Sunday, December 25, 2011

;-)

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Clarity

I love how sometimes God makes things just extra clear. Things that you think you know, understand, and then bam! he gives you such a clear focus on that same thing. Lately, I have know lots of people whom I love that are in the process of loosing someone dear or have just lost someone dear. It has made me think of how very hard and sad it would be to watch a loved relative or friend die. Well then one day driving down the road, I"m not sure what made me really think about it, a song perhaps. But I started thinking about the reality of the pain surrounding the death of Jesus and the amazing miracle of witnessing Him raise from the dead. It came crashing down on me like a ton of bricks and all I could do was cry. Jesus, so very loved by so many people. Mary's son, her little boy. Such an amazing person and so young. To witness him to be treated so wrong, to watch him in pain, and to die is more than I think my mind can wrap itself around. I just couldn't even imagine to watch my brother, friend, father, anyone go through that. Then the deep sadness to be without Him, for him to be gone. And then to actually SEE Him three days later! Are you kidding me?! To look into His eyes again, something that you didn't think you would ever get the chance to again. Oh my how much amazing joy those scenes must have actually had. I can't wait to experience those amazing moments in heaven. Oh the joy.

Monday, December 19, 2011

Sunday, December 11, 2011

The Nutcracker

First I have to start this post and talk about the sweet blessings in our backyard :) When we bought this house a little over a year ago it felt crazy. It was a much bigger house than I was use to living in, it needed a TON of updating and just didn't feel like our home. It also is in a nice well established neighborhood, which is good, only I was pretty sure only older people lived here. No young families or small children. You can imagine my joy when I walked out our back door one day and walking into their house was our neighbors that live behind us. (we are on a corner lot) This was a sweet blessing from God it was :) These neighbors happen to be a sweet sweet couple that have four, yes four cute small children. Today, a year later, I am so thankful for them. My children love their children and I am so glad to have a friend that my lot backs up too. It was much more than I had hoped for. So the I got use to the house, we have made some headway with the updates, this is our home, AND we have the most awesome family living behind us.

So a few weeks ago Erin emailed me and ask if I would be interested in taking her Eden who is 4 and my Lily, 3 1/2 to the Nutcracker. What a great idea! So we planned it and I have been talking to Lily about it a lot. Well last night was the night. We had such a fun time. I just love spending one on one time with each of my kids. We had planned to go to the Spaghetti Factory before hand but when we finally got there, found a parking garage, etc. there was a 1.5 hour wait and we left the house early just to keep that from happening. But oh well :) The thing really was that Erin and I both have no clue a bout downtown:) I don't love it and it makes me nervous being down there at night w/o Kyle. We didn't really know where we were to find a new place to eat and really didn't want to go get the car out of the garage that we had just found and paid to park. So we started walking. After a while we realized that Hard Rock Cafe was not far so we walked there. After eating we realized we were cutting it short on time but didn't know how we were going to get to the Center For the Arts, remember we don't really know how to get anywhere down here :) Our waiter was great and told us the fastest way to get there (and warmest and safest :) was to get a taxi. :) Well that sounded great only I have never even been in a taxi before. So we made our way out and found a taxi. It as warm and fast and also scared me out of my mind. lol The entire time I was praying he was not someone who would abduct us and take us away. Thank goodness he was not and we made it just in time to get in our seats before it started. The girls did so good all night, so impressed! It was beautiful, and Li kept commenting on the things she liked, or recognizing the scenes from the book. About the last 1/2 hours she was pooped. It was 10 and she goes to bed not later than 8 . She was super sleepy and said "the fairies and angels went to bed let's get outa here lol ) We found our way back to our garage and got out of downtown pretty quick. It was quite and adventure but so fun. Lily loves Eden and kept putting her arm around her and rubbing her back during the show.
I was super thankful for this time with those sweet girls, memories I wouldn't trade anything for. As much as I worried a bit about some of the stuff you could tell it was all adventure and fun for those girls. I love childhood!!!
Eden and Erin.
Sweet friends

She's waiting to leave and so excited!
Loves these two. We told Callie maybe next year :)

Saturday, December 3, 2011

Thankful

Thankful...... I could not be more thankful in this season of my life. If I try to list things I am thankful for I get overwhelmed because there is just so much. I also tend to get overwhelmed because in the midst of being so so blessed I still go through my seasons of not being satisfied and times of frustration with this amazing life I have been given, then that makes me sad. But no matter what my sinful flesh wants, I know in my soul I have an amazing life, if for nothing else but that I know Jesus and He is my Savior. Here is my short list because I don't want to miss an opportunity to actually list the things I am so grateful for.


My home, shelter over our heads.
Water whenever we choose
Extra money left over, no matter how much, after bills are paid.
Four extraordinary children who I couldn't love any more than I do, even when we are in a season of change.
An amazing husband that takes such good care of me and His family and He loves the Lord.
Wonderful family that supports us and loves us. All of them.
Friends, oh my wonderful friends that we are blessed to do life with.
Two cars in our family
My husband has a job and his a hard worker
We have clothes, gobs of clothes to put on our backs
The loud chaos that mostly fills our house, no matter how sometimes it may drive us crazy, it means that we have a home filled with family and love.
We have a church home that we love, that preaches the gospel and we can fellowship and learn within it's walls.
I could go on and on and on.

Oh my goodness we have so much to be thankful for. My prayer, especially now, is that my eyes not grow dim to my amazing life. That my want for things not cloud my unveiled eyes that Jesus has granted me.