Where is the Coin??

Where do crazy things always have to happen at the most inconvenient times?

Last Friday, Ed was trying to get out the door to staff meeting and I was trying to get out the door to a training I was having for new sending associates at our regional office.  Kinsley went upstairs to get dressed and yelled downstairs at me “Mom, look what I found in my book box? A coin!”  I answered with “Oh thats great!  Now get dressed.”  I briefly had the thought “What if she puts it in her mouth and we aren’t up there?”  but then it was followed by “But she plays with coins all the time and knows better than to put it in her mouth”.  So, I went about getting things done and then I hear this frantic screaming coming from upstairs.  It was the same type of panicked scream she had when she accidentally put a sticker up her nose last month (another story for another day).  I knew what had happened before I even reached her.

As I got to the top of the stairs, she meets me and starts telling me the coin is in her throat.  After having her swallow, drink water a few times, and looking in her mouth, we determined that the coin was not stuck, but had passed through the throat.  I was surprisingly calm (mostly because the sticker incident last month was way more serious and it turned out okay) and just told her that it would come out in her poop after it went through her body.  She immediately went to the potty, pulled down her pants, and said “I have to poop.  I have to poop it out.”  Boy, if it only worked that quick.

So where is the coin?  Your guess is as good as mine.  We haven’t seen it yet (even though there is a chance we have “overlooked” it, but as Kinsley says “it is going down, down, down”.  Her babysitter, who thankfully arrived after all was calm, told us that she swallowed a quarter when she was three and it eventually came out, so I rested easy knowing that Kinsley’s was only a penny.

Here is a pic of Kinsley playing in her “tent” with Daddy while mom was leading the training at the office:

And this is what Emerson was doing….climbing (one of her favorites):

In other unrelated news, God is moving mightily on our campuses here, and specifically at Fayetteville State.  We have been praying and eyeing Fayetteville State for almost 2 years now, but haven’t had the manpower to attempt to launch anything there.  Fayetteville State has over 6,000 students, is a historically black college, and has no ministries of any kind on the campus.  This year, we decided as a team that we would go for it, God willing, and prayed that we would see the Lord move mightily as we stepped out in faith.  This is exactly what is happening!

Over 200 surveys were collected at the survey table we hosted as we gave away free stuff, we have had 25-30 students attending Bible study, 4 people have accepted Christ (including 1 who randomly approached our teammate Kai on campus, asked her if she was with Impact (what we call ourselves there), said she had just started reading the Bible to investigate the claims of Jesus a few weeks before, and then made a decision that night to follow Christ and shared that decision on Facebook for the world to see!), and they have over 10 people signed up to come to Fall Retreat with us!  Last Wednesday, Kai had appointments all day to followup from those surveys (girls are so hungry to meet and hear about Christ!), and 3 different times that day she texted us to say another girl had decided to surrender her life to Christ and accept His forgiveness for her sins.  3 different times in one day…definitely a God thing!  And that has been our prayer…that God would do something so great on our campuses that we can’t say it was because of anything we did but only because of Him!

Also, we set a God-sized goal to have 50 students from ENC come to our Fall Retreat this year (we had 35 students last year but 10 of those belonged to NC Central which we have since turned over to volunteers and no longer count in our totals).  So basically, we were trusting the Lord to take us from 20 students to 50.  As of the deadline last week, we have OVER 50 signed up.  Okay, seriously God?  Praise the Lord for being gracious to us and allowing us to be a part of what He is doing here!  Fall Retreat is this coming weekend, so please be in prayer!

Next week (or this week if I can find time), I want to update you on my DIYs that I have been doing.  I have been going new recipe crazy and have learned a lot about what to keep and what not to keep.  Stay tuned….

One of those Days

Last Wednesday was one of those days.  You know the kind of day I am talking about.  The one where you want to go back to bed, wake up, and start the whole day over again.  The kind of day where you are lucky that everyone in your house is alive by the time dad makes it home.  The kind of day where I was reminded over and over again of how desperately I need the Lord to help me every second because I cannot help but get angry, yell, and get frustrated with my children.

I had a meeting early that morning with a fun lady who is mentoring me, then I headed to Harris Teeter for triple coupons week (where I scored big!), and then I headed home on a high from my big haul I got for oh so cheap.  I came in the house and all was well.  The girls were awake, half fed, and everyone was happy.  What I was not told was that Ed had already reprimanded and disciplined Kinsley a few times that morning for not listening.

