Update

It's day 2 of summer vacation and we're surviving. Sure there are sibling "things" that are taking place. . . most of them have to do with Evan doing things "wrong". But, the two of them are in their room cleaning it with Third Day blaring and I can hear both of them singing away. . . oh, I hope this is a predictor of how summer is going to go! The goal for today is to play outside before it reaches 100 degrees.

My little "speech" for the Food Bank went WONDERFUL!! They told me that I had 5-10 minutes to share how we got the idea, how we run it, the program itself, etc. The morning of the talk, I get a phone call at 7 am to tell me that my babysitter couldn't do it because her child had been throwing up all night. Went to Plan B babysitter and it worked out perfectly. But, that was a hectic morning at our house and I was running behind, which I HATE! I dropped the kids off and headed to town with nothing. I hadn't written anything down. I hadn't really thought about what I was going to talk about for sure. I had planned on doing that the day before, but it was interrupted by a 3 1/2 hour meeting.

I get to the meeting and I'm just a little late (my biggest pet peeve). They gave us some paper work to fill out and a little tablet of paper. The meeting was much bigger than I had thought. So, I decided to write a few things down that I wanted to be sure to say. Here's what I wrote:

Started with 6. Now at 47.

Kids collecting the money. Important for them to learn to serve.

Stay-at-home-moms pack backpacks. Even 18 month old can pack.

Little boy who had no food.

When I got up there, everything started to flow. People started crying and I wasn't even trying to make people cry. In my head, I gave the Holy Spirit a high-five because it was all Him. The Lord told me to share about Landon and how he came in my office and asked me for money to go in his bank. I gave him some change and he said, "Is that all you got?" I told him my purse was in the back and I would get it in a minute. He went next door to Brenda's office and asked her for money. Again, I heard him say, "Is that all you got?". Then, back to my office to see if I had gotten my purse yet. I talked about how he was 3 years old and knew the purpose of the banks. I talked about how the first week our kids brought in $721. As I kept talking about our kids and how amazing this backpack thing is going, I just saw lightbulbs going on all over the room.

A lightbulb went off in my head, too. As I looked around the room, I noticed that 90% of these people are in their 60s, 70s, and even probably 80s. Where are people my age? Yes, my age people are probably working, but are they serving? I believe the reason most people my age don't serve is because we weren't allowed to when we were younger. We were always too little to do anything. But, I want to change that. I want Landon to know that right now (at 3 years old), he is making a difference. When he's 8 or 9, he's making a difference. I believe that by the time he's a teenager, he's going to absolutely know that he can make a difference, which is probably the number one reason people serve.

Anyway, I talked for probably 10 minutes or so and when I sat down, I just felt like I had knocked it out of the ballpark. Gary Cheek was there and he gave me a high-five when I sat down. Then, he had to leave. I had to leave soon after too, so that I could pick up my kids. I walked to the back to tell Kristi that I had to leave and 3 women got up out of their seats and came to thank me for what I'm doing and to tell me how much my talk meant to them.

I left the meeting and met Aaron for lunch at Chick-fil-A. As I pulled in the parking lot, Brandon called me and said he heard that I hit it out of the ballpark. I was so proud and excited. He also said the Methodist Church had already called and wants to send people to help pack backpacks. The Food Bank meeting wasn't even over yet!!

When I got home, I had an e-mail that said I had 5 minutes MAX! Because I'm all about the rules, I felt bad. I e-mailed Kristi and apologized for going over because I didn't get the e-mail until I got home. She e-mailed me back and told me that my talk was amazing and that she had 10 people want more information about backpacks. This past week I saw her and she said she's had 17 people contact her about backpacks. How cool is that?

So, yesterday me and the Wilson clan packed 47 backpacks to give away to the kids today (the last day of school). Then, we packed 117 sacks that we are going to hand out at the CCRC for the summer months. I'm telling you, we were some sack packing fools!! We had piles and piles of cardboard boxes. Jocie said it was kind of like shopping. We used the shopping cart to take all the sacks to the back, which REALLY made it like shopping.

This summer we're going to be remodeling a portable building that is behind the CCRC and it's going to be strictly for backpacks. I'm really excited about that. I thought Gary was going to be overseeing it, but I found out yesterday that it's me. Now, I am going to work on finding out how much it will cost and get that show on the road. I'm really excited about that!

