past month

Wow! It's already been a month since I last blogged. I really thought I had time to get my thoughts out, but instead they are all piled in my brain. so i am unloading my life over the last couple weeks

Halloween Success
We had a really great time this year with no allergy mishaps, which since last year was a disaster I was very pleased. My mom had given me a great idea to dip my little girl's allergy friendly foods in chocolate as her treats - genious! So here's a pic of Aunt Stacy (visiting from AZ) dipping fruit, marshmellows, pretzels, rasins and crasins with the kids. And thanks mom - clearly we have a new tradition in our house! Christi
I was so happy to have my best friend visit me! I still feel so refreshed from her visit. She came alone on this trip and I was kinda bummed at first since i really wanted to see her kiddos also, but it worked out wonderfully. Thanks to my man - we were able to go out alone and have girl time we have not had in years! I love my dearest friend of 15 years. She's the kind of friend that if I ever died - she would be the one to talk to, to learn my deepest thoughts and desires. I am truly blessed to have such a friend!








Adoption??
Yes, I am crazy I just had my 3rd baby and I am already thinking I want another. In fact, as my neighbor was driving me to the hospital to have my sweet little boy I was telling her I was interested in adopting a child. Now, I have no idea how this will happen or if it will happen, but I am exploring more and more how this ministry might suit our family. It's really been in my heart since I was a teen. And while I could have more children on my own - there are so many children without homes and we have room for one. I recently came across this verse: "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after the orphans and widows in thier distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world" James 1:27 The part about orphans really tugged my heart, but is this the time?? I have so many questions, thoughts, etc...any thoughts on this topic is appreciated!

Kid update
My oldest son is now in kindergarten and boy it's not like it used to be. And can I just say homework is my least favorite thing about school and we have just begun! To our surprise even being the younger one in the class he is doing great with school. He is reading and writing and my little man is just growing up!
My sweet girl is quickly approaching her third birthday. She is smart, sweet and hilariouly witty. She is doing better with allergies all together; however, we are praying that she is not getting asthma as she has had lots of breathing issues when in certain environments, w/ pets or certain foods. Everyday she prays to be better so she can have a doggie or kitty and eat eggs among other foods. I know God hears her faithful heart, so we wait.
Lastly, baby boy is doing great. He has the squishiest cheeks and and is so cute that I want to squeeze him till he pops! He is really trying to roll over and is so close, but ya know that darn arm always gets in the way. He is really the 3rd child that goes along with the fam and just chills.

aahhhhh....

it's been so stinkin long since i've been to my blog website. i feel like i have to wipe off dust and cob webs. life has been plenty busy since i last left off. for my own sake i must mention what i have been doing as this blog is to help me remember what goes on in my life as it is so fleeting.

there have been so many wonderful things that have taken place. we finally bought our very first house. thank you God!! i never thought it would really happen - then i found myself signing a gigantic stack of papers that i did not really understand comepletly. it was surreal. just for the record God was so there every step of the way. we put an offer on the house after 3 others. they stopped taking offers and then even though they had many good offers on the house including 1 cash offer - they chose our family. it was unexplainable - it was God & He granted us favor.

once we moved in we had so much to do on the house. i was 8 months pregnant and so tired. anything i did put me in contractions, contraction, contractions. still God kept that baby inside growing, growing. we got the house in some kind of order to the best of our ability and then it was time.....

it was tuesday and jesse needed to go to aspen to travel just overnight. just overnight! i knew that was not a good idea or good timing when i could have this baby any day. needless to say my water broke at 6:50am the next morning and jesse was 4 hours away of course! thank God for friends who came and sat with my kids for the day with out worry and for good new neighbors who had to drive my water leaking self to the hospital. God kept that baby in until jesse arrived at the hospital and as soon as he did i went from 3 cm. to 10 and had the baby with in the hour. (ya - the epidural never did work this time!!!)

in came baby number 3. i was instantly in love, but had forgotten about the sleepless nights! and this guy wanted to party all night long for the first month! did i mention that i also had my big guy start kindergarten. by the way why did no one tell me what a pain in the neck it is to drop off and pick up kids from school!!

all of those things lead me to the present. i feel as though i am finally getting a handle on life at least a little and at least for now. i have come to grips with the facts that i'm not even close to being a super-mom, my house is still a work in progress from the orange counter-tops to the daily mess from household stuff i can barely keep up with, i'm lucky to shower or to take a lone trip to the grocery store and the list goes on. bottom line is there's love in our house and we are surviving and that is good for me at least for now. :)

what if...

Do you ever stop and think what if?

What if my daughter had been born first....
- She would probably not have had a 2 year old dinosaur party
- She would probably not know the word torture.
- She would probably not say "we need to kill the bad guys" in pretend play.
- She would probably not be so good at wrestling, hitting and punching.
- She would probably not know about all the super heroes.
- She would probably not know how to play T-ball and soccer.
- She would probably not find farting and burping so darn funny.
- She would probably not flex her muscles after every bite of meat saying "i'm gonna have big muscles like daddy one day."

Then I think, on the flip side i guess she would miss the privilage of having a constant playmate from birth and she would not have a bodyguard to protect her and make her feel safe when she's scared. But, most importantly, she would not be shaped daily into the woman God has designed her to be. After all, may be she's gonna be a superhero ninja girl who saves the world from bad guys!!
.....well, what if??? :)

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.)