Wordless Wednesday

Well, sort of.....Here are some random shots I took in December.

Gettin' some lovin'.


Smores with friends.


I love Bud's face in this picture!


Daddy & Mimi.


My sweet Boogs.


Say cheese!


Tummy time. Get you a gander at those legs......(biting fist here) :)


Cuteness, precious, and just plain Awwwww!


Christmas get together with some high school friends.
L to R: Tim, Chris, Casey, Robert & Aaron/me, Allison,Stephanie & Jamie.


New Years Eve


AND one of my most favorite pictures! Isn't the sky just awesome! God is great!

If You Are....

A regular reader or know my family personally (if not, that's ok too), would you please say a prayer for my family this week? I know this week is going to be specifically hard on my mom and all of the family members on her side of the family. One year ago this coming Thursday, my precious grandmother went to be with the Lord. We know she is rejoicing with Him in heaven but those of us that are left behind still miss her terribly. She was such a sweet and funny lady and anyone who knew her was blessed to have her in their life.



Also, please pray for my dad. He has been battling cancer for the last 6 or 7 years. He has thyroid cancer and last year it moved to his lungs and he just recently found out that it has grown. He also found out that he has another "hot spot" in a lymph node. He has had several surgeries in and around his neck, but another surgery isn't an option anymore and up until now, he wasn't a candidate for chemo. He has had many lymph nodes removed but it still regenerates. It's just something he walks around with in his body. So, today he started a pill form of chemotherapy. The next 6weeks are very crucial and will be tough for him. There's no way of knowing if he will have any side effects. So please pray for strength and for his nervousness to go away. I talked with him this morning a few minutes before he was to take the pill and I asked him if he was scared and he said Yes. :( Just the not knowing of the outcome and how it will affect him is probably what I think he's worried about. So we need to pray for peace. A peace that passes all understanding and for strength when he gets weary.



Thank you in advance for lifting my family up in your prayers!

Blah Day

I'm feeling kinda blah today. It's totally my fault though. I'm tired because instead of going to bed at a decent hour last night, I chose to stay up and watch Forrest Gump. I love that movie! I love it when he says "Stupid is as stupid does." I know you are hearing that phrase in your head right now aren't you? And in the same voice that Tom Hanks used in the movie...LOL!

I have also been taking Sundays off from the exercise routine. Maybe I need to re-think that idea. I felt lazy all day yesterday and I didn't eat very well. I hate feeling like that. We got up and went to church but then came home and all decided to take a good 'ole Sunday afternoon nap. Well, I never napped. I don't normally take naps on the other days of the week and so yesterday wasn't any exception. NOT to say that I didn't try but as soon as I got good and comfy in the bed...little man woke up. Isn't that how it always is? HA! :) So I'm dreading the treadmill today but don't worry. I'm gonna do it!

Plus, I *was* feeling blah about the house and the mess that I was looking at this morning. I usually use Fridays as my nitty gritty cleaning day and then just pick up all through the week. But on the weekends it's like all my hard work on Friday goes out the window because the kids are home and they want to play with their toys and so on. BUT God gently reminded me to stop complaining about the mess and be thankful for it. Be thankful that I have a home to live in and children who run around and laugh and play and make messes. They will only be little once and one day they will be gone and, crazy enough as it sounds, I'll wish that I had their messes to clean up.

Well, Friday was an ugh day! I had to take little man to the doctor again. He has another double ear infection. :( He hasn't been running a fever or having a runny nose. He had gunk in his eye. I know gross! BUT, I found out two weeks ago that sometimes when babies have ear infections (because all of that is connected) that the infection has no where else to go so it comes out of the eye and it looks like pink eye. I had never heard of that before but as soon as he started taking the antibiotics for the ear, the eye goo cleared right up. So Friday morning when he woke up, he had that gunk again. I knew it. I knew he had another infection but didn't know it was in both ears until I got to the dr. I love our pediatrician. He's great! He was actually my pediatrician when I was little. Isn't that crazy!

They are trying a little bit stronger antibiotic this time around and when he goes back for a follow up in a week or so, they will decide if he needs tubes or not. :(

Little man also turned 8 months old Friday!! Can you believe how fast the time has gone since he was born? Seems just like yesterday!



He loves his Mimi! She does so much to help with him. He laughs and laughs at Bud. Bud is really good at making funny faces and playing with him. Boogs is still at the age where he wants to give love but sometimes it's just a *wee* bit too much love. I have to watch him around little man.

He is also just about to really start crawling. Actually today, he crawled just a tiny bit so I know it won't be long before he's everywhere!





I know he's thinking "Get out of my way mama!" :)



Daddy and little man. Precious!



My sweet family! Gosh I love them! :)



Ok, just one more picture of my cutie-patootie! Couldn't resist!

