? ??????????????Vibrant Swirls? ????? ?????? ???Rating: 4.6 (59 Ratings)??45 Grabs Today. 14506 Total Grab
s. ??????Get the Code?? ?? ?????Purple Dreams? ????? ?????? ???Rating: 4.8 (11 Ratings)??40 Grabs Today. 7681 Total Grabs. ??????Get the Code?? ?? ???????????? ????Easy Install Instr BLOGGER TEMPLATES AND TWITTER BACKGROUNDS ?

Thursday, July 24, 2008

July 14-19th

Frog at the pond

Savanah and Cortesia hanging out the Jenkin's pool


Chad helps James jump high
Meribeth joins us for Savanah's Birthday

July 7th-13th

Cleaning up the Neighborhood

Practicing Reading


Cortesia reads to Gidget



Learning about Insects at the Library




Checking out some caterpillars

Ice Cream at Dairy Queen

Sunken Gardens



Listening to the Drum man at the Library




Bright Lights





James comic book creation at Bright Lights






Kemonterious' cartoons






Kemonterious and Gidget at the Lincoln Run







Singin at church

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

June 29-July 3rd

Grandma Annie joins us for Bible Study

Snack time with Chaney


Morissa brought us back some bracelets from her Mexico Missions Trip



Jodene shows the kids how to repair their bikes




Washing up the van





Bee nectar race


Bike Ride

Sunday, June 29, 2008

Kid's Writings with Mrs. B

Here are some of the writings the kids wrote on Wednesday.


By Cortesia-11
Meak is not Weak-
Meak is honest and believing in God.
God loves us like a child, He doesn't want us to be wild.
Gentle is what God wants me to be.
I'm God's child please don't harm me.
When I was mourning I was sorry for my sins
And really won't come back to that girl again.

by Dez age 12
Meek is not weak,
Meek is kind not rewind.
It is fine not whine.
It is holy not moly.
It is docile and the gospel.
Follow your not the worl's decision.
God decides when you die,
Why lie about life when you can love like a dove.

By Kemonterious age 11 ( this comes from living away from Obasi and Nebraska for a couple of months)

God Will Try

Have you ever felt like you're homesick for God because of all the sins you 're doing
or when you choke because you smoke?
And when you cry,
you ask God to give you the strength to try.
So whatever you do, don't stop trying
because there's only one man that will tell you to don't GIVE UP.
Ask God to pick yp your wings and fly.

House Sitting

This weekend I took Kemonterious, James and Cortesia to my sisters acreage, they were gone for the weekend and needed someone to do chores. It was one of the most beautiful weekends of the year I think. The kids really didn't appreciate the weather or the out of doors. Which was really sad to me.
Cortesia had fun feeding the sheep and making some new friends.

The boys feed the cattle. And learned to keep track of their livestock.

It was great grilling outside everyday and enjoying the outdoors.


They enjoyed the grilled chicken even with some burnt edges.



I did get them to play a non electronic game with me.




Friday, June 27, 2008

June 23- June 27 Meekness

Monday Beatitute 3- Matthew 5:5 Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. This week we learned about Meekness- to be gentle, kind, enduring injury with patience and without resentment, mild, not violent, to be humble. To be meek means to stop putting ourselves before others; to stop demanding our way, it means that we accept bad situations and make the best of them. God promises us "the earth." This is total appreciation for your life here on earth: your health, friends, family, fresh air and sunshine, etc. You see, when we begin to take our eyes off of ourselves, we start enjoying the beauty and the bounty of the earthg around us. That's when we get the most out of life. And, we look forward to being with Jesus in the life to come. This is a great lesson for all of us, living in a me world. After Bible Study we had the older kids look around the neighborhood to see how they could help or be kind to. Dez took the mailman some cold water and told a neighbor that their car lights were on. Savanah and Cortesia took a neighbor some flowers and explained our Bible Study to them. James walked across the street and talked to a man for awhile. He was scared to death, but did and then before he was off the porch he started screaming and waving his arms, I did it, I did it!!!! It was priceless. We are praying the kids become more aware of people around them who are lonely, hurting or need of a helping hand.

For our chore time we got Kemonterious' bedroom ready for him. The boys and Jodene put his bed together and the girls did some cleaning and sorting, to make his room beautiful for him. Kemonterious moved to Mississippi in February and will be living with me the rest of the summer. He has been really good about calling and keeping up with Obasi.

Chaney came over and made fruit and honey tortilla's with the kids. The younger kids had fun cutting up the fruit and serving snack to the older kids.






Tuesday- We watched a video on the life of the honey bee, it was very informative, then we tried to figure the body parts of a bee. We started our stuff bee dolls.





Wednesday- Morissa is in Mexico and Jodene works her regular job on Wednesdays so Mrs. B ( Jan Bretz) came to our rescue and helped me out at Obasi. We went downtown to the Foundation Gardens to watch the YWCA youth dancers dance. Kaedyn did a bit of his own dancing and kept us all entertained.
Plus Kemonterious made it to Nebraska and started back to Obasi today. And full time parenthood starts.


We then went to Mrs. B's house and started painting our bees. Mrs. B also took turns writing with the kids about Meekness.




We really enjoyed the day outside even though the humility was like 99 percent, Mrs. B has a beautiful backyard. Cortesia, Savanah and Ma' Shai had fun on the hammock.

Mrs. B made a great snack for us, a lot of fresh fruit.

More fun in the back yard-beachball volleyball

a little fun on the trampoline


Thursday- Swim day at Jenkins- it rained all morning but cleared for the afternoon and we had a great day, it didn't get as hot as it was supposed to get so it was really nice.


