Shep's missing front two teeth

LOVE this smile!

Right after we got the boys in bed, we hear "Moooom, Daaaad!"  The other tooth finally popped out!

Tooth Dude is coming tonight.  (The Wasson version of the Tooth Fairy.)

My 41st birthday

My precious boys spent the day shopping with me.  That's a huge gift of love since they all despise shopping. :)  We didn't find anything we were looking for except I did get to try on a watch I was looking for.  We drove all the way to Tulsa and the only other store I wanted to shop was closed when we got there.  Yes, I cried.  But, then we got to eat dinner at P.F.Changs - yum!  That was the first time the boys had eaten there and they all loved it.  I got to spend the whole day with my family - John and the boys - and I just adore being with all of them.  I am truly blessed.

And John surprised me tonight with a birthday cake. (chocolate fudge - oh ya!)  We didn't have one on my actual birthday and he wanted me to have candles to blow out.  I love that guy!!

Happy Birthday to me!

Josiah, my son... and now my brother

On Sunday night, sometime past midnight, Josiah gave his life to the Lord!

It was "officially" my birthday, August 29th, and I have never had a more awesome gift.

For years we have talked, listened, prayed, begged God, taught about the Lord and HOPED...  and finally just simply asked for God's mercy to draw Josiah to salvation.  It has been quite a journey.  We struggled to understand his resistance through the years and yet we continued trusting, praying, hoping... knowing that if he did choose to make a commitment to the Lord it would be total, complete, well thought through, serious and with great understanding.  That's who Josiah is.

He came to John to talk one night.  Then he came the next night.  The Holy Spirit was calling him.  He struggled with big questions.  Real questions.  The Lord gave me some specific verses that very morning to share with Josiah and the Lord gave John and I new insight and wisdom in our discussions with Josiah.

Josiah prayed to the Lord with his own words and thoughts...  one of the most humble, sincere prayers I have ever heard.  With the understanding and strength of a man, he gave his life to the Lord!

And he is a NEW man!  The old is gone...  Josiah is walking with the Lord now.  He hungers to talk with us about the Lord and His ways.  He searches scripture for more understanding.  He says he can't explain it, but he knows he's different, changed.  And we are blown away to see the transformation that the Lord has made in his life.  Wow.  Thank you, Lord!

A Christmas Carol play practice

Tonight was Shepard's first practice with the Cratchit family for the upcoming A Christmas Carol play.  Shep is Tiny Tim and I think he's going to be great!  He's LOVING this!



Sabbath Celebration

What I love about our homeschool curriculum is that we get to experience what we learn and it's not just facts on a page.  This year we began a four year journey through history and we started at the very beginning - creation.  After six days of creating everything, God rested on the 7th day and established the Sabbath.  So, we celebrated Sabbath (Jewish style).  We've never done that before, but it was really neat and we learned a whole lot!  The symbolism is awesome.  I also love the memories we were able to create together as a family.  I took some pictures...

This is the challah (bread) covering that Josiah made for us.  He's quite an artist!

Here's all the boys as we sat down to begin the celebration.  John grilled some lamb chops for us for dinner - DELISH!!  (We recently bought a sheep and had it butchered.  We are totally hooked on lamb meat now!) 

John then gave each son a blessing.  What a special time! 

And then he read some of Proverbs 31 to me and greatly encouraged me with the boys watching.  I teared up...  it was such a blessing to me. 

Next was the washing of hands... 

We read several blessings and praises to the Lord.  We took special care to "tear" our bread and not to cut it.  Our knives were covered with napkins as a symbol of peace.  Our candles representing creation and redemption were lit.  We picked fresh flowers from our yard to decorate our table for the speical meal.  And we ate at dusk just as the Sabbath day would begin.  We enjoyed it!

To end Sabbath, we had a lamb roast meal the next evning just before dusk after spending a relaxing day together.  This was a casual meal.  As we finished eating, Shepard passed around the spice box that we made so that everyone could savor the aroma of Sabbath before it was gone and as a savory memory until we could celebrate it again.

Now we all headed outside to watch the sky to see who could be the first one to find the first three stars of the night.  When the first three stars are visible, then Sabbath is over.  John won!  He has the best eyes of all of us. Then John and I sat on the porch and watched the boys play in the fading light.  Wonderful.

The Boys

I forgot to get a picture of the boys together for Will's birthday with his cookie cake.  So, we just took a picture today to make up for it. :)

Tool or Toy??

I'm thinking...  it's both! :)

John got his new tractor today!

We're getting pretty fond of singing the Green Acres theme song around here...  today was no exception!  Come on, can't you just picture that Green Acres guy bouncing along on his tractor in his suit?  Slight difference...  John doesn't own any suits. :)  But, he has never driven a tractor before and it just really makes us smile to have real farm equipment.

You know how it goes...  Green Acres we are here!  Pum, Pum!

Do you see that smile?  That is a happy man!  (I love it when my man is happy!)

He's already started clearing the top pasture...



GKS Kids

We got this picture of all the "Wasson" cousins when they came for Will's party.  I love it!  They are getting ready to raise money for Living Water International at the sale and this picture shows them wearing the armbands they will be selling.  Praying the Lord blesses their efforts and grows their hearts in ministry!



Will's 4th Birthday

Our baby turned 4 yesterday!

Will sure did enjoy his birthday. Turning 4 is big stuff. He's all grins about it. And we enjoyed celebrating with him. Fireman style!  We had a big party Saturday night that was lots of fun.

 Oh, those tricky sparkler candles! :)  Will is such a good sport... he just kept blowing them out until they finally quit lighting again.

