christmas presents

christmas day...finally posted

the one sydney is most excited about...her little art kit.  complete with crayons, markers, watercolor paints and safety scissors.

Elijah got some trucks to go with a little racetrack from grandma.

the second he got the wrapping off, he started pulling on the cars and yelling, "uck, uck!!" (stuck)

and

the big one-

Sydney's Wall-E Quilt

well, the center panel anyway...it's going to be a twin size blanket when it is all said and done, but between the pregnancy chaos and other christmas planning, I was not able to finish the quilt.  Most of the quilt top is complete, it's just a matter of assembling it.

good, and not harm

I was always very self-confident and rather arrogant in my thinking while growing up...especially in the area of relationships, particularly with the opposite sex. I didn't need anybody or anything...I can open my own door, thank you very much! The idea that I had a 'role' to 'play' did not sit well with me. I felt I didn't need a man, I'm going to do what I am going to do, so look out, any man who gets in my way!

In the past, whenever I read from Proverbs 31, I could almost literally hear 1950's music playing in the back of my mind. Now, as I read these words, I am so convicted and desparate to be what they describe.

Nearly everyone knows verse 10, which says: "A wife of noble character, who can find? For she is worth far more than rubies." It is a beautiful verse commending the godly wife and her value in the eyes of her husband.

But what about the following two verses?

Verses 11-12:

Her husband has full confidence in her and lacks nothing of value.
She brings him good, and not harm, all the days of her life.

These are the words that haunt and inspire.

Not that I must do all the things listed in this poem to somehow become a wife of noble character; rather, because I have God's call on my life and I want to serve God, these actions want to pour out of me and I desire to strive to be and do these things for my husband...to truly be his helpmate. To speak words of encouragement and blessing and love. To be a help and not a hindrance in his daily walk with God.
To bring him good all the days of my life.


maybe we'll just marinate on that one for a while.





we're reading some excellent marrige books that I highly recommend, for good marriages and rocky ones alike. Love and Respect and The Love Dare.

mowing the lawn

you want to make sure and give your lawn plenty of time to grow in the spring before you give it it's first mowing. it helps establish the roots and promotes growth and . . . ok, i just made that up, i don't really know if all that is true.
...but if it is, i doubt they meant for the lawn to be this tall.

deep within

Death of a Clothes Line Post Remover

So, Wayne nearly died trying to remove the clothes line post in our back yard.

It started out simple enough. We have a clothes line post in our back yard...we don't want the clothes line post in our backyard...so we need to take it out. Simple, right?



Wayne dug and dug and dug. The post would barely wobble. Down, Down, Down, deeper we went but the post was very secure...and long! While it was utterly exhausting, we were having a pretty good time. I took this video clip of Wayne after we had been digging for about 20 minutes.


Not 30 seconds later...wham, Wayne was flat on his back. We were both trying to lift that stinker out of the ground, when Wayne's knee popped out. Wayne has injured his knee before and missed some college because of a impromtu wrestling match (thank you Brice [just kidding]) in the college's gameroom (thank you Rich for egging them on [just kidding]). He literally keeled over and I thought, how am I supposed to get both him and the kids into the car and drive him to the hospital?



After the initial pain and shock...and several minutes lying in the dirt...we started laughing. Hence the above picture. Here lies Wayne Anderson...the post can be his tomb marker, cross shaped and everything.
Seriously though, he was laying there for several minutes, just kind of resting up his knee. Once I was sure he was better, I kept on digging and then I saw a mom and her son walk by on the sidewalk. I could just imagine what she was thinking. Hello, police? Yeah, I saw this woman digging a hole and some guy lying there dead next to it. ...I know, I can't believe she would try it in broad daylight and everything!
Wayne started to feel better, though sore, so he rolled over and just started digging with his hands...poor guy.


I'm not lying, that same lady walked by again with her son and I could imagine her thoughts again. Oh, thank heavens, that man is not dead. but wait...what she doing!?! That crazy woman is making that poor man dig his own grave now! (what can I say, I am a Fletcher, and all Fletcher's have over active imaginations and can pull the craziest stories out of everyday events).

Anyway, we finally got that bugger out. What an ordeal! That post was literally buried at least four feet down. That is our shovel in the picture below showing how deep the hole is!

excruciating

Wayne was raking some leaves out from under our back porch. He went to step over the leaves and stepped on a large rusty nail in a two by four.

Well, of course I took a picture of the shoe! We will spare you all the bottom of Wayne's foot. It actually looks worse than it was or could have been.

The garage had burned down a year or so before we bought the house. We're assuming it was left over from the demolition of the garage. The back yard still has glass and other garage debris that we will have to rake very carefully before we let Sydney run around.

update: due to increasing emails from concerned citizens from around the world...yes, wayne is ok, it was more of a scrape than an actual puncture...and yes, he had a tetnus shot just last year, so he's all good. :)