We've had a lot of different opinions as to who Kiera looks more like: me or Jared. Although there are parts of her that look like me, she definitely looks more like Jared. Of course, a lot of my relatives think Kiera looks like me and Jared's relatives think she looks more like Jared. Take a look and see for yourself:
Jared
Kiera
Me
Can you say "Daddy's little girl?" I rest my case. :)
It's been a testing kind of week for me...nothing huge, but I tend to worry about things way too easily. Kiera has her first ever cough and it sounds quite congested, so I feel really bad for her. It's hard because I can't take it away; all I can do is pray + give her some baby cough syrup. I try not to give her too much because I'm mostly anti-drugs + medicine and generally avoid them if I can.
The other thing is that we noticed her right foot points out at a 45 degree angle when we walk with her, but her left foot is straight. She's had a little tumble recently (which I felt HORRIBLE about), so I figured she was out of place. We took her to the chiropractor and sure enough, she was out. He said her legs should be symmetrical when she walks, so he adjusted her and said to keep getting her adjusted, which we do twice a month. He said it's nothing to worry about, but we need to keep bringing her back. It's become a habit for her to "walk" like that now, so I'm praying that will change. If you could pray for Kiera and pray for me that I will trust the Lord instead of worrying, I would really appreciate it. James 1:2-4 "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." I'm having a hard time considering it pure joy right now, but I know the end result will be good!
On Friday, I made the mistake of letting Kiera take our tube of toothpaste out of the bathroom. She was playing so nicely with it that I didn't want to take it away from her. She doesn't know how to unscrew the lid, so as long as it's safe, I let her play with it. She doesn't entertain herself very easily or very often, so I let her be if she is!
Fast forward several hours later...I was getting ready for bed when I realized our toothpaste was missing. I thought, "Oh no! I never put it back after Kiera was done playing with it. Where could she have possibly put it?" I looked underneath every piece of furniture on the main floor, in the cupboards, and drawers that she can reach, and I even checked the recycling bin downstairs to see if I had accidentally put it in there when I was cleaning up earlier. It was nowhere to be found! I quickly called Jared to see if he knew where it was. He said, "The last place I saw it was lying on the middle of the kitchen floor." I know, great place to keep toothpaste, right?! I know I could have just given up and bought a new tube of toothpaste the next day, but we're on an extremely tight grocery budget and I did NOT want to give up. I only bought this toothpaste a week or two ago. I knew it had to be in the house somewhere! I stopped and prayed, "Lord, would you please show me where the toothpaste is?" Yes, I prayed about toothpaste. I really believe that God cares about the littlest things. I went back upstairs and was standing in the kitchen, when God gave me this thought to look in the garbage under the sink. Kiera is not supposed to touch any garbage cans and she usually (miraculously) stays away from them. I looked in the can, and sure enough, it was lying on top of the bag. Wow! My faith totally jumped up a notch! I was blown away! Isn't it interesting how I ask God for something and then I'm completely surprised when He answers?! "Lord, help me overcome my unbelief." Mark 9:24 That was my faith booster for the week-end and I'm just so thankful for God's love and that He cares and He's so very faithful!
Thanks for all the great guesses as to what yesterday's picture is. 2 people got it right: Beth + Allison! It is the inside of an orange peel. I've been busy lately, which has been a nice change from November + December (except for Christmas) when I was inside all the time. I've been getting out more with Kiera and seeing friends which has been a lot of fun. Jared started another class and we also joined a cell group.
We had fun spending the day together on Valentine's Day, although we didn't make a big deal out of it. I personally don't really like being told "you should celebrate your love on this specific day" and then it can become a competition to see who's husband is more romantic. I have no problem with those couples who want to do something special on that day, but I would rather Jared do romantic things for me because he wants to instead of because he's supposed to on Feb. 14th, although I suppose it gives couples a reason to do something fun + romantic together. Since we just went to Florida and then So You Think You Can Dance, we spent the day at home. Jared made waffles and we had them with butterscotch sundae ice cream on top (SO YUMMY)! We enjoyed a quiet afternoon together while Kiera napped and then in the evening we had my parents over + a friend of Jared's over and we all played Bohnanza together which was quite fun.
