My Sister ~ My Emily !

Hi, Emily Shannon Commerce! : ) Guten Tag Shweister!

My big sister, Emily is the most wonderful sister you could ever hope for! She is only 17 months older than me, we were only one grade apart in school & we shared everything. We grew up sharing clothes, driving to school together in her "banana boat", a yellow Datsun station wagon and we even had the same best friend through all of high school. She is THE original "granola girl" surfer chick who will always (at least in heart) wear long flowy skirts, her Birks & go au natural! She started taking her own bags to the grocery store over a decade ago ~ before it was "cool" because that's just who she is. She is lovable, loyal, fun, sweet & my ONE & ONLY big sister. If she wasn't such a wonderful wife to her Hubby Rob & her 3 adorable children, Mason, Malia & Maya, she would probably be off on a Green Peace tour doing the greater good for someone. (Actually, she does the greatest good anyone could ever do by being a wonderful wife & mommy to her family!) Practically, she serves everyday by supporting her Hubby who serves our country in the Air Force in Jettenbach, Germany! She is very patriotic & has eagerly & faithfully accepted her role as a military wife. Emily is soft spoken, never draws attention to herself & is amazingly humble! I absolutely adore my big sister! I am grateful to God for my sister, my very best friend in all the world besides my Hubby & my 4 little girls! The bond sisters share is an amazing gift that our kind God gives. When I see my little girls together, I think of the bond my Emily & I share, the bond my sweet little girls share & it makes me cry happy tears! : )

My sister lives in Germany because her Hubby, Rob, is in the Air Force. They have been serving there for 1 year and they have 3 years to go. Emily & their youngest, Maya (who is only 7 weeks older than our Ava : ) ! Yay for cousins! ) are coming to visit us at the end of November for 2 weeks! I will get to spend my birthday & Thanksgiving with my sissy for the first time in over 14 years & I am SO EXCITED!

Sissy, if you are reading this......I love you Emily Shannon Commerce! I am so grateful to God for you, you are my heart, my sister!

Love,

Erin : )

Missy's Birthday

My girlies & I gave a surprise tea party for Missy today & it was so much fun! Missy was really surprised, Amy, Ashley, Abby & Ava & I had fun & they were super helpful to Mommy! Ava, our amazing little napper took an awesome 2 hour nap & woke up just in time to have some yummy snacks! We had been planning the party for weeks & it was cute to see how excited our girls were about it. They really love Missy so they were so happy to be with her today. They got to drink yummy tea out of real "big girl" (very fancy & very breakable!) tea cups. Mommy got a little nervous a couple of times but nothing was dropped or broken! We also had great food like scones, mini cupcakes, banana bread, muffins & other goodies. (Thank you Vivian, Judie & Marjorie for all your help : ) !)

I'll try to post some pictures soon but our picture downloader thingy isn't working right & I'm not sure why! I really love putting pictures on our blog so I'm trying to be patient & trust God while we get it figured out!

Missy, we love you & we hope you were blessed today! Happy Birthday!

Fall is here!

I love Fall & so does my family! This afternoon our girlies & I worked on changing our blog background & all the other fun stuff. My sweet Hubby was watching football on the couch beside us & he kindly helped me with all the technical stuff I couldn't figure out. It was a lot of fun & it was so cute to see how excited our girls got about it!

There is just something special about Fall......the smell of goodies baking (like pumpkin muffins ~ yum!), football on TV (I absolutely love to hear the NFL theme song come on because it means my sweet & very hard-working Hubby is relaxing & watching his favorite thing ever to watch on TV ~ even our girls get all excited when they hear it!), fall decorations, beautiful colors (South Carolina is an amazing place to live, especially in the Fall! We actually have all 4 seasons here! Growing up in Florida & living in Arizona for a decade make me especially grateful to be here this time of year!), leaves falling, crisp, cool air, Thanksgiving, knowing that Christmas is right around the corner & a tangible reminder to be grateful for all of the amazing blessings our kind Father has given us!

We thank God for you ~ our family & friends! Have a happy Fall, y'all! : )

Lots going on at the Palmer's! : )

Warning ~ this is an extremely long post! I guess this is what happens when I don't blog for a while ~ sorry ~ life is full & I want to share what's going on with the Palmer's! : )

We have had a great & full couple of weeks since I last blogged. Besides our normal routine of home school, cleaning for Missy on Tuesday, lots of girly dress-up, very imaginative pretending, reading/story time, art, jumping on our trampoline, lots of cuddling and lovin', playing with our dog, Auggie and excitedly waiting for our Daddy to come home every night, we've done a few other things too.

