Worship Service on Sunday

Well, Sunday started out like any other, I get up and then make the rounds throughout the house waking up every other family member and coaxing them all out of the bed one at a time. Once we all get rolling and in the car, we are usually about 10 minutes late already. Matthew and I have a system about getting in the door to church. I check the kids in and fight with Mattie to get him in the door to his class (EVERY SUNDAY), and Matthew does the most important job of all...GETS THE COFFEE!! We teach the Fourth Graders on Sundays so the coffee is our saving grace. Thank you to the dedicated Sozo Cafe staff by the way. Anyway, off to teach our awesome Fourth Graders, we are finishing up the year with them so we are gonna be sad to say goodbye! We had a VERY sparse crowd on Sunday due to Memorial Day, but we learned about the virtue of patience and heard the final chapter of Joshua and Jericho. After our replacements arrived Matthew and I went downstairs to attend the worship service. This was particularly awesome because I have either been out of town, or working the UpTown ministry for both services so I haven't been to "big" church in about a month. I was so excited, I hardly knew what to do!

Well, we started singing and boy have I missed singing like that! I was perfectly fine and doing well, and then it started... a song that I can't listen to without crying. Chris Tomlin's Amazing Grace My Chains are Gone. Now, some of you may not know why this song gets me so teary. I am getting a bit teary now just thinking of it. Just a few months ago I suffered the greatest loss of my life so far. On November 2, 2007 my best friend passed away after a 4 1/2 year battle with breast cancer. This song was played at her funeral and truly the words express the freedom in death that we, as followers of Jesus Christ, have. I know that Gena is free from the pain that cancer gave her every day. She is free from the sufferings that she dealt with in the final 2 months that she was on hospice care. The chains that this world bound her with are gone, and she is FREE. She is in heaven now, with our Father, and she was ransomed by the blood of Jesus Christ. Gena is finally in her heavenly body, the one she was intended to have, dancing with the One who created us all.

So my tears on Sunday came, and they came hard, and they still come. They come because I miss her terribly and I wish she was here with me, with her kids, with her family. They also come because I know that she is so happy and free, and not looking back to the world that we remain in. I am happy to have the peace that there is eternal life after our earthly death, and I am not mourning over the finality of it. I know that I WILL see her again, and yes, I miss her, I am sad for me, not for her.

I love that song, I love the words, I love that it reminds me of my best friend, I even love that it makes me cry. It is still very cleansing to cry for Gena, and that song gives me an excuse and I don't have to explain it. (except of course in this blog) I hope that they sing it again at church, just next time I hope that I have kleenex.

I love you Gena-Beana!

"Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone)"

Amazing grace

How sweet the sound

That saved a wretch like me

I once was lost, but now I'm found

Was blind, but now I see'

Twas grace that taught my heart to fear

And grace my fears relieved

How precious did that grace appear

The hour I first believed

My chains are gone

I've been set free

My God, my Savior has ransomed me

And like a flood His mercy rains

Unending love, Amazing grace

The Lord has promised good to me

His word my hope secures

He will my shield and portion be

As long as life endures

The earth shall soon dissolve like snow

The sun forbid to shine

But God,

Who called me here below

Will be forever mine

Will be forever mine

You are forever mine

Me, Gena, and Renee'

LAST DAY OF SCHOOL AWARDS!!

Elyza and Mrs. Dekle
Chloe and Mrs. Davis

Sooooooo...I know that I have been not so good about updates lately, so I promise I will catch up! Since I last updated, Matthew and I went to Las Vegas for a weekend, the kids had Field Day at school and we are officially on Summer Break! Yeah!!! I just wanted to take this time to brag on my kids for a little bit, I figure that this is the platform for it...and if you don't like it, write your own blog!!! :)



As I said earlier the girls had their field day and awards assembly at school last week. It was their last day of school, and the kids get awards for things such as honor roll, perfect attendance, not getting their cards pulled...stuff like that. Our school also awards a child each year with the Spirit Award. The Spirit Award goes to a child in each class grades 1-5 who exudes qualities of a good Christian spirit. kind, gentle, caring towards their classmates and a Godly character. They also award the highest GPA in each class with the Academic achievement award. They average grades down to 0.25%. (there were several ties so this percentage really matters) Anyway, I was so proud to see that Elyza got the Academic Achievement award for the 4th grade. (she tied this year, as well as last year with Zachary Carnefix) I was even more proud to see that Chloe was awarded with the Academic Achievement award for the 1st grade! (she tied with Jonathan James) How incredible!! Both of my girls received the highest grades in their class for the year! One is a surprise, but two!!!!, you could have knocked me over with a feather! We were beaming with pride and are still not quite off of cloud nine yet! I am attaching a picture of each of the girls with their teacher and their trophy! They each have them proudly displayed on their dresser!