Kiera is now transitioning to 18-month size clothes, although just the shirts. The 18-month size pants are too long for her and the 12-month size pants are becoming too short. Can't they make something in between? This is my most recent picture of her that I took yesterday morning wearing this pink shirt for the first time. Isn't it pretty? I'm quite surprised she didn't try to pull the bow off!
She added a couple of new words to her vocabulary this week: "Brush" (referring to her toothbrush when she sees it) and this morning she said, "Soos" when I was putting her shoes on her. I love it! Yesterday, she had a 5 1/2-hour nap and then slept 13 hours straight last night. I don't know why, but I wasn't complaining! She's been pretty happy these days and I'm having an easier time with her lately than in the past 15 months which is something I got prayer for while we were on the retreat. Thank you, Lord!
These are the rest of the 1-minute videos.
Lisa (a contemporary dancer) + Vincent (a contemporary + hip hop dancer) doing afro-jazz
This was my favorite dance of the night and also one of my favorite dances of the season. This is Lisa + Miles (a b-boy). Miles is my favorite dancer (and one of Jared's favorites, too) and I voted for him literally hundreds of times. He ended up in 3rd place. This is a contemporary routine.
Natalli (a latin dancer) + Vincent doing a contemporary routine
This was the end of the show: the first couple is Nico + Arassay and the 2nd couple is Miles + Natalli
I think I know why Kiera had a 6 1/2-hour nap yesterday: this morning she woke up with a cold, which I'm pretty sure I gave to her, since I have one as well. Her nose is extremely runny and she's not overly happy. If you could please pray for her healing, we would all really appreciate that! The bright spot in the morning was when she played piano and sung along in her own baby language which was SO cute! Maybe she'll be just like her mama in that department, except that I prefer to sing in English!
On Tuesday, Jared + I went to see So You Think You Can Dance Canada!
We are huge fans of the t.v. show + it was really cool to see the dancers in person! The top 10 are on tour and it was FANTASTIC! We were in the 6th row (not floor seats, but still fairly close). This was the beginning of the show with the winner of the show, Nico, dancing with Natalli.
This one is kind of blurry, but I like how it turned out (this is Arassay)
The top 10 dancers
The dancers took turns introducing the next dance number and these are the top 2 dancers: Nico + Allie
I recorded a bunch of 1-minute videos of some of the dances and these are some of my favorites:
Allie (a ballerina + contemporary dancer) and Danny (a ballroom dancer) doing the cha-cha
Nico (a contemporary dancer) + Allie doing a contemporary routine
The Top 10
The Top 10 again...I really like the "unique" dances as well as the more "normal" ones
I have 4 more videos, but these have taken almost an hour EACH to upload onto my blog, so I'll save the rest for tomorrow. Hope you enjoyed them!
God has been doing all sorts of things in my life, which I think I should share. It started when we were in Florida. I felt anxious + a heaviness on me for a couple of days and I couldn't pinpoint the reason because our trip was going very well. I prayed about it and it didn't go away. After a couple of days of feeling depressed, I was like, "Ok. This needs to leave now." I went into our bedroom and asked the Lord what I was supposed to do. He told me to read + pray Scripture out loud and to tell the spirit of oppression to leave. It didn't take more than 10 minutes of that and suddenly the heaviness lifted off of me. Thank you Jesus! Hebrews 4:12 "For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart." I also felt during that time that God wanted to purify me as there was a lot of junk + ugliness inside of me that had been there for too long. It's not fun to face those things, but it's so worth it to be washed clean!
After I got back, God started working in some of my relationships and resolving issues that had been left unsaid for too long. Again, that was hard, but so freeing!
Then, our church went on a retreat this past week-end and we TOTALLY met with God.