My Hubby got a promotion! Congratulations Babe ~ you are the most wonderful Hubby & Daddy ever ~ thanks for working so hard for your girls! Randal will start his new position as Assistant Branch Manager for SunTrust Bank on the 16th! His boss & manager at his branch took him out to dinner tonight to thank him for his hard work and to show how much he will be missed there ~ so sweet! We are grateful to God for this promotion, especially with the state of our economy right now! Also, we found out some awesome news about his school! Randal talked to his counselor at Liberty University Online this week and found out that if he slightly changes the type of degree he gets, he can graduate a little sooner! If he changes his degree from a "Bachelors of Science" with a major in Business Management and a minor in Religious Studies to a "Multiple Disciplines" degree with his major and minor staying the same, he can graduate in May of 2009 instead of August or December of 2009. YIPPEE! We are SO excited! He has been working very hard and pretty much doing nothing but school and work (and the occasional cuddle with his little girls!) for the last 7 months! God is so good and kind, we are so grateful!

This morning our sweet little Ava FINALLY got her 2nd tooth! It had been trying to come in for weeks and finally it popped through today! Our big girls cheered & congratulated Ava and she looked so happy with herself! It was too cute! Even with such little tooth-age, Ava eats any and everything we do, when there's a will, there's a way! Ava will be 14 months old on the 10th so it's about time that lonely little toothie had a friend! : )

Last Friday our girlies & I spent a day at the Lowrimore's farm (some of our good friends). All of our big girls got to ride their beautiful, blonde horse, "Sunshine" and then lead her around their pasture for a while ~ Amy absolutely loves horses so she was so excited! They held baby chicks, played with their dogs, "Cody 1" and "Cody 2", and they got to play with, chase and be chased by their many goats of all ages. We got to see their adorable baby cow, who is a month old and has the sweetest little "moo"! One of my favorites was their sweet, gentle, old 22-year-old horse named "Treasure" who kept sneaking up behind me and nudging me with his cute, old, wrinkly nose while I was watching our girls run out in the pasture with the goats and other horses! Our little Ashley's dream came true when she got to hold and cuddle with their orange striped kitty! She desperately wants a kitty but our Daddy is even more desperately allergic to cats! Amy's favorite thing was riding Sunshine, Ashley's favorite thing was holding their kitty, Abby's favorite thing was holding the baby chicks (their little girl Chloe, who is 5, told Abby she could name one so Abby named it "black chickie" ~ so cute!) and Ava's favorite part was walking all around their yard with their little guy, Levi, who is 2, and playing with all their toys! Kristin and I enjoyed being together and watching all our little ones have fun! Our girls seemed right at home on the farm in their little denim overalls & piggy tail braids ~ so cute! Thanks Lowrimore's for a great day, we love you!

This past Sunday, our family went apple picking at "Sky Top" orchard with our caregroup. We had so much fun! Our girls loved climbing the trees to reach the apples at the tippy top (with Daddy standing right below, of course) and they loved carrying the cute little basket to put them in! Our girls had a little system going, Amy & Ashley would climb the tree, Abby would stand below and put the apples in the basket (that basket was almost bigger & probably weighed more than her!) & then Ava would nibble on as many apples as she could get her little hands on. Is there anything more precious than seeing a bunch of apples with one little tooth mark in them?! So sweet! It was cute to watch our girls eat fresh apples right out of the orchard that they hand picked themselves with the juice tribbling down their little chins! One of the most special things that day was that Daddy took all of our girls deep into the orchard for a little special "Daddy time" to go find their favorites, Granny Smiths! They were all tuckered out and fell asleep in the Burb on the way home ~ fun day!

Last Sunday, we had our sweet friends, the Kryger's over for the afternoon. The Kryger's have 1 little boy & 3 little girls almost exactly our girls' ages. Our littlest ones, Ava & Sarah are only 2 days apart! Amy & I watched all our little ones play while our Hubby's watched and talked football and fantasy football. I'm so happy that my sweet Hubby has someone here who loves football to talk to about it. I try, but it's just not the same! : ) We had so much fun just relaxing and hanging out together! It's a huge blessing that our children all love each other and play so well together! We love you Kryger's! : )

Yesterday, Missy taught our girls to sew! She gave them each some scrap material, a huge upholstery needle and ribbon to learn on since is easy to see instead of thread ~ so smart! Amy, Ashley & Abby did awesome! The girls listened and watched intently as Missy showed them what to do and they tried so hard to do it just like her! They each made a little change purse and they really turned out cute! They are so excited about their sewing "lesson" next week with Missy! Ava wanted to be a part of what her big girls were doing but she was content to watch them & feed their Bischon, Chloe (who she calls "Co Co") all of her goldfish right out of her snack trap! Mommy is trying to learn to chill about things like that......if you know me you can imagine that I was making the "ick" face on the inside while trying to remain un-grossed out on the outside! After I encouraged Ava for her generous heart and desire to share and gently telling her in a 1 year-old way that doggies eating out of our snack trap isn't included in the sharing code of ethics, I washed it post haste : ) ! It was a fun day as always with our precious friend Missy! We love you Tom & Missy! : )

This post seems bare without any pictures! We loaned our camera to some very special friends to take on their family vacation but I'll be back to picture taking this week! : )

My sweet friend, Julie Rawlings, has loaned me her laptop "until further notice" since I dropped and broke mine two weeks ago! : ( Thanks Jules, I am so very grateful : ) !)