I am looking forward to Summer with the kids, NO SCHOOL, and possibly vacation, but I promise you that come August, I will be ready for school to start again! So, for now, goodbye, and I will try to be more regular!

Camping at Cleburne State Park

Elyza and Maya warming by the fire
Lexi, Elyza, Mattie and Chloe on our hike!
Matthew and I hiking
Everyone warming their buns by the fire
Elyza conquered the hill!!



So, I am really late posting about our camping trip LAST weekend. But, better late than never, right? Anyway, we went camping with family last weekend to Cleburne State Park. It was SOOO convenient to get to (only 1 1/2 hours) and beautiful! (and close to a hospital) We got there late friday afternoon and got set up in our shelter. It was a great weekend to go camping and the weather was great, until night time!!

I don't think that any of us were quite prepared for how cold it was gonna get at night. It got down to about 45 degrees outside, which doesn't sound bad until you sleep outside. We all had space heaters, but they didn't do much to keep the cold down. I have never shivered so hard and prayed for morning before.


Saturday morning we got up, ate breakfast and enjoyed the outside. We went for a hike and found a pretty cool little waterfall. It was alot of fun! I love to hike!! In the picture above, you will see that Elyza enjoyed her hike up a pretty steep little hill, while I took her picture from below!
Everyone decided to go fishing while Matthew and I stayed back at camp to prepare our meal on Saturday evening. Chloe and Mattie tagged along with everyone. I was surprised to see them come back about 5 minutes later. Well, leave it to the Thornton family to make the day more exciting. Apparently after a little scuffle, Mattie took a back flip out of the door of my brother's Yukon. He hit the back of his head on the gravel pavement. It looked pretty nasty and was bleeding pretty good, so we took him to the ER to check him out.......4 hours later we finally saw a Dr.. Everything checked out okay and he didn't need stitches so we headed back to the campsite. We got back at about 11pm, and tumbled into bed. Thankfully Josh and DeLisa took in Elyza to their tent, and Grammy and Grandaddy took Chloe with them, Matthew, Mattie and I made our bed in the back of our car for the night and were MUCH more warm than the previous night.
All in all, it was a great weekend and we were all safe, we crashed into our warm beds on Sunday after a nice warm shower! Guys, are ya'll ready to camp again?!!!

He is Risen, He is Risen Indeed!

Getting ready to hunt eggs!
Sam and Kaylee
Elyza and Sam
Elyza, Chloe, and Mattie
Chloe, Sam, Elyza, Kaylee, Mattie, Maya and Isaac

Happy Easter to everyone! We had a wonderful day celebrating with our family! Josh and DeLisa came up from Round Rock and we got a chance to visit with them! It is always great to see them! Isaac, Maya and Sam were all there, and Sam is getting so BIG! Matthew's parents and Brother got to come as well! We got to enjoy a wonderful fried chicken lunch, with side dishes such as Mamo's bean salad, Katie/DeLisa's broccoli salad, Mom's Broccoli and Rice casserole and rolls! It was delicious! After enjoying lunch of course, we had an egg hunt! Elyza decided that she is now too old to hunt eggs, and so this year, she got to help hide them! Chloe also decided that she did not want to hunt eggs, but I told her that she still needed to hunt, mostly because we had SOOOO many eggs. In fact, Maya, Mattie and Isaac were done hunting and had full baskets, and half of the yard still hadn't been touched! We got some cute pictures of all of the kids hunting, this was the first easter to celebrate with Samuel and Kaylee, they were very cute! Samuel is VERY mobile now, and was crawling faster than you could chase him. What a sweetie he is.



