Speeding

I've always had a lead foot. Always. Since the day I got my liscence at 16. I've even had my liscence taken away when I was 17 for so many speeding tickets (terribe, I know). I just love to go fast. I love the adrenaline rush. I love living on the edge....anything fast and fun and dangerous....snowboarding, skiing, jet skiing, rollercoasters, motercycles....and everything is pedal to the medal...the faster the better.

Now, I have gotten a WHOLE lot better with the speeding thing in my oldER age, I've calmed down and learned to go around the speed limit, if not, the actual speed limit...which is HUGE for me. Every time I get in the car I want to punch that pedal down and just go....it takes everything in me to "Obey the laws of the land" and have some self-control. I think I've made it a woppin two whole years without a speeding ticket, crazy, I am so proud of myself.

So today we had Mom Group at Alyssa's house and I got to talkin to my friend there and totally lost track of time and ended up being crazy late picking up Skylar. So what happens?....yep, petal to the metal time...today was a turning point for me....as I am tearing out of Alyssa's house, and what happens?? (no, I didn't get a ticket)....I get stuck behind THE SLOWEST PERSON IN THE WORLD! Literally, like 20 mph down Hartnell....this guy was killin me! So, of course I swerve around them at the first possible moment to get stuck behind ANOTHER stupid slow person and on top of that I hit EVERY red light possibe between Alyssa's house and Redding Christian......

Ok! Got it! Thank you again for the lesson Lord...kinda goes hand in hand with what I JUST read last night...hmmm.....

"Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin." Rom 3:19-20

Wild Turkeys

Yah, wild turkeys have taken up residence in our neighborhood. They just stroll up and down the streets. Getting exercise, perhaps.....trying to reclaim their land.....i'm not sure. Interesting though. I love turkey....maybe they will start slowly dissapearing and we'll start eating a lot more turkey around here.....

Appreciation

Sean is gone at a Convention down in L.A. with Nate, Dan, and a few other guys from church. They all left at the crack of dawn Wed. morn.....I. Am. Exausted. I have a whole new appreciation for Sean. He is such an amazing husband and dad. He helps me SO much around the house...and especially when doing big parties. I always just focus on cleaning and getting everything set up around the house and he comes in and busts out all the food. And then afterwards we tornado through the house together cleaning all up......he helps a ton, and I am missing him. I just yelled at Caleb to go to sleep cause MOM IS DONE!!! Poor guy.

The first couple nights of Sean being gone is always fun, cause I love just having me time and getting to do whatever, reading, watching MY movies...but its the third night and now I am just missing him. I feel like I have so much I want to talk about (hence the blog) :0) Sigh. Well, we had a fun Baby and Me Tea Party tonight. Skylar and all her little friends are so sweet. Ok, off to go zone out in front of the tube.......

My Baby GIrl

Yesterday was Skylars 5th birthday. Crazy. 5 has always seemed like such a milestone to me...and she hit it. We had such a wonderful day. It started with me taking her cupcakes at school. She's really funny, she loves to entertain here around the house. She is constantly singing and dancing and performing, but when she gets around people she clams up and gets sp embarressed. So me taking her cupcakes was, of course, embarrassing....but she loved it. Then I went and dropped the boys off with my mom and just Skylar and I went out to lunch and Red Robin, and then out to Target to pick out whatever toy she wanted. We had sich a great great time with just the two of us.

I forget how sweet and fun Skylar is. I get so caught up in going going going all the time, that its really hard for me to just BE with the kids and spend real quality time with them....so to have had that one on one time with no boys, or cleaning, or interruptions with her was so great, I absolutely loved it.

So shes 5. A whole hand. Instead of calling her Skylar yesterday she said "Mom, how bout you just call me Birthday Girl today". Funny. Here's some pics......

Skylar and her teacher, Mrs. Swanson

So I'm getting everything ready for her Birthday Party tonight. A Baby and Me Tea Party. Gotta go get the centerpiece and table settings all made. Clean the house and make a bunch of mini sandwiches and muffins and scones....fun times :)

Precious Moments

I love when you have crazy, chaotic days and within them your kids amaze you....making all the chaos, all the things you go out of your way doing for them completely worth it.

