Take out those beach toys!

Seriously why save up all your beach toys to use only at the beach? Beach toys are perfect for the snow!

The 11th mile.

As most of you fellow facebookers know I have been training for a half-marathon race with all of my wonderful friends. Women who have taught me to continue on and to push through anything and to rely on God because he will provide. We have been training for this race for 7 months now. Might I add that it has been an amazing 7 months. Running has opened up a new way to pray and for Mommy to get some me time. As I sit here and write this right now I am so thankful for our God who has provided me with two legs to get me going and to keep me moving. I must admit in the last couple of months I have been lacking in reading my bible. On our 11 mile run I trusted in myself and not God that I would get through the run with no injuries, that was on Sunday. On Monday my foot started to swell and the muscles were damaged. I was in a lot of pain the week after we ran and ended up going to the Dr. Of course he didn't say anything that I wanted to hear "No running for 4 weeks!" WHAT! I thought to myself "Are you crazy?" I was so disappointed it was like someone had punched me in the gut and I was also disappointed because my best friend and I had been training together for so long. We relied on each other to get through those very long runs. Well today when I woke up this morning I am going to rely on God to get me though these next 3 weeks. He is in control of this and he will make the ultimate decision if I will run or not. Someone wrote this.....

“This blessed life must not be looked upon in any sense as an attainment but as an obtainment. We cannot earn it; we cannot climb up to it; we cannot win it; we can do nothing but ask for it and receive it. It is the gift of God in Christ Jesus. And where a thing is a gift, the only course left for the receiver is to take it and thank the giver.”

So thank you God for letting me get even this far in my running journey. I trust in you that you will guide me and lead me in the right direction with this experience and with any other trials I may be going through in my life right now!!

Christian's Surgery!

Waiting!

Christian and mommy!

Playing with his cap!

He got the royal treatment! The nurses kept bringing him
hot blankets.

Christian and Daddy ready to go in!

C in his super big surgery clothes!

Waiting in the Lobby when we first got there! No one else looked
as excited as he did to have surgery!

Today was Christian's Epigastric Hernia Surgery at INOVA Fairoaks Outpatient Center. We left the house at 6:00 this morning in order to be at the Center for 7:15. The night before I was pretty restless. I knew that it was an outpatient surgery but the thought of my child being put under still makes me cringe. Christian was a trooper in the morning because he could not have anything to eat or drink and he did such a wonderful job. A couple of days ago I asked him who he would like to have in the operating room with him and he said Colin(Thank God) I did NOT want to be in there. I am still scared to go under to have my wisdom teeth removed and i'm not kidding. So anyways they brought us in the back waiting room and got Christian changed into a fabulous gown and HUGE pants. It was pretty funny. The nurse had him write a YES on this hernia and so he did. He never cried and rode into the OR in a wagon saying "Weeee!" the entire time. The doctor came out of surgery and told us everything went well and we were brought back into the recovery room. He wasn't awake yet and was peacefully sleeping. His eyes started to open and he was so mad. He was mad and wanted to go home. I don't really blame him. It took him about an hour to fully wake up and then we were released from the hospital. I praise God that everything went well.

No fun!

Thank goodness for Trios and Trains!

I said NO!

My sick little girl.

This week Avah is ill. She has double ear infections, runny nose, cough and fever. Poor girl!
I am hoping that Avah gets better before tomorrow and that her fever breaks tonight
or there will be a lot of canceling our plans in the near future. I am also that praying
that she gets better before Monday because Christian is having surgery to repair his hernia!

A week full of Disappointment!

This week has been a very rough week for me. Not being pick for the scholarship, Having to cancel on our weekend get away to Great Wolf Lodge because the kids or sick and just other personal things that have not worked out the way I wanted them to. How do we continue to move on through the hard times and disappointments in our lives? I seek God. He is the creator and he has a plan it may not be my plan but he knows what is right for me. After submitting my scholarship via internet for everyone to see and not knowing for three weeks who had one was a hard time. Playing that whole waiting game. I would get online and check everyday to see if there was something posted about the SOAR scholarship. A friend of mine told me that even though I didn't win this was only the beginning. She is an amazing new friend that I have met through the whole Scholarship process. I really wish I would have won but I know that deep down in my heart it just wasn't in God's plan. So the kids were also sick this weekend and we had a nice little one night get away to Great Wolf Lodge because Colin was off for a long four day weekend. We spent the entire weekend in the house enjoying each other(can you sense the sarcasm in that?) Needless to say it made for a long weekend. Please God give me the strength and courage to keep pushing forward.

In the mean time ladies here is a cool craft to keep you busy through this winter. My girlfriend back at home makes them! So cute.

http://jonesdesigncompany.com/create/5-days-of-favorite-projects-day-1/

Baking & Snowing!

Helping bake the cookies!

Crushing the crumbs!

This is what we got this morning!

C & A They just love the snow!

Iced and ready to eat!

Don't they look so delicious!

This morning we had plans to bake and Colin was going to go bike riding(new hobby). When I looked out the window little did I know it was snowing. Colin ended up canceling his bike riding trip and I started baking. First off in the oven were Dollie Madison cookies! These are so awesome. They are filled with chocolate chips, pecans and coconut! All of the ingredients I love in cookies. Several years ago a friend came over and bought me the most wonderful cinnamon rolls one morning for breakfast. If you know my 4 year old he is a huge fan of cinnamon rolls so this made his day. After eating them and LOVING them I asked her if she wouldn't mind coming over and helping me make these delicious cinnamon rolls that are made from scratch! She said "Yes!" This morning she came over with her two girls and showed me how to make her (secret recipe) cinnamon rolls. I had no idea how much hard work she put into these cinnamon rolls. From using the right spoon, to making the dough rise perfectly and then to top it off the amazing icing that needs just the right amount of time to be mixed. So much hard work! I appreciated them when she bought them to me that morning but it wasn't until today that I really APPRECIATED them! Wowa! It took us 3 hours to make those cinnamon rolls. It's kind of like me not truly being able to appreciate my mom until I had children of my own. We had a great time and in the end I was able to freeze all of the cinnamon rolls and not have to waste the store bought tube cinnamon rolls because I normally do not eat those. Next thing on my birthday list Kitchen Aid mixer!! Thanks again Patricia that was wonderful!

Word for the Year!

Spitting! It was so funny!

Avah always gets really bunched up and full of excitement!

Uh-Oh

This is her natural smile! Mommy is soo funny!

So instead of a New Year's resolution I wanted to have a word for the year. That word is "Intentional". I want to be more intentional about the things I do in life. If it's an e-mail I want to write it the right way not blow through it. If it is a photo shoot I want to capture the fun moments and not just poses. If it's writing something down or doing a task that Colin has asked I want to be intentional about it. I also want to be more intentional in my friendships. I know I can do this I just need YOUR help and God's help of course. Speaking of God, I really need to be more intentional about reading my bible. Today I wanted to take my camera out intentionally to capture all of Avah's funny faces. Often I get annoyed when she makes silly faces and today I realized that I wanted our photo shoot to be natural. She was so into it. She wanted to dress up, she wanted to be herself and we both ended up having fun! Here is what the outcome was...