Dancing with the Stars

Jennah has a new favorite show. Suprise, suprise it's Dancing with the Stars. She is so cute she stands about two feet from the t.v. and imitates every move they make. It is so funny she had me crying I was laughing so hard. Not only does she dance her heart out, but she has a costume change between each dance.

Memories

This is me about 23 years ago and my little brother William. He is still my "little" brother but now he towers over me. Is this the picture you are talking about Mom? It says on the back we are making a cake for William's 1st birthday. Aren't we cute?

Homemade Apple Pie!

We did it! We made the apple pie and it was delicious. Jacksen and Jennah had a great time making it. I put Joel down for a nap and got to spend some time with just Jacksen and Jennah. They were big helpers. I was very nervous about making the crust but found an easy "no mistake" crust recipe and it was wonderful. Lita thanks for the pie recipe it was so easy! That was the first time I have ever made anything all the way from picking the fruit to making the crust. It was very rewarding. I will definitely do it again.

 

My Little Pickers

No, I don't mean nose pickers although I am sure they do their fair share of that too. I am refering to apple picking. An older lady from our church invited us out the other day to pick apples at her home. Jennah was so excited because she just learned about that in school. The kids had a great time. Joel was in heaven. His new favorite word is ball there were "green balls" all over the ground he would throw. So now I need a great apple pie recipe. I hear these apples are the best in pies. I think the kids would really think that was neat to help make a pie from the apples they picked.

5 Years Ago Today

Five years ago today started many new challenges in the Hendricks family. Jonathan was working at American Airlines as an aircraft cleaner. Not the job of his dreams but a good job with awesome benefits. We had built our home in Bristow about a year and a half before that and were pretty settled. Jonathan was on the tarmac right by the runway at Tulsa International polishing the top of the wing on a 737. He looked up and saw plane after plane landing on the runway. Usually, a plane would land every 20 - 25 seconds, in this instance a plane was landing every 3 seconds. He went back to his shop to see what was going on.

I was at home getting Jacksen ready for the day. He was a little over a year and a half old and I was five months pregnant with Jennah. The first few days after the attacks American Airlines started talking about layoffs. Everyday for the next month and a half we expected Jonathan to get laid off. Finally the end of November he got his notice. We didn't know what to do. That same week we hit a deer with our car and it tore it up so much the car wouldn't run. What a week! The good news was we had deer in everything for the next couple of weeks, deer tacos, deer spaghetti, deer chili, you get the idea.

We decided to take a huge risk and sell our house and move to Edmond for Jonathan to finish his degree. I was really scared because the plan was for me to work as a server at a restaurant in the evenings and Jonathan would watch the kids. Remember at this time I am nine months prego with Jennah! I was scared to death of everything. So we moved from a 1600 sq. ft. house on 5 acres to a 700 sq. Ft. college apartments with college kids all around us. (To top it all off I went into labor with Jennah the night we moved in to the apartment).

The first thing we did was find a church. Our saving grace was the Edmond Church of Christ. The young families class there took us under their wings and treated us like we had been there for years. After Jonathan finished his schooling we moved on to do youth ministry in Muskogee. That didn't work out but we still live in Ft. Gibson and love our church home here. Looking back on all that we went through we know it was Gods plan for us. We learned so much about each other and about God and how he works through us. We also learned so much from the Edmond C of C. Many things we have been able to start here at Ft. Gibson we patterned from the Young Families Class at Edmond. Even though we didn't know anyone who died in the terrible attacks on our Nation and I didn't have to let my husband go overseas to fight in the war, we were affected by it and it did forever change our lives.

We survived the camp-in! The kids had a great time. They had many activities that challenged them to use their imaginations. The kids took an imaginary bus ride, went through some caves, rode canoes (luckily they rowed faster than the alligators chasing them), rode four wheelers through the dessert, went fishing and had non-scary campfire stories told to them under the stars around the fire. Yes, all this happened inside the church building. The whole time they were quizzed with Bible questions. It is amazing how much these kids are learning. As you can imagine much work went into this camp-in. We appreciate all the work Janet and Leon did to make it such a success. After all these activities the kids were taken to their tents to start getting ready for bed. The girls had a make-up party they dolled up some of the older women of our church. The neatest thing of all was two of these lovely older ladies actually stayed the night! They are 82, 73, 70 years old! Can you believe that? I thought I was crazy. I really don't know who had more fun the kids or us adults helping. This is Jennah putting make-up on our Fearless Leader Miss Janet.

Are We Crazy!

Tonight Jonathan and I are helping host an overnight camp-out or camp-in I guess you can say. It is to reward the kindergarten-3rd graders at our church for saying the 12 Apostles. There are 29 little ones coming! It will be in the church building, but we have tents set up and lots of other fun things. I am kinda nervous. Surely they will sleep! Won't they? Jonathan will take Joel home about midnight and return early in the morning to make pancakes for all the kids. Jennah is so excited because she gets to come because I am staying; she also had to say the 12 Apostles. Jacksen was ready to pack for the camp-out the day he got the invitation in the mail (that was two weeks ago)!

Family Fun

When looking at these pictures of all we did this weekend, I realized the significance of them all.

First, we celebrated my Grandparents 50th wedding aniversary on Saturday. Going to this party really made me think about how I wouldn't be here if they had never met and married 50 years ago. I feel so blessed to have grown up in such a loving and caring family. I have always felt I have a special bond with my Grandma and I look up to her as a Christian wife, mother, and grandmother. Grandma has taken care of Grandpa for the past 45 years and now he is getting to return the favor for her. The vows you take when getting married really does carry on throughout life. We have much to learn from them.

Also this weekend Jonathan's family came to camp at a local lake. It was beautiful weather for camping. It was great because where they stayed was about fifteen minutes from our house. We spend quality time out there then went home for a good nights sleep. I really enjoyed the kids getting to play with their cousins Cooper and Wyatt. Cooper actually got to stay the night with us for the first time. They had a great time! I am sure this was just the first of many sleep-overs the kids will have with there cousins. Jonathan and Jacksen went with Brian, Cooper, and John to ride Brian's new four wheeler on some trails while Janet, Amy and I stayed at camp with the younger kids and Dayton. I had a great time visiting with them. We really missed you Jenny!

Here is Joel and Wyatt they are what I call "Binky Buds". Not a lot of conversation happens between the two of them.

This is the only picture Cooper and Jacksen would let me get of them. They were playing a game of catch me if you can. I caught them but I think they won!














The favorite game of the weekend turned out to be playing in the dirt/sand. For some odd reason it is really fun throwing dirt on one another! Our bathtub was put to the test this weekend.

We had a great weekend that really made us appriciate what wonderful families we both have. We love you all!