Ed left for campus, I finished feeding the girls, and was eating myself, when Kinsley started disobeying.  She pushed Emerson down, she hit the buttons on the washer that she knew she wasn’t supposed to touch, and just disobeyed multiple instructions (to which we had to take time to discipline).  She started asking about what we were doing in school that morning and if we could go ahead and do it (normally we wait until Emerson is down for her morning nap and Kinsley has a snack in hand to keep her happy and occupied).  She was getting out all her supplies, trying to cut things she clearly knew she wasn’t supposed to cut, and making a huge mess.  I was excited that she was excited so I said okay to getting started (I also was tired of telling her not to do this and not to do that only to turn around 5 minutes later and find her doing it anyway).  First mistake.  We started school and it wasn’t long until she decided that she did not want to do it after all and threw a huge tantrum.

Fast forward.  We finished school, got changed, gathered up clothes for laundry, put Emerson down for a nap, and went downstairs to put in the laundry.  Remember earlier when she touched the buttons on the washer and I walked by later and just turned the power off?  Well, she actually started the washer.  But I didn’t know that.  So when I opened the washer to add more clothes to the clothes already inside and to start it, water started pouring out.  I could have related it to what we were learning in school that week about Noah and the flood and it would have been a perfect example of a flood.  But I didn’t.  I got angry because this had happened because she had disobeyed.  I should have just let the washer finish it’s cycle (second mistake) but I was too panicked about the water all over the floor, so I started getting water out of the washer into a bucket and then figuring out how to clean up the floor.

After multiple calls to Ed (he was in a meeting but realized after the second of third call in a row that it was important and he should pick up), lots of tears (not because it was that big of a deal but because it was the tip of the iceburg), and lots of yelling (yes, I wish I could say I remained perfectly calm and talked about the flood), I was able to move the washer out enough to get behind it to start cleaning the water off the floor.  Fast forward 15 minutes.  Still behind the washer, Emerson wakes up (she isn’t supposed to be up yet!) and Kinsley comes around the corner with an ink pen in her hand trying to write on the door.  Yes, an ink pen writing on the laundry room door.  Another no-no.

Fast forward another 10 minutes.  I am moving things back, finishing wiping up the floor, and Emerson is playing in the living room with Kinsley nearby when I walk around the corner and see Kinsley take a little person (aka a small really hard object) and hit Emerson on her forehead at point blank range. Again, something she knew better than to do.  This momma hit her breaking point.  And yelled.  And then felt guilty for yelling.  And then had to ask for forgiveness, of the Lord and of Kinsley (after discipling her of course!).  And then thought “how much longer until daddy is home?”.

I opted to feed the girls an early lunch (I don’t know about most kids but mine are so much better with full bellies) and put them down for a nap.  Ed had his last discipleship appointment over the phone on the way home so that he could come home a little early and look at the washer (which I forgot to mention started spraying water everywhere from the hose in the back and which we determined meant that the hose was busted….after I had already cleaned up all the water once).

When Ed got home, I said “We haven’t had a day this bad since before Emerson was born.”  He responded with “Well thats about once a year then.  You have had it, now tomorrow will be better.”  True.  And it was.  So much better.  Course it doesn’t have to be much better to top it.

I was reminded that I don’t want to be a mother that yells, loses her cool, and disciplines in anger.  But it happens.  I am not perfect nor will I ever be.  And the only thing I can do after it happens is ask forgiveness from the Lord, from all involved, and ask Him to help me.  What a good reminder.  But next time, can I be reminded without the flood?

Bun In The Oven

Did the title get ya?  At this point, you are thinking “What?!?!?  Is April pregnant?”

The answer is no.  We do not have a bun in the oven.  Just for clarification.  But my brother and sister-n-law are expecting their first baby girl in October named Johana Alexis (which I love!).  And my family had lots of fun over Labor Day Weekend showering them with love.

My mom came up with this cute idea to do a “Bun in the Oven” co-ed shower.  Once we had the theme, we got busy with all the planning for decorations, food, games, etc and coordinating with the other hosts as to who was doing what.  We googled bun in the oven shower and “stole” lots of ideas from others on cute things to do like cute name tags for the food, the bun in the oven banner, the advice card/game for them to keep that every person fills in, throw the bottle in the babies mouth cornhole (though this might have been an original idea by my mom), and the diaper game (which I have done before but never with guys involved – believe me, it took the amount of fun of this game to a whole new level).  Everything came together flawlessly and they were blessed by everyone’s support and gifts.  Some of the pictures I am posting aren’t the best, but you get the idea.

Another new development also happened this weekend – Emerson is walking!!  Yes, my just turned 10 months old daughter is toddling her way around the house.  We knew that she would start this weekend as she started doing every major developmental milestone at someone else’s house.  Army crawling at my parent’s house, crawling in Colorado, pulling up at Ed’s parents, and walking at my parent’s house.  I have a cute video of her doing it one of the first times with her hands raised high in the air above her, but I can’t figure out how to get videos to post.  So, a picture of her at 10 months old will have to suffice.

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