Kids RAP

We have the coolest opportunity here for our kids to be involved in a monthly service project with other homeschooled kids. We meet at the Arkansas Rice Depot which takes donations of food, mostly from large companies like Allen Foods or Tyson but also from individuals, and uses it to stock faith and community based food pantries in our area. They also provide food to hungry children in schools. Kids RAP is the name of our group and it stands for Kids Reaching All People. Here are some pictures of our latest project with descriptions of what we did.

Our first job was to label cans. The cans come without labels and the Rice Depot prints up labels that we tape on the cans and then we box the cans.



Karman, who organizes Kids RAP, gave our kids a lesson on what the Bible says about loving and serving others and a staff member from the Arkansas Rice Depot talked to us about the Rice Depot and what they do. The kids got to ask lots of questions. The picture shows Karman teaching the kids 1 Timothy 4:12 "Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity."

Our last project was to decorate place mats for an upcoming dinner for homeless families. Clayton was very excited about this since his heart is for the homeless.



Here is a picture of all the kids involved. The 2 kids in the front are holding a piece of paper that shows that we labeled 2,767 cans in 45 minutes!

Boys, Boys, and More Boys

Last Wednesday Karyn left Devin and Drew with us for 5 days while she went to Omaha to meet up with Dave for a house hunting trip. It was a dream for my boys! They played amazingly well together. In fact some days I was bored! No one would play with me :)! While they were here Tim Hawkins was in town because he is going to be on FamilyLife Today. He did a show for our staff and the boys got front row seats. They had a blast. We also had a great trip to the zoo, and went to an indoor playground where they were the only 4 kids there! They came out dripping in sweat and mom got 2 hours of reading time :). Yes it was more work than we are accustomed to but not long from now they won't be around anymore to play with so we soaked it up and then sent them home last night. Much to my dismay Karyn found a house. I know, that's mean, but I keep hoping something will throw a glitch in this whole crazy move idea and they'll have to stay here. I threatened to take the sign out of their yard and dirty up their house while they were gone so no one would buy it ;). But despite my insistence that they don't need to move the date is set now for June 27th. Larry keeps threatening to buy tickets to Hawaii on that day so he doesn't have to deal with the fallout. The reality is that day is coming faster than I care for it to so we are enjoying all the time we can with them. Here are a few pictures of our time with the boys.

Tim did a fantastic show for us. The staff at FamilyLife haven't laughed that hard in a long time!

The boys thoroughly enjoyed the show. They sang Tim's songs and quoted him the rest of the week!

It was a beautiful day at the zoo! The rain stopped just long enough for us to make it all the way through which was a real blessing considering that it has been raining for about 2 weeks straight!

Getting Ready for Summer

Someday I'm going to be really good at updating this blog and always have profoundly wonderful things to say, but it won't be today :)! This is one of the most exciting and craziest times of the year for us. Everything is wrapping up and we are anxious for summer to arrive! We are busily trying to finish our school year because we are all in need of a break. Next week each boy should be finishing up some subjects. Clayton should soon be saying goodbye to spelling and english, while Evan wraps up spelling and math. That will allow us to focus more on the subjects that will take us a bit longer.

Evan just finished the spring semester of speech and is making incredible progress. If I haven't said it enough, UALR has an incredible speech therapy program that is CHEAP! I can finally see the day when we might not have a child in speech! We have been taking one or both of them to speech therapy for almost 8 years now! Evan isn't finished quite yet. He will start up again this summer.

Larry and I are also finishing up our first year of BSF (Bible Study Fellowship). It has been an incredible study of the life of Moses. Next year we study John. Even though it takes up 2 nights of our week, BSF has been one of the best decisions we made this year.

Our community group will be wrapping up for summer soon too. Oh how I will miss my weekly laughter and learning with them. We have been studying Colossians. Larry and I both feel blessed to be around such knowledge. We can't get enough of soaking in every detail of the passages we are studying, and then sitting around a table eating sweets and laughing until it hurts. Luckily we are planning some fun as a group this summer too.

As we wrap everything up we look forward to what is ahead. Summer is by far my favorite season. I love the freedom of sleeping in, playing at the pool, and having our days wide open for whatever we want to do. Along with all of that fun we will be taking a 2 week trip back home to visit with family, friends, and supporters. The boys can't wait! We will also celebrate Clayton's 10th birthday, Evan's 7th birthday, our 13th wedding anniversary, the birth of my cousin's baby, and another cousin's wedding....all this summer! We have much to look forward to and much to be thankful for!