look up!

This last week has been really rough for me. I have faced disappointment after disappointment topped with bad nights of sleep with a little one who is sick with a cold. My husband has been far away for days and unavailable most of the time to even talk. I have struggled this week with self pity and letting myself get depressed.
These are the times that I really need to look up! These are the times that I need to let my heart sing praises to God so that in the midst of my small trials I can see our big God and the big plan He has for the world, which is so much bigger than me! It's when I focus on a God so magnificant that I can say who cares about the things of this week. This week and all it entails will pass, but the immeasurable love of a Savior that some of the world has not yet felt, is forever. There is too much for us to do in life, on behalf of God for people, to be focused inward. Tonight I'm reminding myself of this truth so I won't let the temporary things of the world take my joy, my hope, my purpose. Tonight I will look up until I see nothing but You!

a creative mind

My son is wired with great creativity. He always surprises me with different scenarios where I am left both puzzled and amazed. How on earth could he come up with this stuff???! One of his many favorite creative hobbies as of late are to frame his sister for something she did not do.... like drawing marker all over the kitchen floor and pouring cups of water out of the bath. The weird thing is that he does not ever draw on anything other than paper and may splash water, but not dumpings out of the tub so who would have suspected him?? A 2-year-old little girl is the obvious culprit for these things. BUT - NO! I only wonder how many time-outs my little girl has served on his behalf!!!
Another favorite hobby is to mix his food at every meal time in gross & weird ways. It usually drives me INSANE! You see I don't like wasted food, which is why I eat all my kids left-overs and am a huge pregnant woman!! Today, however; I sat back and watched as we are enforcing our new rule to his game. If he chooses to do crazy things with his food then he HAS to eat it. So he thinks twice before mixing even though he usually does it anyway and somehow he likes his crazy food combos. Come on haven't you tried hotdogs with applesauce and many random things stuffed in a peanut butter sandwich.
I'm learning there is a fine line of squashing a creative mind all together and balancing it with consequences for the negative creativity. This child of mine has and will always keep me on my toes, but I'm glad he is creative I only pray one day when he is older he will use this creativity for good!!

this 'n that...

It's been a while since I've blogged. Life has become busy here as we continue to settle into new territory. Here's April's this 'n that's...


It's a BOY!!
So I had my ultrasound and we found out we are having another boy! The most exciting thing is always that he had all the right body parts in the right places and is looking healthy! :)
The only hard part about all this is what on earth to name him. I've decided boys names are way harder. I don't want a super common name, but you can't go too weird or, well, for a boy it's just weird. So we'll see??


T-Ball
Ok so if you ever read anything about my big little man playing Soccer, you're probably thinking - what?? you're signing him up for another sport. Yes, I had concluded after soccer that 4 years old was too young for sports...at least for boys....well, may be just mine, BUT (there's always a but) we just moved here and we needed to get him active in something outside of the house. Since we've started it has been great! No melt downs on the field, yet and he is actually enjoying it. It helps to have a really good coach that knows what he's doing and may be this is my son's sport more that soccer?? This weekend is his first game - Go Blue Claws!!


House Hunting
A lot of our time has also been devoted to looking for a house to buy. I know we were looking for rentals to get out of our allergy-pet mess, but God set up the perfect situation for us with a great realtor and ya never know we may be first time home owners soon. Exciting & scary!


Easter
We had a wonderful Easter out here. We read the Easter story, made Easter cookies, decorated eggs, and had our basket hunt. The day before we had a fun Easter Egg hunt at our friends house and the weather was perfect for an outdoor brunch and eggs. On Easter it rained, but we had the perfect church/ pizza/ movie day. We also spent the day in reflection of a beautiful Savior and His amazing love!


Peanut m&m's
As I am writing this, I just ate a peanut m&m that had like a burnt or rotten peanut in it. Super gross - had to rid that from my mouth!! Has that ever happened to you?

