No Sense to be Made

When the world is aching from an unimaginable, horrific crime that no one can understand, how do we then help our children make any sense of it? I am truly at a loss, my 12 year old is old enough to understand the full horror of it. She is TERRIFIED to go to school. How do we tell her she is okay? She can't believe it. The only words that I could tell her tonight was that she was God's child, above all, she is His. She is okay, she is loved, and she belongs to him. I struggle with that being enough for me right now, so I am positive it's not for her either. Leaving them at school today, I repeatedly had to say, "they are His children" In life and in death, they belong to Him. He blesses me with the privilege of loving them.

The horror those children went through, it's just not right. It can't and won't ever make any sense. I ache and can't get it off my mind, how can their parents/families? They can't, it is their new life and it is hell. Only a parent who has lost a child of their own could understand that pain.

All I have to offer are my prayers, ones of comfort, peace, and love to those who are broken, their worlds shattered.

I can also promise my children, to love and cherish them, tomorrow it could be gone, I must love them with everything in me and make sure they know without a doubt that they are loved.

We Bought a House...

...which is why I disappeared here. When you unexpectedly sign papers on a house one day and move in the next, your world moves at rampant paces and your blog falls to the back burner. It has been for an AWESOME reason though! I am in LOVE with our house.

Our welcome home surprise from my mom and church friends...it was very sweet! Yes, there is a rooster there...long, funny story to go with that one! 

See that in the bottom of the picture? That's our first set of keys to OUR very first home!! 

31 Days-Day 4: Dinner Time

It's on nights like tonight that my next topic is so vital to my life. Crock-pots are a MUST in our life. I spent my days in class all day, got out and went to a meeting, then rushed home for dinner with the family. If it wasn't for the awesome creation of Crock-pot meals, I would have broken down and ended up getting fast food, which is not beneficial to our bodies or budget! I plan out our meals for a week, give or take a night that just doesn't work out right, we have gotten really consistent about not eating out as much and enjoying our time together at home. I am not say that eating out is a problem by any means, I just didn't like the amount of money we were spending on junk. I love being home around my own table with my family, I learn so much about them when we are home eating dinner together. One of the recipes that I have used pretty consistently is Rotel Chicken Tacos. It is really easy and really good! Plus minimal clean up is the best part, especially if you use the crock-pot liners. 

Rotel Chicken Tacos: 

2 cans of Rotel

1 package of Taco Seasoning

4-7 Chicken Breast

Put all ingredients in the crockpot and cook on low for 6-8 hours 

or high for 4 hours. 

Serve with tortillas and any thing your family likes to eat with tacos.

Find the best method you can to save time on dinner in order to spend the time you save doing the things you love. Dinner doesn't have to be a chore! Also....have everyone chip in on clean up and it can all be done that much faster. Team effort goes a long way!

31 Days-Day 3: Making it the Best

Out of everything we juggle, I often struggle with the time I spend on doing my own schoolwork. It's very frustrating to me to have my family in every direction of the house doing their thing and not being able to participate in it with them. More often than not, I will wait until bedtime to do my homework. On the days that it's just not possible for me to do that, I have come to the realization that it should be done when they are also working on their homework or have some creative time. They love to draw, color, and create things, so why not have them do it when I am also working. It's not at all something that is forced upon them, but I have started to notice that more and more, they are choosing to come sit with me while I do my school work. I have become especially fond of these moments, it's during these moments that I get to see them be creative and hear the chatter between all of them. 

This was tonight when they were both creating their own things, his picture of what I am told is a "bolt action rifle" and her book about her family. My oldest was in her room reading tonight, which is good too. 

Make sure to take those undesirable, but unavoidable tasks and make them special too.  While I hate having to work on the homework, my family is sitting right here beside me, supporting and loving me enough to be there. 

31 Days-Day2: Coffee, Coffee, and some MORE COFFEE

Let's get this started with something basic, easy, but vital in my life.

On a daily basis in this house, coffee has turned into a staple...I have many different methods of getting my coffee.

Yes, that would be 3 different forms of coffee making.

If I am in a hurry, there is the Keurig.

Not in a rush, but don't want to work to hard for it? The regular coffee pot.

  

    I am having a rare moment of quiet AND time? And the husband is home?

That my lovelies, is the espresso machine! I am desperately in love with the fact that my husband makes me the best espresso! I don't need any Starbucks, I have my very own barista! 

