"I Love You"

Wednesday Night is AWANA night in our town. The kids have AWANA from 6:30-8pm and my two oldest get to go. This is the one thing they do during the week that is away from Mom so it is a fun and special time for them. Well, they are big enough now that I can pull right up to the church doors and let them out and I don't have to take them inside to help them sign in.

So, this week we pulled up as usual and the kids got ready to get out of the van when my littlest one looks at them and says "Bye guys! I love you!!". It was so cute! She was so excited to wish them farewell and just make sure they knew she was thinking about them! It was a total Mom moment where I felt so proud and so much in love with that cute little girl!

I know that sisters go through rough patches but I sure hope that they end up being best of friends one day and can share their lives together!

Home Improvements

I love home improvements! I love the end result of them and I love that we are finally getting the house how we want it. What I do NOT love is the mess!!!! We have our entire dining room in our living room and front porch right now. ugh!!! We also have a mess in our kitchen because we were trying to get our new gas stove installed. Normally this wouldn't be an issue, but we have no natural gas in our area so we had to run pipe lines from the kitchen, into the basement and then to the outside to be hooked up to a propane tank. It has been quite a job! Thankfully, my husband and my dad were able to get the stove hooked up and ready to go yesterday. Now we are just waiting for Wednesday to come so that the LP company can come and install the new tank.

The reason that our living/dining room is a mess is because we were refinishing the original hardwood floors in our house. We put the last coat on last night(it took us a week) and now we are finally ready to put things back together. I am super satisfied with the results and I am looking forward to seeing all of my things in their place and the shiny new floors underneath!

We have a few other small things that we plan on finishing in the near future as well. After 12 years we are finally getting new living room furniture! We have FINALLY picked out the sectional that we want so we will be putting that on order soon. We basically picked out the pieces we wanted and it is going to be a custom fit for our room! We are excited! Lastly, I found the PERFECT area rug at Lowe's so we are going to purchase that after the furniture finally gets here. Unfortunately, it will be about 12 weeks for the furniture to get here. Oh well, that will give us some time to pay down the balance!!!!

We are so thankful that we have been able to get these things done and we are really excited for the end results! Stay tuned for more photos!!!

Baby Fever

I am wondering if baby fever has ever hit you? Have you ever felt it so strongly that it almost takes over your senses and better judgment? I know that sometimes when it comes around that even though we know that it isn't a good time for a baby that we let our good sense go by the wayside on the hunt for that baby fix.

I can't really do that anymore. I can get baby fever, of course, but I can't fulfill it in a biological way. My hysterectomy with my last daughter took care of that for me! LOL! But this weekend I was at the home of one of my very best friends. She cannot have any of her own biological children, so she has been hoping to do a foster-to-adopt for a while now. Finally, after years of waiting and endless amounts of patience it has finally happened! She got to bring home a 2 day old little boy and he is just adorable! I couldn't wait to celebrate with her and meet her little one so I spent the better part of Saturday with her. I got to hold and snuggle and love on that little boy. I am now praying diligently that the adoption part goes through and that he is going to be her little boy forever. Don't get me wrong, I do feel for the little one and his mother, but the circumstances(which I will not go into) make me feel very strongly that my friend is the ultimate place for this little cutie pie!!!!

Now, this little(6 hour) visit put my baby fever into full swing! I wanted to just get a "baby fix" while I was there, but it really made me miss the days of my girls being so little and innocent. My husband and I have always wanted four children and we recently had our adult niece move away, so it has left a space in our home and our family for another. It made me want to run out and fill out every paper I could and take every class possible to hopefully get to bring home a little one of my own. However, I know that right now some of these things just aren't feasible for us. The red tape and the amounts of time required to be eligible for this are just not a good fit for us right now. Hopefully soon, but we will have to wait and see what God's plan is for us.

After all of this, it really makes me wonder why some people don't take this own discretion seriously with their own lives. Why do people have babies when they can't care for them? There are so many ways to prevent pregnancy and I just don't get it. There are so many babies out there who don't have parents who love them. There just aren't enough foster families to go around. It is really sad. So many of these "surprise" babies are just lack of responsibility.

I just thought that I would urge people who maybe are finished having their own children or maybe who can't have their own to consider looking into foster-to-adopt programs. It is a great option and there are many little ones who need love!

I am continuing to pray that one day the time will be right for us and that we will be properly prepared for that situation. I would love to give one of these babies a set of parents who love and care for them!

