Belated Pics from My Bday

Hi Everyone!! We've been super extremely busy this week so I haven't had a chance to put up pictures from last weekend. These are a few pictures from Saturday night when we celebrated my bday with my family.


Here's my fam: Dad (Terry), Mom (Cheryl), brother (Kyle), and me. We hadn't taken a picture of the 4 of us for a few years (that I can remember)!!


Katlelyn (on left), Abby (on right) and Grandpa at Applebee's.


Micah - cutie patootie! How bout those eyes - so handsome!! :)

Twenty-Seven!!!

Today's my 27th birthday! Twenty-seven sounds old to me!! Twenty-six didn't phase me, you're still in your mid twenties, but twenty-seven - for some reason - sounds so much older (and closer to 30!) Anyways!!! As part of her birthday present to me - my mom came over last night after the kids were in bed and spent the night. She got up with Micah all through the night whenever he'd wake up not feeling good, and then she got up with all 3 of them this morning so I could sleep in on my birthday!! How nice is that?!!! It was a great way to start my birthday!! And if that weren't enough - she went home around 11:15 to start right on a term paper that's due for her class tomorrow morning, and then (if she gets her paper done in time) she's coming back for Aaron and I to go out tonight to celebrate my birthday with just the two of us!!! THANK YOU, MOM!! You always go so much above and beyond for us, and I wanted to let you know how much I appreciate you!! :) I love you, mom!

Side note: Thanks to Jackson, I now know that September 19th is also International Talk Like A Pirate Day. Man what an honor for that to be on my bday! :)

SICK KIDS!!

If you get a chance, please pray for my kids - especially Micah. A&K have had colds since Friday night (not a huge deal), but Micah went from going to bed perfectly healthy Sunday night...to waking up on Monday morning with bad cold symptoms and a temp of 103.2!!! He's pretty much had a 102-103 degree temp since then (it goes down with tylenol but always comes back up after 3 - 3 1/2 hrs). After a night of no sleep for Micah and I because of his heavy congestion and still very high fever - we're taking him to the doctor this afternoon. I'm thinking he has another (his 5th) ear infection - which would mean antibiotics and hopefully feeling better within 24 hours. Hopefully that's all it is. Plese pray for the little guy if you get the chance!! He's miserable right now and doesn't understand why he doesn't feel good! :( THANKS!! :)

UPDATE: We're back from the dr's office, and Micah did in fact have an ear infection in one ear, so hopefully with this antibiotic he'll be feeling better soon! Dr said that if he has another ear infection within the next 2-3 months that we would have to see an ear doctor about maybe getting tubes in his ears! :-(

Our Life is Nuts Right Now!!

Ok guys...sorry for not posting in 11 days!! Our life is crazy right now!! I am beginning to think we have bitten off more than we can chew, so to speak!! Here's a glimpse into our newly busy week - I am working part time at our church on Monday and Wednesday mornings in the nursery (all 3 kids come too!) :-) Abby and Katelyn have pre-school on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. I am singing at church twice a month now, so every 1st and 2nd weekend of the month I have practice on Thursday night and then I'm at church from 7am-12:30pm on Sunday (but I absolutely love it, so I'm definitely not complaining!!) Aaron is co-leading a DISCIPLE Bible Study class at our church on Monday nights, and I am leading a different DISCIPLE class (also on Monday nights), so we both have to be at church from 6pm-9:15pm on Monday nights. I also am an usher/greeter at church for every 4th Sunday of the month for all 3 services. The kids and I also go to MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) on Thursday mornings twice a month, and playgroup on Friday mornings twice a month.

So just to sum all that up - Sunday: 3 out of 4 weeks a month I'm at all 3 services at church! Then come home and plan a lesson plan for DISCIPLE when the kids are napping. Aaron and I each talk to our co-leaders at 9pm Sunday nights to plan the next night's meeting. Monday - church in the am (nursery) and back to church in the pm for DISCIPLE! Tuesday - A&K pre-school in the afternoon. Wednesday - church in the am (nursery). Thursday - MOPS in the am twice a month, A&K pre-school in the afternoon, Alli practice at church in the pm twice a month! Friday - Playgroup twice a month in the am. SATURDAY - usually filled up with various commitments/family/other fun stuff...but sometimes we have NOTHING going on on Saturdays!!

I love everything that's on there, so I'm not listing all that to complain!!! Just explaining why I haven't posted in a while! Hopefully once the shock of our new busier schedules wears off, I'll be on the blog more with new posts!! :-) (I can't wait until the kids are in school and sports and we're doing even more stuff...)(that's sarcasm there!) :-)

God's Beautiful Creation

View of the sunrise from our back yard.



View of the clouds in a sunset from our front yard.



View of the sunset from our front yard.


How can someone look at skies this beautiful and not believe there's a God who created them?! We serve an awesome God!!

A Bittersweet Day for this Mommy

Tuesday was both a very exciting day for all of us, as well as a somewhat sad day for this mommy. My babies had their first day of school!!! Abby and Katelyn started their first day of pre-school on Tuesday, and they were SO excited to go to school!!!! They each had their own back pack, and they were so cute!! Since it was the very first day, the parents were allowed to stay the whole time, part of the time, or none of the time - depending on what the kids wanted. The last couple days before school started, Abby kept saying she was "gonna be nervous" and that she wanted me to stay the whole time, and Katelyn said she didn't want me to stay any of the time! I told her I'd leave her alone and just stay by Abby if that's what she wanted, and that was the plan. Once we got there, they each sat down on the circle rug (not anywhere near each other!) and they never even looked at me again after that. After about 45 minutes, I asked them if they wanted me to leave, and they both very animatedly told me - yes! they wanted me to "go away!" :-) They did great, and they absolutely loved their first day of school!! The other half of their class is having their first day today, and next week, they'll start going every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon. They're both telling Aaron and I (quite often) that they're "big pre-school girls now" - it's very cute!!

We're Back!!!

We had a GREAT weekend with family this past weekend!! The weather was absolutely perfect (80's during the day and lower 60's at night); the kids LOVED swimming at the pool and riding on the boat; and we had a great time playing games each night after the kids went to bed!! New this year was a jet ski, so it was fun taking the kids out for rides on that too!! Aaron's sister brought her boyfriend, so it was nice to get to know him a little better too. There were 6 kids total - all under the age of 5!!!! (I know - What?! Are we crazy!!) They all did really great though, and they had so much fun playing and swimming together!! We were a little worried about how Micah would do (he's kinda a handful right now), but he was amazing!! Very content to stay in the stroller or be held or swim with the big kids in his "boat" floatie or being held in the pool. Looking back, it was a wonderful weekend!!

Here's a few pics:


A & K watching mommy ski


Aaron driving the boat


Micah in his life jacket - so cute!! (That's the lodge where we stayed in the background.)


The 5 of us on the boat...


All of the kids and grandkids