Square Ball

Remember the easy going, care-free days in elementary school when we weren't thinking about boys or girls yet, just havin fun on the playground!?  Yesterday Justise brought up loving square ball right now- he was so excited about it!  Christian Justise and Elise decided to go out  to the garage and searched for chalk in our spotless (lol) garage, where they did actually find a piece (wow) and made their own four square court.  I went out to the garage and they looked like they were having so much fun!  They were being so kind to Elise who had no clue how to play but would just hold the ball and then throw it to one of the boys.  When she would throw the ball out of the box or in an empty square they would shrug their shoulders and keep on going and not make her "out".. I was thinking- YES a game that they can all play and have a good time without fighting.  It's hard to find something for them all to do and get along with their age differences.  I even got in on the game and did pretty good if I might say so myself (Kids might disagree though)!    A couple of times I advanced to the best square the  "a" square-WhoooHooo!!  They have all of these new terms like "pass back nicely", "poison", "body ball"  that I couldn't keep up with, I just tried to get the ball in their square fast enough so they couldn't retrieve the ball!  It's a fun game because you aren't actually out with 3/4 people, you move to the next square down if you can't get the ball in time.  It was fun to play a fast paced game at 7 o'clock at night in our garage where it wasn't as cold as outside!    (sorry if the pics are dark)

My Dad - Mark John Lambert

Today was the one-year anniversary of my dad’s death. The one thing I miss about my dad today is that even though we didn’t have a lot to talk about, I could walk up to him, sneak under his arm and wrap my arms tightly around his tummy. He had this warmth about him, I felt safe with him.

I feel like he speaks to me more now than he ever did when he was alive. When us kids were little, he was very often angry and negative. I know he regretted how negative and angry he was in later years. He could never express his emotions toward us. He kept them all bundled up inside. I know that he is free now and God is encouraging him to love me and praise me. I know that he wants so badly to tell me that he loves me and is proud of me.
He doesn’t need to tell me now-
I can feel his encouragement and love so much it makes me cry with joy and pain.

I went with Jon, Wes, Deb, Elise, Grandma and Deb’s friend Sheila today to my dad’s gravesite. A couple of weekends ago Deb, Deborah, Jon and Wes put the frame in for the concrete to hold the gravestone. So today they took the frame off, filled in dirt around it and layed some sod. Deb did such a great job picking out the headstone. It is perfect, even the color of the stone is dad.
Grandma said it was hard for her to see the headstone-made it more final for her. She said she was glad to come out and see it though.  That is my dad's favorite hammer in the front by the way!


I’m not sure how I feel about today-I’ve been so busy with my life I haven’t had many quiet moments to myself to hear myself think. I just know that I miss hugging my dad.

Happy Fall Email I received

'What is it like to be a Christian?'

The coworker replied, 'It is like being a pumpkin.' 

God picks you from the patch, brings you in,

And washes all the dirt off of you. 

Then He cuts off the top and scoops out all the yucky stuff.
He removes the seeds of doubt, hate, and greed. 

 Then He carves you a new smiling face and

Puts His light inside of you to shine for all the world to see.'

Elise lost her First Tooth!

This is it!  Our last child has lost her first tooth!  It was so exciting!  Her tooth has been loose for weeks, she didn't like it when I tried to pull it out.  I like pulling teeth (I know I'm weird), usually I am very good at telling my boys that I just want to "feel"  how loose their tooth is and to their quick pain and shock their tooth is GONE! And then a big smile breaks out on their face when they realize the tooth is out!  Well, this didn't work for Elise, so I had to let go that I probably wasn't going to be the one who pulled her tooth out after many attempts.  Sure enough, on our drive home from Issaquah from one of Christian's many soccer games she was wiggling it with her tongue and it came out!  I was happy that she didn't swallow it (which I was kind of worried she would have no tooth to put under her pillow).  When she was putting her tooth (which was in a plastic baggy) under her pillow, she was asking the tooth fairy out loud if she could please keep the tooth and could the tooth fairy not take it.  To her surprise in the morning she got "LOTS" of  quarters (really only 5) and the tooth fairy did not take her tooth!!