I am the coach of our school’s reading bowl team. Every year we read a state selected list of books, and then compete against the other schools in the county in a brain bowl style competition. I was so thrilled and proud this morning when the team from our school that I’ve been coaching all year placed third in our county! We got a big trophy and I couldn’t be prouder of my students! They’ve worked so hard this year, and we have had so much fun along the way, reading and practicing. They showed the utmost in sportmanship, and I would have been proud of them win or lose, but it sure was nice to WIN! Last year, we didn’t do as well, but this year, I was prepared! With experience under my belt we went in swinging! I just couldn’t be happier!!!! I love my job!!!! I’m already looking forward to the list of next years books to come out so I can start reading!!!
January 27, 2010
On Sunday my big boy turned five, I can hardly believe it! Saturday we had his birthday and it was one of the best days ever! Bouncy house, family, friends, and burning electrical wires in the attic! What could be better!? I’m going to let the pictures speak for themselves, but I must say how thankful I am for Bradley. He is such a gift from God and everyday is an adventure living with him! I am blessed indeed!!
January 18, 2010
Today was my original due date for the baby that we lost this summer. It’s still weird to me that I’ve been pregnant three times, but only have two children. In my heart, I feel like I’m a mother to three. I have often thought to myself over the last six months how big my tummy would be right now, and how naive I was during my first two pregnancies, to presume everything would be alright. I carry an ultrasound picture of Dylan at 9 weeks when we first saw him and his heart beating, although he did look more like a peanut! I still wonder what happened between 9 and 13 weeks. The Lord knows though and I firmly believe His promise that He works everything according to our good, Romans 8:28. I am very thankful that the Lord has brought some healing to my heart in the past six months. Much of this has been through friends who can say they personally understand. In the last week as I thought about baby Dylan alot, some comments that my friend Jennifer, who went through a similar experience, made came back to my mind. Thank you Jennifer, they still bring tears to my eyes, but comfort too. I will quote what she said because it summarizes my feelings perfectly,
“I am sorry you have come to know these feelings personally, but I can honestly say, several months out, that in a very, very strange way, I feel very blessed of God by my similar experience. Not everyone gets to have a perfect, holy child. Not every child gets to go from the comfort of his mother’s womb straight to the arms of a Savior. Not everyone gets to intimately understand the sacrifice the Lord made on our behalf, and the pain He felt when His son died. Not everyone gets to know that they have a child who has overcome death and the grave and is living eternally in the most perfect and wonderful place we could even try to imagine. We are blessed to be “not everyone.” We are blessed to have been given these gifts, a new ministry of comfort, and a chance to glorify our God despite the circumstances. I call my experience my “Job moment in time.” I am more than confident that your family will endure and emerge as Job did, and God will recieve all the glory. You’re already doing it. Isn’t it amazing what the Jesus in us is capable of? Way more than we every could have imagined.”
January 18, 2010
We had a wonderful weekend (half anyway) in Orlando with friends. I went to my friend Dina’s baby shower Friday night and another baby shower (I kinda crashed that one) for her on Saturday. I am so happy for Dina! This is her first baby and I know her and Carson have wanted a baby for some time now, so it’s been a long journey for them. Congratulations to you Dina and I look forward to meeting baby Falon very soon!
January 7, 2010
I recently was thinking about how much of what I do (or don’t do) is so greatly based on habits. Doing something good or bad can continue and continue just out of habit. I have many resolutions for 2010, and I figured I’d share them with you. Although sharing does somewhat hold me more accountable, oh well.
1. Be healthy and try to lose 10 pounds. I’ve been carrying around extra since Caleb and even more extra since my third pregnancy.
2. Go to bed at a decent hour. I know I’ll feel so much better if I do. I’ve decided 10:00 is my bedtime. Ok, 10:30 at the latest on a school night. Last fall it was very common for Chris and me to go to bed at 11 or 12:00 and on a really late night 1:00 or later!
3. Get up on time and stop pushing snooze! (This ties in with res. #2 above) If I get up on time I can get ready in a peaceful calm environment without rushing around like a crazy woman to get to work on time.
4. Read my bible more. (This ties in with res. #3 above). I need to get my toosh out of bed on time to have my quiet time in the morning.
5. Leave work on time. Staying just a half hour late creates a domino affect on all the resolutions above. When I stay late, I pick up the boys late, start dinner late, so we eat later, clean up and bed time comes later, so I end up staying up later too. And then get up later the next morning, and so on. You get the picture. I usually stay because I’m in the middle of something that I want to finish, but I’ve decided I just have to make myself stop and leave!
