Birthday Pics

We had a great weekend celebrating Matt's birthday. Thanks to you all for your sweet birthday wishes! He was surprised when I showed him all of your comments on that last post!! :)

Sunday after church we went out to eat at his choice: Olive Garden. Next we came home and had cake and ice cream and he opened his gifts. After a little rest, we took the kids over to my parents house for the night so we could go to a movie (we saw "Fighting") and then we stopped at the Cheesecake Factory to split an order of nachos before heading home for the night. Since the kids were spending the night at Grandma & Grandpa's we were able to sleep in the next morning, enjoy our coffee and a little Bible study before we headed off to our favorite local diner for an amazingly delicious breakfast of veggie omlet, hashbrowns and 1 ginormous pancake, which we shared. YUM!

Here are a few pics from his party and then a couple of him and I before our "date".

The kids were so excited to give him their gifts!

We were supposed to BOTH show off our muscles in this picture. As you can see, instead, Matt decided to give me bunny ears.

And lastly, the kissy face from me. I can't resist doing this almost everytime I take pictures. I'm weird..I know.

Happy April 26th Baby!

Today is Matt's 33rd birthday. I used to cringe when I said that number because anything that started with a "thirty" sounded old to me. Now I am learning to embrace it. These are the BEST years of our lives! We look better, feel better, are more in love, are growing stronger in our walk with Christ, are more financially stable---than EVER! Why would I ever want to go back to the 20's??? I honestly think that from 30-39 will probably be the decade that we look back on when we're in our 80's and say "those were our best years." Just thinking about that makes me want to make the MOST of this time.

I got up this morning at 5:15 a.m. (on a Sunday!!!) so I could get all my work for the doctors office done so I can take Monday off and spend the whole day with my hubby--just the 2 of us. He took off work and my mom is keeping the kids overnight tonight...so it'll just be us. We're not doing anything expensive or extravagant...but this will be the first time we've ever had 24 hours of alone time in our own home, and I'm totally looking forward to it. I'm even considering turning the phone off because I don't wany any interruptions. :)

Anyway, I know most of you remember back about 9 months ago when I was crying my eyes out about turning 30...but I'm SOOOOO okay with it now. 30 is the NEW 20 as far as I'm concerned! :)

Okay, I better get back to work if I'm gonna get this all done before church this morning! Love y'all!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABE!! YOU BLOW ME AWAY WITH YOUR LOVE!

I'm one busy lady!

Saturday, after I ran my first ever 5K, I ran home, showered and then left on a 1 3/4 hour drive to where I was helping throw a baby shower for my niece Rachael. She's having a baby girl next month and it was an honor to get to bless her with a beautiful shower and so many great gifts! Here is a pic of me measuring her baby-belly!

That was a busy, busy day---and life is not about to get any slower! I have something on the calander almost every day for the next solid month. It's insane. I know I've done it yet again...and over-committed myself. Tomorrow I have to go to the school to prepare flyers for Teacher Appreciation Week which I'm chairperson of. Friday I have to be at the school all day to oversee our Fun Day (kind of like a track meet) where I am the chairperson and will be in charge of making sure every single thing runs smoothly. Sunday is Matt's birthday and I still don't know what the plans are for that yet...but he has requested a 1 hour full body massage from ME as his gift. (I think I can handle that one! :) Right around the corner from that is Mother's Day and Grant's 5th birthday, which I still need to plan. On top of that, I am the PR Coordinator for our church's VBS this year and I need to be making preparations for that. In addition to those things, I have been offered an opportunity to do something very, very exciting related to fitness...that I can't quite disclose entirely yet...but it is going to require me to spend some quality time preparing for and working on.

Add to that that I am 2/3 of the way done reading the book "The Shack"

*Need to plan Date #3 for me and my Brookie-dear.

*Need to put lots of stuff on Craig's list to sell--it's laying in piles everywhere and clutter drives me nuts!

*Still need to take down all the Easter decor and put that in the attic.

*Need to start planning the end-of-the-year gift for Brooklyn's teacher at school since I am the homeroom mom and school is almost out.

*Need to find, print and turn in pictures for the yearbook at school.

*Just bought a book called "Boundaries: When to say Yes and How to say No" that our Sunday School class is studying and I am in dire need of reading and applying to my life. (as you can see from this post!)

Aughhhh.....how am I going to do all that and everything on my calander and still work out and eat right and pay bills and on and on and on????

Who knows...but somehow I always manage to do it. I know one thing....I need to hurry up and read that book!! As you can imagine, I may not be blogging much during this next month...but I promise I'll be back!

