My Other Blog

For anyone who is reading this and does not know, I was diagnosed with Breast Cancer on Monday, April 27. I have a long road ahead of me but it is one I will go on to fight this disease. I will be a survivor.

I started a new blog for this journey I will be taking. You can find is here at http://ajourneyofhopeandpeace.blogspot.com .

I hope everyone is having a blessed day.

Lads to Leaders/Leaderettes

This year Faith got to participate in Lads to Leaders/Leaderettes for the first time. I have heard of Lads to Leaders for a long time but I have never had the chance to experience it. I must say it was a great weekend and I am really looking forward to it next year.

This is the first time in about 11 years that Maple Hill has participated in Lads to Leaders so they decided to ease the kids in gradually just so they would know what it was like. Faith particpated in Oral Bible reading, Bible Bowl and Songs of Praise. I could not believe how wonderful a job she did on each event. She read Matthew 5:1-14 in such a clear beautiful voice. I am not sure how well she did at Bible Bowl because I was sitting too far back to see her answers. The Songs of Praise which was a competitive event was amazing. She led "Glorify thy Name". She stood up there and smiled and led that song so perfectly. She unfortunately did not make it as a finalist, but I really think she should have. She was a bit disappointed but there is always next year. Next year we are going to have puppet teams and she is excited about that. Maple Hill was well represented this year and it is just going to get better and the kids get older.

One thing that I think is going to great about Lads to Leaders is the closeness it is going to bring to the kids as they are growing up. This year only 3rd-6th grade participated and there were only about 15 kids. These kids are the future of the Maple Hill youth group and they are getting to share a special time together that they will remember for a long time.
The third grade girls after the Oral Bible reading. Faith, Anna-Cate and Callie

Mrs. Danielle and some of the kids at the Awards Ceremomy.

Surprise, it's a puppy!

Meet the newest addition to the Walton family. This is "Prince Harry the Charming One". He is an 8 week old Yorkie and our new puppy.

Since losing Brutus, I had no interest in getting another dog, but the kids really wanted a puppy to call their own. They had been trying to convince me to get a puppy since last fall. We would talk about it and I kept telling them I just wasn't ready for another dog. Kevin was all for a dog and would have let Santa bring them a puppy. I had to remind him that we would have to housebreak a puppy, and I didn't think standing outside in the dead of winter waiting for the dog to do his business was such a good idea.

We found out that Kevin's sister-in-law's Yorkie was going to have puppies. We gave Marsha a call and we offered to buy one of her puppies. She told us that we could have one. That was such a generous offer because buying a puppy can be expensive. On February 16, Annabelle had 3 little boy puppies and all we had to do was wait till they got old enough to be away from mama.

We had planned on going to get the puppy this weekend. We would have to go to Little Rock to get him. We have so busy on the weekends for the past month, I was not excited to go. Kevin had to go Memphis this week for work and he made time to go to get the puppy on Wednesday, April 1. It wasn't easy to do this because he still had to go other places this week but he did it anyway. He agreed that he didn't want to go anywhere this weekend either. I didn't tell the kids that Daddy was bringing home the puppy. I did let Faith know I had a secret and it about drove her crazy because I wouldn't tell her. Kevin got home about 10:00 on Wednesday night and Faith was still awake in her room so we let come meet Prince Harry. She was so excited.
John Derrick was asleep so we didn't wake him. John Derrick was happy about the puppy the next morning.

Prince Harry is very sweet. He really likes the kids. The kids are quite funny about him. Faith is suppose to take him out when she is at home. She didn't quite understand that she would have to actually take him outside. All we had to do was open the door and let Brutus out. She tried that with Prince Harry and he just sat on the step wondering what to do. I had to tell her exactly what to do and she wasn't too sure about that. She also has to clean up his accidents, and she really thinks that is gross. John Derrick kept carrying his crate around trying to get him to go inside.

So you are probably wondering about his name. Prince Harry the Charming One, what a name for a dog. I wanted him to have a regal type name. I wanted to just call him Prince Charming. Faith thought of the name Harry. I liked that name but I had to add "Prince" to the beginning. Since I figured he would charm himself into out lives, I also added "the Charming One" to the end. John Derrick wanted to call him Batman and Robin, Elmo and Mickey. He would argue with you about his name. So sometimes is might be Prince Harry, Batman and Robin, Elmo, Mickey the Charming one but we'll just call him Prince Harry for short.