Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Camp and Misc

The end of July and the first week of August found us making our yearly trek to our Family Church Camp. This year our camp was held on a beautiful campground in Dickson, TN ( in other words...the middle of absolutely nowhere!!) The kids were totally impressed by the awesome creek that ran through the campground....I can't say the moms were so pleased....piles and piles of wet clothes which add up to piles and piles of laundry. Need I say more?! It really was a great place for the kids to play and stay cool! I will admit I even ventured down and waded for awhile! :) Here is Andrea and her cousin Alissa Jones. The first thing they did after lunch every day was to head straight for the creek!


Andrea...



Tyler and his cousin, Jillayne Jones...it must have been a little cool this day because their lips look blue!


Travis, his cousins, Branden Jones, Josh Yancey and Caleb Boardman




Me and Alex out in the creek


The kids program on Sunday morning....I'm not sure my kids were even fully awake yet! :)



Bro Steve Robinson found an electric wheelchair and put it to good use....giving the kids rides! Here is Andrea, Bro Steve, Brooklyn Yancey, Emily Boardman, Addison Boardman and Bethany Boardman



Bethany Boardman, Andrea and Brooklyn Yancey
We had a great camp this year! I really didn't want to make the trip because Troy had to preach a camp in Idaho the same dates so he couldn't come with us. This and the fact that Andrea had just had her big chemo and was on steroids didn't really sound like fun to me. We all missed him being there really bad but we did have a great time getting to see all of our friends and family and we also had some wonderful services! We made it home in one piece and have had a couple weeks of not to much happening....well we wish we had experienced a couple weeks of not much happening! :)
We got an early start on school this year and started last week. I am trying some new stuff this year and so far it is going great. Of course how could it go bad the first few days?!


Andrea and her big owie! She was running on the concrete and bit the dust! She got a huge fat lip and some concrete burns.


Alex loves shoes.... he found a pair of Luke's and decided to give them a try.


Me and Alex...he is growing up so fast!


Andrea had a chemo treatment today in St Louis. She decided to take charge and be the Dr while we were waiting . She assesed my problems and told me I was in need of a two hour nap!



Andrea's best buddy in the Costa Center, Bobby. Bobby has been Andrea's nurse since she started going to clinic. She bosses him around and tells him how to do his job...he just laughs!



During our hospital visit today we got to see one of our favorite 4th floor nurses, Kristin. Kristin is one of the first nurses I remember when Andrea was first diagnosed with Leukemia 2 years ago. My very first memory of her is Kristin asking me if she could pray with me when I was scared and crying because Andrea was going in for one of her first spinal taps and bone marrow aspirates. I was terrified that she was going to wake up and feel something. Kristin has been way more than just a nurse...she is our family!

This is how we ended our day....Alex jumped out of the bathtub, grabbed a Krispy Kreme donut he found and was running around the house buck naked chowing down! :) I guess you have to be a mom of boys to see the humor in this!

We leave for family vacation a week from today. The kids all let me know every day how many more days until we leave!! We are actually going to stay at our houst the first few days and do some fun stuff that is close to home, tubing down the Black River and 4 wheeler riding at a huge 4 wheeler park. Then we will head on over to Branson for a week. Hopefully I will be posting vacation pics soon!

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Finished Object....My First Finished Object!

I am feeling so happy that I finally finished something...other than laundry!! I found this pair of shorts and thought I would make a skirt for Andrea. I cut the shorts off about 2 inches below the zipper


Gathered a rufflle on a straight piece of material that was about 1 1/2 times as wide as the shorts. The ruffle was at least twice as wide as the shorts.



And what do you know.. it actually turned out!! I covered the seam with a 3/4 inch ribbon topped with a 3/8 inch ribbon.

Made a wild looking bow to match...

And here is the whole outfit! It was a lot of fun and now I'll do it again! I can find shorts or pants at thrift stores for a little bit of nothing. The material only cost me about $3 and the ribbon was about 25 cents! Nolw I just need a picture of her in it...maybe I'll get one when we go to St Louis for chemo on Friday!

Monday, July 6, 2009

May and June

I finally found a few spare moments to catch up with all of my blogging friends! These past two months have flown by in a whirlwind!! We started out the first Sunday of May in our new church building. It was a very exciting day for all of us! The mayor of our city even came for our ribbon cutting ceremony.We are so happy to have a place of our own after 5 years of renting.




My sister and her family were able to be here for our first service....here is Andrea and her cousin Alissa. Andrea wasn't supposed to be at church since her blood was very low, but we snuck her in the back door and let her stay in Troy's office.

My nephew and nieces: Branden, Alissa, and Jillayne Jones
Alex and Travis
Celebrating Mother's Day on Saturday evening since Sunday's are so busy for our family! My kids all made me cry when they all told me why they loved me as their mom...the funniest was Tyler who said he loved me because I cooked him good food! :) I'm telling you the way to any mans heart is through his stomach!
Me and the greatest 6 kids in the world!!! ( Sorry about all of the squinting..it was very sunny!)

Andrea is one of my only willing kids to get pictures taken!


May is the month of birthdays for us...Tyler turned 10 on May 17th and Travis turned 8 on May 14th.
Look at all of those curls....we finally decided they had to go....

This was not a fun experience for any of us involved in this first haircut! I felt like I was dancing and turning in circles just trying to get the job done!

He was all worn out after all that trauma!! My baby boy looks like a little man now!
Luke celebrated the big 13 on May 29th. Now we have two teenagers in our house!! It is a lot of fun!!


The 2nd week of June brought another youth camp in Fulton MO. We had about 180 people registered this year which was a new record for us! Once again we had an incredible week! The week after our youth camp finished, Troy preached a youth camp in Greenfield,IN. Lauren,Luke, myself, Josh and Ben Boardman all went with him. By the time that week was over we were all ready for collapse!!

My mom and my grandma....they were my lifesavers at youth camp!!


Nana and Alex......best buddies!


Holly McCarthy and I seem to be having a serious converstation.....HOW many rolls do we need?!!


Don't tell anyone but we have more fun than should be allowed cooking for all of these kids!
The highlight of youth camp is the awards ceremony on the last day. Troy, Robert Jones, and Dave Boardman passing out the medals.
This is Troy and Roberts favorite week out of the whole year!! They love these kids!!
Once again we did our celebrating for Fathers Day on Saturday evening.....the greatest Dad in the world with his great kids!

Troy and the boys

When we finally made it home from our travels, our project of the summer awaited us! We have all saved our money for several years and finally had enough to buy a 15x30 oval swimming pool. According the sellers it would be a very easy job for someone in construction.....we won't go into all of the details but to say the least easy isn't exactly the words I think Troy would use to describe the job!!


The walls are finally up...now all we need is the .....

WATER!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Happy July 4th!!!

Alex and Nana ready to celebrate!


Our friends Justin and Kelly Brown came up from Indiana to spend the weekend with us. They have never been to Lambert, Home of the Thrown Roll so we all went there for lunch. As usual we went in starved and came out never wanting to eat again!

Justin and Kelly
Troy and Jenn


Why do boys (men) love to play with fire? I guess that is one of those unanswered questions!! :)


Andrea was so sick this weekend from her big chemo treatment but I caught this smile in a moment when she was feeling better.


The kids were laying on the edge of the road watching the fireworks.

Tyler and Alex watching the big firework show in Jackson. Alex wasn't scared at all! He loved watching the fireworks!

What a great country we live in! In spite of all the things that seem to be going backwards, I am still prould to be an American!!
I am finally caught up and now I can rest in peace at night! :) Hope all of you are having a wonderful summer!!!