-----THE END----

our weekend

stairs

I have not lived in a 2-story house but 1 time in my college years and the truth is -I loathe them! First, remember we moved to higher altitude. Now imagine all the times we need to run up and down the stairs with my potty training toddler who is barely going to make it on the seat, doing laundry, putting kids to bed, breaking up constant kids fighting, you get it! Oh, wait there's more....did I also mention that my 4 year old fell head over heels, head over heels all the way down the stairs backwards! So yes, there are many reasons that stairs should remain my enemy. But, before all you 2-story housed fans get mad at me for hating please read on.
I am trying to see the positive in all situations so I wanted to mention that while my son did have a bad spill on the stairs, he did survive with out injury. Secondly, stairs are very helpful in getting me to and fro in a big house. And lastly, our staircase doubled as an art hall this weekend. So in conclusion, I will say stairs are alright after all, as they can be fun, too. :)


new work car

This weekend we got a new addition to our garage. Here is a sexy male model with his new work car. With all the weather he has to drive through, it had to be a Subaru!


let's go fly a kite!

The perfect to end to our weekend was trying out our new kites from Costco. My son picked out an airplane and my daughter wanted the elephant. The weather was perfect. It was in the high 70's and plenty of wind. Here's some park pics. This park has a handicap swing that my kids just love to ride in. They think it's like a rollar coaster.
She's even cute with wind-blown hair! (Another Allergy update: it does not look like cheese back in her diet is going to work after all. The rashes are coming back, but at least we can manage her skin now.)

cheese please

Allergy update for my precious little girl:
We went to a top allergist group here in Colorado, National Jewish Health. I honestly thought deep down it was going to be more of the same mystery for them as it has been for me with all her skin problems. Low and behold, we have improvement for the first time in ages!!!! Her skin has never looked better and it was just a few changes that we implemented with her, especially in bathing and a new lotion.
A little bad news is that she is now officially allergic to egg, which we did not know she could not have any part of the egg. So that's also helped to know.
The good news is great skin equals re-introducing some foods back in her diet. We decided to start with dairy because there are just too many good things about dairy. Last night we made her grilled cheese on her gluten-free bread. She enjoyed it soooo much it brought tears to my eyes. I know it's silly to shed a tear over your child eating some cheese, but it made me happy to at least be trying normal eating again! We'll see how it goes, but for now i love hearing my daughter say, "cheese please" because i can finally say, "yes!"

butterfly pavilion

We had such a nice relxing weekend for the first time since we've moved here. My wonderful husband heard about a fun place to take the fam - the Butterfly Pavilion in Westminister, CO. It was actually really cool and perfect for our aged kids. First we went into a room full of the nastiest, creepiest bugs ever. I had one thought - I'm gonna have some bad dreams tonight! Then we went outside to this rainforest room. It was gorgeous with plants all over, a stream and fake misty rain falling from the ceiling. The best part was all the butterflies. There were a bunch of various butterflies flying all around us. They would wisp past your head and you'd sometimes almost bump into them. I can't explain it other than I felt like a kid again all wrapped up in excitement and wonder over the simple things in life. There were a couple more things to see and do after that, but the butterfly room was unlike anything I've ever done before. As always, I only wished I had taken more pictures of our time there!
The butterflies really liked my mom and they landed on her several times. Don't know how well you can see this, but I thought it was cool that she was taking a picture of one and one landed on her camera.
They had a small sea life area and of course baby girl was excited to see her fave NEMO.
These bugs were just so oddly facinating to me.
Oh yes, you could hold this creepy tarantula, named Rosie. (I love how they named a scary spider something soft and sweet.) Little man was so brave he got in line twice to hold 'sweet' Rosie!

tip for easy clean-up!

After this you may really question my ability for motherhood, but well, I guess I do too now and then. As a mom I get SOOOO tired of cleaning up spilled water, spilled snacks or whatever bodily fluid might have found it's way onto the floor. So I confess at times when it's a simple popcorn snack (or the like) as pictured that has spilled - I just let them clean it up. When we are in public places and something hits the ground I say "it's for the birds" and we leave it behind or pitch it, but when we are at home I let them become the birds. And that my friend is my controversial tip for easy clean-up for today. :)