Landri is 3!

It was three sweet years ago that Landri came into our lives! How good is God! She has absolutely changed the dynamics of our family and kept us laughing especially over the past year. She still loves her thumb and has a little mouse voice. Her favorite foods are M&M's, fruit and raisins. She LOVES swimming and has absolutely no fear of the water. She eats banana peppers and cherry tomatoes right out of the garden and loves to get dirty. Landri's favorite sayings are "Jesus is the boss!" and "hold me!" She has the most awesome tan (I promise I douse her with sunscreen!) and is wonderful to cuddle with. Her nickname is "tiny tank" and believe me she has earned it. We are constantly pulling over in the bar ditches to let her potty!

I am looking forward to the fall when we have some time together when Paige is at school. I asked her tonight what we were going to do when Paige is at school. She told me that we should bake and watch movies!

For her 3rd birthday we had a brownie cake for breakfast! That is a new tradition we started this year - cake for breakfast! Her birthday was on Father's day so we celebrated Coley as well. We ate lunch after church with friends and then headed to the water park at Sea World. She and Paige had a great time and then we went to see the night-time shows before heading home. Fun day! I will say this - I had forgotten what is was like to be at Sea World when it is over 100 degrees outside. We were exhausted!

Does our Potty Have a Motor?

Tuesday afternoon, Landri asked me if our potty had a motor. After smiling really big, I answered "you know, Landri, that is a perfect question for your father to answer!" As I sat down to write the weekly update to our children's ministry volunteers, I was still thinking about her question. How funny and completely simply of a question it was, yet she was really anxious to know the inner-workings of our potty. Later, Landri started shooting out several "hypotheses" on how the potty works - hungry for answers from her father.

Christ is like that with us you know! He has the perfect and complete answer for every question. Do you believe that? Do you know that? Sometimes we get distracted and pose life's questions to completely clueless and empty worldly sources. Never stopping to ask Him or research His Word. We settle for much less. We could instead be going to the all-knowing God - the one who spoke and it was!

Does that mean that we will have absolutely every answer on this side of eternity? No. Or that we will completely understand why or how things happen? No. However, that is when we learn more about the character of God. How to trust with everything we are and fully experience having faith.

It takes some spiritual growing up to simply rest, trust, and have faith that he is all-knowing, all-powerful and his plan for our lives is perfect. Take responsibility for your own spiritual growth! Do you not have direct access to the one true living God?

Seek Him out. How do we best do this? I am ever more convinced that it isn't through some famous Christian author or theologian. Don't just take their word for it. Dig into God's Word and spend time in prayer DAILY. It will not return void. What a better time to sit in a cool air-conditioned spot, grab your Bible and dig-in!

Darn that Forgetful Tooth Fairy...

Good morning!

Paige lost her 4th tooth last night at church! Its crazy and gross! Anyway, after getting home around 10 p.m. we put it in a plastic baggie and stuck it underneath her pillow - because at that point we couldn't find the tooth fairy box Meme and Pepper got her and were too exhausted to look for it. This morning I was greeted by a teary-eyed Paige heart-broken that the tooth fairy forgot about her and didn't leave her any money or take her tooth (at this point, I was like oh, darn! We put her to bed and totally forgot...hmmm....what to say, what to say). I told her that it was probably because we didn't have the tooth in the box and she couldn't find it. She was satisfied for the moment and went on her way to find the box.

A few minutes later, she came back and said she figured out why the tooth fairy forgot! She said "I bet the tooth fairy had small group last night too. She was really tired when she got home and decided that she should just take a bath and go to bed. She won't forget tonight!"