So, this post ended up being a lot longer than I had expected, but I just had to share how good God is. I heard a message last year by Willie George titled "When God has a Plan, He Needs a Man". . . or woman, in my case. That's all this is . . God had a plan and I was willing. He's the one that is growing this thing. He's the one who has made this thing explode. I'm just a willing vessel.

Now my blogging time is up. Payton just came and asked for the vacuum so he could make his room really clean. . . looks like summer vacation is looking up . . as long as that attitude continues!

A budding writer?

Here are a few stories that Payton has written at school over the last week or so. How he spelled, how he worded things:

Once upon a time Joebob, Hairybob, Billybob were kings of fat pigs. And then the big bad wolf tried to blow there houses down while they were rideing their dirt bikes. One day a fat pig came up to Joebob and said how can I die?

He didn't have time to finish. This one came home yesterday:

Lady bugs can fly and they have a hard shell. Lady bugs have black spots. Lady bugs are round. lady bugs taste bad. lady bugs help farmers.

My question is . . . how does he know lady bugs taste bad?!?! And, why did the pig want to die?!?

NKOTB

I'll one up you, Brandi!! (wink, wink)! It's their new song, Summertime. They'll be in Dallas in October. . anyone interested?! I think it would be a blast just to go and act like we're 15 all over again. . . well, at least those of us who remember them!! ;)

Something Fun Happened Today

Today Katianne came over to watch Jaxon & Evan for me. I went to Payton's school awards program thing and came back to Clyde and went to the church to get some work done. My jump drive has been missing since I was up there last week. I haven't been able to find it anywhere. So, this afternoon was wasted on me trying to find it up at the church. I have tore my desk at home and church apart trying to find it. I've looked all in my car. I've dumped out the diaper bag and my purse and the computer bag that I use to transport my computer. The thing is that EVERYTHING is on that jump drive. . . and I mean EVERYTHING!! I couldn't get anything done at the church today without it.

I went to the school to pick up backpacks and on my way back to the church, I was reminded of a Bill Johnson sermon a few weeks ago where he was talking about how people were saying, "I want my ____ back." and things were coming back to them. One guy wanted his special pocket knife back and he was sitting in his hotel room and said, "I want my knife back." It fell from the ceiling onto the bed.

So, on my way back to the church, I said, "God, I want my jump drive back." It didn't fall from the ceiling and it didn't just reappear in my car like I thought it should. I went back to my office and searched some more. Then, it was time to go home. I was frustrated because I paid Katiann to come and watch my boys while I looked for this silly jump drive so I could get some work done.

After she left, I sat down to plug my computer back in and looked behind the pencil holder on my desk and there was my jump drive. I can't tell you how many times I've completely cleaned that area out looking for the thing. So, my testimony today is that I got it back!!!

P.S. I also got an e-mail today and next Wednesday, I'm giving a little talk at a Food Bank something about our backpack program. I'm really excited about that!!

Future So Bright. . .

Here's Jaxon in Evan's "Super Cool Sunglasses". Could this kid be any more adorable?!

On The Move. . .

Last night I was on the phone with my mom and Jaxon was laying in the floor. He's been trying to roll over for quite some time, but he would get stuck about 1/2 of the way. But, last night he rolled right over. Payton & Evan rolled from their tummies to their backs first because they were so fat they couldn't get over. But, Jaxon decided to do things a little different.

Here are pictures from this morning:

Random Things

Today I was thinking about a lot of things. This is probably going to be one of those rambling posts. . so bear with me.
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I was thinking about the blizzard that we went through at Christmas time. We were driving along just fine. . slow, but fine. It was really cold and the snow and wind were blowing but we could still see. When up ahead there's a car coming and he's flashing his lights. Aaron had enough wisdom to slow down. Just past that truck, the snow was blowing so hard that we couldn't see the front of our car -- total white out. Even in what should have been a very scary situation, there was a peace in our car that we didn't quite understand. Payton & Evan were watching a movie and Jaxon was snoozin' away (which was a rare).

Aaron and I were trying to squint to see the road. . . the car in front of us. . . if there were cars behind us . . . the yellow stripe . . . the white lines. . . anything really. When all of the sudden, the snow seemed to be blocked by something and it allowed us to see better. On the right, there was a massive collision. One pick-up and one semi-truck in the ditch. We didn't see any people, though. Just feet away on the left side was another pick-up or 2 in the ditch. We decide to keep moving so that nobody comes up behind us and smashes into us just because they can't see. Besides, our car was completely loaded and we didn't have room for anyone.

