his 2 month check-up. He was already 9 lbs 7 oz at the two week check up. Mr. Smartypants finishes up this 8-week session of college this week with two finals so he's been busy with his nose buried in his math book for several days. I'll get my husband back on Thursday when he finishes his last final. He'll be all mine (and Uncle Sam's of course) for a week or two before the next session starts.
Moose has been quite the celebrity since deciding to show up. We've had all kinds of visitors. Of course, there was the visit by Granny and Aunt Mistie, Mimi and David also came to see him. One of the most exciting visits was a visit from my one of my college roommates and another friend. They drove all the way in from Houston to hang with us for the 4th of July weekend. Unfortunately, middle of nowhere Missouri isn't all that exciting. We did manage to get in some fireworks with Debra and Brandy and the K family (another army family with small children). The pictures are pretty crappy but I was too busy having fun to worry about the quality of my pictures.


Mr. Smartypants actually had the day off.
Noodle and the K's oldest daughter played together before the sun set while we were getting our fireworks-viewing station all set up.
Moose enjoyed his first 4th of July. He's all of a whopping 9 days old here.

The K's are a hysterically funny pair...and they love self portraits. They must, because there were 4 other able bodied adults who could have done this for them...


Debra and Brandy settle in with the rest of us crazy people to watch the 'works.