We're being followed!!! Date 2

So..Thursday night Brooklyn and I went on our 2nd Mommy/Daughter date. The agenda was a facial this time and the object lesson was "learning how to take care of our skin." I called ahead to Origins at the mall to see if they still give complimentary facials and to see if we could come. We got a wonderful young girl who was happy to do them for us (and yes...complimentary!!)
Brooklyn went first and she thorougly enjoyed being pampered. Next was my turn and boy did my skin need that!! After a major scrub, a moisturing mask, toner and then moisturizer...my face felt brand new again! All the while she worked on us, the girl explained to Brooklyn (and me) what she was doing, what she was using and why it's important to take good care of our faces. (this is all stuff Brooklyn has heard me say...but wouldn't really "hear" it coming from me). Anyway, I ended up deciding to buy 3 of the main products that she used on us so we could maintain this at home. Afterwards we headed to a little dessert place to get Brooklyn a slice of blueberry cheesecake and then over to Starbucks for me so I could get my tall skinny mocha latte. YUMM!! Then we made our way over to the center of the mall where they have some comfy couches and end tables and we began our devotional. When we walked over to the only available couch, there was a shopping bag leaning up against it, but no one in sight who it might belong to. I just scooched it over a bit and we sat down and did our devotionals. During this time I noticed a big guy standing across from us looking at us..but whatever...no big deal. I thought maybe it was his bag or something...but after about half an hour, when we were ready to get up, I glanced inside the bag and saw that it was full of clothes/shoes from a very expensive store and I told Brooklyn we better take it to the Lost & Found at the Information booth. We turned it in and then headed over to a different area where there were some benches so we could do our last little thing which is a little quiz on the evening. As we sat down, I looked up and there was that guy again. A big BIG bouncer looking kind of guy, in a solid black shirt, jeans and a bald head staring RIGHT at me. It was making me uncomfortable but I tried to just ignore it. As we worked through our little quiz I could see him hovering around us, talking on the phone, but never leaving the area we were in. I discreetly told Brooklyn, "let's get up and go over here instead" and we walked down to a different area and sat down again. I thought we had lost him so we finished up our books and then I called Matt to tell him we were headed home. It was about 3 minutes till 9, when the mall was closing. As I got ready to stand up to leave, I glanced behind me and there he was again RIGHT behind me. My heart started POUNDING. I felt like I could hear the Holy Spirit screaming inside my head NOT to walk out those doors into the dark parking lot to our car so I grabbed Brooklyn's hand and practically drug her as fast as I could into the nearest store, which happened to be Macy's. I immediately found the lady at the fragrance desk and told her to call security because there was someone following me. As soon as I said it, Brooklyn said "mom, are you talking about that big guy in the black shirt?" So she had noticed it too!! The lady called security and while we were waiting for them to come (it took THIRTY minutes!!! Thank God there wasn't an emergency!!) I looked around to see if I could still see him. I didn't but still...there was NO WAY I was walking out to my car alone. When the security guard finally arrived, we left for my van...and I explained to her why I had called for her. She said "describe what he looked like". I told her and she said "Oh, I bet I know who that was. That was probably one of our plain-clothes loss prevention guys. They are there to watch for people who might be stealing. Did you by any chance pick up a bag somewhere?" To which I replied "YES!! We did!" and I told her about the bag that we had turned in to Lost & Found. She said he probably saw us pick it up and was keeping his eye on us just in case we were doing something fishy.
Well..that put my mind at ease at little since at least now I had some hope that this was a "legit" person and not some freakazoid that was planning to follow me to my car and kill me or something.
Anyway, as soon as I got in the car I called Matt and told him what had happened...as he was probably wondering where I was since I should have been home already. I never expected his reaction. He was FURIOUS! And as I talked to him...I became pretty mad too. Even if the guy does work at the mall...there was no exuse for the obvious intimidation and following he was doing. A woman and her daughter...at the mall...having dessert and coffee and doing devotionals. Did we REALLY look like theives??? I mean...COME ON. I understand them needing to patrol that kind of thing, but there must be some better way of doing it than to scare the living daylights out of perfectly harmless people.
Annnnnyyyywayyyy.....on the way home we are supposed to listen to a CD that has a little story and scriptures that go along with our evening and evne though we put it on...neither of us could concentrate on it because of the total adrenaline rush we had just experienced. It was a wonderful night, until all that happened..but it will certainly be memorable!!

