For you, Nanny Criddle! :)

Funny how I haven't thought I had a lot to blog about lately, and then when I decide to do it, I think of a ton of stuff!

We were at the mall tonight after a day full of errands and appointments, and I needed to buy Britta a pair of dress shoes. Her feet are growing so fast! She is in a size 9. FYI, I wear a 10, after having four children. For her sake, I hope they stop growing soon so she doesn't have a hard time finding shoes. Anyway, I wanted to go to Payless, so I entered Lindale Mall through Younkers. For those of you unfamiliar to Lindale Mall, Payless is down by Sears--the opposite end. I was not super happy about having to walk the length of the mall twice with my two boys who like to take off and run after whatever catches their fancy (and there's plenty of it in the mall!). Anyway, who should I see not even halfway through the mall but Nanny Criddle. If I would have entered at the right end of the mall, we would have missed her! So at her request, I'm blogging tonight. :) After buying the shoes, which I thought would not be accomplished, I let the boys play on the new (I think--obviously, I'm not too familiar with Lindale anymore either) soft playground like at Coral Ridge. I saw a girl walk by with her two kids who looked familiar--one of my former campers from EIBC (who also happens to be the sister of an ex-boyfriend). If I hadn't let the boys play, I wouldn't have seen her either. Reminds me of the verse about man's mind planning his ways but the Lord directs his steps.

Mom picked up the girls after their soccer game last night, took them to dinner at Steak and Shake, and then they shopped for a Christmas gift their Ukranian pen pal, Valia. She lives in an orphange affiliated with a church that some friends from church have traveled to minister to. Her picture is at the bottom of the blog--I uploaded the pictures in the wrong order and don't want to take any more time trying to figure out how to change it! Mom survived Toys R Us with the girls, and they got some awesome deals at JCPenney. Sammy's first comment when she got in the door was, "Britta and I both got large shakes at Steak and Shake!" then admitted that was probably the highlight of her evening. At least she's honest! I know they enjoyed the time with Grandma and Grandpa since we haven't been seeing them as often as we had been.

The girls had their soccer tournament at Central Lutheran in Atkins last Saturday. It was a beautiful day. Unfortunately, the girls and I got terribly sunburnt faces--it never crossed my mind to bring sunscreen. I had hats for the boys, so they weren't affected. The girls each played a little (it's a junior high team, but the elementary kids provide extra bodies), and Sammy actually was running around quite a bit while she played. This picture is pure coincidence! Their team did very well and got third place. Last year they won, but I don't think anyone was too disappointed.

A couple of weeks ago, the girls had an early out, so we headed to CR to use up library coupons that expired in September. We went to Shawnee Park to eat their free pizzas from Papa John's. It was so pretty I had to try to get a group picture! Yes, Chase did this without encouragement from anyone else. His latest phrase (which is really hard not to laugh at when you're mad at him) is "Okie dokie, artichokie!" from the Leapfrog DVD The Letter Factory.

I love it when they act like they love each other!

We also went to Hy-Vee for free candy bars, Coldstone Creamery, and the Play Station. We went to Michael's football game at Kingston after that, which understandably, the kids were only excited about for the first quarter. We stayed for the whole thing, though, because I wanted to.

This is Valia. She is 10, and she is a triplet. I've been excited to see the girls come to care about her and pray for her.