Testy Tuesdays

It's that time again. Just below are the pet peeves that are driving us crazy this week. Add your own in the comments, or ditto someone else. Commiserate with each other, blow off steam and go on your merry way.

Kylee:  When I thought I replied to a text only to find out that I only typed it and never sent it!

Stephanie:   when it pours rain as you run to your car, but then stops as soon as you are in the car. 

Jill:  Someone going out the "in" door and in the "out" door at the store. Read the sign, people!

Now it's your turn. What's bugging you?

Summer Bucket List

  Are you someone who loves the summer and plans all kinds of activities? Or do you just go with the flow and let it happen as it happens? This summer, seeing that it's our last summer in the States for a while, there are some things that I wanted to do.

• Get professional pictures taken

• Visit a Zoo - We've only gone one time since we had kids and she wasn't old enough to really enjoy it. So, I really wanted to take the kids. 

• Take the kids to Dinosaur World - My son LOVES Dinosaurs. It's about 2 hours from home and we've passed it several times. I think the kids would love it!

• Go on a date (w/o any of the kids) - yes, I had to clarify that because sometimes the baby comes with us on dates. 

• Go to Texas De' Brazil - that would be a great combo with the last one! (p.s. I finally got a coupon in my email for this so it might actually happen!)

• Go swimming - this may seem silly, but I haven't gone swimming since my 3 year old was 5 months old. I would really like to spend some time in a pool. 

• Give out 100 tracts before we leave for Brazil. - Again this may seem like a silly goal, but I often forget to give the cashier a tract when I'm at the store, or I do the self checkout. So I wanted to purpose to make sure that I'm handing them out. (p.s. again, I would love it if some of you joined me in this goal!) That's 6 and a half weeks so 16 tracts a week. That's not that many when you think of it that way. 

  So far we've accomplished one of those things. We made it to the zoo,

so I can put a big ✔ next to that one. I have plans for a couple of the others, but we'll wait to check those off because plans can always change.

So, what's on your Summer Bucket List??

The Wedding!

Okay, I freely admit that the title of today's post is misleading because the wedding isn't happening until tonight. So if you tuned in to see pictures, I'm sorry. You'll have to check back next week for those.

What I want to talk about are some of the things that are common for Boyd weddings. Paul is the third of our children to get married. Things have happened at every Boyd wedding so far, and you can pretty much count on them happening. every. time.

1.  Vehicle problems. Right before we left for Matt and Kylee's wedding, our van quit working. Literally. In the middle of the road the headlights dimmed, the air conditioner and radio turned off and the van died. We left twelve hours late because we had to have the van worked on.

When we drove to Steph and Zack's wedding, the air conditioner didn't work (same van). We left Florida Sunday afternoon and drove seven hours to the church we were going to attend that night on our way up to Alabama. The air didn't work so we zoomed along the interstate with the windows down. We arrived to the service late, and came in looking quite windblown and disheveled.

This time around Paul left late because we had to have some work done on the air conditioner. (Car this time, not the van.)

2.  Injuries. Someone always gets injured. The day of Matt and Ky's wedding, Luke went skidding across the parking lot asphalt on his face. All of the wedding pictures show a really nice bandage on his chin.

At Zack and Steph's wedding, I picked up some kind of an eye infection and couldn't wear my contact lenses. I used a lot of visine so that I didn't have red, bleary eyes at the wedding.

Today a very angry yellow jacket stung Paul on the hand. The groom turned quite pale and was in a tremendous amount of pain so we doctored the hand and loaded him up with ibuprofen and benadryl. That made for an interesting afternoon. He got stung on his middle finger and not his ring finger, so hopefully there won't be any problems getting his wedding ring on.

3. Kitchen mishaps. At Matt and Ky's it was twenty pounds of potato salad. For Steph and Zack we had the camouflage cupcakes and the Pastry Pastor. This time around it was tortilla chips (so maybe 18 bags was a little too much) and exploding coke cans in the freezer. There's always some crazy food mishap or event to mark a wedding.

4. Family fun. We enjoy being together.

And this is all before the wedding! I can't wait to see the pics next week. Can you?

Happy Thoughts Thursday

So you've made it through half the week, but it's still not Friday yet. Sometimes by Thursday you need a little lift to make it to the weekend.

Our solution? Happy Thought Thursday. On Tuesdays you can drop a pet peeve or an irritation. On Thursdays, give us a praise, a thankfulness, or something that just makes you happy. Your contributions on Thursday can be deep and spiritual, such as thankfulness for your salvation, or as shallow as a cup of coffee or a good hair day.  Here are our happy thoughts for this week:

Stephanie: we're almost done with our last trip! 
                     

