Today I was asked to play in the HHS Alumni Band Concert on May 20th. Of course I immediately said yes, because I will just go ahead and admit it...I was and am a band geek. Well not to the extent of some...it did not take over my life and i did not ever want to do it for a living but i did love it. It provided some of my college money and in the last few years i have actually just played my flute for the fun of playing. Those of you that have not kept playing, you have missed out, because now I play for the pure enjoyment of playing. who cares if i mess up, who cares if i don't know how to do something. there is no one there to laugh at me or tell me i stink or to move me down a chair if i freeze up on a tryout. I saw all this to encourage those of you who don't play anymore to find your horn or drum or whatever and play with it in a constructive manner (no using clarinets as bats or french horns as planters). Also, I would like to encourage the 3 or 4 that read this to either contact me and tell me you want to play with us on may 20th or show up that night and enjoy the rest of us playing for fun and for the Robert P. Chase bandhall.

Happy 3rd Bithday to the baby girl in the family. Here Emma Lee is eyeing her strawberry shortcake cake and the strawberry cake that "BB" made for her and Uncle Woody!!! We don't think she can decide which one to dig into but I can vouch for the strawberry one...it was awesome. too bad uncle woody does not have a birthday more often.

Emma Lee and Momma are having a good time at Bennett's wedding!

Ok my brother has "pointed the teacher finger" at me to update so I am stopping everything and trying to fulfill his wish. Just a quick update on the family situation...jesse is home and working at grocer's pride (local grocery store) and piggly wiggly cutting meat once again. Sandy has one basketball game left and I have managed to tape 2 of them and Emma Lee's birthday party for Bennett and Jana...now if i can find the time to record it onto a DVD we will be in business. Sandy will be signing up for softball this weekend and Jesse will be signing us up as coaches. Man I love softball/baseball season. Emma Lee is sweet looking but bad as usual. I am leaving Friday for Anchor Convention in Grenada. Next weekend we finish upwards basketball (thankgoodness cause even though i learned some basketball is a confusing game). For the most part lets just say you better know our cell phone #s to keep up with us for the rest of February and March.

As I sit here thinking over the last couple of months it all seems so blurred. But one thought keeps coming back into my head. I LOVE MY JOB! There is always someone telling me how they could not do my job for a million dollars. On a daily basis I have the awesome job of hanging out with teenagers. Granted there are days when I have listened to HHS's version of "Days of our Lives" so much that i must come straight home and go to bed. I mean really, how many times can someone talk about someone and get them all stirred up before someone explodes? My poor family must listen to me come home and vent about all the craziness and I can get so upset and so hurt, but in the end I don't want to be anywhere else. Teenagers don't necessarily have more to deal with than i did only 15 years ago but today with the attitude of "if it makes you happy go ahead" they definitely have a hard time finding the good Christain friends that I had. So many of their decisions have to be made in a gray area that they are not sure what is right and what is wrong. This weighs heavily on me daily. Then last month Bro. David came to me wanting me to fill in one wednesday night at Main Event. I had like a month to plan and what do I do...wait till Wednesday to really get anything together. For a week I had asked different youth group members what I should talk about and I got the standard answers...sex, drugs, alcohol. Good Grief--- i mean I could have talked about that but really don't they already know that those are the big 3 no no's. So we played the HAHA game (will give instructions on that one later). It was just a silly game that some thought was lame and others were relieved to get to get out of their chairs and have fun. So we compared that to our Christain walk. Most of us know what is right and what is wrong and some times it is lame and hard to do the right thing and sometimes it is fun and easy. Sometimes it is just a matter of character and having a relationship close enough to God to hear Him tell you who, what, when, and where...rarely a why. Of course it went from there to much discussion because the teacher in me hates for students to sit there and stare at me. All any of them really want is for someone to love them enough to take care of them so that one day they can do the same. I think many parents have missed this idea and now they have children that will not make good citizens and don't have a real relationship with God. So many kids today actually have curfews for during the week. What the crap? I was not allowed to go anywhere during the week so there was no need for curfews. I hope and pray on a daily basis that I can do half the job that I think my parents did, but I can say this. I have found a use for my selfishness---my kids sure won't do anything I was not allowed to do...hehehe.

Thought I would update everyone (all 3 people who actually take the time to read this...hehe). Jesse is finally home! I can't say for good cause who knows what our next adventure will hold for us, but he is home and off of active duty. He has his cast off, and his thumb looks pretty good, but he still has to have it looked at by some doctors. He has to report back to work Monday; however, is not sure if he is suppose to show up at Grocer's Pride or Piggly Wiggly. It is a weird situation but a good one. Sandy has started playing basketball with the Upwards Program in Houston. This is just for fun and the serious stuff comes in the spring with softball. Of course Sandy's Aunt Gaye might say different cause she is getting Sandy into some serious Cow Competitions too. Sandy's basketball team is the Lady Cardinals, and she is actually pretty good. She only falls on average 2 times per game, and her running is getting better. Emma Lee like always is running behind Sandy trying to keep up. She is all geared up for a Strawberry Shortcake Birthday party next weekend. She will be 3 on January 28th. I can hardly believe it. Seems like yesterday I was bringing her home from the hospital. Time sure does fly when your having fun.

Jana spends her first Christmas with the Sandersons. Here Sandy and Emma Lee are showing Jana how to get in good with Santa by making homemade cookies for him. Looks like Jana is enjoying the icing more than anything else. This is one Christmas Eve tradition that is not only fun but usually taste good in the end too.