Post-It Notes

So...it's been a while since I've posted. I have "notes" stuck everywhere in my head of things I want to remember to write about when I get the time...and then I just had a clever idea---Just Post-It!
Here is the quick post-it version of all my stories:

Had a FANTASTIC 1st date with my daughter on Friday, April 3rd. We were given this Secret Keeper Girl book a few years ago (before she was really old enough to do it) and God brought it back to my memory a few months back. I told her about it and then I (me only) forgot about it. A couple of weeks ago I found this "invitation" laying on my desk. How could I say no?


















It was everything and more that I had hoped it might be. We connected. We looked into each others eyes and talked about the important things. For once, I wasn't folding laundry or washing dishes or typing while she was talking...but I was listening, observing her facial expressions. It was magical. As an added plus, someone in the resturant where we had this little tea party date mysteriously picked up our tab! Wow! And...the waitress was very intruigued as to what we were doing--us 2 girls all by ourselves all dressed up on a Friday night having tea! It was an opportunity to witness, which was the icing on the cake! At the end of the night, we held hands and prayed for each other. God was surely in our presence!! Here are a few pics of us on our 1st of 8 special dates!























Next it was Grant's special turn for some Father-Son time. Matt had taken off work Thursday and Friday to go turkey hunting. After church on Wednesday night we stopped at Wal-Mart for Matt to get his hunting licence. When Grant heard that, he said "Dad! Can I go too???" Matt couldn't turn him down although we weren't sure how he'd do for hours out in the woods having to be still and quiet. When we got home the hunt for anything camo in a size 4T began. This is what we came up with. Here are my boys before their 1st ever hunting trip together. (they didn't end up getting a turkey this time, although they did see a couple while they were driving. Also, Matt said Grant did GREAT and he'll definitely be taking him hunting again! yay!)























As for the other 2 members of our family---they are finally starting to be friends, and at the very least, bed mates. Sam would probably say he just "tolerates" Kinley....but I think he's starting to really love her, even if he won't admit it! hee hee

















Easter was yesterday. I was on the schedule to teach the 5-year-old class at church during early service. Usually we don't have very many kids, but I knew it was Easter and we may have a few extras. Boy...was that an understatement. The 4-year-old class teachers didn't show up so we ended up combining classes. Instead of my usual 8-10 kids, we had 33!! Whew! It was a bit chaotic but in all, I think it went really well. The lesson time went exceptionally well and I was actually able to take prayer requests from all 33 kids during our prayer time! What a blessing to let each one of them speak and offer up their requests to the Lord--and then I had the honor of leading the prayer! After church we went to my parents house for lunch where my sister and her family (from Texas) had come to visit and my brother and his family (who lives here) had come. It was a great family dinner with lots and lots of yummy food. My mom took a moment before we ate to read a couple of chapters out of Psalms and I was so proud of her. A lot of our family aren't exactly living for God right now so it was a wonderful opportunity to share the Word with them. They may not have "wanted" to hear it...but they weren't gonna get to fill their plates until she finished reading...so they were stuck! hee hee (take that DEVIL! I've already claimed everyone of them into the Kingdom of Heaven!)








The ONLY picture I took from Easter was this one of Grant hunting eggs. Woops! I've been so busy fiddling with my new touch-screen phone that I forgot to grab the camera this year.









Lastly, I'll leave you with one of my 2 favorite short people. It's rare that I catch them this close to each other and smiling!

Like good deals?

Okay girls! Here's a STEAL of a DEAL from American Eagle. Right now, they have their shirts Buy One Get One 50% Off PLUS an additional 15% off.* So...that's pretty good already, right?...but here's the best part: They have LOTS of cute stuff in the clearance right now..and this applies to clearance merchandise as well!
I bought several shirts there recently back when they were going for $24.50, but now they are marked down to $9.99. If you get two, you get one for $9.99 and the other for $4.99--so $15 and THEN 15% off of that..which would make you getting both shirts for $12.75!!!!!
Now of course, if you order them online, you'll have to pay shipping costs...but if you can make it into the store...you can really hit the jackpot! My mom went in yesterday and got 4 of these shirts for my niece. Just had to pass along the savings to all my peeps out there! Love ya!
Ps. The ones that I bought that I can attest are really cute, comfy and fit well are
AE Embellished V-Neck T (I have it in the lavender color. It has cute silver writing and beading on the chest)
Also:
AE Burnout Henley T (the one pictured up there) I actually have 2 of these and I LOVE them! They fit VERY cute!
**In order to get the extra 15% off...you have to use this coupon code at check out: 96253498

(This is good thru April 7th)