I am sure gonna miss those Arizona sunsets!

WE ARE MOVING TO OKLAHOMA!!!!! 

James was offered a job at Oakwood Christian Church in Enid, OK.  We are moving next week!

I don't have time to blog about all of the amazing details just yet,(even though this post is rather long, there is even more to the story) but let me just say that God has orchestrated a plan for our family that blows away any of our own dreams or plans.

In a nut shell, we have been praying for the longest time  that God would bring us back to the midwest and James would work in ministry again. He never wanted to get out of ministry but there were no opportunities here. We moved here without knowing where he would work. We were ready for a change and an adventure and to live close to my parents again. We kind of stepped out on faith without a plan. It feels like we have been on the world's longest and most expensive vacation ever and we are ready to go home.  God has grown us so much individually and as a family, but it has not been pleasant.  It has literally been a season of wandering around in the desert. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't trade it for the lessons learned, but it has been hard!  

God answered our prayer, in His timing and with His plan, not our own. 
(We simply aren't this creative.) 
We were thinking we'd like to move back to KC or Tulsa by family. God said, Enid.

We went there at the first of December to interview and fell in love with the people, the church and the city. It was perfectly obvious to all that this was an answered prayer. He took the job of sports and outreach minister and we are on our way!  

We can't sell our home here because the market in Phoenix is the worst in the country, so we are leasing it out.  We have the most amazing tenants. James and I prayed that a Christian family would rent our home and He brought us one. An awesome family with 4 kids, two parents and a grandma are renting our home.  Since we found tenants and are relocating across country, we qualified to buy a home in Enid.  

Once again, God answered our prayer for a home we'd love in a big way.  We are buying a 100 year old home that is is great condition. There is nothing we will need to do in the short term besides put up a picket fence.  It also includes a small 3 bedroom bungalow on the property. We can think of all kinds of ministry and family opportunities for the bungalow in the future. 

Here are pictures of the main house:

Here is where the story gets EVEN BETTER if that is possible.  My sister is moving with us and renting the bungalow from us!!!!  She has been applying for jobs in Cali for 7 months with no success.  She applied for a job in Enid that she found while looking for jobs in Oklahoma City, drove down to interview and was offered the job. As I type, I still can't believe that this is all real! Look how cute the bungalow is:

I am so incredibly hopeful for the future. I acknowledge that moving our family across country and adjusting to a new home, town and church will be challenging at times, but we are up for it. The church family we are becoming a part of is amazing and they will be a huge support.

We will be just a few hours from James' parents and big sister in Wichita and a few hours from my family and high school friends in Tulsa and my brother in Norman. We will only be 45 minutes from Stillwater, where we went to college at Oklahoma State and we have a handful of old friends who are still there. And, we are only 4 1/2 hours from our Kansas City bffs, so I am sure we will be making lots of trips up there and having lots of out of town visitors to enjoy.

Oklahoma, here we come!

Father Daughter Dance 2011 and chicken skin delight...

Tonight, Shelby and Lucy are at the Father Daughter Dance at CCV.  They have been looking forward to this all year.  They get to have a special fancy dinner and dance the night away with their Daddy...their favorite person in the whole world. This is a dream night for them.

When we were at Cedar Ridge, we had a Father Daughter dance and it was the highlight of the year for Shelby. She has missed it since we moved here to AZ. CCV is just down the street and they have a HUGE (3 nights) Father Daughter Dance that sells out practically overnight.  Last year, we missed it and Shelby was devastated.  We remembered this year, just in time.  The girls have matching dresses with their babies and they are feeling fancy tonight!  Shelby really wanted me to fix her hair in an updo, but I am not girly and I have no idea how.  They are lucky I figured out how to clip a bow in their hair. (I will always fall short in the girly girl department, but I make up for it in the quirky department and I like that department better anyway.)

Preslie is sitting this year out because it is right around her bedtime, (plus she has a fever again..and a cough like a seal...back to the dr tomorrow) but she is enjoying hanging with me and Jesse eating chicken, drinking spicy and watching a RugRats marathon.

I told Jesse that since the girls have such a special night we could eat whatever he wants and get a movie. He chose baked chicken drumsticks.  The child is addicted to wings and chicken on the bone of any sort.  Any time he gets to choose, he chooses wings. This is puzzling, but pleasing to me because I have never eaten chicken off the bone, nor will I ever. I have this weird aversion to anything on the bone.  It has caused me some uncomfortable moments when we are eating at someone's house who has gone to a lot of trouble to make a delicious chicken dinner.  I basically mangle it and eat a token amount to try to avoid hurting their feelings. It is sad. So, it shouldn't be surprising that I am well pleased with my son being able to eat things off the bone. Actually, James has taught all of the kids to enjoy off the bone eating, so besides their other picky habits, at least they won't have trouble with that.

The boy cracks me up when I get alone time with him.  He says the.most.hilarious.things EVER.  He is just like my brother with the one liners he dishes out...Never trying to be funny, just naturally hilarious because of the way his little mind works.  So, I was cutting the skin off a chicken breast to get to the meat and cut some for Preslie and he asked me what I was doing.
When he heard my answer, he said, "I love the skin.  It feels really good in my mouth.  Basically it is like a blanket for my tongue. I love it!"

WHAT? A blanket for your tongue???? Doesn't that seem a little uncomfortable.  It makes me gag just thinking of a blanket on my tongue.  But, the boy enjoys it.  My pickiest eater likes chicken skin because it feels like a blanket on his tongue. Go Figure!

