What I Learned While Cleaning Out My 16 year old Son’s Room

1. Pray! - Pray before you begin, pray when you find enough food items under his bed to feed Texas, pray as you find clean clothes mixed with dirty on the floor of his closet. If you are praying you don’t kill him when he returns home you are less likely to have unwholesome utterances come from your mouth.

2. Even if you are SURE you have everything off the floor double check before turning on the vacuum... fishing line is almost invisible and it only takes a second to wind half the spool of line around the roller brush.

3. Start out with contractor size trash bags, don’t even bother with those small and wimpy kitchen bags they are not up to this task.

4. Money found during this risky endeavor is now yours.




5. The dogs love it when you clean said son’s room because there so many tasty snacks that miraculously appear from under all sorts of things.


6. When he said, “I need to buy new socks, mine are all lost.” What he really meant to say was, “I need to buy new socks because I can’t remember where I shoved them when I took them off. “ They could either be under the bed, in the TV stand behind the 2000 phone chargers, under his bathroom sink, thrown on the floor of the garage or still folded under the clothes at the bottom of my closet.

7. If you are missing forks the first place I’ll now check to find them is under his bed.

8. The extra contractor size trash bags are not in the garage where they belong they are in the cabinet of his TV stand.

9. The vacuum’s brush attachment will not get all of the dust off the baseboards, you will still have to clean those by hand.

10. That vacuum cleaner attachment you replaced because it was missing was under his TV Stand…so now you have two!

11. If you have to clean a teenagers room, you should have something you enjoy doing waiting in the wings when you need to take a break……I’m going to take a break after part one of this project and play Wii Super Mario Brothers. If he gets to play video games, so do I!

12. Consider having a lawyer write a contract outlining the risks to son if his room returns to it’s previous state within a year.

The Cutest Video Ever!!

from Kimberly on Vimeo.

N quotes Georgie Porgie

Kiddos

The kiddos Jamaica 2008













A. and Nathanial

The Importance of 20 Minutes

My apologies for not posting.....we have returned from our missions trip to Jamaica but.....in our hearts we are still in Jamaica. Missions has become our lifestyle not a missions trip one week a year. There are so many thoughts and feeling swirling around in my head I've been reluctant to try to capture them with my inadequate words.

I would like to tell you about an amazing young lady named Samantha. Last year when A and I were in Jamaica we spent our mornings with children at Central Basic School in Norwood, Jamaica. On the day we went to Westhaven, the disabled home, we made a stop at another school called Lethe All Ages School. We were to spend about fifteen to twenty minutes touring the campus then head up the mountain to Westhaven. As soon as I stepped off the bus on to the campus and young girl about nine years old walked up to me took hold of my hand and said, "Missy, can I show you my class?" "Of course!" I replied as I followed her to class holding her hand. I squeezed myself in next to her in her little wooden desk and she read to me from her reading book until we were called to return to our buses.... I gave her a hug, boarded the bus and off we went. I've thought of Samantha often and wondered if our paths would cross again. This year I was thrilled because we followed the same Westhaven schedule as we did last year. A quick stop at Lethe then on to the disabled home. When I got off the bus at the school I wondered if I'd have a chance at finding her. I looked around for her but didn't even know where to begin my search without her last name or the name of her class. Then I looked down into a face that was studying me closely, I lifted up my sunglasses and heard the words, "I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR YOU!" What a sweet reunion! One girl, at one school, that I had spent maybe twenty minutes with, 365 days ago - was waiting for me to return. We can not begin to imagine the impact we can have on someone's life in such a short amount of time. I didn't explain to her deep theological truths, or listen to everything that was wrong in her life and try to make it right.....I just listened to her read me a story about a cat from her school book. So simple and so important.
Samantha's words are still ministering to me, they have shown me a glimpse of how amazing it will be to one day hear my Savior say, "I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR YOU!"

