Father's Day

Here we are! Eric's first father's day as a father of 3! How special!

Eric is such a great dad! I am, so proud of him, and thankful to have him as a partner in raising these 3 sweet little boys.

I'm thankful that he loves to play with them and make

them laugh!

I'm thankful that he is a great example

for them to follow as the

grow into men.

I'm thankful that he loves to actively

participate in taking care of them,

especially since so many

dads out there leave little things

like feeding all up to the mom.

I'm thankful that he helps me around
the house and in the kitchen, even
if he has no idea what he's doing! :)






And I'm thankful that he is willing to sacrifice so
much to make sure we will always be
safe and free.

In so many ways, he is our hero.

Thank you, Eric.
Love you!

Macro Fun!

As I mentioned in my earlier post, the new camera has a really cool macro setting. I have always liked macro photography, so I am having tons of fun with this setting! Here are some of the pictures I've taken with it: My hair!

The carpet


Jeans (love this one!)

my army-wife t-shirt

Toilet paper!!!! Yep!

And this is the bathroom rug. Don't ask my what made me think to take a picture of it. I just did. I have no idea why those lines around the top and side are there, by the way.

Point-and-Shoot

I have been pestering Eric forever now to get me a little point-and-shoot camera that I can keep in my purse. We have the big SLR camera that is really fantastic and I LOVE it, but I just wanted to have something simpler, more portable, and that wouldn't matter quite so much when I inevitably drop it.

Speaking of dropping cameras, that is exactly what I did at my good friend's baby shower. Well, not exactly. I was taking some pictures with the SLR, and I set it down on the bench beside me. I then proceeded to bump it with my butt (accidentally), and it fell off the bench, and landed on the concrete. It looked fine, turned on and off, etc, etc. But when I went to take another picture, the zoom was stuck. I tried to turn it (perhaps a little over-zealously?), and heard something pop. So we took the lens off and looked inside, and there is definitely something loose in there that shouldn't be.

And so we can't use that lens for the time-being. Eventually we'll get it fixed or replace it. The camera itself works fine, and we do have another lens, but it's a pretty powerful zoom, so you have to be far away from your subject to get a good shot, which is pretty inconvenient for those every-day snap-shots I love to take.

Anyway, I tell that story because it explains why I was fretting yesterday over not having a camera to use at Eric's Pathfinder graduation ceremony tomorrow. And why the idea to get a little point-and-shoot resurfaced in my mind. So I told Eric we should just go get one, because I really wanted to have some pictures of the graduation, and our move into our first house is also coming up, and I really want to have pictures of that, too.

Being unable to resist my charms, Eric loaded the family into the van, and we all went down to the PX to look at cameras. I spent about an hour glaring at the sales people while they did other things, and about 15 minutes actually talking to them about which camera would be good for us. Finally we picked out a Samsung SL 420. It has a 5x optical zoom, and 10 mega pixels, in case anybody cares.

It is my new favorite toy. I can't stop playing with it. And I am pleasantly surprised by the decent quality of the pictures it takes. Check this out:


It has a macro (super-close-up) setting on it, and I decided to try it out on my ring. I CANNOT believe how clear this picture is!!

One of the reasons I went for this particular camera is that it has an internal memory, so I can take a few pictures without a memory card. I was thinking it would be maybe 10 or 12. Turns out to be 3. Which I was actually ok with, because I have 3 adorable little boys, and we were headed to the playground after we left the store!

I. LOVE. THESE:

The pictures and especially the boys.

:)

Some verses that have been helping me lately:

Proverbs 16:26 The laborer's
appetite works for him. His hunger dries him on.

I like this one because there are so many times when I am worried or upset about something, and I wish I could just have a rest from all the worrying. But I know that I can only get that through God, so the fact that I have these feelings that cause me to "hunger" for peace makes me work harder to get closer to Him.

2 Corinthians 12:9-10 But he
said to me, "My Grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in
weakness. Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses,
so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why for Christ's sake, I
delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in
difficulties, for when I am weak, then I am strong.

I like this one because I know that I have lots of weaknesses. The hardest one for me to deal with right now is fear over Eric's upcoming deployment. I am really struggling to find peace with that one. That fear leads to a lot of other issues in my life that affect many things.. I hate that fear. I want it to go away, but as long as that deployment is still a factor, it just won't. Not completely. So this verse gives me a little bit of peace about having that weakness, and not being able to completely conquer it. God can still use me. In fact, maybe even better than he could if I had a perfect, faithful attitude that in the end, "everything is gonna be ok".

This is going to be a busy month!

After a nice looooong weekend, we are jumping back into our crazy, busy life with both feet!

Eric starts Pathfinder school today, which is an exciting opportunity for him, and also means that he will be working really hard and spending most of his free time for the next three weeks studying.

Near the end of Pathfinder school comes Banner Day, which is our battallion picnic day. Being an FRG volunteer, I will be helping out with the Alpha company booth that day, which also happens to fall right after Eric goes to the field for a couple days for Pathfinder's field exercise. So that should be interesting!

After Pathfinder is over, block leave begins. We are hoping to get in some family fun and relaxation, but this is also going to be a busy time for us, because we are moving into our new house during that time! I'm excited about this, and also dreading it. I have moved so many times, and the process has become very tedious for me. I really hate packing and unpacking. I am so excited to finally be moving into a home that is ours, though! A big house with a fenced in yard, a nice big kitchen, a garage, an upstairs, a den! Man, I can hardly wait! And it will be ours! Nine years and three children later, Eric and Stephanie will finally be homeowners! What a blessing!

I will probably spend a lot of time organizing and getting ready for the move these next few weeks. I may even get some packing done, so we don't have to do it all while Eric's on leave.

Busy, busy, busy!