Last night Ava and Adia (Skyars two closest little friends) spent the night....so much fun. All the girls (and Caleb) having a movie night with popcorn and hot chocolate, staying up late in bed giggling, waking up through the middle of the night giggling......and then up at the crack of dawn......fun times. Then throwing into the mix my sister-in-law and her three kids.....so, 8 kids here for a few hours is just total mayhem. But I love it. We had a great day.

So fast forward to all the kids gone, my kids up from their naps, sitting on the couch holding Ryder and cuddling with Skylar.....Skylar making Ryder belly laugh.....and looking at my all grown up 4 (almost 5 yr old)....thinking, these are the precious moments that make getting up through the night, getting up at 6:30, being asked 33 questions in 30 seconds, cleaning up another spill, cooking pancakes 4 different ways, making hot chocolate just the exact temperature so its not too hot to burn little mouths and not too cold to be just chocolate milk, going for emergency pacifier runs, soothing hurt and embarressed feelings, allll worth it!

Some Pics.....

What a GREAT Easter!!!

Easter Egg Decorating!

Never a clean job.......Skylars face is awesome.... Cooking Easter cookies with Grandma.....

We fed him a pineapple....so halarious!

Easter brunch out at the club....gotta see Sean at some point on Easter :0)

I think Ryder is pooping....

Egg Hunt!!!

New Life

I have always resented Spring. I love Winter, so every year Spring rolls around and steals Winter away, always makes me mad. But this year has been different, I have actually been excited about Spring. New life all around me. Such perfect opportunities to teach my kids about Jesus and Creation. All the blooming trees and plants and flowers. The kids and I planted a little flower garden together. We've been out watering it everyday.....Skylar has loved watching them grow....she gets so excited. God is so good. I love how creative He is, all these little things in creation that speak volumes of the kind of God we serve. He is sooo detailed. So if He's that detailed about a tiny little flower, how much more detailed is He about me and my kids? How much more care and attention does He pour into my family by taking care of us, protecting us...that I miss out on noticing every day. I wonder about what my life would look like if I didn't lift things up in prayer every day. When I put Sklyar and Caleb to bed every night and pray for Gods angels to surround our house and protect us and watch over us.....I fully believe that He does, I believe that so many angels actually come and watch us and protect us all through the night. How comforting.
Yesterday was Easter. The greatest day in History. Best church service yet.....New Life all around me. Talking to the kids all day about God rising from the dead. Caleb told Seans mom, "God wose fwom deadness".....so sweet. Being able to witness Amy, Nicole, Tracy, Melissa and Chrisitian's baptism was just amazing. I have watched a lot of people get baptized, but yesterday was powerful. Maybe it had something to do with it taking place on Easter.....I don't know, but it moved me. Just listening to thier stories and realizing that the Life we have inside us IS so powerful. Heaven is crashing earth through us. I've been learning so much these past few weeks about Heaven. As much as it boggles my mind, it gives me so much excitement. We bring Life to the "Deadness" around us. God awakens what He plants in the hearts that He loves....I want to be a part of that!

Tahoe

We got a dog. Christmas Present. He's 1/2 lab 1/2 Rodesian Ridgeback. We have a love/have relationship with each other......when he's good and minds, I like him....when he comes running accross our beige carpet with muddy paws and jumps on me, and then onto our couch, not a whole lotta love is flowin out of me towards him. And especially when I open the door into our garage and see my brand new white bra now mangled and wrapped around his neck........

Landscaping

Alright, so we moved into our house in October. Experienced Fall, beautiful. All the leaves changing, and then, of course everything dead and winterized. So then Spring rolls up on us and everything starts popping out of the ground, and a crazy amount of Spikey balls continuing to fall from our huge 80-foot tree out front. Now, I am NO gardner....I can't even keep a little green plant in my house alive. I have a black thumb. Literally. Black, not pretty. So Sean and I have been trying to re-do our front yard. Whoever lived here before lived here for 50 years and so everything was overgrown and "old". Camelias, rose bushes (lots of them), wierd bushes. Sean starts going crazy and ripping EVERYTHING out. Rose bushes, gone. Huge Camelia bush, gone. 80 ft. Liquid Amber tree, gone. Mimosa tree, gone. So our front yard is a pile of dirt. And when you have 3 small children, dirt is their playground. Not fun for trying to keep a house somewhat presentable. Skylar and Caleb are a constant ball of dirt. Caleb has all his cars and trucks out there and is making tracks for them. His brand new shoes are now brown. We go through 7 pairs of pants in 3 days. Awesome for my laundry.