Chris and I are eating healthier and making an effort to eat out less too. I’m so proud of Chris! He’s eating colorful vegetables and trying new things! He will even eat onions (vidalia sweet only) now! We’re having talapia later in the week, so I hope he likes that too! We bought ourselves a George Forman grill and are really loving it! Check out our dinner tonight.
The grill is really nice and grills things really fast. The only complaint I have about it is that it is awkward to clean. Maybe I just don’t have the hang of it yet, but I seem to end of getting water all over the counter somehow.
Chris is also training for an ironman triathalon. I don’t even know how long this thing is, but it’s huge. Like a million mile bike and trillion mile run or something insane! He’s working out in the morning before work and after work. He’s nuts and slightly obsessed I think, but he’s dedicated and I’ll be there to cheer him on when he finishes! To help with his training schedule I’m now taking the boys three days a week to school in the morning, which means I have to leave the house (with them ready to go) at 6:25. I was not thrilled about it at first, but now I really love it! I love spending that time with them in the morning (even though it’s very early morning!). We eat breakfast together and have some nice moments getting dressed and ready for the day. I used to eat with them everyday, but the last several months of the fall I started going to work and leaving the house with all the boys sleeping. They all got to sleep later and I didn’t have to wake up as early either. It just became a habit (there’s that word again!), but I’m glad to be taking them a few mornings a week now.
It’s 10:02 pm, so I better get off to bed! My college classes start on Monday, so I don’t know how frequently you’ll hear from me, but I’ll try to keep the blog updated!
December 11, 2009
Wednesday evening we went to a Christmas party hosted by my dad’s employer at Chuck E Cheese. Santa was scheduled to be there so my boys were very excited! You can imagine this from a kids perspective - double whamie! Santa and Chuck E Cheese all in one evening! Who could ask for more!? Well anyways, another exciting tidbit was that my dad was slated to play the part of Santa Claus! I debated if I should tell Bradley or just let him think it was Santa. I didn’t want to steal the magic of the evening away from him, so I decided not to not say a word. He probably would only see Santa for a minute or two anyway and with dad in the suit and padding and beard, hat, etc. there’s no way B would recognize grandpa Jeff under all that. Right? Wrong!!! Bradley sat on Santa’s lap for all of ten seconds, at the most! He immediately came straight over to me and said, “That’s not Santa! That’s papa Jeff!!” What?!?! “How did you know that??” I asked. B said to me, “I recognize his voice. And he has the same watch and glasses.” Wow. I was really shocked. So, of course I told him what we all know, that Santa is very busy this time of year, and certainly can’t come to every single Christmas party. I explained that Santa therefore had to ask papa Jeff if he would help out at this particular party, and papa agreed. Bradley seemed satisfied with that answer, but I’m still chuckling to myself that he recognized my dad!! My kid is just too smart!
November 20, 2009
Eleven years ago tomorrow I married my best friend! He’s my soulmate and the only one I’ve ever know that my heart flips and flops and skips a beat for! He’s also the only man that makes me so mad I can’t see straight, but that’s what I love about him! It’s passion! He’s truely my prince, created just for me because he doesn’t always agree with everything I say! He challenges me and pushes me to be a better person. Sometimes he acts tough on the outside, but he is so sweet and gentle to me. I see a side of him that he doesn’t show anyone else in the world and that’s what I looooove about him! Happy Anniversary Babe! I love you and am so unbelievably blessed to call you mine!!!!
Eleven years ago 
Now :)
November 17, 2009
Bradley and I had such a wonderful evening together tonight! I read stories to Caleb and put him to bed, and then Bradley did his United States of America puzzle while I folded laundry. It sounds like such a boring, normal evening, but it was so nice. This is the first Monday night in about 14 weeks that I haven’t had to sit down in the evenings and work work work on my college work! (There’s still an assignment, but it’s due Friday instead of early in the week). Anyways, it actually felt good to have the time to just fold laundry! We turned on the satellite music channels and found one that was big band 1940’s Christmas music! We both loved it. It was just a wonderful time together, folding, doing a puzzle and singing Christmas music! Thank you Lord for this time!