Kylee: bedtime

1. Jill:  The whole family is together again!

 what about you? What makes you happy today?

We're Halfway There!

We are halfway there and I can hardly believe it! I had a bit of sickness and I was really tired in the first trimester, but that’s all over. Now, I’m feeling great and I’m feeling baby movement. There is always so much excitement when you find out that you’re expecting, waiting for your first appointment, then waiting to hear the heartbeat for the first time, and then anticipating the gender. Meanwhile you have people make guesses whether it’s a boy or girl, or whether it’s one baby or two, based on how big you are and how you’re carrying it. 

Well the anticipation of finding out is over! For those of you who haven’t seen or heard.

Baby Boyd is a…

That’s right, another girl!

Matt has always been able to go with me to the sonogram where we find out what we were having, but this time he stayed home with the girls. So when they asked me if I wanted to find out the gender I told them yes but asked if they could put it in an envelope so I could find out at the same time as Matt and the girls.

Prior to the appointment they told me that I needed to drink 32 oz. of water finishing one hour before the appointment. That’s super fun right? When I got into my appointment they proceeded to tell me this appointment would last about at an hour. So you do the math, that’s two hours with a full bladder. I did okay for a while because once you see the baby you forget just how badly you have to go. Baby girl was moving a lot so they had a hard time getting the pictures they needed. Finally the intern, asked if her adviser wanted to give it a try. She got up from her chair and said, “ I’m going to step out, I need to use the restroom.” I said, “I’m so jealous” but thought, “you are so evil!”  Did you really have to announce that you had to go. Way to rub it in that you get to go and I still can’t go yet! Anyway, the sonogram only lasted another ten minutes. Then, I eagerly headed home to end the anticipation. I had Matt do the honors. He opened the envelope and slowly unfolded the picture. ”It’s a girl” he read with a smile on his face. He may have been panicking on the inside but the smile on his face said otherwise.

Next step: picking out her name. So far the girls have suggested Lady Elaine and Flower. I think it's too soon to settle on one of those names though!

Testy Tuesdays

It's that time again. Just below are the pet peeves that are driving us crazy this week. Add your own in the comments, or ditto someone else. Commiserate with each other, blow off steam and go on your merry way.

Kylee: Finding a meal that every person in your family will eat and will enjoy it!

Stephanie:   still being tired after a nap, like it did no good at all! 

Jill:  packing for a trip. Could we just go already?!?! Oh, wait. By the time you read this we will be gone!

Now it's your turn. What's bugging you?

The Last One

As of yesterday, we are officially done with deputation meetings! 🎉🎉🎊🎊

We finished our final deputation meeting last night. Two years and five months of meetings, and oh how much has changed in that two years and five months. 

When we started, it was just the three of us. 

Then, there were four of us.

 Now, there's five, but we haven't actually taken a picture with all five of us yet. 

I've learned so much on deputation. Like, I think I'm more terrified teaching a kids class than I am speaking to a room full of ladies. I guess because with kids you have to be entertaining and fun, and I'm not really those things. 

I've also learned that Mexican restaurants never get old. I could eat chips and salsa every Sunday for lunch and dinner... In fact, there have been times in the last two years when I have done that. And I still absolutely love them! 

I've learned that the busy bags you can find on Pinterest do not apply to kids who spend their life in a car. They might work for five minutes in the car. Five minutes being the time it takes them to do all ten of the busy bags I made. Those are more for kids who never take road trips. 

I've also learned that starving kids in Africa could be fed with the amount of fruit loops and french fries that can be found on our van floor after a trip. 

When we started deputation and just had one kid, we didn't plan on having any more for a while. I've learned that God often has other plans, and I wouldn't be surprised if He gets a little chuckle out of our plans sometimes. 

Seeing as how, I've spent a lot of time in the last few years in a nursery, I've learned the "what to do's" and the "what not to do's". I bet I can run the perfect nursery! (Just kidding, don't get mad)

I've learned that God can literally make money appear out of nowhere. We have gotten checks in the mail that we can't always figure out exactly where they came from.  

That's just a few of the many things I've picked up in the last two years and five months. It's been quite a ride. Oh how much things change in such a short time. I guess I better not blink, because I have a feeling if I do, my kids will be all grown up... or there will be more of them! 😱

Now, does anyone have any tips I should learn for this next phase?? The packing and moving countries one.