The favorite spot of the pool, on the floating bed.

Jada lives life to the fullest. Cortesia paddles her around as she relaxes in the sun.
Thank you Jenkins family for letting us use your pool. We loved swimming with you , thanks for the bomb pops too.
We also got to hang with Meribeth and Jesse, it was so good to see them again.


The pool really wore out the kids, before we hit the driveway Cortesia and Gidget were in dream land.














Friday, June 20, 2008

June 16-June 20

Monday-Yard work and Bible Study-


This week our verse is Beatitude number 2- Blessed are the mournful for they will be comforted. We talked about how Jesus died on the cross for our sins and when we sin or do something wrong it is like slapping God in the face. It hurts Him and He isn’t pleased with our behavior.


At the beginning of Bible Study we try and do a little hands on lesson to drive home the lesson- This week a cup of water, a egg in the shell- we wrote our sins on the egg which represented our sin. We put the egg in the water and it sank. Sin weighs us down, makes us feel bad, and keeps us from enjoying life. We took the egg out of the water and each took a teaspoon of salt into the water while doing that we asked for forgiveness of a sin we had committed that day. When everyone had put in their salt and forgiven we put the egg back in and it floated. When we are truly sorry for our sins, God forgives us and comforts us, giving us back our joy making our hearts lighter. The kids loved.
We do the little hands on lesson about every week and they get to the point where they are suspicious of everything we do, are you trying to teach us something. It can be quite funny.

My favorite moment this week was with my little friend Kaedyn. Kaedyn is almost six, full of energy, non stop talker and is pretty sure he knows everything about everything. On Thursdays he spends the morning with a baby sitter instead of his Dad. His Mom tells me he gives the babysitter a hard time. So when he got to my house I asked him if he was nice for the sitter. He said yes. I said are you sure, your Mom says that you give her a hard time. He says, Oh man my Mom called you today. I will be better for you. Then he sits down on the swing and looks down and says in almost a whisper. I slapped God again, didn’t I?
It was everything I could do not to laugh, but I looked at him and said yes you did. You really have to be nice to people.

For yard work we split into three groups- garden weeders, mowers and lawn furniture clean up.

Anthony and Taj clean up the lawn furniture

James learns to mow



Savanah diligently pulls weeds.

Tuesday- Games and a Visit from Chad Jenkins who shared his trip to Africa with us.
We prayed for Chad on while he was on his trip to Africa so it was good for the kids to get to see his pictures and hear his stories. The kids asked a lot of great questions. Thank you Chad for sharing your journey with us.




James takes his turn doing the Bible Verse dash.






Savanna tries her hand at the bee game. Different parts of the body were worth points, everyone got three rocks to try to get points.





We do a lot of sprinting to get rid of some of our energy.





Wednesday- A trip to Hobby Lobby to find some kind of craft that we could make to send with Morissa who leaves for a missions trip to Mexico. This summer we really want the kids to think outside of Obasi to community needs, state needs, U.S. needs and other countries. We are praying for hearts that become compassionate for the lost and hurting and we hope to train by the next servants for Christ. WE are so blessed in that we are given so much by so many. We decided to take a portion of that money and come up with some ways we could pass on the blessing. At Hobby Lobby, we found a few hacky sacks and crafts Morissa can do with the kids, but we also found a few crafts that we made ourselves for Morissa to give as little gifts. We made book markers, braided bracelets and beaded bracelets. The kids gave up 1 and ½ afternoons of playtime to work on the bracelets. We had many dropped beads, many OH’s and many start overs, but for the most part they were really excited to be making something for someone else. Pray for Morissa she leaves on the June 20th and won’t be back for 10 days. We will miss her.

Savanah and Kaedyn putting together book markers.
Dez and Savanah were our big helpers this week. They really stepped it up with Kaedyn and encouraged him to do the right thing. I was really impressed to see how hard Savanah worked to keep him focused, she really wanted him to have a good week so that he could go to Chuck E. Cheese with us. It was so rewarding to watch.

Cortesia braids bracelets.



Thursday- More bracelets and then off to Chuck E. Cheese for Chaney’s Birthday Party. We are trying to teach the kids to get your work done first and then play. They worked hard this week on many actitivies, but then we really enjoyed Chaney’s Birthday. We gave all our won tickets to Chaney so he could buy a cook birthday gift with them. Everyone was pretty generous except for one child who soon gave but with tight fingers.


Again what a blessed week had. It is so much fun to see the kids growing.


The kids show off all their work and gifts for the Mexico kids.

Some of our cool bracelets. A lot of them at crosses, soccer balls and Jesus on them.


Chaney enjoys his party.


Sisters Mary and Savanna enjoy spending time together at Chuckies.

Our boys racing.



Kaedyn had a blast on the wave runner. His squeals of joy could be heard throughout Chuckies or Chucks as he likes to put it.
Friday-just got a call from Kemonterious, he said he is moving in on Monday. Jodene and the boys got his bed put together yesterday, and today Cortesia and I got on new sheets and bedding. The window air conditioner goes in tomorrow, and I start taking my vitamins so that I can keep up with him.

Also got a call today from Bright Lights, they had some scholarship kids cancel so were wondering if we wanted to send Kemonterious and James to Bright Lights in July, they were asking us because they knew we would be responsibly in getting them there.
I take that as a huge compliment. We try so hard to teach the kids to be responsible and people of their words, and then the blessings will flow. And they do.