Babies!

So I've had a lot on my mind lately and it seems like my posts haven't been that fun so I decided to show off my babies! Does it seem like we are going to have a bumper crop of babies this year! I'm feeling like I need to take a look at my babies and and remember how small they were. I wanted to share them with everyone! So here's a few of my favorite pictures of my babies!

Tyler and Clayton Easter 2006!

This is our mighty huntress Tina!

Our good old girl, Sandy! She was not thrilled to have a pup in the house!

This is our pretty boy Pete. He's living it up with the in-laws in Kansas City because we can't have cats in our rental.

And these are my cowboys today! Tyler is 10 (Almost 11) and Clayton is 4.

So these are my babies! Good luck to all the new moms and moms to be out there! There's nothing but fun in store for you!

The Five Year Plan

More often than not lately I catch myself feeling not quite right. I feel a little... off. I recently went out with some "old friends". The things that they are worried about are so not what I am anymore. When I say "old friends" they are not from that long ago. They are some of the girls that I worked with at a job that I was at about a year and half ago, when my priorities were somewhere else, and I hadn't found a good balance yet. So now begins the struggle that I haven't really ever had to deal with, who am I?

Who am I?

I feel like I am torn between who I was and who I am and who I am going to be. Is this a struggle for everyone? Once I finished high school I made a deal with myself to always be confident in who I was. Always knowing what the next step would be and stick with the "Five Year Plan." I always had it lined out in my head what I wanted to be doing in five years. College, marriage, kids, job, kids, house, etc. I sure didn't think that God was going to throw a wrench in that plan by up and moving us out of state. That was NOT in the five year plan. Since it was a good opportunity for Doug; I can tweak the plan a little. We'll move. I'll get by for a year and pick up where I left off. I thought that when we moved back to KC I would be able to pick up where I left off. I could step back into those shoes and start right back where I was. The question is now, do I want to?

I'm not so worried about going back and pretty much starting over. I've already done that here in Hastings and I feel like once you've done it you can do it again. There is no fear there but there is a little worry about losing what I have come to love so much about who I have become at this point in my life. I'm sure about my walk with God, I'm more in love with my husband now than I think I was when we got married, and I'm sure that I absolutely love being a mom. Moving into this new phase of my life is going to upset that balance.

So what will I do? I sure can't sit and worry about it for two more months. Keeping this in mind I am going to lay it all out for the Lord to tell me what to do next. All I can hope for is that I chose the easy path, even though nothing is ever easy, and fully trust in Him to guide my steps.

Full to the Brim

So this weekend we traveled to Kansas City, which I'm sure some people know that we are in limbo here in Hastings and will be going back to Kansas City in a few months. This is a common trip for us but this wasn't the usual weekend back home.

Friday morning the women began to descended upon my house one car at a time. This all started about 8:00 and my dear husband just grinned and welcomed everyone in! At 8:00 in the morning! Remember we didn't get home until about midnight on Thursday! What a great guy!

So the reason for the invasion was to attend the Women of Faith Conference at the Sprint Center. I was baptized at our church in Raytown last year with my best boy, Tyler, and I feel like I am still a small child in my walk with God. Still trying to get my balance and understand what and how the Lord speaks to me. I have been waiting so long for this opprotunity. I couldn't wait to the conference and absorb all the wisdom these wonderful women, and a few men, were going to teach me!

The music was wonderful, we got to see the first performances of the year! Including Steven Curtis Chapman and you may remember Mandisa from American Idol. I can't wait to get their music off iTunes. There were great speakers from all walks of life and all ages. I am so appreciative for their openness about their lives and the way the Lord has worked in them. But the one thing that I keep hearing over and over from them is that God forgives and forgets. So why is it so hard to forgive ourselves? Why do we have to constantly struggle to let our past mistakes go?

So I prayed that I can just give these things over to him and let him take away all the pain and struggle that can go with these things. And you know when I left on Saturday afternoon I felt so wonderful! I was exhausted from head to toe and my brain felt like it was going to burst from all the thinking I did over the weekend but I felt refreshed! I felt as though God had touched my life in a way that I will never forget and I hoped that I could feel like this everyday. I felt like tomorrow was a new day and all I had to do was keep giving it over to God!

Last night when I we finally made it back to Hastings, of course I had to check my e-mail and my facebook and there my dear friend had posted how she was feeling. I feel like it said it all, "Only a relationship with God fills your life with peace...".

I have to agree with her on that and that I am to full to the brim too.

Great Friends

What a beautiful day today was! We were blessed this week to have 3 gorgeous days in a row. Sunny and a little wind just to let us know that winter is not quite over. The kids loved to get out of the house. It was like letting the inmates loose! What a great week.