It's not really about the coffee. It's about finding that one thing in your life that settles you, gets you ready for your day, and gives you moments of pure joy. I truly find joy in my cup of coffee, whether it is on the run or sipping comfortably in my chair at home. 

31 Days: Intro

I look forward to being a part of the 31 days of Living that The Nesting Place host in October. I just found out about it and have really been thinking about it all weekend. I am new to it and may not have the entire idea down completely, but I sure am going to go for it! 

For the next 31 days, I plan on showing how we juggle everything we have going in our lives. This is one of the busiest periods in our lives, but I constantly strive to have joy in all we do, not just living through the motions. Aside from the normal busy of having 3 children, we are also youth leaders in our church, newly team managers of a Destination Imagination team, I am in the last year and a half of my schooling for my teaching degree, and we are in the middle of purchasing a house. All of this requires a LOT of juggling, but we also love our life. 

As a part of my 31 days, I thought I would show glimpses of our craziness, along with showing you how I manage to juggle it all. Do you have a crazy life? Are you struggling to do with all of it? What things do you let go of and which things do you put in front? How do you organize it all? These are the types of topics I will be approaching a long the way. I look forward to having you here! Remember finding the joy in your crazy is what makes life amazing. Always choose JOY! 

31 Days

31 days of posting? Every single day? 

YES! 

Blogging more consistently had been a goal of mine for awhile, but something I still haven't made happen. I saw this challenge today and LOVE the idea. It's 31 days of blogging about a topic. I kept thinking over and over about what I could talk about for 31 days. I even called my husband and asked him, we both settled upon the thought of how I manage to juggle our crazy, busy life. What is involved in this crazy life of mine? You will soon see!

Interested in doing the same and choosing your topic? Go HERE. 

Belong Together

These two....studying and coffee...they belong together.

Surgery...hopefully for the last time...

Lil Miss had surgery on Friday for her giant cell tumor to be removed from her finger. We did this same surgery last year, but between the Dr not getting it all out and it just growing back, we were back here again. We went to a pediatric specialist this time at Children's Hospital and he did an awesome job! He saved her tendon (it was a risk of having to be removed), but still got out the entire thing. He said it was bigger than expected, he had to remove a part of her skin, but he said everything looked good.

The most amazing part of this surgery this time is that the anesthesia Dr was aware that she struggles with recovery. It is very hard on her, she ends up vomiting and stays extremely agitated. They took me seriously with how bad she struggled and used an assortment of medicines to help with it and she came out of it without any vomiting or crying! She cried one time when they were taking out her IV and that was it! I was amazed and felt extremely blessed that it went so well. 

We did come to the realization that she is allergic to latex. We initially thought it was her pain meds, but when it was only getting worse and she wasn't getting any meds, we realized the rash was coming from the bandages they wrapped her hand with. We had to remove it all, gave her multiple doses of Benadryl and it finally stopped getting worse. She is doing 100% better this morning!

Our Week in Pictures

Our week in pictures...I love recalling my week by reviewing the pictures on my phone!

Destination Imagination

That moment when you take on another project and then you say, "oh wow, what did I just do??" 

Yep. Had that moment this past week. My son joined Destination Imagination this week and guess who stepped up to be the team mom? Yep, this already insanely busy mother. The smile, hug, and huge thank you better continue, because apparently this is a huge commitment. Momma better get some appreciation consistently out of this one! 

On the flip side of this commitment, I am told, is awesome creativity out of children that you never expect to see, but am blown away with. I look forward to seeing what this group comes up with and how it all plays out. The Aggrivator will be the only boy in the group, should be interesting to see how he fits in with a group of girls when they are considered to still have cooties! ;-)

Have any of you heard of this program? 

Color Me Rad

This is how we like to hang on our weekends! We had so much fun and I LOVED being able to do a 5k with my family. What a great tradition we have started!

Internship

While this simple picture may not mean much to anyone else, it means more than I can express to me. This is the paperwork that I just completed for my internship to begin in January. It won't be long and I will be inside the classroom!

Ummm yeah....I don't know....

Do you ever have those moments when you know that what you need to be doing and what you are actually doing are two different things? How about when those moments are occurring, you really can't do anything to change it, what then? I am exhausted and yet here I lay, wide awake, knowing that I have a very long day ahead of me. Oh, how I have learned to hate these moments.