Dining room with the afternoon sun streaming in
It was SO awesome to see His power at work! The speaker spoke on "Filling the Waste Places with God's glory." He defined waste places as "Any place in God's creation that isn't a habitation of His glorious presence." He defined the glory of God as:
1. The revelation of His character
2. The demonstration of His power
3. The manifestation of His wisdom
He used an example of how sometimes when he goes to eat at a restaurant, he'll ask the waitress if there's anything he can pray for her. I was very challenged! He also talked about when God gives us a
1. Promise...then often a
2. Problem...arises which is followed by
3. Provision...and then
4. Fulfillment...of the promise
During the last session, he expanded on the verse 1 Peter 4:8-10 "Above all things have fervent love for one another, for love will cover a multitude of sins..." The Greek word for fervent is Ektenes which means "stretched out." He said "stretched out love" is:
1. Looking beyond faults, quirks, + failures
2. Offering hospitality - investing our resources into
relationships
3. Serving one another
I totally need God's help because I can't do those things on my own. There was a lot more said than that, but those were the main points. It was a very refreshing time and I felt spurred on to keep growing in my faith and sharing it with others. Despite a lack of sleep (our bed was shaped like a bowl) I had an amazing time!
This was our last full day in Florida and we spent it going back to Disney World! When we got there, everybody got through the gate just fine except for me. They said my ticket was expired. I said, "That can't be. It's good for 14 days and I first used it a week ago." We went over to Guest Services and they swiped my ticket into their computer and said, "This ticket was first used on Jan. 2 and expired on the 16th." This was now the 20th and I said, "That's impossible. We only got to Florida on the 9th and I only used this ticket on the 13th." We realized that the place where we had bought our tickets from had sold me a used ticket. We were FURIOUS as we thought we had gotten completely scammed. We paid $180/ticket, which was $20 off the regular price per ticket and they said they were legitimate tickets. So, we spent half an hour getting back to our car and then another 20 minutes driving to the hotel where we had purchased our tickets from. On the way there, I felt God say to me, "In your anger, do not sin." That is SO hard to follow! I prayed that we would have favor with the ticket place and that they would either refund us or give us a new ticket. When we got there, they were extremely apologetic and said it was totally a mistake. They buy back used tickets from Disney that have days left on them and then they change the expiration dates. For some reason, they forgot to change the expiration date on my ticket. They said they've sold 6500 tickets and that has never happened before! Unfortunately, it happened to be us. They issued us a new ticket and we were back on the road. By the time we had gotten back to the Magic Kingdom park, we had wasted 2 hours, so then we had to rush to see everything that we hadn't yet seen.
This was the entrance driving into Disney World
We went on Splash Mountain at Magic Kingdom since it was closed for maintenance the last time we were there. This was inside the ride before you come splashing down at the end.
Then we raced off to Animal Kingdom, since that was the only park we hadn't yet been to. We went on Everest, which is a roller coaster that goes up "Mount Everest" and then you go backward for part of the way down....great ride! There's the mountain
Cool birds that we don't have at home
This big tree was fake
I wouldn't want to get too close to that beak
We went on a river ride after Everest and we sat in a circle thing and went down some rapids...we sat across from Jason + Karen and they got completely soaked from head to toe and Jared + I stayed mostly dry! It just happened to be the way we hit the water when we went down the little waterfalls. Totally unfair but very funny for us! The last ride we went on at Animal Kingdom was an African Safari.
Check out those antlers...ouch
Giraffe in the trees
Flamingos having a party
Lion
We went back to Epcot for the evening to go on the rides that we hadn't gone on yet. We saw "Honey I Shrunk the Audience," and went on Spaceship Earth which was in this big thing.
We also went on Mission Space which you're in a small spaceship and spinning really fast, but it doesn't feel like you're spinning. It feels like you're blasting off and then entering zero gravity. We ended off the day with my most favorite ride of the whole trip: Soarin'. I can't properly describe it, so here's the website's description.
Soarin' is a free-flying adventure that simulates a peaceful hang-gliding flight over the natural wonders of the Golden State of California.
Board the multi-passenger glider and soar 40 feet into the air above the clouds and spectacular California panoramas projected on a giant IMAX screen that wraps around you.
On your journey, you experience the best that California has to offer, including the legendary landmarks of San Francisco, the majesty of the Golden Gate Bridge, the incredible fairways of Pebble Beach, the rolling hills of the California wine country, the stunning vistas of Yosemite and the redwood forests, the beauty of the vast deserts of Death Valley and the breathtaking views of the Pacific.