Quote of the Day

Those who matter don't judge me, those who judge me don't matter. ~ I love it!! :)

Sunday Song

We sing this song at church sometimes and it just ministers to me so much! I almost always cry everytime we sing it!


What love the Father has lavished on us
That we should be called His sons and daughters
Precious in His sight
Greater love this world had never seen
When He hung on that tree
O why would He do such a thing
For dirty sinners like you and me?

Chorus:
O God thank You for loving me
When on the cross You made history
Lord You died for me
Forever my praise will go to Thee
O God thank You for choosing me
To be Your child and bear Your name
O Jesus I will never cease to sing Your praise

Verse 2:
Your love is patient and humble and kind
It's greater than all my sin
It always protects and trusts and hopes
And will have no end
It's Your love that lifted me up from the depths
Set my feet on a solid rock
With a firm place to stand
Lord I always will trust in Your loving hand

Bridge:
How wide how long
How high how deep
How endless is Your love for me
How wide how long
How high how deep
How endless is Your love for me


Thank you God for loving even me!

Looky Here!

Ok, so I have mentioned a few times in previous blogs about how I don't think outside of the box. Isn't that sad? HAHA! Nah, not really, it's just how I'm made.

Anyway, over the month of December we snapped lots of pictures and some of them were of little man opening his presents. In some of those I was sitting behind him helping him open the paper. When I looked at the pictures we had taken, I was horrified. I didn't realize how much weight I had gained until I looked at those pictures. When I look in the mirror I don't see the person in the pictures. I see someone else. Isn't that funny? Aren't we supposed to view ourselves differently than everybody else...and not in a positive way? Well, not me. I couldn't see it. Couldn't see what everyone else sees. Thank you Mr. Canon EOS! Boy he did me a favor.

Well, I decided that with the new year coming up I would do my best to get on the band wagon and try to lose some weight. I hate exercise and when it comes to choosing broccoli over brownies, let's face it...I'm more likely to grab a tiny piece of broccoli, but I'm mainly going for the brownie! I love brownies, cookies...anything sweet except for candy. I'll eat some chocolate here and there, but I'm not a big candy person (well, let me be truthful...I'm a sucker for Reese cups, but that's it...OK). I'll admit, I'm a munchier. And being a stay at home mom with the goodies always easily accessible, it's always easy to grab a little something throughout the day. The temptation is just too much. I don't sit down and eat big food or a whole box of cookies or stuff like that. I'm a gradual eater. A little something here, a little something there. That's gotten me in big trouble. Plus I don't believe I have ever lost some of the baby weight. So put those two things together and you get a plumpkin...me. :)

I let myself enjoy the holidays because who can turn good Christmas goodies down? You wait all year for Christmas time and there's just some things that only get made or put out at the store at Christmas. So I wanted to enjoy those. BUT on January 1st, I decided to really try and watch what I eat. I decided to try and choose better options rather than snacking on the goodies. It's been hard and I've allowed myself to enjoy a little piece of sweetness here and there because I don't want to totally cut that off. I'm afraid if I did, then I would just eventually give up and go back to the way I was. I have been on the treadmill too so we'll see how it goes. I'm really hoping and praying that I can stick with this. It doesn't seem fair that it's so easy to gain the weight but takes so much more effort to lose it. I'm really going try. Plus, I had a little bit of a boost earlier in the week when someone , who doesn't really know me, decided to make fun of the way I look. It just made me want to work that much harder!! It's pretty sad when someone my age makes fun of someone else just to make themselves feel better. I'm ok though. I'm a big girl and can handle it. It's not going to take away the joy of working hard to accomplish my goal.

I say all of that to show you what I made today. My "doesn't think outside of the box" brain just thinks of the basic way to make something. There's only a few times where I have been able to whip something up. My brain just does not work that way. I'm usually following a recipe or remembering how a dish is made because of the way my mom or grandmother used to make it. I've always told David, I'm better at cleaning than cooking. LOL! Well, I had gone to Sam's and bought some Tilapia. I love tilapia! When I usually make it, I make it as the main dish with a starch and vegetable to eat with it. Well today something just popped at me. As I was making one fillet to eat for lunch, I had the idea to add half an onion and let it saute' with the tilapia. Then I thought, how yummy would it be if I decided to toast some bread and put just a smidgen of mayo on it? Ohhhh ya'll, I had the best lunch! After the tilapia and onions were done, I put it on the toasted bread, added some lettuce and topped it off with a side of carrots and broccoli! It was delish!! Just thought I'd show what my "doesn't think outside of the box" brain made today for lunch! :)



Definitely going to have to make that again!

