Wednesday, June 9, in EL PASO

Wednesday was my first FULL day in El Paso. The sun was up, bright and shining at a little after 5:00 in the morning. There is NO way to adequately shade a window from this kind of sun ... so I was awake rather early Wednesday morning.

Diana had a full day of school Wednesday. She was leaving early and not expected home until about 4:00 in the afternoon. Jesse had to be at PT by about 5:30 a.m. (I'm not sure I have the exact time correct), but then he was home from 7-8:00 to eat breakfast before reporting back to "work."

So it was basically me and the kiddos ... all day! Everyone was awake quite early Wednesday morning. My body was struggling a bit with the two hour time difference and so I felt a little dragged out. But I prayed for strength and ... since God cares about that sort of thing ... He just came right along beside me all day long, placed His hand in mine (such a miracle!), and helped me to enter into the lives of these precious little children.

This is my Emma Joy. We are definite kindred spirits. We have a similar sense of humor, can almost read each others' minds, and thoroughly enjoy each others' company ... completely! Emma was my shadow during my entire stay in El Paso.
Since we had the whole day ahead of us, I decided we would start with ART. Well, we ate breakfast first! All three kids really love to make stuff ... but all children are that way! These little ones were SO enthusiastic. We had such happy times sitting around the table together.

While we did our art stuff, I got out my MP3 player that Adam and Emily got me for Mother's Day and I played beautiful children's music. All children love music, and these three are no exception. Almost all of the 123 songs I recorded, were songs about Jesus. One of them talked about bowing at the feet of Jesus and suddenly Emma Joy spontaneously got out of her chair, knelt down on the floor and worshiped! I asked her what she was doing, because I wasn't really sure! She said: "Grandma. The song said that we were supposed to bow down and worship Jesus, so my heart told me that I needed to do that ... right now!" That's one of the things I love about children ~ they are NOT afraid to be themselves, even if it might appear foolish to someone else. No pretense. So honest. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could all be like little children?
Diana had purchased "Things That Fly" for the children and I to play with. It was a box full of paper airplanes and rocket balloons and even a book on how to make special airplanes, etc. The rocket balloons were a REAL blast ... but quite difficult to blow up! Christopher is one tough little cookie of a kid. He huffed and puffed, then would get dizzy ... then he'd blow some more ... then get lightheaded ... until he had the whole thing blown up ...
But here is Christopher kind of winded! He said he felt dizzy. So his alternate mother (Emma) got right into gear and ordered Christopher to the floor! She ran and got a cold wet rag and placed it on his head (like a little nurse) and demanded that he lay there until he felt better! Emma can be quite the little boss! After Christopher recovered, we went outside and launched our rocket balloons:

TEN-NINE-EIGHT-SEVEN-SIX-FIVE-FOUR-THREE-TWO-ONE-ZERO-IGNITION-BLAST OFF!!!

They flew SO high and made a screeching sound through the sky. We did lots of flights, folded a ton of airplanes, and had a great time with that "Things That Fly" kit.
In the Texas heat, we did not do a lot of outdoor activities. Thankfully, we had a lot of art supplies and happy children creating beautiful pictures ... for hours at a time!
I have a train stencil set that I got at "Cracker Barrel" years ago. The kids love to trace a really LONG train and then tape their papers together and color it all in.
This was Christopher's favorite airplane from the kit. He liked the colors and the way that it flew.
See his picture of it? I thought he did an excellent job drawing it!
Emma always is very verbal about missing Grandpa Jones when I come to Texas without him. So she set about to make him a picture ...
The "G" stands for Grandpa and the "J" stands for Jones. She wanted him to know he was loved and missed!

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I couldn't take pictures of every little thing ... I didn't want to bother the children all the time with my camera. So there was a bunch of activities that I didn't photograph. But I do need to chronicle some of this stuff so that I don't forget the fun we had! The first morning we were together, I showed the children a little "magic" trick that my grandfather had taught me when I was young. It's a folding trick with a dollar bill. There is a way to fold the dollar up real small, into a square, say the "magic" words: "Abracadabra ... make George Washington stand on his head!" and then you open the dollar bill and amazingly, it's upside down. It's all in the way you fold it and then UNfold it. But the kids were SO delighted in this little trick. They made me do it about a million times. I assured them there was NO magic involved. I told them ALL "magic" was only a sleight of hand and that I could teach them how to turn George Washington upside down so that they could show their friends and be ... AMAZING! We had so much fun with this little trick. I think Emma is the only one who actually learned HOW to do it herself, and she was so pleased. I liked to hear her say, "Abra-a-zabra" ... she just could NOT get that crazy "abracadabra" word!

Another thing ... do you remember how the children used to play at the RED PLAYGROUND? Well, they asked me if I had brought any sand toys with me this time. Regrettably, the new sand toys I had purchased would NOT fit in any of the things I packed, so I had to leave them at home. I will bring them in our van when Grandpa Jones and I drive down together in September. But after I told them I had no sand toys, the children told me such a sad story!

The housing neighborhood where Jes and Di live has been scheduled for demolition since ... before the day they moved in three years ago! The Army is finally getting around to tearing down houses, so last week (approximately) the Red Playground was all roped off and no children were allowed to play there anymore. Christopher told me that when the school bus drove by the playground, all of the kids on the bus started crying ... "And I cried too, Grandma ~ big tears came down my face!" It was difficult for me NOT to cry while I pictured this bus load of little Army children with tears rolling down their faces.

But NOW a happy thing! Emma and Christopher have been on medication for their ADHD now for about three months. Such a difference! Emma's reading has improved so much! Both children are only on minimal doses and take their medication first thing in the morning. I'm so thankful that it is doing what it should do in their bodies! I brought some difficult reading books with me and Emma picked them up and plodded her way through them ... with JOY! I can't tell you how many of my good friends here in Michigan have been praying about Emma learning to read. ANOTHER answer to prayer. I am SO thankful.