CHRISTmas

This Christmas season has been a very interesting one for me. I was very excited to get our tree up and all of our little decorations set in place. I was in the Christmas spirit and excited for this joyous holiday, and as the days have gone by something has happened. Last night as I was sitting down with my girls my 5 year old looked at me and said, "Mom I think we are focusing to much on presents right now." I looked at her kind of puzzeled because we weren't even talking about presents or Christmas. I said, "Yes, I think your right.
She then replied, " I think we need to focus on God more."
I replied with, " You are right honey, we will do that this week."
As I sit here writing this post I am so blessed for the gifts that God has given us. But I will be perfectly honest I am also sad. I thought this would be a great Christmas, and I know that it will be but there is something missing this year. I was on the phone today with my Mom and it hit me that we are not going to be with family this year at Christmas and that is what is missing. This is our first year without any Grandparents here and in the 12 years of our marriage we have always been with family. It has really hit me lately how much I miss all of them.
I remember as a child spending every Christmas with my Grandparents and I long for that for my children. I don't know why families are so spread apart but my prayer for this coming year is that family becomes important to people again. I am not the only one longing for that. I talk to many of my friends who do not spend the holidays with Parents or Grandparents.
I know we will have a wonderful CHRISTmas because we will keep our eyes focused on Him. My hope is that next season we will be with family.
Right now I am focusing on just "counting it all JOY..."

ICE (I really hate it)

The winter weather here is more than what I expected. We are going on our third winter here in Iowa and I absolutely love the snow. But there is one aspect of winter that I have never experienced and it is called ICE. I absolutely hate the ICE.
I am not a very talented writer so creating a word picture for how much I despise Ice would be very challenging. I am going to make it very simple instead.

ICE STINKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The other morning I got up to go to the store to buy ingredients for our baking day, and let me tell you that was a huge mistake. It was the day after we had a storm that created freezing rain, and snow. Well I am a California girl and I have never had to deal with ice before. I continued on like I always do and went out to the van to start it up so it would have a chance to warm up. When I went out there it looked really cool like someone had sprayed it with water and then froze it. It looked cool but that was about it. This process of warming up the car took 40 minutes. Can you believe 40 minutes to just get out of the drive way. Now to me that is just ridiculous. It made me think to myself what am I doing here in Podunk, Iowa.


I had to laugh as I finally drove out of my drive way. I was thinking to myself how my life has changed over the past three years. In Phoenix it took me 40 minutes to go to the local store because of all the traffic, now it takes me 40 minutes to go to the local store because of all the ice. I really am not sure which is worse.

I do know that this season to will pass and in a few months I will be complaining about the heat and how I would love to have cold weather. But no ICE!!!!!

Happy Birthday

Today was my oldest daughters 11th birthday. I can't believe she is 11. I spent today just watching her and enjoying the young lady she is growing up to be.
We were blessed to have my Father-in-law in town this weekend to celebrate with us. I spent many times thinking about the day I gave birth to this beautiful little girl. I had mixed emotions today, as all of you know about our recent loss.I seemed to daydream at times about what Baby Charlie would have added to our family.
Back to the birthday. It was AWESOME. The day started out with a big breakfast fixed by Grandpa, flowers from Dad, and lots of gifts. After all of that we all just hung out as a family and had fun laughing and playing a new Wheel of Fortune game(which mommy is addicted to.)
Dinner was the birthday girls pick: Reuben's, vegetables and dip, and chips.
Of course cake and ice cream and movies to end the day.
We had a wonderful day and can't wait till next year to do it all over again.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I LOVE YOU LEMILY

New Look

The new look to my blog is not my own. I want to thank all of my friends and family who have commented on the new look, but it is not my doing.
You see I have a dear friend who lives in Texas, and I in Iowa. Even though we are thousands of miles apart she is still more than willing to help a friend who is not computer literate make her blog site look pretty.
So I just wanted to say thank you Lori for making my page look AWESOME. I love it.

SNOW!!!!

I love the snow!!!!
I know that sounds crazy to some of you but for me I feel like a little kid again whenever I see it snowing. I think it might be because I grew up in an area where there was no snow.
This is going to be our third winter here in Iowa and I just absolutely love it when it snows. Every time it begins to snow I can still remember the first snow we got when we moved here. It was a Tuesday morning and my husband had the day off(which is rare). I had gotten up and was coming up from the basement looked out the window and saw the snow coming down. I was so excited I went and woke everybody up to let them know that it was snowing. I really did feel like a little kid on Christmas morning.
Today we were anticipating snow and it finally came. Again when it started to snow I got that giddy feeling and said to all the kids, "It's Snowing, It's Snowing!!!" Just wanted you all to know that it is snowing here and all of us kids here are giddy and happy(even the big kid

Love and not Disrespect

Well, I am not really sure if I should be blogging about this situation that my husband and I just went through, but it is hilarious and I laugh just thinking about it. This last Saturday we as a family had a lazy day and did absolutely nothing. The weather forecasters (who know absolutely nothing) were calling for this huge ice storm. It turned out to be a little bit of freezing rain and that was it.
As the day went on I could tell something was wrong with my husband but he wouldn't tell me what it was. Towards the late afternoon he could hide it no more and he had begun to start groaning. At that point I knew he was in pain and I insisted on knowing what was wrong. He told me it felt like he had a broken rib but he couldn't figure out why the pain was not consistent. We both tried to figure out what was wrong; a broken rib, pleurisy, gas, kidney stone,etc.. I told him that it seemed like it was getting worse and we should probably go to the doctor and find out what was wrong. Reluctantly he decided that was the best thing to do.
Walking into the hospital I have to tell you all that I was embarrassed for him. Here is a grown man talking in a whisper because he doesn't want to take a breath, afraid of the pain he gets each time he breathes. I say to myself God knew what he was doing when he had women bear the children.
After the Doctor had gotten done poking and prodding and taking x-rays we found out that hubby had pulled a muscle near his rib cage.
Give me a break all that moaning and groaning for a pulled muscle. I was sitting in the ER trying my hardest to show respect and not laugh. Then you will never believe this. They gave him Valium. Can you believe that? I didn't say this but I was thinking I gave birth to six of your children and three of them completely drug free and they give you Valium for a pulled muscle. At that point I realized why God is the one in charge and not man. I truly believe there would have been an end to the world because men would never make it through the pains of pregnancy let alone childbirth.
Now let me explain myself I love my husband and he is a great and Godly man, but he is a WIMP when it comes to pain. Honey, this is said out of love and not disrespect.

Time

I have to tell you all that it is so interesting how children do not understand the concept of time. I was talking to my girls yesterday about some dear friends of ours who are going to Africa on a mission trip. I told them how God was opening all of the doors and that they were going as a family. They all said wow, cool, awesome, etc... Except my ten year old who gets this concerning look on her face (remember she is the mother hen in the house) but Mom isn't Sydney still a little young. I said "She is going to be 7!" My 10 year old looks at me and says with a surprised look, "Really I thought she was still 5."
O.K. This is the funny thing we became friends with this family right before this little girl turned 5. So I guess my daughter thinks time stands still for everybody else and she is the only one who gets older. Don't we wish.