Make a Smilebox slideshow

What a sweet, amazing blessing! We just enjoyed the best time together at Myrtle Beach The kids had a great, memorable time, and J.J and I completely enjoyed being away from Knoxville for a little while. Elaina Loved (and that would be an under-statement) the trip. She spent most of her free time in the large baby pool. She has become quite the swimmer. She did incredible in the car to and from. Thank you God for giving the wisdom to whoever invented the portable DVD players. She was in movie "heaven." Jack, on the other hand, :) didn't do as good. Why is it when you leave close to bedtime you don't get any sleepers and when you leave in the morning you get. . . sleepers? Let me explain. We thought it would be good to get a jump start on the traveling on Saturday evening close to their bedtime so maybe they would fall asleep and we could drive 3 or4 hours while they were sleeping. They didn't sleep at all! We stopped to sleep somewhere for the night and got up early the next morning to finish our drive. What did they do an hour into the drive? Fall asleep! It was only for 45 minutes but still. Another ironic thing is I wasn't tired driving at night either, but in the morning I had to fight to keep my eyes open. Why is this? Anyway, the trip felt short but we are so thankful that God allowed us this amazing opportunity. Around the first of July I started feeling a bit anxious b/c my summer was quickly coming to an end and I didn't feel like I had had much of a vacation. We hadn't done much as a family at all and that's always what I get so excited about for summer. Well since I took so much time (wonderful time) off for family leave after Jack, we just didn't have much in savings. I didn't want to share my disappointment with J.J right away because I didn't want him to feel bad or like he wasn't providing. Well I started praying for God to show opportunities and give me wisdom. I felt silly at first praying for a break and a time away, but I truly needed it. So, J.J came home the next week telling me about how he searched and searched placed to go for a short vacation and how there were strings he could pull to make it happen. I was tickled. It was so sweet hearing others excited for us too. We are truly blessed beyond measure! Lastly, God has spoken wonderful things to me through the book Shepherding a Child's Heart which I had time to finish during the trip. :) another God thing! I was recommended this book by a precious friend of mine and I am now wanting the world to read it. I can't say enough about this book. God has called us to do very specific things in regards to raising his children, and this book makes it easy to understand that raising a child isn't all about what our culture has made it. . . being positive all the time. . . not spanking. . . .making sure they feel good about themselves. . . telling them they need a good education so they can make lots of "MONEY" . . . .etc. Behavior comes from the heart. Proverbs 4:23 states it like this, "Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life." In other words, if we aren't dealing with the heart of our children then it is hard for them to know and understand who God is and why he sent his son. Reading this book parallelled with the Bible, has taught me so much about my own heart and God has graciously revealed many mistakes I have been making as a parent. I am so thankful my children are still so young. But it also talks about what to do if your children are older. It is a "must read!"

Scroll down and pause music to the right before playing

This couple's son recently passed from drowning, and this video reveals the strength only the Lord can provide. It spoke to me in an amazing way, I pray it does the same for you.


If you have time, check out his other videos too. He has a lot of good things to share about God's love.

Firefly Fun

We didn't have power for quite a while tonight so we let Elaina stay up later than usual and before she laid down to bed we went out back to visit the fireflies. We must have hundreds of them just in our backyard and the couple that back up to ours. It is so beautiful watching them flicker all over the place. Elaina thought it was so cool. She didn't care catching them either. There are so many, all you have to do is slowly move your hand around for a few seconds and before you know it. . . one's landed right on your hand. It was such a sweet time. I'm going to have to let her stay up later more often this summer. Her little voice saying, "fireflies are so nice mom, they like me mom, I like them too." is just so sweet. Oh the simple things that bring so much joy!

exhausting weekend

I finally saved up enough money to buy a play set for Elaina and Jack. Elaina loves to climb, slide, swing, and be outside. We aren't 100% finished building it yet, but very close. I'd say 95% finished. We either lost a bolt or it was missing, so we have one bolt to attach to a bottom support piece and then stake it to the ground. J.J worked so hard putting it together. I wish I could have helped more than I did, but I had to also take care of Elaina and Jack too. We probably would have finished a couple hours earlier, but it took about 13 hours. We started Saturday late afternoon and worked until dark and then again mid-afternoon on Sunday til dark. Long and exhausting is all I have to say. I can't wait to hear what comes out of Elaina's mouth tomorrow when she sees it and actually gets to play on it.

Oh There You Are!

So I tried to do something productive today and clean out my car.  I wish I could say I am a neat and tidy person, but I'm creative and "they" say creative people aren't neat and tidy.  That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.  So anyway, I thought I'd gain a few laughs by letting you know a few of the items I found during the clean out.  Here goes. . . 

*4 plastic bowls

*3 plastic cups

*2 bottle lids

*4 pairs of Elaina's shoes (granted these were the uncomfortable ones that she "obviously" didn't wear much.)

*4 winter hats

*a pair of gloves

*one of Jack's jackets, one of my jackets, and two of Elaina's jackets

* four random socks of Elaina's without their match (What!?)

*5 toy balls

*etc. . . etc. . . etc

I collected two wal-mart bags of trash,  one target bag of toys, and one target bag of dishes and clothing items: (all were busting at the seams might I add)

Not to mention that a hungry person could have at least eaten enough crumbs to get by for a few hours.  

Wow!  I am a slob. . .a filthy. . . disgusting. . . SLOB!

:) I'll let you know what I end up finding next year at my "annual" car cleaning :0 lol

Ouch!

Yesterday Jack fell out of his crib.  I should have moved his mattress down sooner, but he just started pulling up to standing the other day so I thought I had at least a day or two. Well, I thought wrong.  Fortunately, he is fine.  J.J and I felt horrible!  Needless to say, J.J moved his mattress down to the very bottom notch right away.  Jack is so funny how he just starts doing stuff. . . I mean he doesn't really give us much warning.  He went from barely ever rolling over to pushing himself up, to sitting on his own, to rocking on his hands and knees for a day and then crawling three or four crawls, then pulling to his knees the very next day.  It all just started happening so fast.  I thought I was going to be lucky and not have to worry about him moving everywhere for awhile. . . Wrong!  Well I at least got 9 months of not much moving :)