For everything there is a season

There are many times that I have to remind myself that there are season's to one's life. People come and go throughout your life that make an impact and then life moves on. I think I am at a place like that right now. It's funny because you just "know" it is time to continue on in your life. You don't feel that common bond anymore and it is just obvious. Maybe that is God whispering in your ear that it is in His timing and that you need to keep going. I am not sure. However, one thing I do know.....it is definitely time to start moving onward and upward. No more longing for things I used to have and start looking forward to what is ahead. I am excited about what life will bring my way and I am looking forward to experiencing it!

Hmmm.....Is 29 the new elderly?!

I love being in the car with my girls. They are sure to come up with something witty almost every trip somewhere.

Yesterday we were driving along and Michaela was asking questions about the way things used to look when I was a little girl. I was telling her that things were a little different back then. There are new roads and buildings now that weren't there before. She ponders this thought for a little while and then proceeds to ask me a doozy of a question. She says, "Mom, were you alive when the dinosaurs were alive?" Ummm....NO! My goodness, I am not even thirty yet and my kids think I walked with the dinosaurs! That just confirms it....I am NEVER having my 30th birthday! Hmmpff.....

Even Believers have valleys

1 Peter 5:7 (New Living Translation)

⁷ Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.

It's funny to me to think that someone would think that Christians have it all together or their life is always happy and easy. This is not the case. We struggle just like everyone else. The only difference is that we have someone we can lean on and a place to lay all of our struggles. We have a way to find peace. It's an amazing feeling. However, that doesn't mean that our hearts don't hurt over many things.

I have been having an extremely difficult time lately. I have been wallowing in a pit of sadness for a while. I have been angry and hurt over the loss of our church family for a year now. We are still struggling to find a place where we feel we belong. We have had a trickle-down effect from that loss. Many of my friends that I used to have a connection with have moved in different directions. I don't have that friend time that I once had. I don't have any involvement with any "mom" groups/ministries like I used to. I miss it....I crave it.....I am angry that I don't have it. I know that this, in turn, has an effect on my home life. I feel sort of like I am stuck. I am "Mom" all of the time. I don't ever get to just be Jennifer. I don't have time where I get to get away from the house and just enjoy my friendships with other women. Don't get me wrong, I love my kids and I love my husband, but I also love myself and find myself craving some time for just me.

I am also coming up on the first anniversary of the death of one of my best friends(view her obituary here). March 22nd. is the day that she died. I am struggling a lot with this upcoming day. I wish desperately that cancer hadn't taken her so soon. I am torn between mourning her death and celebrating her new life and her ended suffering. I want her to be here and happy and watching her daughter grow up. But I also would never ask her to continue to suffer. I miss her a lot.

The other day I was listening to the radio when I heard a song that I really needed to hear. It is the song "Cry Out to Jesus" by Third Day. It was a huge reminder that when life gets like this that I need to just leave it with Him. I need to allow all of my struggles and worries to be heard through prayer. I have been working very hard at just letting Him deal with these issues and solve them in His time. It has been a hard lesson for me. I am still learning how to deal with my "valley" and how to get through it. It's literally one day at a time.

My warm fuzzy moment

My middle daughter, Alaina is by far the most sensitive of my three girls. She always has been. Even when she was a baby you didn't have to spank her when she disobeyed. Just a look and a raised voice was enough to send her crying because she didn't want to be in trouble. I love that about her. It is what makes her unique and amazing to me. It makes me want to be more like her. I am the opposite. I naturally put on a "tough" and stubborn front.

The other day she and I were in the kitchen preparing dinner. She was sitting on the stool and I was standing by the sink behind her. We weren't really having any kind of conversation when out of the blue she turns around to me and says:

"Mommy, how come you are the bestest mommy ever?"

I was completely shocked! It took me a second to respond to her and I said "you think I am the bestest mommy ever, huh?!" She shook her blonde little head yes and I was just bursting with love! I told her that she had to come over and give mommy a big hug! She stood up and I hugged her and just kissed her cute little face. I told her that I just loved her so much and she was so special to me.

These are the moments I am going to miss in just a few short years when my girls grow up to become beautiful young women. I try to savor the moments when they are not fighting or crying or begging for just ONE MORE piece of candy.

Thank you Lord for giving me the blessing of my beautiful family and for giving me a little girl who shows me some of the things I should strive to become. It is humbling to look up to a five year old girl.