Have I ever mentioned that I love my Hubby & 4 little girls very much? I am so grateful to my wonderful God & Savior Jesus that I get to live everyday life with my sweet family! He has been so good to me, beyond measure. My heart is bursting with love for and gratitude to God!

Broken Laptop : (

Last Saturday night I dropped my laptop & broke it! I was walking to my printer to print out some coupons and it slipped out of my hands. It landed opened up, flat on the ground. When I picked it up I saw that the whole screen was shattered & I burst into tears! I was angry at myself for dropping it and afraid that I had lost all of our family pictures & everything else! Randal ran in to see what happened & asked why I was crying. He was so sweet & I could tell he was having immense self-control & patience with me even though I had just destroyed my laptop! He encouraged me that the hard drive was fine & that it was just the screen that had broken. Of course, even if it could turn on, we wouldn't be able to tell because of the shattered screen. I am on Randal's laptop right now. He is taking college classes online at nights so he takes his laptop to work everyday and is on it for school every night. I try to squeeze in a little time in between but school definitely comes before my blogging & couponing! He is sweet and tries to give me a little time everyday.

What is God teaching me through this? That is the very question I have asked myself over the last week. He is teaching me to trust Him, even when I don't understand. He is teaching me to depend on Him, even when I want to do things my way. He is teaching me that sometimes it is better to be undistracted by "good things" for a time! I think I have talked to and thought about God more this week than usual. I have looked into my sweet little girls' eyes while they talk & snuggled with them on my lap more this week than usual. I have cuddled on the couch with my Hubs & felt completely "released" from the "urge" to coupon and find deals online more than usual! So, yes, I miss my little laptop, but......God is good & He has a plan!

Sweet singin' Girls!

I was in my bathroom getting ready to run errands with my girls this morning listening to the "Valley of Vision" CD playing in my room. All of a sudden I heard my girls singing ~ loudly ~ so I came out into my room to see what they were doing. It was a very sweet & happy Mommy-moment when I saw all of my girls sitting on the edge of my bed facing the CD player singing their little hearts out to "Heavenly Father, Beautiful Son"! I had to get my camera out & take pictures of that sweet memory! Abby was rocking back & forth as she was singing, Ashley was holding Ava as she was singing & as Ava was playing with the plastic CD cover & Amy was reading along with the words as she was singing! So precious! I was actually surprised that they knew the words and could sing along so well. I'm always amazed at how much children retain & what seeps into their eager little hearts! I'm grateful that what came out today was about God! Here is what my sweeties were singing......

"Heavenly Father, Beautiful Son"

Father, You loved me
Sent Your Son to redeem
Jesus, You washed me
By Your blood I am clean
Spirit, You've opened these blinded eyes
And brought me to Christ

Heavenly Father, beautiful Son
Spirit of light and truth
Thank You for bringing sinners to come to You

Father, You gave me
To Jesus to keep
And Jesus, You love me
As a shepherd, his sheep
Spirit, You've given me faith in the Son
And made our hearts one

Father, You're waiting
To hear my requests
Jesus, Your loving
Open hand is outstretched
Spirit, You're in me, You intercede
And help in my need


Mark Altrogge
Sovereign Grace Praise


God has been so good to give us His Son, Jesus! God has also been so good to give my Hubby & I our 4 precious little girlies! : )

(By the way, notice that our girls are all dressed in fall colors. It's been a smidge chilly here in the mornings so it's starting to feel like fall! Our girls picked out their clothes together & even Ava's cute little fall dress & they came out dressed in their coordinating fall colors! So cute! These are definitely girlies after their Mama's own heart!)

Beauty is in the (little blue) eye(s) of the Beholder(s)......: )

This afternoon we were playing outside & my girls gathered this "beautiful bouquet of flowers for you Mommy ~ because we love you so much!" To the untrained eye they are just a bunch of weeds. To the eyes & imaginations of 4 little girls (& to the heart of a Mommy who loves to see the world through their eyes!) they are a gift picked with lots of love for a very BLESSED Mommy! I sure love my 4 precious little girls ~ God is so good!