{p.s. He rented Cats and Dogs the Revenge of Kitty Galore for us to watch but when it came time, he said he'd rather just watch RugRats so that he could wait and watch the movie with Shelby for the first time. He is such a thoughtful boy. It amazes me how much he really thinks about how he can make others happy. When we were at BBusters he wanted to pick out a movie for each of his siblings. He is always thinking of others. God has gifted him in this way. Love...}

Lucy is potty trained!

That about says it all! We are rejoicing around here after almost 4 full days of Lucy going on the potty every time while wearing big girl panties.."shop panties" as she calls them, because they are Littlest Pet Shop.  We have all been passing around colds and strep throat for a few weeks now, so we have spent a lot of time at home...in the house.  I think this made the whole potty training thing a lot easier.

She did it her way and in her own time...just like the others...they just did it 6 months earlier than her so it seems like it has taken so much longer.

Or so I thought!  James just told me that he knew it was coming when Preslie pee peed on the potty 4 days ago.  I had totally forgotten and not put the 2 things together.  Yes, 4 days ago, Preslie came into the bathroom when I was going and pointed to the kid's potty saying, "pee pee, pee pee." I asked her if she wanted to try and she nodded. So, I took her little diaper off and sat her on the potty...and she went. We all went crazy praising her. (She actually looked pretty shocked at the whole situation, not happy at all.) What I didn't know was Jesse ran downstairs yelling that Preslie pee peed on the potty.Then, James asked Lucy if she was excited for Preslie and her response was a glassed over look and, "Huh uh...no." He said she looked terribly disturbed...after which time she has never had another accident.  Score Preslie Janell!  btw, Preslie hasn't gone since.  In fact, when I try to sit her on it she stiffens her legs and WILL NOT sit.  She did her job once, and once was enough for her big sister.

Oh, the joys of parenthood.  This was truly one of them. I love being a momma!

first pretend beauty shop...

Lucy and Preslie have just really started to enjoy playing with one another. Even though they are both sickies today, they are having fun with each other. I just found them in the bathroom playing beauty shop. Lucy was fixing Preslie's hair while she just stood there so patiently. Love it! {Is it obvious that Lucy had blueberries for lunch?}

Shelby and Jesse had b-ball game this morning and I had to take the littles home early b/c they were being so naughty. I think their strep is gone, but they have nasty colds and behavior to match.(You can tell by looking at Lucy's eyes in the pic how sick she is today.) She kept saying, "It's over, Mommy...Let's go home now. I want to lay down...I want water..." on and on. My mom finally said, "You go ahead and take them home and we will bring Shelby and Jesse after they get their team pics. Gotta love Noni and Papa! They are taking the bigs to run errands with them now. After I put the littles down for a nap, I am crashing on the couch. My cold is kicking my boo-tay too!

quarantined all week..

While our friends and family in Kansas and Oklahoma have been snowed in all week, we too have been stuck in our house.  Lucy and Preslie have strep and the rest of us have a cold.  My friends here say it is because of the crazy weather AZ has had for the past few months.  Whatever it is, we are ready to be well.  Literally, we haven't gone more than a few days since October without at least one of us being sick.  It has mostly been tummy issues, but now it is colds.

Speaking of cold, Phoenix has had record lows this week right along with the rest of the country.  Yesterday we woke up to frozen pipes and no running water.  It had gotten down to 20 overnight.  The night before, we were watching the news and they were going on and on about the big freeze that was coming and we were laughing at them because compared to where we moved from, 20 degrees overnight is nothing. They even warned everyone to leave a faucet dripping so their pipes wouldn't freeze...and we laughed even harder.  Yet, we weren't laughing when we woke up to no water! 

It has kind of been nice to not have to leave the house in the "frigid" 40 degrees.  We have all (except for the working man in the family) lounged around and snuggled in our warm pjs all day and eaten comfort food. (Does the homemade chicken noodle soup I made count even though the gluten free noodles disintegrated into mush?) Well, we have had other comfort food and watched Shrek Forever After several times.  I have to say that We were all pleasantly surprised that this Shrek movie was actually clean.  There were only a few toot jokes and no innuendo like the others contained. It is a really good movie! The other movie that has been on repeat for the littles {that has driven the rest of us crazy} is Barney Christmas on Netflix on the Wii.  Why Christmas?  I don't know, but they love it.  {Speaking of love...we LOVE netflix on the Wii.  We don't even need cable or redbox any more. It is Awesome!}

p.s. notice that I cut the feet off of Preslie's pjs...She fell down the stairs the other day {all the way down} because of those slippery feet on her footie pjs, so I just chopped them off. Since then, she has gone down backward on her tummy, but I just want to make sure!

Mac and Cheese bath...

 There are a few common foods that I dislike cleaning up after meals. Cornbread tops the list, then crackers, rice, muffins of any sort, and mac and cheese or pasta of any kind.  After the littles eat these foods, the whole kitchen has to be swept and sometimes mopped and occasionally, the dog needs a bath.  Coda learned 8 years ago that if she wanted anything other than dogfood she should hang out under the baby during mealtimes.  Preslie seems to delight in feeding her even more than her siblings did.  when I tell her to stop she give me this cheeky little grin.  

Coda is so old now that she doesn't even notice when she is covered in food. 

Picking pasta or rice out of her fur is not one of my favorites.