Wednesday in Jamaica

Wow! What a full day! We did everything I mentioned in yesterday's post and then some. You have not seen craziness until you drop a football (soccer ball) in the middle of 25 five and six year olds. It turns into something of a rugby scrum combined with kickball with a little bit of soccer mixed in.
We were incredibly hot and sweaty when we finished out the morning, I think Hubby and N could have wrung about a quart of sweat out of their shirts, E and I were close behind! Tomorrow they are going to bring a fresh shirt to wear in the afternoon. Hopefully it will stay dry for at least half an hour after they put it on. Can you say "humidity"??
This afternoon we spent two and half hours at the orphanage. There were more of us then there were children. A great situation! A has fallen in love with a little boy named Nathaniel - funny huh? Really, he has fallen in love with her. He would not let her put him down or let him go to another person. He wanted her back! N made a great friend as well. I have to be honest it was hard to hear his name and even harder to spell it! They were inseparable. What an amazing sight!
Tomorrow we head back to the school for more VBS, soccer and ring-around-the-rosies. In the afternoon we head to Westhaven, which is a place for those children that have mental and physical disabilities. Dr. Mark (Muirhead) has a good thought about Westhaven and it's this: "Some of us look on the inside the way these people look on the outside". It's painful to even consider those words, and yet so very true.
I am going to close with a few pictures from today. Please continue to keep us in your prayers, that we will be His hands extended.
Hugs!


Our Soccer Field












A and Nathaniel


















E and Big John

We're Here!

Jamaica may never be the same!! All of the teams have arrived and are....well, exhausted. Most of the teams began their day at around 4:45am, and have spent the day in airports or on airplanes.

We have our first taping for Friends Forever TV tonight. Tomorrow morning at 8am we hit the ground running. We eat a quick breakfast and then head to our assigned schools. Our team will be having fun with the outdoor VBS activities at a local elementary school. I expect to play lots of soccer over the next few days. After lunch we will head to an orphanage and get to spend the afternoon playing with kiddos. I think Elizabeth will spend her time holding babies. I really enjoy playing with the toddlers. You can never get enough time swinging and blowing bubbles. After that we will go to either an AIDS hospice or another orphanage that serves school aged children. I haven't been to either of those places so I'm not quite sure what to expect.

This is a bit newsy, but I wanted to let everyone know what we will be doing tomorrow. I expect that Thursday there will be video at Friends Forever TV of what we will be doing tomorrow. Be sure to check it out!

'Til tomorrow!!
Kimberly

I'm Becoming a Bit Fearful...

I've come to a frightening realization this week...I am afraid of the "Empty Nest". Don't get me wrong, I'm not sending E and N away to military school or anything like that. I've just had a little glimpse of life with no children at home and I really don't like it! This past week Hubby was out of town on business travel, A was away at the beach, E has worked at the church from sun-up to sun-down, and N is like a vapor - sometimes here, sometimes gone but never really around. So it's just been me...and the dogs. I think the thing that has made it even more difficult is that A will be playing a bride in a Father's Day skit at church this Sunday. (I'm sure I will have the video posted next week!) I started bawling at the practice this Wednesday and she wasn't even there to play her part.

When brought A home from the hospital everyone (Yes! EVERYONE) said, "They grow up so fast!" That doesn't even begin to cover the speed with which they grow. With our first child we are so anxious for that next big event, when will they turn over, say "Mamma" or "Dadda", walk, run, go to Pre-School, and then one day they walk up those bus steps and wave good-bye on their way to Kindergarten and it seems like you blink your eyes and they are driving home with their High School Diploma. It makes me just want to put a stake in the ground that stops the world from spinning and scream, "STOP! Just wait! I like things just the way they are!" If only it worked that way....

So for now....maybe I'll stop and think about my feelings this week before I fuss about having to drive someone across town, or stay up late to pick one of them up or nag someone about cleaning their room.... because if the room is messy...it means they are still here!