October Blessings

“Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.” Colossians 4:2

God, today I thank You for:

501. Fellowship with friends

502. The fun I had with the bride + bridesmaids making the wedding favors

503. Soft, warm, fuzzy socks

504. Watching the sunset from the highway

505. Vitamins

506. Bachelorette parties

507. A quiet house at the end of the day

508. Glow mini golf

509. Kids who make the house noisy during the day which I will totally miss when they’re all grown up

510. Super white teeth

511. That I don’t have to go outside every day when it’s cold outside

512. Glow in the dark necklaces

513. That Jared + I cashed in our Air Miles and went to see a movie, which included free drinks and popcorn

514. That we also got a Canon HF R100 HD camcorder for free with our Air Miles (and it’s our first camcorder ever)!

 

515. Kids who love Sunday School

516. Sleeping bags

517. Scrambled eggs

518. The face that Kiera makes when I ask her to, “Say cheese”

519. That God is good all the time

520. That my kids could each celebrate their birthdays and eat chocolate cake!

Memorizing

I read a blog called "A Holy Experience," by Ann Voskamp. One post she did recently has stuck with me. She wrote about her mother-in-law who passed away and left behind her Bible Memory Association Booklets: booklets of her memory work over the years. Ann said, "Who memorizes God in the age of Google?" Ouch! That really hit me because I turn to Google for so many things and it can be a great tool, but not when it takes the place of God. I've been slowly memorizing Scripture this past year which has been good! I feel like God has asked me to step it up a notch and memorize every day, not just a verse here and there. So, I'm memorizing 1 or 2 verses a day. Right now, I'm working on different chapters in Psalms. I'm picking ones that aren't very long right now because I don't feel so overwhelmed then. Eventually, I want to move on to New Testament books, like maybe Ephesians and Philippians. Another thing she said was, "Do I spend my week ruminating on His Words or my worries?" Worry is something I struggle with daily. What better way to combat worry than with Scripture? Once I finish a chapter, I write the date beside it. I'm finding the more time I spend in His Word, the less my desire is to spend time on Facebook and other things like that. I've struggled so much with having my priorities in the wrong order. It's a daily battle. I want to hide God's Word in my heart. "A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of." Luke 6:45 I want to speak words that encourage, words of grace and love, but it won't happen if I fill my heart with useless things. I need Jesus.

There are many helpful tools to aid in memorization. Here are some of the ones she has suggested:
1. biblememorymusic.com or kingdomsongs.com It puts chapters of the Bible to song which makes memorization a lot easier.
2. Writing out verses on business-size cards and leaving them in various places where you'll see it. That also makes it easy to take them with you, too.
3. Writing just the first letter of every word of the verse helps your brain fill in the blanks.

Psalm 119:97 "Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long."
Psalm 119:103 "How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth."

I want to be able to honestly say those things. Lord, help me as I fall so short. I want you to be my treasure.

The Wedding

Last week Saturday, the activities started at 10:00 at the hairdresser’s.  This is the bride, Amanda, getting her hair done.

This is the back of my hair.  They didn’t have any sparkly clips, so one of the girls went to the dollar store and they bought 3 broaches which they pinned into my hair (which you can’t really see).  I never would have thought of that and it totally worked!

 

Here is the flower girl with her brother

You can’t tell in the pictures, but Blake was WAY overtired.  It’s like the kids knew there was something going on before the wedding.  Kiera was misbehaving a lot and Blake refused to nap in the afternoon before the wedding.  I found it quite stressful getting ready for the wedding.  Getting Blake to look at the camera during family pictures was interesting. We had the groomsmen stand behind the camera and make faces, jump, and shout his name. It certainly made the rest of us smile! We took outdoor pictures and although it was gorgeous weather for November, in that dress without a jacket I was quite cold. Oh well, I'm sure the pictures will look great! The wedding went very smoothly, which is amazing considering that a lot of the planning happened last minute.  I enjoyed it!

TJ + Amanda

Amanda danced to "Butterfly Kisses" with her dad and during that time, I conveniently went to the bathroom. I can't listen to that song without thinking about Kiera and starting to cry. I don't even want to picture her walking down the aisle as a bride instead of a flower girl.

Here are my Mom-in-law and my sister-in-law dancing (Mom was the maid of honor and photographer and my sister-in-law was also a bridesmaid)

Me + my sweetheart

Me + Jacki, a close friend who was also a bridesmaid

One of the best parts for me was when Kiera walked down the aisle, or should I say bolted.  She made the whole church laugh and Jared got it on video!  The lighting isn’t great, but you get the idea.  Jared + I both said we’ve never seen a flower girl do that before.  Only Kiera!

Dancing Queen (and King)

I want to blog about the wedding, but haven't had time yet. I took this video on Kiera's birthday and it makes me laugh!

Happy 1st Birthday, Blake!

Yesterday, Jared’s step-sister got married, so I didn’t have time to blog.  Yesterday, my baby turned a year old!  That definitely felt like the fastest year of my life!

Blake, you came into this world a quiet, content baby, which is exactly what we prayed for!  You have grown into a determined toddler who is very attached to your Mommy and not afraid to make your voice heard when you want something.  You have added a lot of joy to our lives and you’re such a tremendous blessing!  I’m looking forward to watching you grow and learn new things as you start to walk on your own this next year and start to talk.  I love you more than words can say!  Happy birthday to my favorite one-year-old!

11 hours old

3 months old

6 months old

9 months old

My one-year-old looking so handsome in his cute little suit!

Kiera’s 3-year Photos

My Mom-in-law took Kiera this past Saturday, the day after her birthday, and took some beautiful pictures of her!  Here are some of my favorites:

I think she looks more grown up in the next one

 

 

I’m 3!

I would love to frame one of them, but I’m not sure which one.  I’m think I’m leaning toward either the 2nd one or the 6th one.  Which one of the 11 would you pick?

Schedules

Last night, Jared + I read from a book called, "His Needs Her Needs: Building an Affair-proof Marriage" by Willard E. Harley Jr. We've been slowly reading through it for quite a long time (for sure more than a year). It's all about making deposits in each other's "love banks" and not making withdrawals and also not making deposits in the opposite gender's "love banks" who you aren't married to. Yesterday, it talked about only doing activities that you both enjoy that you can do together. We don't follow this, but it got us talking about how little alone time we have together. The book recommends 15 hours/week and we definitely haven't been getting anywhere close to that. Kiera has always slept in, had a very late afternoon nap, and then gone to bed later, like around 9:00 p.m. That always worked well since we used to go out with her a lot more in the evenings, especially before Blake was born and when he was younger. Blake has now put himself on a different schedule which is that he goes to bed between 8-8:30 p.m. and wakes up at 6:30 a.m. for a bottle and then is up at 7:30 a.m. for the day, until his next nap. Last night, Kiera had a bad attitude, so she ended up going to bed at 8:00, so Jared + I had 3 hours together before we went to sleep! It was great! We decided that I should start waking Kiera up earlier so that her nap is earlier and then her bedtime will be earlier as well. I've always enjoyed my quiet mornings, but now that Blake wakes up early, I'm not really getting that anyway, unless he goes down for a nap before Kiera is up for the day. I'll basically be trading some of my alone time for alone time with Jared which will be worth it! I will still make time to read the Bible and pray, but reading other books and going on the internet will probably be cut back. I REALLY don't like waking the kids up, but hopefully Kiera will naturally start waking up a bit earlier on her own if I keep at it. We'll see how it goes!