Sandy and Emma Lee were waiting to see Santa. They are trying to be on their best behavior.

Well I'm finally here again. I tell yall what...I just can't seem to find the time to keep this up too regularly. So much has happened since the last post. Where to begin? Let's see... Jesse fell and messed up his thumb on his right hand enough that it was in a cast. He was suppose to leave Iraq on December 13th but ended up not leaving until the 22nd. I was in Hattiesburg to pick him up and thank goodness for old friends because Jesse got in the car and wanted a shower and I badly wanted him to take one so I called long time friend Ricky Bray and his gracious wife, Dianna, allowed us to barge in and Jesse took a long and needed shower in the comfort of a friendly home. I know I have said this many times before, but people have been sooooo kind and giving through out this year. God has truly been watching over us and blessing us. Jana came and spent her first Christmas with us this year. The girls and I absolutely enjoyed making santa's cookies with her. Then Jesse had to report back to Camp Shelby for a 2 week school and demobilization. Hopefully he will be home in a week and a half. We also managed to marry Bennett off this week. It was a beautiful wedding and I had a great time; however, I am glad it is over and we can just start calling Jana "Aunt Jana." She is absolutely a wonderful person who is easy to love. Her family is equally lovely. In fact my 3 year old Emma has found a new buddy in Jana's dad, Jerry. If you ask her who her buddy is she answers, "Mr. Jerry," and then grins really big. God has definitely blessed Bennett and I both with great in-laws. I can honestly say that I don't even call mine in-laws...they are just family. So tonight before you go to bed make a list of all the people who are wonderful in your life and pray for them and thank God He placed them in your life!

Ok...it has been forever it seems like since I have paid attention to our site. This has been a hard couple of months with lots of ups and downs. In this picture Jesse looks just a little silly but there are many reasons for that. One Jesse actually got to come home on leave. We did not know it until the last minute and he was afraid it would still be taken away cause you really can't count on the army to make plans that stick; therefore, he did not want to tell anyone. As hard as it was to keep it a secret I managed. It helped that I told Bennett cause then if nothing else he could endure the torture of not telling anyone either. Anyway he came home on the Saturday before his family had a big birthday party for Sandy, Katie Booth and Pa Robert on Sunday. So I hid him until Sunday and surprised his family. It was awesome. We had planned to shock my parents at work on monday but one of the other guys let the cat out of the bag so we simi-shocked them at church. It was still great. He has gotten a return date of around Dec 14. So please keep him in your prayers as he gets through the next 5 weeks. 2nd reason for his silliness is that we were at the 1st st. louis cardinals playoff game vs. the astros. We were 6 rows from the field and in a great place. Lastly, he is just so excited to be home and enjoying the night. God is Good!!!!

I also want to thank everyone that has prayed for us (and still is), sent us words of encouragement, and any other gesture of love no matter how big or small! Everyone has been so wonderful. I have never been good at asking for help and it takes alot for me to even admit I need any help but many many of you have jumped in and been there for me whenever I have needed it. I am so independent (almost to a fault) that it has made functioning easy but many other aspects of my life hard. Through out the last 10 almost 11 years of my life God has taught me to turn my worries over to Him and to try not to be such a control freak. My first big lesson in this was the first 4 months of Sandy's life. At this point I had to realize that God had given me a wonderful and beautiful baby that had to have some pretty serious surgery. I remember feeling so out of control and wondering why did I bother trying so hard to be good, respectful, and blah blah blah when I had to endure such grief. Then I realized that one it did no good to worry over it and two God had blessed me with 5 months and I had no choice over the rest. I finally could live with whatever the outcome was and be satified and joyful to have what I have. Thankfully we just celebrated 7 years with that beautiful crazy girl. And then at this time last year I was learning to be a single mom who could not make major decisions cause hopefully one day that single part would be gone. I was not sure how I was going to make it through all of this and then again God smacked me in the face again with my control freak nature. I turned off the news (b/c if you don't know they either lie or don't tell the whole story), I threw myself into my many projects that I have all around me and pretended he was at Grocer's Pride cutting meat. However, as I look back right now as we near the end I also remember the many many nights that I lifted him up to my Lord and Savior and took comfort in the fact that God was in complete control and was very thankful that I was not. Hopefully once Jes gets home I can get him to relay the many amazing stories he has to the few people who take time out to come here. Have a blessed and joyful day and remember to stop being a control freak and worrying about the things you have no control over!!!!

This is has been another sad week for me. Katrina has truly had me glued to the news. It is funny...I quit watching the news altogether when Jesse left for Iraq, but I cannot seem to tear myself away from it now. It is so sad to see places that we called home for a few years and have visited many times destroyed. I have heard many things on the news that made my emotions go from anger, to saddness, to helplessness and then today to happiness and/or relief when the military (the greatest military in the world) showed up to pull a "John Wayne -- Here comes the Calvary" move. Things like this make me wish my family were all back together so I could know that each and everyone of of them were safe, but I know that will never be. For the rest of my life my brother will be off doing everything but sitting in Houston, MS and hopefully my daughters will grow into smart responsible young women who will do great things for the crazy world. Mostly I have just feel helpless. I am a worker and a doer adn it is sooooo hard to not jump in my car and race down there with a car full of stuff and if nothing else just hug someone and share God's grace with them. Can you imagine going through something so horrible without the knowledge that God won't leave you?