When we moved here I was so sad. I missed my home, my job, and my everyday rushing around. Doug's hours had picked up and he was gone at least 12 hours a day. I had a house full of boxes and no one around. It was summer time so no school parents to get to know. HOW WAS I GOING TO SURVIVE A YEAR LIKE THIS? About a week after we moved here and I signed my kids up to go to VBS at a church in town. That's where I saw the MOPS sign. What is MOPS? Will they like me? How terrible will my kids be compared to theirs?

As I checked my kids in that first day I didn't know I was meeting one of those MOPS. What a friendly smile and a beautiful baby girl. Oh how Clayton talked about that baby girl. He went through a faze that he was totally fixated with babies. Little fingers and little toes. So the first play date I went to, all the faces weren't completely new. How fun was the little splash pool at the park? I didn't even know they had these anymore.

Well it turns out they liked me okay. At least they let me hang around with them. I honestly can't imagine what I would have done with myself this year without my beloved mom friends. They've been there to see how terrible my kids can be and how great they can be. I've watched all the of their children grow in such a short time I feel sad that I can't see how all of them will turn out. I know we will not be that far away but no one will ever compare to you, my friends. Thanks for making these times here some of the best times in my life!

Dirty Cheese

I'm not a total neat freak. I am not a complete germ-a-phobe either. If anyone would just pop over anytime during the week you would all witness this but I cannot get past the dirty food thing. I don't know if the warming weather and blowing dirt have brought out the beast in me but I can't get past it! I can't scrape the mold off the jelly and I can't eat off the side of the sandwich that my kids have bitten off of.



I think it was brought to my attention yesterday when we were at the park and the sweetest little boy came up and sat right next to me with the dirtiest piece of cheese that I have ever seen! So being a little grossed out I tried to switch the cheese with the piece in the middle but it was as dirty as the top one. Uuuggghhh! It was making me a little queasy when one of my other great mom friends said, "Just don't look." So I turned my head and just didn't look.



You know, we have been on so many camping trips that I thought I was past this issue. My children have probably ingested more dirt than most children. How many times has Tyler gone fishing with Doug, digging worms out of that little styrofoam container and halfway through the day he's digging in the cooler in for a peanut butter sandwich? How many time has Clayton been in the sandbox and come running in for fruit snacks? How many times did I make them wash their hands? I wasn't their for the worms and I just assume since it's OUR sanbox it's clean?


So today as we sat at the park and I watched my friends darling little girl pick up a packet of BK carmel off the ground, I held my tongue, for about 10 seconds. Please don't eat the stick carmel packet with grass and dirt stuck all over it! The packet wasn't even open! It wasn't even sticky! I think it had been there for about 5 seconds! Calm myself! My friends probably think I'm nuts! Now as I sit here typing this note, I don't think dirt is bad! I don't think you are dirty! I admit it... I have a problem. So please support me as I work through these issues!


So it's not the end of the world if my children eat a little dirt. After all the little boy with the dirty cheese came back today all healthy and smiles, just as cute as the day before. As I am trying to conquer this "phobia" please allow me to fall off the wagon a time or two. So next time the little guys drop their cheese on ground, I am going to remember, "Just don't look." Thanks fellow mom!

Bad Looking

It seems like on a daily basis at our house we talk about "bad looking." Not bad looking people or ourselves but having "bad looking" skills. I wonder why in the world the good Lord blessed boys (and men) with bad looking skills? There is a daily hunt for the Gameboy charger or the left shoe or the missing camo glove that my hubby HAS to HAVE to take hunting. Why oh why can they not put their stuff in the same place every time?

That leads my thought to a recent trip to the Sears at our local, or semi-local, shopping mall. We all were enjoying the trip, as much as we can with a rambunctious 4 year old boy, when he went missing. He ran away from dad out into the mall and disappeared. How terrified was I when the hubby called me and told me he was gone.

As I ran out into the food court, the busiest place in the mall that day, I tried to remember all the things that I had read and listened to all these years of having kids and I could not for the life of me remember a darn thing that they said. All I could do was yell his name and hope that he would pop out and say, "Here I am!" That didn't happen.

He turned up about 10 minutes, and minus 10 years of my life, later. He was in the jeans rack back in the Sears. My hubby found him just bawling and scared to death backed all the way against the wall. He just kept crying that he couldn't find us. Let me tell you, that was the longest ten minutes of my life. I know that most moms unfortunately at some time or another have also had this unpleasant experience. As I ran to security all I could hope was that their "looking" skills were better than the ones we have at home.

Everything turned out great in the end, except for the fact that half of Grand Island watched me bawl until my masscara ran, when so many times it does not. And can you believe the worst looker in my house was the one that found my boy? Hmm... how's that for "good looking"?