As we kept driving, it kept getting worse. On the right was a black car . . maybe SUV. . . and another semi-truck. Both are crumpled up. The windshield on the SUV was completely busted out. The other windows were gone, too. There was a man standing there trying to pull these legs from the passenger side window. The hole was really small due to the car being all smashed in. Can this person be alive. . really? If so, can they really fit through that hole? Here she comes with just a scratch on her face. She stands to her feet and all she has on is a thin leather jacket, a silk shirt, a pair of jeans, and some high heels. It's freezing outside but there isn't anywhere to go.

We get stalled in the road because nobody in front of us is moving forward. This is when fear set in. If there was someone coming behind us, they wouldn't be able to see us before it was too late. We tried to get off on the shoulder, but wrecked vehicles were everywhere. We sat there for what seemed like an eternity watching people walking around outside and praying that nobody was coming from either direction. If there was another wreck, it could literally wipe out the people standing around outside waiting for help -- I didn't want to see that.

Finally, we start to move and get past all of the wreckage. As we get through all the mess, we meet another truck that is speeding and heading right for the mess. Aaron starts flashing his lights and honking the horn trying to get that guy to slow down. Our minds went a million directions thinking about what would have happened if that truck hadn't slowed down. Then we see one firetruck and one ambulance headed to the wreck with their lights flashing. We knew they were going to need more than that to take care of those people. But we felt less than helpful. And, we had to do what was best for our family. Now that there was help on the way, we had to just get us to a safe place.

We decide to detour to Aaron's grandpa's house until the storm blows over. It postponed our plans and frustrated my day. We were late for Christmas.

We went out later with snow chains on the tires that Aaron's grandpa let us borrow. We get to the intersection and there sits a police car. The policeman gets out and tells us that we can't go on. You can't get into Pampa and you can't get out. All the roads have been shut down due to drifts. We point out that we have snow chains and it doesn't matter. Nobody is getting through. So, we turn around.

On our way back to his grandpa's house, Aaron decides to go down a dirt road and try to go around. We see a few places where the drifts have almost blown across the road. We just wanted to get to our destination. We get back to the highway and the road are clear. We drive for a little ways with the chains still on, but soon stopped to take them off. The road was just fine. So fine that we could drive the speed limit without any problems.

We get to our destination just a few hours late, but we arrived. Later we saw on the news that it was a 26 car pile-up where one man died. We talk about it all that night. We're both thanking God that we made it through. The kids had no idea what we just lived through. I like it that way. We talked about the "what if's" and "did you see that?" kind of things. We didn't let our minds go to certain places in the "what if's categories". It was just too much. But we made sure to let people know that God kept us safe and sound. There are no doubts in our minds that angels were all around our vehicle that day.
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There a ton of analogies going through my head right now about life. Lots of them. Lots of them I'm walking out right now. Not sure why I posted this. . . I think it was just to get it out of my head, even though I didn't list what's going on right now with me. Lots of good things. Lots of frustrating things. Lots of "what if" kinds of things. But in the middle of it all, I know God is there with a plan to get me to my destination . . . even if I have to stop for a while and wait or maybe find a different way to get me there.

For Hire . . .

If there is one thing about Payton that I LOVE, it's that he is a hard worker. He loves to work. I heard the lawn mower running the other day and thought Aaron was mowing the grass on the riding mower. But, to my surprise, it was Payton with the push mower.


He got the front yard mowed and started on the back before he got tired. But, the next day he came home from school and got right to work on it. He doesn't really mow in perfect straight lines, but he's almost got it done. He mows in lines for a while and then decides to come up toward the house. . . then it's back to lines and back towards the tree. He does look sometimes to see where else he has to mow.


He's mowed our yard for $5. He really wants a Rangers jersey that costs $60. He asked me yesterday if him and I could put our money together and buy it. I told him that he could also earn money by doing chores around the house. He's all on board, so today I'm working on a list for him. He wants to mow our grass every week so he can buy the jersey. I am just hoping he sticks with it, but I am glad that he doesn't just expect me to buy it for him. Although I'm sure he thinks that would be nice.

If you haven't gone green. . .

I could use your plastic sacks!! We ran out today packing backpacks. So, if you have a stash of those Wal-Mart or HEB or anywhere else sacks, could you bring them to church on Sunday? I would really appreciate it!!