and I couldn't love you anymore than I do right now

take the time to treat your friendly neighbors honestly

Oh these girls. They keep Annie and Kristen busy, tired, and pulling our hair out. Most mornings at the SlaughterHouse begin with "When can I play with my best friend Erin and she wants to tell me that I'm so pretty in my new dress and play dollhouse with me and then Non (aka Annie) will give us snacks and put a show on and we'll be sweet because I'm a ballerina and Erin doesn't want to be a ballerina but I'll show her and maybe I won't bite her and she won't push me today". Sigh. And so they do. They are fun to watch and Carrie would for sure be lost without her best friend/cousin who brightens most every day.

diamonds and roses

Here's the latest mess we found ourselves in. (I mean, in which we found ourselves.)
Roses.
Our sweet dad decided that our church needed to give each mother in our church roses for Mother's Day. That's a sweet, thoughtful idea, right? We think so. Dad called me on Saturday to say that he had bought the roses and that when I got home, I needed to be in charge of cutting them and making sure they were presentable. I thought, no problem, we'll trim the roses really quickly when I get home and they'll be ready for Sunday morning.



I drove up to the house after work and what did I see when I got out of the van?
20 DOZEN ROSES.

Oh yes. You heard me.

I'm pretty sure I just stood on the deck starring at Dad for a few minutes, not quite sure what to say.
It was immediately apparent that this leaker would not be able to handle 240 roses on her own. I needed reinforcements. Of course, all the little boys volunteered their services, but I am a very picky leader and decided that I was going to force Beth and Shelley to help me, and we would not start anything until every short person was in bed.
The kids went to bed, Dad brought in the big buckets of roses, and we gathered the essential supplies: Drpepper, cheesecake, and my laptop so we could watch "Ugly Betty".
We started at 9pm.
These roses were llooooonnnngg, so we had to cut about 7 inches off of each one, pull the bottom leaves off, cut off every single thorn, divide the bunches of Babies Breath into 20 equal parts, trim those to the size of the roses, group the roses into dozens according to size and color, rubber band them together, and then try to make somewhat pretty bows around them with the silver ribbon.


Dad wanted to help, but he was really just making us nervous. We gave him the camera to keep him busy, and this was his attempt at an "artistic shot." The people he said would be proud of his artsy picture? Johanna and Shane.

At 1:30am (yes, you heard me), we finally had 20 finished bouquets for the COG moms. (Beth thought they were all for her.)


We hoped all you COGers liked your roses! For all of you who didn't come on Sunday, I hope this makes you think before you skip church next time! ;)
Happy Mother's Day!

down by the river, just you and me

This weekend was the COG campout/picninc/Sunday service up at Canyon Lake. All the men and boys of the church left on Friday evening, and had a great time sleeping on the ground in the rain with snakes and mosquitoes for 2 nights. All of the women and girls were wishing they could be up there in the rain, too. So this morning, everyone who wasn't already camping drove out to the lake to, as Mom says, "crash the boys' party."
We took pictures, but they're not great because of the rain, wind, and mud.
Here's Dirk giving last-minute directions.


Boys coming to help the girls out of the cars.
Once everyone was there and sufficiently muddy, we all gathered under the shelter to sing a couple of hymns and hear Dirk preach a (short) sermon.




Then it was time for skipping rocks, getting dirty, falling down, jumping in the cold water, and building the fires for the meat.


The rain made it difficult for us (I mean, the guys) to grill, but they pulled it off beautifully.
The food was great, the fellowship was even better, and we can't wait to do it all again...in the sunshine.

All that, and we only lost one person. RIP