LAST DAY TO ENTER!!!!!!! DRAWING AT 8PM TONIGHT!!!

Get your IPad raffle tickets today! A $10 donation to our Rwanda fund enters you in to the drawing we will have on Tuesday night for a 32G,3G+WiFi IPad!!The more times you enter the more chances you have! Click the "donate" button on the right and enter to win!! Can't wait to see who it will be!

***quick update:  We are so thankful to those of you who have entered! Each and every dollar is getting us closer to those precious kids in Rwanda- thank you!! We spent a part of our afternoon with our Rwanda team and it was so nice getting to see all the plans coming together! I am so excited!!! It has been a great day filled with friends, unexpected generosity, unexpected DATE!! (thank you mom!!)and a dear friend's news of her 4th pregnancy!! Doesn't get much better than that!!

Well, THAT was difficult

I just got home from doing something I never thought I'd do. I cut off all of my precious niece's hair. Since starting chemo 3 weeks ago (is that right? I'm getting dates confused!) her hair was slowly starting to fall out. In the last couple of days it was getting more and more obvious that it was time to do something. Let me tell you- THAT is one strong 19 year old. I don't know how I would've handled it but she was amazing. Choosing to cut it all off before it falls out was, I'm sure, very difficult but all that we've read says it is much less traumatic that way. You are somewhat in control and it is over very quickly. We shared some laughs, and some tears but she is strong. We talked about what beauty is and how this is a hard lesson, but SO important to know your beauty is from the inside. God does not look at our skin, our body, our hair to see our heart. Haleigh is a beautiful girl on the outside but I wonder if maybe she will be able to see now how beautiful she is, and always has been, on the inside. Does she know how much she is loved from all her friends and family NOT for her stunning looks, but for her character, her love, her compassion, her heart? I pray she does. It is a hard lesson to learn in a hard way. But I pray that she can learn what true beauty is. The thing is, she is still beautiful on the outside. One thing you just never know is if your head is a normal shape under all that hair. Well, thankfully, she's got a very round symmetrical head!:) Seriously, she looked really cute with a short little pixie cut! Well anyway, I know that she has to be going through a lot of emotions right now because I am and I just did the cutting! So please continue to pray for her. Love you Haleigh Morgan!! (and BTW I'm pretty awesome at cutting hair!- who knew?)

                                            Karen, Haleigh, Fran, Laura, Me
(This was last week going to pick out a wig for Haleigh- she found several super cute ones she loved!)

Kindergarten Car Show!

Today was the Kindergarten Car Show at Parker's school. It was SO precious! All the kids got to make any kind of car they wanted and they were all so unique and cute! Parker wanted a Texas Rangers slug-bug, so that's what we did! It was hilarious talking to the other parents about how little of this project the kids actually did! But it was fun and something I'll always remember about his first year of school! Here are some of his friends and their walk through the high school, where they got to see their senior buddies! So sweet!

 Sweet friend Kendall in the Ice Cream Truck- she had her teacher's picture and all her classmates pics on it! So cute! And her equally cute twin sister's car was a school bus with the teacher and friends on it but I didn't get a picture of hers:(

 Best Friend Sie in a monster truck-awesome!

 Sie's mom, one of my BFF and another kindergarten teacher-Sharon in her school bus!

 Going through the high school- all the teachers, staff, and students lined the halls and cheered for them!

Walking to the Middle School- started to rain a bit so BoomerSooner girl was lucky in her covered wagon! That's all for now! I'm headed to Tyler this afternoon for a football playoff game with my cheerleaders- post and pics of their wonderful pep rally soon! We've had so many incredible things happen for our Rwanda trip that I'll share soon too! Amazing things!! God is so good!We are so close to our goal- if the IPad tickets can continue to sell, I think we'll be there! Please buy your tickets today!

IPad Raffle!!

We're giving away a 32GB Wi-Fi + 3G IPad!! With a $10 donation to help our family get to Rwanda, you will be entered in the drawing for this amazing IPad! Just $10- and you are helping us go serve in Kigali, Rwanda AND you have a great chance of winning an IPad! It's a win/win situation here people!! Have you been admiring the Ipad from afar, or thought about getting one for your loved one for Christmas but just didn't want to lay down the $800?? How about helping out a family and just maybe getting an IPad for what it costs to drive thru Chick-fil-a one day? Just think- you could follow us on our journey when we are there WHILST in your car because you have a 3G IPad! You could get a facebook update from us from across the world while you are in the pick-up line at school because YOU have a 3G IPad!
  Just $10 and this could be your reality! If you want to double your chances- send us $20! We'll throw in this special deal for you too- buy 5 tickets for just $45!! Those are some good odds people! We will sell a limited number of tickets for the next 2 weeks- you can just give us the money or mail it to us (message me for address) and we will then contact you with your ticket number. We will record the drawing process and announce the winner in a post on November 23. (You could have an IPad to look up all the "Day after Thanksgiving Sales"!!) Please buy your raffle ticket today!!