Here’s Bradley doing his puzzle, he’s slowly learning the names of the states! He is on the brink of reading too! It’s so exciting to watch him discovering words! He knows all his letters and sounds and is starting to put them together! The coolest part is that I haven’t even really purposefully taught him a whole lot. He just notices things while we read and when we’re out and about. He just picks it up! They have been teaching him alot about letters and sounds at school though. I just loooove his preschool! I think with a little push he would probably be reading now, but I think I’m just going to wait and let him read next year in kindergarten. There’s no rush, so I’m just allowing him to continue to explore the letters and sounds and enjoy puzzles, coloring, and all the other learning experiences apart of reading. We do loooove to read books together though! Tonight we read three books about the pilgrims and indians and the first Thanksgiving. One of the advantages to being a librarian is that I get to bring him home new and different library books all the time.
You may wonder where Chris was in all this happiness. He was off shooting Bambi’s daddy.
November 16, 2009
That’s right folks! You’re looking at him! This here is Chuck, the newest member of the Markham family.
Bradley and Caleb are both very excited about the new addition. Hopefully Chuck will last more than three days. I fear we may be having a bowl-side funeral all too soon and sending Chuck to that great fishbowl in the sky. We shall see!
Bradley won Chuck at the Jacksonville Fair tonight by tossing a ping pong ball into an orange bowl. Whoo hoo! Luckily I already had a fish bowl (long story) at home. Here are some other highlights of the afternoon. First it was buy one get one free day, and the kids are free anyway, so all of us got in for eight bucks. I never like paying full price at the fair, there’s always a special on certain nights.
After taking a look at the cows, chickens, chicks, bunny rabbits, turkeys, horses, pigs, piglets, and all the other farm animals you can imagine, we headed over to Jump The Ultimate Dog Show – four or five different dogs did all sorts of amazing tricks. Jumping in the air to catch frisbies, jumping out twenty feet into water, bouncing off the trainers back, and even balancing of the trainers outstretched hand. You name it! The boys loved it!! And the best part was that we came in late so we sat criss cross apple sauce (only you elementary teachers understand that lingo – indian style is no longer politically correct) right on the very front row! We couldn’t have had better seats!
Then we saw Kachunga, the alligator show. It was cool too, and once again we got front row seats!
Here’s Bradley after winning Chuck. Can you guess how we came up with the name?
November 16, 2009
Today is a tribute to our German Shepherd Abby. Abby is nine years old and has been with Chris and I since our days out in Arizona. We got her in Oct. 2000 when we first moved from an apartment to base housing where we had a yard. She was twelve weeks old. She is an unbelievably beautiful shepherd with perfect markings. Shepherds are supposed to have a black saddle shape on their backs and large pointy ears that stand up tall and proud. Abby is such a good dog with our children too! She doesn’t really like other dogs so much, but I think that’s the only fault you’ll find with her. She has never once even hinted at snipping at the kids. I have never never never seen this dog exhibit one even tiny bit of mean-ness to me, Chris, B or C. Only protectivness and gentleness. One of the kids favorite things to do is give Abby treats and she takes the food from their hands so very very gently and delicately. She’s so good to us and it brings all those old cliches to mind about dogs. They really do love you no matter what. Sometimes people are in bad moods, or not so nice, but not your dog. They are ALWAYS happy to see you when you get home. When life is hard, you can talk to them and they always curl up next to you with unconditional love. Anyways….Abby hasn’t died or anything like that, but Sunday we noticed her shaking her head and scratching her ear alot. By Monday night her right ear was flopping down completely and very puffy. Long story short, Chris took her to the vet and apparently she somehow burst a blood vessel in her ear and the outter ear filled with blood. The weight caused her ear to flop down. The doctor gave her a shot for pain and some ointment and pills, but here’s the kicker….the doctor said her ear may never stand up straight again. That is so unbelievably sad! She looks soooo pitiful!! I don’t know if you will understand unless you too are a german shepherd owner, but a shepherd’s ears are it’s pride! It’s a distinguishing mark of a shepherd and makes him look so strong! Without those strong erect ears the dog looks just like any other mixed breed. And don’t get me wrong, I love mixed breeds. Anyways, this whole ear thing makes me realize that Abby isn’t getting any younger. The doctor said she’s in great health, but did give her “mature” dog treats. In people years she’s like 63. I know that someday we are going to have to cross that bridge of saying goodbye to her and the thought is so terribly sad to me. I’m going to treasure the time even more that she is with us. I am thankful that she is healthy and as long as she isn’t in pain, I can live with her ear flopping down. Here are some pictures of Abby before and after. I hesitate to even post the second picture because I feel like I’m posting a picture of someone at their worst. It’s really sad. Am I crazy or what?