I have major anxiety before every new semester, but this one is especially getting to me. I managed to leave some of my hardest classes till the end and now I have them both in the same semester. Not too brilliant on my part. Pair that with the nerves of waiting to hear back from our agent on whether the bank of the house we are trying to buy accepted our bid and we got some crazy thoughts!

Did I mention in this crazy time that we also have a new 7th grader in our house who isn't coping well with her new responsibilities and changes at school? Yeah. Fun stuff right there. She truly is my child. Oh anxiety, how we curse you!

Oh wait! How about this fun bit. I decided to motivate said 7th grader in running that I pushed myself harder than ever before in order to show her that if old mom can do it, so can she! Ha! Mom shouldn't have done it, I am not an elegant waddler. Just saying, it's not pretty.

What else is on this plate of mine? Miss Squeaky (she really needs a new nickname now that she really doesn't squeak anymore) has ruptured the cyst on her finger. Again. We go for an MRI on Wednesday to see the full extent of what is going on. This Dr seems very thorough, I am hoping we will have better answers as to why the first surgery with the other Dr. didn't work. A big giant ruptured cyst is apparently not a recommended thing when its on your writing hand. Poor girl.

With all that said, we are also still working with our youth, whom we love so stinking much. God truly is awesome. We were so concerned that it wasn't for us. Ha! I bet He is laughing at us, He has got this!

We are also currently praying about whether we should be helping with our young adults group. This would be the college age students/ young adults that are in that in between stage of life where they aren't quite comfortable in the other adult (mostly married) groups, yet too old for youth group. It would add to our plate, but we can see it working too. Praying.

Have I mentioned in this crazy random spewing, how much I love my children? They are all in such different stages of life that it is truly fun to watch them interact and change. Some days it is fun, somedays it's insanity, but man I love them!

Ok. Randomness over. For now. :-)

The Small Moments

Spending the day at Children's Hospital is just fine with her if she continues to get cotton candy! It's the small things in life that make me smile.

Phone Photo Hijacking

I have in the last few months been the victim several times of photo hijacking. Between my youth group girls and my own girls, I can't help but giggle when I realize that they stole my phone again and took the silliest pictures. Makes me smile every single time!

A Year of Awesome

Another summer gone, another school year beginning. I am feeling VERY optimistic about this year!

The past year was a brutal one when it came to one of the kiddos teacher, but it is looking like they all have some great teachers for this year. 

7th, 1st, and 4th grades! Seems incredible that I have a 7th grader!

Love this spunky picture! She cracks me up!!

Feeling his super powers coming on!

Beautiful muncherhead!

A house? Maybe?

We put a bid in on a house! 

EEEEKKKKK!!!!

http://www.unblogyourself.com/2010/04/28/nervous-or-excited/

House Hunting

We are officially in the house hunting stage of our life, looking to purchase our first home. 

Wow. Just wow. This process sucks. Just saying.

Every real estate office should have one of these signs.

Please bang head below.

I always hear that it's a pain, but after today, I can see why people just continue to rent. Bleh. 

Our Personal Chef

Not only do I have my own personal barista, now I have my own chef! She decided all on her own to make dinner tonight and went to find what food she was going to make. I am very proud of her initiative to do it and her love for cooking! Not to mention the great meal she made for everyone without ANY help! 

I Married the Barista

The reasons why I love this man are endless.

The newest reason?

This right here... 

He learned how to use an espresso machine, which has led to amazing coffee. Falling in love more and more.

Blessed Living

We have had one fantastic summer! I am sad to say that we only have a few weeks left of it, but it truly has been one of the BEST summers that we have had in a long time. It has been filled full of water parks, summer camps, silly moments and many other fun moments. I have so many pictures from this summer it is kind of ridicules, but here are just a few to give a snippet picture of our lives. Blessed life!

Tattoos with my girls. :-) No needles equals lots of fun!

Summer camp with the best youth group!! 

Bingo fun at my Nana's senior center. Seriously? These older people were vicious about their  bingo!!

A 12 year old birthday cerebration...still can not believe she is 12!

Oh the things leaders do for their youth group!

More camp fun!

A 6 year old celebration! 6? REALLY? 

Family workouts....Sir Worksalot lost 23 lbs in order to do the zip line at camp! Now
that is some commitment to our youth! Extremely proud of his journey!

Silly times! Love these crazies!