Feel the wind in your hair as the air fills with the scent of orange groves, evergreens and sea breeze. Your feet dangle free, swooping down so close to the crashing waves, you think your toes will get wet.
Then return to the sky and continue to a fantastic finale where fireworks surround you with bursts of sensational colors.
It feels SO real and you actually smell the oranges, evergreens, and the sea. We ended off the day at Dippin' Dots before going back to our condo to pack. If you've never had them, they are tiny beads of ice cream, yogurt, sherbet and flavored ice. They have many flavors and I chose pink lemonade + tutti frutti. Jared had banana split and some other chocolate kind. They are extremely good!
I hope you've enjoyed my Florida trip posts. It was such a blessing to be able to go and we would love to go back once we're done having kids and they're all old enough to enjoy the rides! It was the least busiest time of the year to go and most days there were hardly any line-ups for a lot of the rides. Our flight took off the next morning at 10:30 and this was the view
Bye Florida! Hope to see you again!
On Sunday, it was a high of +22, so we lay by the pool and then went in the hot tub when the wind picked up. In the past, I haven't used a lot of sunscreen since I don't usually burn very much, but I have decided that I want to take better care of my skin, so I used a combination of SPF 30 and SPF 8 sunscreen. On the parts that I used SPF 30, I got tan lines just after a few hours! This is the beautiful pool
We went and grabbed lunch at an outdoor burger place and there was a small plane writing in the sky...I think the whole thing said "Jesus loves you" but we left after the first word. I thought that was totally cool! Jason said that guy has been doing this for years.
After a relaxing pool day, we went to the Hard Rock Cafe for supper, which is between Universal Studios + Islands of Adventure.
The Universal globe
Ready for a night out
This was inside the Hard Rock Cafe...apparently after Elvis made his first million, he bought his mom her dream car, which was this (and it was rotating)
After supper, we went mini golfing, which I love
Then, we went to Downtown Disney which is an area full of shops and restaurants. This is a store FULL of magnets. I love little magnets, but these were kind of expensive, so I didn't buy any.
This was made entirely of Lego
Sign on a store
I thought this looked neat + I might enlarge it one day and put it in Kiera's room
I got to pose with Cinderella, which I was actually excited about, even though she's fake
This was the impressive Cirque du Soleil building
We left there and drove around for quite a long time because Jason wanted to get ice cream somewhere, but it was after 11 p.m., so they were all closed. We drove past a Denny's and I said, "Hey! Don't they have ice cream?" By this time, it was midnight, so we stopped there and had dessert. Jared + I shared an apple crisp. This was the light fixture over our table, which I thought looked pretty sweet.
It was a good mixture of a relaxing day + a busy evening.
I forgot to add the picture in Friday's post of Kiera's t-shirt that I bought her. Here it is in all its cuteness:
On Saturday, we went back to Islands of Adventure in the morning and went on the Dueling Dragons roller coaster again and also the Jurassic Park ride.
We went to Sizzler for lunch, which is another buffet restaurant. The restaurant was very slow + the service was horrible, which apparently wasn't normal, since Jason has been there many times before. The food was o.k. but not spectacular, so I don't know if I would go back there again.
We spent the afternoon at Universal Studios. We went on the E.T. ride and before you get on the ride, you have to say your name to one of the workers and at the end of your ride, E.T. says bye to you by name. That was pretty neat. We went and saw an Animal Acts show where they have trained birds, dogs, + monkeys. That was quite entertaining. Then, we went on the Men In Black ride. The line-up was quite long, but we decided to split up and go in the "single riders" line and got on the ride within 5 minutes. We went on it about 4 times in a row. The ride is that you're in a cart and you have to shoot at things with laser guns and get points. This is the entrance to Universal at night and the park all lit up:
We went to Buffalo Wild Wings for supper. Jared + I have been there once before and we tried their 2nd hottest wings. They have 14 different sauces ranging from mild to blazin'. We decided to try the hottest one this time and Jared + I shared an order of 6 wings. I ate 2 without much of a problem, but then decided I didn't want anymore. Jared ate the other 4 and was in tears by the end of it. That was pretty funny! We had really good meals, too, as well as the wings. We again ended off the evening at our condo playing Bohnanza.