After hunting eggs we played a game called "Puerto Rico". It was a game of strategy and poor Josh had to teach a table full of newbies who teased him over every forgotten rule. It was fun, but of course Josh won...I think he set us up! (wink, wink) All in all it was a great day and as always I love to spend it with my family!

Fort Worth Zoo...it was a ZOO!

The kids eating bananas in front of the monkeys! Matthew doing his monkey impression!
Our little Termites!

Well, on the last day of spring break, we took the kiddos as promised, to the Fort Worth Zoo! I think the entire DFW area had the same idea! Friday was Good Friday, and therefore, everyone was off of work and joined us at the zoo! What a ZOO! It took us about 2 hours to get there and inside of the gate. I heard later that there was over 17,000 people there that day, and I believe it! We did make up our minds that we were gonna go and have fun!

We started off in the primate area and watched the gorillas, and monkeys, and chimpanzees and everything! That was our favorite, we have a tradition now that every time we go and see the monkeys, we have to eat a banana in front of them. You will see in the first picture the kids eating their bananas in front of the Silver Back.
Elyza just LOVES elephants so we made sure to stop and visit them for a bit. Chloe's favorite animal was the "King Lion and his wife". Mattie's favorite were the monkeys. We got to see each one of their favorites for a bit.
After waiting in line for 1 hour to order our lunch, we ate a quick bite and headed off for more. The river otter was a VERY entertaining little critter, he was fun to watch swimming all over the place. Mattie was a bit freaked out by the bat exhibit, but it was fun!
We did make it around to almost every exhibit, and my was the weather B-E-A-UTIFUL! I would love to make it around to the zoo again before summer comes, hopefully with a much smaller crowd. We took a few family pics just before we made the mile long hike back to the car.

The Dallas Museum of Art

This is Spring Break Week, and since we didn't get to go anywhere, we decided to do an "in-town vacation". On Monday we went to a movie, and on Tuesday we went to the Dallas Museum of Art and the Sixth Floor Museum. The kids were NOT looking forward to a day at the museum, but they did end up having a great time! If you recall Tuesday was the day of the torrential flooding rain that covered the entire DFW area! It was spring break and we were not sitting home, dang-it! We braved the storm and hit the museum, that had underground parking. Matthew and I challenged the girls to find their favorite piece of art in the whole museum, so they got into it! Chloe selected this sculpture in the above picture that was made out of Styrofoam! Elyza selected Waterlilies by Claude Monet! When we went to the gift shop afterward, Matthew let them each pick out a poster print of their favorite piece. There was a hitch, they had to come home and write a paragraph about the artist. Chloe groaned a bit, but they both did it! They had fun researching their artist on the internet!

We also went to the Sixth Floor Museum. It was a very interesting experience. Elyza and Chloe learned alot! Mattie was NOT cooperative by that point and just needed a nap. We got back into the car and headed home in the rain! Part of our neighborhood had been flooded and we had to detour AROUND our neighborhood to get home! All in all we did not let the rain get to us and enjoyed our spring break museum date. We will hit the Fort Worth Zoo on Friday to end our week! It has been fun so far!

SNOW DAY!!!!....Almost

Wow! How beautiful this morning. All of the Thornton kiddos went to bed with dreams of waking up to a beautiful white blanket of snow this morning. More importantly, they dreamt of a snow day...yeah! God answered their little prayers and we woke up to a wonderful sight of fresh white snow all over the ground. We were all VERY disappointed to find that GISD was IN FACT having school today. (I was a little excited) After everyone got ready for school I let them get bundled up and go play for a few minutes in the snow. Note: in the picture, Chloe got Mattie ready, not me! Elyza, Chloe and Mattie got out in the front yard and threw a few snowballs and writing in the snow that had settled on the cars. What fun! Well, as you can see below, a mere 3 hours after the above pictures were taken, the kids went to school for good reason. There is hardly a trace of snow anywhere! TEXAS! I am glad that I was a good mom and let them play in the snow before school! (Pat, pat on my back :) ) Anyway, it was fun while it lasted! Just wanted you all to see our "Snow Miracle" ,according to Chloe! Enjoy the pictures!