As soon as the cookie cake and ice cream was served, Will positioned himself next to all the packages and waited.  He held this package with the Star Wars paper and could hardly wait to get it open.  Shake, shake shake! 

He looks like a real fireman!

Happy Birthday Will David! 

Here he is on his actual birthday enjoying some of the new toys! 

I loved John's prayer for Will at his party...

he reminded us that Will adds so much spunk to our family and we are grateful again that the Lord spared his life on the day he was born.  It's exciting to get to celebrate theses 4 years!

Will Wasson, you are a JOY!  A precious gift from the Lord!



Our country pool

Our newest toy

A Gator!

Shepard and Will can ride together and they are taking turns driving.  And having a blast!

1st day of school - 2011

Wasson Homeschool is back in session!

After a summer filled with traveling, swimming, unpacking and settling in to our new home, it is really great to be back on a "normal" schedule again.  We even ate dinner at 6:30! 

Overall, we had a great first day!  I've learned not to try to expect too much the first day, so we did light schoolwork and worked mostly on obedience and character.  We'll ease into the full school load by the end of the week.  Everyone is happy, so I think it was a successful day!

We started the day with outside chores...  like most farm boys do.  I consider this an important part of their education, too.

Then we headed upstairs to the school room.  We realized that every year at our old house we took a 1st day of school picture with the huge white board saying what grade they were beginning.  There's no big white board here.  So we used the little chalkboard.  It's kinda like what we did before, so it felt like we were maintaining tradition. 

Finding joy in the strangest things

I like to have a clean car.  I think I can thank my dad for that.  (Although he'd probably be quick to tell you that I'm not nearly as obsessed with it as he is! :))  You can eat off the hood of his car.  Not mine.  Dad taught me that a white vehicle doesn't look as dirty as a dark one...  unless it is REALLY dirty.  And mine is.  REALLY dirty.  All the time.  Even right after I wash it.  Now that we live off a dirt road, it's practically impossible to keep it clean.  This makes me sad.  But, I have a new hobby!  One of my favorite things to do now is close the back hatch after I've unloaded stuff out of the car and see just how big the poof of dust is.  It makes me giggle every time.

Don't misunderstand (John), I still PREFER a clean car!  But, I'm making lemonade out of my lemons...

Shep and Joey

Shepard asked me to take his picture with Joey.  They are such good friends!  It was cute how Shep tried to get Joey to look at the camera. 

We've been so intrigued with Joey's personality...  he is so loveable and he really enjoys being around people.  He has to stay outside, but he really wants to be with us.  He has a way of finding the room we are in inside the house and then he puts his paws up on the window and looks in at us.  He's learned our schedule and waits for us at the door when he knows we are coming.  He really only seems to hang out at the barn when one of us is there.  The Lord knew just what kind of cat our family needed. 

Yippee!! Hooray!! We just signed all the papers to close the deal on
selling our house in Fort Smith! So excited! Praying the new owners
enjoy the house as much as we did. They seem like a very sweet family.
It's really cool to see the Lord provide in so many ways. The Wassons
are doing a happy dance!!

Sent from my iPhone

New Life Ranch Family Camp 2011

We LOVE it!!

This is one of our favorite summer vacation destinations.  There's something for everyone...  actually we pack more activities into a few days than we would normally do in weeks or months.  It's just a blast.  And even though there is so much to do, we also rest.  The staff are truly servants and they take care of us so well.  Ahhhh!  It's just wonderful!  And the Christian atmosphere is so encouraging.  We love "getting away from it all" to enjoy family activities and worship the Lord.

Here are the picture highlights:

Our room/ cabin...

Carnival Night...

First a little friendly father/son competition on the bounce around obstacle course!

where's dad??? 

waiting for dad... 

Well, we are just getting older.  :)

Josiah loved beating his dad in the race! 

Pony rides...

Face painting...

Can you tell this is Shepard??

 Will had to get in on it, too.

Our zombies. 

(I don't care much for zombies at all - the boys hear me say that a lot - but the boys think it's so fun.)

Will and Shepard with Mr. Sam (our family counselor) 

The WAY COOL triple bunk!  The boys rotated beds each night and so they all had a chance to sleep on the very top!

Will injured his leg on the first night at the carnival.  It's just that we didn't know he injured it.  He never said a word about it and we didn't see it happen.  So, on the first morning at camp when he woke up crying, we just put him back to bed thinking he was over tired.  It took awhile to realize that he really did have an injury.  He was asking for help just to roll over in bed and then crying out in pain when we moved him.  But there were no visible marks on his leg so we couldn't tell what was wrong.  But he couldn't walk.  Poor guy.  He rested in bed most of the day until we could get him to the doctor that evening.  The diagnosis:  a strained ligament in his thigh/ hip.  It had tightened up over night and was really painful.  And to top it off, he got stung by a bee after going to the doctor's office.  This was probably not his favorite day. :)  Here he is lounging in bed...

And then watching his brothers on the ropes elements...  it was hard for him because he wanted to do the Screamer element SOOO bad.  Maybe next year...

Shepard and Josiah on the zipline!

Look at him go!  It's a pretty big accomplishment for a 6 year old to climb all the way to the top!  He just tackled it like a pro.  We were impressed! 

Josiah at the top! 

Shep at the top! 

Shepard's going again... 

A special ride on the Gator was just the medicine that Will needed and probably ended up being the highlight of his trip!

and then some much needed rest!

Mr. Sam with the boys...

Goodbye NLR!  See ya next summer!