Thankful Thursday

I am just so thankful for my family! Thankful for a husband who is still in love with me and loves me for me. Thankful that he stands up for our family when needed. I may not agree with his ways sometimes, but he does what he feels is best and I stand behind him. Period. Thankful for four precious children that God has loaned to me to love, watch over and protect first and foremost. Thankful for my best friends Allison and Stephanie who are always there for me no matter what. They truly know me, listen to me and give me much needed advice when needed. Thank you ladies for reminding me to be the bigger person and ignore those who try to take my joy away! Thankful for my mom who brought me up right and showed me what graceful living was all about. She is such a great example of how I am trying to live. I'm not perfect....never have tried to be and don't pretend to be. Life is all about the choices you make and I just choose to look at my life as a big 'ole blessing. Not perfect, just blessed!

Now with that said, I think I'm going to go bake some cookies with the kiddo's! :)

ALSO Please keep the Haiti people in your prayers!

**My thoughts exactly....quote borrowed from a friend, Joe:

Praying for the Peace of God to flow through Haiti as there is so much "death" there. Jesus is the only one who can bring LIGHT to the Haiti people right now. Please everyone pray not just for survivors and families, but for workers, families of workers, and Pray to Jesus as He is the only Savior for ALL! John 3:16

Well....

I truly hope that the few of you who actually read or at least look at my blog from time to time had a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! That includes anyone and everyone!

I can't believe that more than a month has gone by since I last posted. I know I have said this before, but this last year really was the busiest year of our life (so far). I was homeschooling, my precious grandmother passed away, had a baby, was involved in baseball, All Stars, Fall ball, Girl Scouts, speech therapy, trying to get adjusted to having four kids (which honestly took me a long time to get a grip on), celebrated 10 wonderful years of marriage, "re-doing" almost our whole house (new paint,new flooring etc.) dealing with life in general and the list could go on and on. BUT I wouldn't have traded this year for anything. Except for maybe one thing....Although I am VERY thankful for David's job, he worked a lot of overtime this last year so that we could do all of those things and not have to go into debt to do it. So I would trade that time back but I am glad that we were able to do some of the things that we did this last year. It was interesting and alot of fun! :)

A lot of the things I just haven't posted about because I haven't had the time to sit down and blog. There are so many pictures that I could post on here but...Anyway, this is a new year and so maybe (and that's with a big hopefully in front of it), I will be able to blog a little bit more. I really enjoy blogging and I enjoy reading everyone else's blog, but my time has been needed somewhere else.

To give an update on all of us....We are doing well. The kids are growing up so fast and it makes me sad. I want to keep their innocence bottled up inside of them forever. I don't want the day to come when they realize that things just aren't as they really seem.

I remember growing up, my mom would pray a hedge of protection over us and back then, I just didn't get it. Now that I am a parent, I understand and pray that over my four little blessings as well.

It's hard being an adult and having to deal with adult situations. Sometimes life isn't the bowl of cherries you thought it would be. It's sad. It's sad the way that we all take things for granted...take each other for granted. It's sad how we all treat each other and how what was once close relationships have now been broken due to unforgiveness, miscommunications, selfishness, arrogance, disrespect and just the general lack of caring for each other, on all sides. God teaches us to love one another, so then why is it so hard to demonstrate that love to one another despite all the differences? Sorry, I know I seem to be rambling here...it's just some things I've been struggling with lately and things that God has been working on in my heart because of different situations that have happened to me or situations that I know about. None of us are perfect and if we would all remember that(totally including myself in that), then maybe we could all get along.

Like I said, we are all doing well. Mimi and Bud are loving school and doing great. In fact, they brought home their report cards this past week and both of them were right on target or exceeding in where they needed to be. That's encouraging to me because I really had some reservations about putting them in school.

One thing I will say is that I sure do miss them when they are gone all day long. I don't miss the sibling rivalry, but I miss those generally sweet little beings being around me all day. I loved it when they were out for Christmas break. I was really sad to have to take them back to school this past week. I really tried to enjoy them while they were off. I really tried to remember what was most important and that was the quality time that I was spending with them and the fact that they were just there....safe, in my arms reach.

Boogs is doing well in speech therapy. I'm amazed at how well he's doing considering where he was a year ago. Such a huge difference.

Little man is growing like a weed. He is now 7 months old and 20lbs of pure sweetness!! He is the cutest little thing! He is sitting up so well and has even started to try and crawl. You can definitely tell that he's ready to be mobile. All in due time though. I'm trying to enjoy every bit of his baby~ness because it's going by way too fast! I can't even believe that he is 7 months old already. I look back and think, where has the time gone?

Ahh, the not so nice joys of growing older. Isn't it funny how when you were little, the days and months just went on and on forever and for forever? And now as an adult we think, there just isn't enough hours in the day for this and that and gosh how time flies and goodness how the kids seem to grow faster and faster with each passing year? I'm still struggling with the fact that Christmas was just a few weeks ago but it already feels like it was forever ago. You wait all year for that Christmas time and it's gone in a second. :(

Wow, I've written alot. There's alot in this "doesn't think outside of the box" square brain of mine, but I guess I'll save it for another day.