Rebekah's Encore Party


Rebekah was begging Eathyn to get in the picture and hold his arms out to the side to express, "these are all my ladies" He was too embarrassed and after 2-3 minutes of trying she asked Ryan to come try to claim all the woman around her.  He tried but this is as far as he got.  It was so cute!!! These two little boys are going to be in a world of hurt when their four older siblings leave the house.  They are included and loved so much by them.  I'm truly afraid their life will be very dull without them around.

I'm going to cut and paste two letters that I wrote tonight that show a glimpse of what my life has been like this week so I don't have to retype it all.


 Dear Brothers and Sisters,
I just wanted to take a few minutes to thank you all for your assistance at the Ronald McDonald house today.  We were all able to accomplish much more than they expected. They were shocked to say the least!  We originally were going to clean the toy room and do some light yard work.  In the hours I scheduled and the brothers and sisters that I put into the slots, we were able to not only clean the toy room, but we were also able to sanitize most of the house, sanitize and thoroughly clean two laundry rooms top to bottom, one of the laundry rooms was quite large, clean a dirty spare room, put soil in some house plants, prepare and serve three meals and clean them all up. We labeled, dated  and froze a ton of food that we brought in that was evident they would not eat fast enough before it went bad. In fact, we nearly filled up one whole large freezer by ourselves, and before leaving the building we left the kitchen cleaner than we found it, We also were able to take a very sad looking garden and transform it into something very beautiful!. It was definitely not light yard work, but that didn't stop everyone from working hard to get the job done.  They were so thankful for our services!  The three managers that came and went on and then off their shifts today thanked me no less than 20 times.  They said, "Your group has been so nice to have around today, every one works so hard and every one seems so nice.  I wish I could keep this group of people around all the time.  You are all so pleasant to work with and everyone works so hard!." I must confess, we got 10 times more accomplished than I  even had planned..  The work was getting done so fast, I just kept asking for more projects, and you all just kept completing them as fast as I got them. Again, it made me so grateful to be a member of this church.  Once the residents in the house started to come to the kitchen they were all thrilled with the idea of having a hot, yummy, fresh meal.  They all thanked us personally.  All the effort that everyone put into today's project will not be forgotten by many of the people in the building.  It really was fun to sit and listen to the managers shocked responses to our service.  I just sat and smiled because I am very use to this type of greatness, but sadly they are not. Thank you all for making a very big project very easy to accomplish with your willingness to help and work so hard. You're awesome!! 

 Sister Pritchard 


Dear Mom and Dad
Just thought I'd forward this letter to you, to update you on my week.  My project is finally over! yea!!  I also wanted to thank you for coming all the way to the lone star state to see us. :)  You thoroughly have Eathyn convinced that you are two of the greatest people on the planet.  Thank you so much for coming to watch my boys play football.  Last night was Brandon's last home varsity game.  It was very sad.  Both their starting quarter back and second string quarter backs will not be playing the rest of the season due to injuries, so that left them with their 3rd string all night.  Brandon didn't play as well as he always does.  It's a sad night that Brandon will never forget I'm sure.  After spending 10 hours at the Ronald McDonald House today I came home to a house full of girls.  Rebekah planned a party a month ago with all the girls from her show choir.  It's very fun to watch her.  She was begging her baby brothers to come get in the pictures with her and her friends and even play the games with them.  Of course Brandon and Austin are in the middle of all these girls and thoroughly enjoying themselves to say the least and Rachel is included as one of the girls.  It's great to have a big family who all love each other so much!!! They were all playing murder in the dark and hide and seek tonight and Brett and I are sitting in our room just laughing at the enthusiasm in the house.  He said, "I can honestly say, I never played hide and seek at a party in high school."  And I said, "We have great kids!"  Rebekah was planning to go to a party the other night but found out one of her good friends was bringing alcohol and she said, "Heck no! I'm not going then"  I found that out a week after the fact.  I knew she'd changed her mind that night but I didn't know that was the reason until she brought it up days later.  I'm so grateful they can all see the light so clearly.  They have the two of you to thank.  I will always give you the credit for the good choices your grand kids make.  Way to go grandma and grandpa!!

 Love you guys!









Popular posts from this blog

Growing up too soon!

Image
June 24, 2023 We have all called these two “The Little Boys” since the day Ryan was born and I have always called Eathyn Little Boy Blue and Ryan Tiny boy blue. I was sitting at the air port this week seeing the Little Boys (Eathyn’s almost 15 and Ryan’s going on 13) off to Georgia to stay with Hannah and Austin for a week. Austin’s out there selling pest control for the summer. He also just closed on his dream ranch that’s 303 acres in Arkansas. I am so impressed and so proud of his grit! He’s only 25 years old!  As I was sitting there with the little boys, a Flight attendant came to pick them up and walk them onto the airplane. As they stood up, I looked at them next to each other and realized I felt like I had never seen them in the light I was seeing them in at that moment. They were so big and so incredibly cute and so incredibly handsome all at the same time. I wanted to capture that moment and remember it forever, but the flight attendant whisk them away! I called out to Ryan ho
Read more

Back To School: a third of students will be bullied. Here is what we can do about it.

Image
Previously, I posted on school security measures as response to the national school safety debate. However, I believe that schools must be protected from threats both inside and outside their walls. Within the mental health segment of the issue lies one key cause of suffering in schools: bullying. In 2016, National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) found that 33 percent of students who reported being bullied at school indicated that they were bullied at least once or twice a month during the school year. This figure shows that bullying is a chronic issue. In 1999, two ex-bully victims killed thirteen people in the Columbine Massacre. Georgia was the first state to enact anti-bullying laws only months later. For the next 10 years, we saw the culture shift. Movies and documentaries premiered detailing kids’ experiences with bullying, the media reported on extreme cases, and schools and governments began to make change. The federal government began collecting data on school bull
Read more

Eathyn Has the Croup

At one a.m. Eathyn started crouping in his crib.  It was bad!  Every single time he breathed out he would croup really bad.  I took him into the bathroom and started the hot water.  The steam subsided the severity of his cough but he was still sounding bad.  I put him in bed with Brett and I when he started to panic in his crib because of the cough.  While I was in there I gave him some ice water and that immediately started to break up the cough.  Interesting.... is croup that simple, all it needs is some nice cold ice water???? I was glad to come across a remedy that was so simple.  While I was laying there I started thinking about the events of the evening before and told Brett about something really funny that had happened.  Every morning when Mariela's nurse Marilyn walks through the door Eathyn use to ask for candy.  After a couple days of this I thought, "is he too young to learn to say good morning instead of, 'can I have some candy?' " I taught him how to
Read more