Changed By Love

Morgan’s Achievement!

Oct.8,2015

Morgan is now a movie star!

Well, not yet.

But he could be someday.

He went through acting and modeling classes at John Casablancas Modeling and Career Center this spring and summer. He completed 30 weeks of classes. He was a star pupil from what I understand. He came home with tales of how he amazed and entertained his class and teachers every week. They all really seemed to like and admire him. It was a very good experience for him.

At the graduation, they dressed up to the theme of “A Masquerade”. We worked really hard to gather all of the pieces for his costume for the runway and for his monologue.

Here is his walk on the runway in costume:

He dressed up as a magician for his monologue.

He did so great!

Here is his monologue:

https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipNnPre052aeGuWHoVMMEpxVL2HeWvhntYPGgNHr6K9iQUU0tzOS1VJg8SRDDV8PAA/photo/AF1QipNUsXJp5hnEhrsfxS2R-9HiQVTzx-GfONzNs49f?key=VFNWRkd0UE9ITEhUcWN0eG14RDRMakNZSjZFZ0Nn

And here are some photos of us with him at his graduation:

And here’s one of the pictures from the day of his photo shoot for his portfolio. I took this one before our photographer, Mike Rovak, arrived.

Now Morgan is ready for auditions and ready to get to work. He’s very ready to make some money!

Summer of 2015

Oct.7,2015

I put together a collage of our summer. The Texas heat didn’t bother us much!

Check it out here:

https://goo.gl/photos/c5kMSKKN1S54aD9T9

Guinea pigs have been a fun addition to our family. Our neighbor gave us two females. We named them Bubbles and Lily.

One day, Bubbles had a baby! We were happily surprised. We named the baby Nugget. He is a male. So when he was 3 weeks old, we had to put him in a separate cage.

The kids are having lots of fun with the guinea pigs.

If you don’t have much experience with guinea pigs or especially if you do, you might enjoy these fun video adventures of two guinea pigs named Carmy and Claire.

They are hilarious!!!

Hope your summer was fun!

You Be You, I’ll Be Me

Oct.7,2015

I am me. You are you. She is she.

And the converse is true.

I am not you. You are not me. And she is not you or me.

What am I saying?

God has made each of us unique.

So why do we compare ourselves to each other?

I will not do things the way you do them. I don’t want to do them the way you do them.

I do not see things the way you see them.

It’s okay. I am me. And you are you.

I discovered something while teaching my kids how to drive. I noticed things that they didn’t notice as I was looking in the same direction that they were. In some cases, I saw things that I wished they had been paying attention to, like the brake lights on the car ahead of us!

But in other cases, they noticed things that I didn’t see that helped us get to where we needed to go.

At first, some of them noticed nice cars that they liked all around us. That drove me bananas! I couldn’t believe they were paying attention to such insignificant, unimportant things when they should be paying attention to the road ahead of them, the traffic, and making sure they were in the right lane to get to where we needed to go.

As they got more experience, they started to learn about what they really needed to be paying attention to. Some near misses, some exclamations from me, some honks from other drivers, missing exits that we should have taken, and getting lost helped them to realize that they needed to pay more attention to their driving than to the nice cars around them.

They learned how to drive safely. But they don’t do it exactly the way I would.

They learned the most important skills and what really deserved their attention while they were driving. They still don’t notice the same things I do as we’re driving along. But they take care of the important things now.

There are some things that we all need to pay attention to. You and me and she all have to do some of the same basic things, like take care of ourselves, our families and our houses.

But the way we do these things will vary with our priorities, our interests, our goals, and our personalities.

My way is not the right way.

Neither is yours!

OK, I’ll be me – you be you.

I’ll take ideas and inspiration from the things you do and the way you do them.

And you can see if there’s anything I’m doing that you may want to try.

But do it your way. The way that works for you and your family.

Deal???

Deal.

Our Mini Farm Dream

Sep.26,2015

I think I want a Mini Farm.

And on this farm we’ll have some —

Mini Moos

These cute sheep

Mini goats

Mini horses

And mini donkeys

And to help us get started even before we own a farm we got these mini pigs:

Also known as GUINEA PIGS!

We are practicing our feeding skills, watering skills and giving them exercise. Katie is our resident expert. She has done lots of research so that we know how to care for them. She has learned what their different squeals mean. She can understand them. She is the Guinea Pig Whisperer.

So that is our dream of a mini farm! At least, I think it would be funny to have a mini-farm that is really made up of mini animals. Some of the kids have pointed out to me how difficult it would be to milk a cow that is barely off of the ground.

I told Abby that maybe we would have one full-size milk cow so that we could get milk from it. I’m sure there would be other problems associated with only having mini animals. And many problems associated with having MANY animals.

But for now, it’s a cute dream.

We would definitely have a CUTE mini farm.

Don’t you think?