Thankful

Wow, I can not believe that it is Thanksgiving already! Where has 2010 gone to?

In my Wednesday night Rainbow's class our memory verse for November has been Psalm 107:1. The version that the kids have been learning is simply "Give thanks to the Lord..." however when I look up the entire verse it reads "Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever." As I look back over this past year, I have been thinking about how I can apply this verse to my life.


I was unemployed for March 2009 until October 2010 but God provided for my family during that time. I spent most of the year getting to be home with my beautiful girls, getting to spend extra time with Elizabeth, getting to drop the kids off at school in the mornings and be there when they got home. In addition to the extra time with my girls I also got to keep 2 other beautiful little girls in my home and watch them grow and learn. I am so thankful that I was able to do this for almost an entire year.


This year we celebrated birthdays #14 for Ashley, #8 for Courtney and #4 for Elizabeth, we also celebrated our 5th anniversary. All milestones to be thankful for!


One of the biggest happening in my family this year, also one of the hardest things to find the thankfulness in was the passing of my dear PaPa. When I visited Willis in September 2009 I can say that I honestly did not think that he was going to make it thru the holiday but when I returned in March 2010, my last blog, he looked healthier again, was out and about, talkative and seemed back to his old self in most regards. In June we got the news that his cancer was beginning to grow again and was more aggressive. I visited 2 more times this summer and saw him get progressively worse each time. The sickness took over his body and his mind very quickly and eventually took him away from us on August 5. I know this may seem like an odd subject in a blog about being thankful but I am thankful that he is no longer suffering, I am thankful for the 34 years that I got to spend knowing him, both as a child and as an adult.
Most of all I am thankful that he is no longer sick and sufferin, that he is in a better place and that I know that I will see him again someday.

Tomorrow we will have Thanksgiving at my house with my family, including my dear MaMa, I am thankful to be able to spend time with all of them, I am thankful that we are all so close. I am also thankful for Ian's family, we will be celebrating Thanksgiving on Saturday and I am so happy to be so accepted by a family who I know loves me like their own.

I am looking forward to the last few weeks of this year and to starting a new one, to seeing what the future holds for me and my family. I am thankful to have a God that I know loves me and will always be with me even when I can't see the good in the situation at the time.

I hope that all of you have a blessed Thanksgiving!

Weekend in Willis

This past weekend Izzy and I loaded up and headed south for a little visit with my grandparents. We haven't been down there since September and since I had a 3 day weekend from babysitting we decided it was the perfect time. We headed out Friday evening and surprised them, they had no idea that we were coming so that was fun! My MaMa and PaPa are so special to me and I love the fact that my baby girl loves them so much too!


One this is for sure, Izzy loves to play in the dirt and be outside so being out in the country is right up her alley.


Aunt Paula has a new little baby that was a big hit with Izzy immediately! I thought she might be a bit scared but nope, she walked right up and started petting it. By the end of the weekend she was even feeding him his bottle.

She picked me a few flowers out in the yard.

One of Elizabeth's favorite things she did this weekend was ride the lawn mower with PaPa!

I did a little cooking for them while I was there, Saturday night I made enchiladas and then on Sunday I cooked a roast with potatoes, carrots, etc and rolls. My MaMa made this beauty to go along with it. I just had to take this picture and send it to my brother, Pumpkin pie is his favorite and Sunday was his birthday so I told him we made it in honor of him! Kind of mean huh?

I know these pictures are blurry but they still crack me up, after a day of playing outside with my cousin's boys Izzy came in with a toy gun but she was still prissing around in her Cinderella shoes. Just the way she was walking made it funny. Such a little diva!

We had a great weekend and hope that we will make it back down there again soon. Hopefully next time we can take the whole family.

Not sure how well this blogging thing is going

I am really feeling like there isn't much of a point in me having a blog, I can't think of much to blog about. Sure, we are super busy, with 3 kids ranging from 3-13 and babysitting an almost 2 year old and a newborn you would think I would have lots of materials but nothing seems like it would be interesting. Plus, I still have to figure out the whole picture thing on here, I had a heck of a time getting all the pictures to where I wanted them when I did the Christmas picture post. I know I will get better. :)

I do know one thing, it is only March 4th and I can already see our crazy busy spring/ early summer schedule setting in. Currently or in the next couple of weeks in addition to our normal stuff we will be adding Ashley's track meets, Courtney's softball games and practices, Ian's softball games and spring choir. I guess it's a good thing that Izzy and I aren't really involved in anything because this already takes up pretty much every night of the week. Courtney has practice on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays plus games, Ashley has a track meet each week, usually on Thursday or Friday, and Ian's softball is on Thursday. Besides just these every week activities, in April we have Ian's birthday, my brother's wedding, Easter, Courtney's birthday and then May 5th is Ashley's birthday! So, we will be on the run!

Eyewear

For a while now I have been feeling like I am having vision problems, especially with distance. Well, I went to the eye doctor on Monday and she says my vision is just bad enough to bug me so she gave me a prescription. My glasses came in yesterday. I don't have to wear them all the time if I don't want to but everything is so much clearer with them on so I just might anyway.

So, here they are ...

tell me what you think

Christmas pictures

I know that we are over half way thru February however, since I am just getting started with this I feel like it is okay to go back and take a look at our Christmas pictures and the process..

We have not done pictures of our 3 girls together since Elizabeth was 6 months old, needless to say we needed to get it done. My sister is now doing some photography so she grabbed her camera and her girls and we decided to do some of all 5 of them as well. How hard could it really be to get good pictures of a 13 year old, 11 year old, 7 year old, 4 year old and 3 year old? :)

First we had to deal with the wind



















Then we had some interested poses and hair do's :)



















We did get some good pictures































































































































In the end I had one grumpy 3 year old who was sick of taking pictures and this was what we finished up with....

Well, here we go...

I have a couple of friends and family members that have joined the blogging world over the last couple of years so I finally decided to take the plunge myself. I can't imagine that we have to much entertaining info to share with the world but hey, who knows!?! I really love reading other blogs so hopefully someone might enjoy mine. There are definitely a few things that I have to figure out but we will get there. I will be back again soon, hopefully with something of interest.

:)