So true! How did she know???? :)

Welcome to my Wonderful, Crazy Life!

where do I begin? since my last blog post there is so much so I guess that I will just start with a short run-down of each member of my lovely family:

PAIGE - She did have the ear tube removed successfully, however we ended up with pneumonia as a side effect from the gas to used to knock her out. So it was a 2 weeks recovering from the surgery and then finding out that she had pneumonia after she had ran fever for 3 days. We had to have chest x-rays and blood drawn (which is always fun with a very anxious, sick, exhausted 5 yr old). Between re-fracturing the ankle, surgery and pneumonia all within a week she didn't have much left in her. It pretty much wiped her out. I noticed today that she had dark circles under her eyes as we left church and she slept well over 12 hours last night.

Oh, how could I forget? She also lost another tooth while she had pneumonia and has yet another one that is wiggly. To sum it up - we have been in recovery mode for the past 3 weeks.

She is changing, growing and really looking forward to kindergarten. She should get her cast off on Thursday if it has healed. I caught her trying to jump rope the other day so it will be interesting to see if it is healed. I find more and more that Paige's personality resembles mine and it seems to cause conflict between us. She is fun to be with and wants to know as much as possible about what is going on around her - which leads to lots of questions and some fear. I have learned to answer what I can without causing her to worry. It has been really dry here and Paige told me that "when she was washing her hands the other day, she asked Jesus if he would send us some rain." The very next day we got rain - to which Paige declared to everyone that Jesus had answered her prayer! She was really excited about that. ;)

LANDRI - My little Landri. She it too funny. Part of it is her age and the other her "free spirit". I have no clue how to relax and take in life like she does. She has also hit another milestone called "whine-fest". I just have to cut her off and remind her that I can't listen to "whiners" all day. Her new pretend name is "Gracie" and she loves to remind me that "Jesus is the boss of her". Coley asked her if she was going to quit sucking her thumb when she turned 3 and she looked at him and replied "No! I am going to suck it all day long!" We could not stop laughing...its just too much in her Landri voice. She has always got something completely hilarious to comment on. She finished her 1st official round of swimming lessons and did awesome! I think she felt really special since Paige has been getting lots of attention being sick. Can't believe its been 3 years - we will celebrate her 3rd birthday on Sunday.

COLEY & ME - I celebrated my 29th birthday on June 5th. The girls and Coley took me to eat and then to the Fossil Outlet to pick out a present! Then I went to Fredericksburg for a weekend away and met my sister, mom and sister-in-law. It was great to have some down time, rest, eat good food, shop, and be encouraged. It just seems weird to be 29! I still have this thought in my head that I just finished college a few years ago and its been 7 years!

Coley is super busy working out in this tremendous heat. He is pretty worn out when he gets home, but like I said we have been in recovery mode so its worked for all of us. We are very thankful that he has a good job as we have had several more friends lose jobs over the past few weeks.

9 years of wedded bliss! Well most of it has been "blissful"...we celebrated that night by going to Sonic and getting a slushy before taking Landri to swimming lessons. Romantic huh? Last night we had our official anniversary date and met some friends and floated down the river and then had dinner at one of our new favorite restaurants. Even more romantic huh? It was fun and relaxing, but not romantic. We haven't floated the river since before kids!

Most of all during the past few weeks, God has again proven faithful for all our needs- emotional, physical, spiritual, financial and even to ones we didn't know we had! He has sent us encouragers, a good nights sleep, extra overtime to pay medical bills, a bountiful garden to enjoy its harvest (we are getting 8 to 10 tomatoes per week and a 1000 or so zucchini!), a wonderful babysitter, Madalyn, to watch the girls so we can enjoy an evening out, family - Wayne and Malinda came and visited before Paige's surgery which was great because it took Paige's mind off of it and Aunt Bessie and Ethan after surgery which was a bright spot in the healing process -plus a big help to me! Even more so you can see His "fingerprint" on so many moments throughout the day. I am trying to keep my eyes open so that I don't miss anything that he has for me.

I am still trying to keep couponing and bargain-shopping and have found some really good deals lately. We (me and the girls) are trying to weave back into our schedule a baking day each week or so. I will try to post about those more often.