Conformed or Transformed?

Our hamster died over the weekend. He was a good little "Hammy" as we called him. My seven year old daughter got clean bedding and a box and buried him in the back yard with a cross with his name and date on it. I did my first funeral. We said a prayer and then got some flowers and laid them over the grave. It was sad to watch them say goodbye to their little friend that woke them up every morning. Tonight my son said to me. "Mom, I have regrets. I wish I would have held him more. I wish I would have talked to him more." We talked about the fact that life sometimes gets our eyes off from what's important to us. We need to make sure that every thing we do has been evaluated as to it's importance to us. Andrew is learning a big lesson at a young age. If we died tomorrow would we have regrets? Would we change today? I know I would. So, evaluation is in order. It's where God has been working on me lately.

Tonight Andrew helped me babysit for my sister and brother-in-law. They have 3 children under the age of 3, so I thought he would be a big help. Let me just say.....He was amazing! Thanks, Andrew! He has grown up and is a very responsible and helpful babysitter. When we got the kids all to bed, Andrew decided to take his scooter down the big hill on the side of the house. It's blacktop, but ends about 30 ft. before you would hit the lake. I had to crack up as I watched him fly down the hill and then use his SHOES to slow him down before he hit the grass. He came within about a foot of the lake. He melted the heels of his shoes and ground them down. I felt the shoes and they were hot. It was such a great idea, he went down about 5 more times. Tomorrow we go buy more shoes!!!

Today I told my daughter she could go to the neighbor's house for an hour to play. I said "You need to come home at 5:15, ok?" She replied "Please can I stay until 5:16?" I said "of course, that would be fine!" I laughed as she went away completely pleased with herself, in changing my mind. Amazing what one minute can do for a little girl!

I haven't been posting this week, as I have been sick, but I have a funny story from my daughter that I thought I'd share with you today. She had a loose tooth (just starting to be loose, I might add) and we were walking into school and she asked if we could pop into the office and talk to the secretary. So, we stopped in and she said "Mrs. Shaw, do you still have those tooth necklaces to put your teeth in when you loose them?" and Mrs. Shaw replied "Yes, Olivia, did you loose a tooth this morning?" and Olivia said "No, not yet, but I'm gonna pull it out today and wanted to make sure you had a necklace." We all kinda laughed, as I knew it wasn't that loose. About an hour later, Olivia had twisted that sucker right out of her mouth. She is tough and was very pleased to come home with her new necklace with a tooth in it! (let me add....her older brother waits until the tooth is hanging by a thread and ends up swallowing the tooth, because he ...