Toddlers and Tiaras

Ok- so it's really not THAT scary but Chandler had her first cheer competition of the year Sunday and she did GREAT! (I just sometimes think I'm being secretly filmed for a cheerleading reality show with all the make-up and uniforms- and cheer moms!) She loves it so much and is really naturally gifted. Their team won 1st place! It was so exciting to watch all those months of practice finally pay off! I was so thankful that she was with good friends and a great gym!

 We had such a wonderful Halloween! It was perfect weather and Chelsa got to come see the kids at Ashlee's house before the trick-or-treating began.

We had 2 days to dress up and Chandler was none other than a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader AND Laura Ingalls from Little House on the Prairie. Cracks me up how one little girl can love both of those extremes! Even BEFORE Parker broke his arm, he wanted to be a "hurt person" so the sling was just an added touch! We waited till the literal last minute to come up with something for Patton.  It was his idea to run by the school and get the mascot costume. Our little cardinal!
 Football season has ended for Patton, and with Parker's broken arm his baseball season is over SO on Saturday we only had 1 practice! Jeff was out of town all week so all day Saturday I just worked around the house on little "piles" that needed to be looked through and cleaned up! It doesn't look like I did a thing but it felt good to have the time to go through some stuff.
 On Sunday we had another Rwanda meeting and it was so great to hear from 2 of the missionaries that live there. Chandler and I had to leave early to get to her DGroup, but the little I heard just got me even more excited about this trip! Seriously, I think about it all the time. I am so excited to see what the Lord has in store for us on this trip! I have a feeling it's just going to make me want to go again and again! And that's ok!!:) I would LOVE to travel to Africa THREE times in 2011! After we get home I'll just be waiting for the call that my niece/nephew is ready and the Cheatham's "little man"(www.cheathamchat.blogspot.com) is ready and I'm hopping on a plane!  CAN'T WAIT!!!
 We've got an awesome fundraiser coming up tomorrow that I know you'll love...stay tuned!

It's Already November??

Can't believe it is already Holiday season! This is absolutely my favorite time of year! We have had one busy October people! Here is the QUICK summary of what all went down.  (We'll actually start at the end of September)

 My precious aunt Chelsa was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. She had surgery to remove the tumor and is now feeling well enough to start her chemo. This was a big blow to our family~ we are VERY close to her! She is so wonderful to me and my family and just loves us to death! We are so thankful that she is ours and we are geared up to fight this battle with her!

 Then, on October 21, my niece Haleigh was diagnosed with leukemia. She is 19. She was starting her freshman year at Lubbock Christian University and out of the blue is hit with the news that she has cancer. This, too, was a huge blow to our family! We are still a little bit in shock to be honest because there are just SO many things to process in such a little amount of time! She was a Cook's for about 10 days where she had several procedures and started her Chemo routine. She will have to have chemo for 2 1/2 years- she is taking it like a champ and still looks so beautiful! She is so precious to us and my kids think she hung the moon!! Parker said the other day- "we're going to BUSY praying for Haleigh and Chelsa!" He is right! We are crying out to the Lord daily for them both!
 Our church is doing a campaign right now called Greater Things. It has been so wonderful- our preacher is amazing and is challenging us to be generous and sacrificial givers of not only our money but our lives!! There are some really neat stories coming out of this! We had a church-wide garage sale this weekend and made around $30,000!! Amazing!

 Friday night I was at the varsity football game with my cheerleaders. Patton and Parker were there too playing in the adjacent field. Well anyway- lets just say a little "rough play" was happening between my boys. Parker "fell" from a tire thing out in the field and broke his arm!! Poor little guy- he is SO tough! Got his cast yesterday-he loves it- wanted red AND blue for the Texas Rangers!! Amazingly this is the first broken bone we've had! Hope it's the last!

 We are getting SOOO excited about our trip!! Only about 8 weeks till we head to Rwanda!! We've received some VERY generous help from some friends and family and the kids think it is so much fun to check the mail every day to see who else is helping us get to Africa!!My mom and sisters helped us have a garage sale at our house to help with the fund! They worked TIRELESSLY sorting, pricing, etc and we did great! Not a lot of people came but we sold a lot, got that much closer to our goal AND got rid of a ton of junk!! We had our whole "team" over last Saturday night. We spent time getting to know each other better and watching Hotel Rwanda. It was a heavy movie but sooo good. We had a really good time and most people didn't leave till 1:00 AM!! So fun! AND I didn't take ONE picture!!:(
I'm going to be better about keeping up with the blog so they are not SOO long! Have a great week!!
 
Brittany