We were now at the point where we could finally DREAM about our yard. Every plant and bush and tree I look at and LOVE are Japanese......I have always loved Japanese Maples. I made my mom plant one in her yard years ago, i was living vicariously through her. SO Sean drew up a whole diagram of our front yard and we headed to Lowes and purchased our layout. SO fun!! We came home Monday night and layed everything out. Tuesday we planted. And now I LOVE our yard! Its finally coming together. Sean has been so so amazing. He has poured everything into doing everything. He impresses me all the time. And now our yard is beautiful!

Heres the process:

Beginning the process.

80 ft. Liquid Amber (that little lump in it is Dan)

Gone.

Laying out what we bought.
Finishing planting and laying bark.....now just have to plant grass seed where the dirt it......

MY Japenese Maple!! I love it!!
Its all coming together....so exciting. Now all we have to do is go get our 3 Redwoods and plant those where our tree was and plant grass. I can't wait to watch it all grow. Hopefully I don't kill it all in the process......

Leah Caldwell

So our amazing friend Leah, flew here for the Retreat. It was so great to see her and catch up with her. She came over last night and spent the night and presented us with this present.....

Freakin awesome!! She cross-stitched this, crazy!!!

Leah- Thank you so much, I can't even express how sweet this gift was and how precious to me your friendship is. I am so so glad you flew here and spent the weekend with all us women, we were so blessed to have you here with us. Love you!

Deep breath

I can finally breath again. What an amazing weekend. I don't even know where to begin..........72 women....Beth Moore.....God just kept giving me such overwhelming love for every woman I talked to, so crazy cause I usually am not that full of compassion, but man, this weekend I was overwhelmed with it. So, God totally showed up, I feel like this weekend was just a start to something so much bigger, there were connections, breakthroughs, healings, walls broken down, shopping, good food, MAFIA, games......everything went so great. I think we will do it again there next year, but with 100 women (but I don't even want to think about it till September)......

Here are some pics:

Me and my girls :0)

Henna in the Spirit

Amazing worship, Thank you Jenna!

Not So Simple Life Anymore......

We're back. I have mixed emotions about it. I loved living simply. No TV, no internet, no cell phone. I liked just being at night with Sean after the kids went to bed.....hanging out playing games, reading books, talking......not having to keep up with all the TV shows, blogging, emails, myspace, facebook......but all good things must come to an end. We have TV back and cable, and DVR now, which I must admit is crazy addicting and pretty nice......we got a camera, which was the biggest part for me, not having anything to record my family was pretty disturbing. And now Internet.....which I was totally fine before not having, but now that we do, its nice just being able to shoot someone an email, or look up a question I have on ask.com, or once again spend time browsing through craigslist looking for that perfect something that we don't need.......

Anyway, Life is pretty crazy right now.....I feel like all of a sudden my life has doubled now that Ryder is crawling. Up until a month ago it was pretty easy having three kids, Ryder is the worlds perfect baby, he would just sit or lay there playing for hours, never complaining...but now.....oh man.....he's constant.....into the trash, into the toilet, drawers, cupboards, books, vases, candles, trash again, back to toilet.......the boy never stops....so yes, i officially have three kids. So trying to keep on him, a sink full of dishes, toys scattered everywhere, spills, trash can being dumped over, mud being tracked in from the dog, a constant 10 loads of laundry, oh yah, and planning a womans retreat, I feel like i want to go crawl in a hole and sleep for days.......but then absolutely nothing would get accomplished........

Super stoked for the retreat though, its tomorrow......its going to be amazing. I have such an amazing team of women that have just been so amazing.....God has been preparing me and I know so many other women for so much connection and vulnerability this weekend. I can't wait to see how He works and I am so humble to be a part of it. The weekend is going to be about Loving Well....couldn't be a more perfect title for what He's been preparing in the hearts of so many women at the Stirring. So thats pretty much my life right now.....

Good to be back.......

here's some updated pics of the fam.....