Happy day!

Day 15: Happy!

I love waking up and getting to see my sweet kid's faces every morning, even if they are both grouchy faces!  I have been given an opportunity to work at home and have the freedom to take my kids with me to work things!  This is my happy!  My husband has a job that is perfect for him and helps us FINALLY get on track with our financial goals that seemed so far out of reach.  This is his happy!  G man gets to play and have fun daily with his family and friends.  This is his happy!  Little miss gets to rule the roost and she loves the attention she gets!  This is her happy.  Together we have each other and we have the blessings of feeling safe, feeling loved, laughing, and being silly!  This is our happy!

Broken

Day 14: Broken

This toy isn't actually broken but it is as close as I can get.  This toy has detachable parts so that you can turn him into a car, boat, or plane.  He is missing one of his 4 wheels and now he can't be a car anymore. :(  

I have tried to talk to G man about taking care of the things that he has so that they last.  In his 4 year old mind there are so many other things to think about besides what I have told him over and over again!  We did get to have a neat talk today about what broken means.  This toy isn't broken it has a missing part.  We talked about how we could use one of the other parts to make him something else.  This led to a discussion on how God can use us even though we are broken by sin.  God chooses to use the most unlikely people to complete His will.  My favorite example of this is the women at the well, (John 4:1-42) she was riddled with sin that made her an outcast.  Christ used her so that many Samaritans would believe.   

All girl??

Day 13: All girl

This is so funny to me!  I dress Little miss in giant bows and fru fru clothes everyday!  She loves playing with her dolls and carrying her purse.  She also loves playing with her brother which includes hotwheels and transformers.

Today she wants to feed herself and she used brother's plate.  She got as messy as possible!!

At the park today I dressed her up in the cutest ruffle shorts and big bow and what does she find??  A stick!!  She played and played with this stick over and over!!

Then she found a dirt "slide" and slid down it on her pretty ruffle shorts!!!!!!!!!!  It was adorable to watch her though! So I guess I should call this the Not so all girl post!!  Got to love it!

All boy

Day 12:  All Boy

G man is definitely all boy!  His favorite thing to do is dress up like a super hero and fight EVERYONE!!!!  His favorite place to be is outside.  His new favorite thing is Transformers.  He loves playing with them and transforming them back and forth.  He even has an imaginary friend that is a transformer and he goes everywhere with us but luckily he doesn't have to ride in the car with us because he can transform and drive on the road!  Playskool has to coolest Transformer toys.  They are fun for G man because he can transform them by himself and they are great for us because there are some transformer toys that we can't operate!

Binky girl!

Day 11: Obsession

Little miss is obsessed with her binky!  In this picture she has one in her mouth, one in each hand, and one in her purse!!

When G man was a baby he loved his too.  We would cut a sliver off of it each morning before waking him up. I would tell him that he dropped it while he was sleeping and our dog Dizzy had eaten a piece of it.  Soon it was down to a little bitty bit and he clenched it in his teeth and finally gave it up and trashed it!

I cut Little miss' the 2 days ago in hopes that she would be easier and would decide that she wouldn't want it once it was cut.  No such luck.  She has been sucking away on it unaware that something about it has changed.  I have heard a lot of stories of interesting ways to say bye bye to the binky and would love some advise.  Thanks!!

Read Read Read!!

Day 10: Reading!

We are big on reading in our house!  I am a strong proponent of book therapy where we can use children's books to help explain problems or changes in life.  We read Everyone Poops and some other books to help with potty training.  I'm a Big Brother helped us prepare for Little Miss' arrival!  Of course, we love Hoppin' Snake and it is a wonderful tool to explain what family is.  Even when families don't look the same it shows that looks don't change the love of a family.

During our homeschool week we had a Mommy and me book club.  Where we read G man's favorite book each day and all of our work centered on its theme.  Goodnight Moon has been our favorite for a long time.  G man knows the book by memory and says it with me as I read it to him.  We had fun using it in our school day and G man loved learning about pairs and singles.  He did think he would trick me and brought me a pair of shoes and a single sock and then asked me which was the pair and which was the single!!  Love that boy!!

My husband's favorite books from his childhood are the Hank the Cowdog books.  Cory and G man have been reading it together at night now and they are both enjoying it.  I love that G man at age 4 can listen to a chapter book and he doesn't need the pictures to spike his imagination.  Cory loves that he gets to share this book with him!

Big blue eyed babies!

Day 9: Eyes!

Baby blues!  Both of my kiddos have baby blue eyes!  I love their eyes and they are the first thing other's notice about my kids.  Little miss has more vibrant blues then G man but both of them have beautiful eyes.  I love seeing their professional pictures that we get done at Two Sticks Photography because she does so a wonderful job of capturing their big beautiful eyes.

G man has big eyes which add to the awe of his eyes.  I love when he tilts his head to the side and looks up at me, usually to ask for something I already said no to.  He could just melt your heart!!

Little miss has gorgeous eye lashes to go with her blue eyes.  She is going to be trouble for her daddy one day!

I have blue eyes just like my kiddos but my husband has green eyes.  If you paid any attention in biology and punnet squares then let me lay it out for you... Cory has a dominate brown and green and I have a dominate green and blue.  Which means we should have brown eyed or green eyed babies.  We don't have a very big chance of having blue eyed babies, but both of our children have blue eyes!!  This picture of us together was taken by Two Sticks Photography but I thought it was a good one to see our eye color best!

Sunset!

Day 8: The sunset.

We are very lucky that we have a perfect view of the sunset and a porch swing to enjoy it on!

The kids would rather play then watch the sunset!

Isn't God amazing!! I am reminded through nature just how amazing He is!  

I haven't watched a sunset in a LONG time!  I haven't let my kids watch one either because of bed times!  Luckily we didn't have to wake up early the next day so we just hung out and played!  My kids love being outside!  They got so caught up with playing that they didn't even care about the sunset!  I pointed out that the sky was turning orange and G man's only response is, "oh yup!" and he went right back to playing!!  

My only regret is that I didn't make any coffee!!

Childhood memory!

Day 7: A childhood memory

This was mine.  His name is Hearty and he is a raccoon.  He was my best friend.  He has heard all of my secrets, helped me explore scary things, and brave the dark.  I am so excited now that my kids are falling in love with him!

G-man loves to take Hearty on adventures and buckles him up in the car.  They ride on space ships to different  places and take on entire planets together!

Little miss loves to smother him with open mouth kisses and drags him around the house by his tail!  She also makes him ride with her on her pink rocking horse.

Break time??

Well I didn't mean to take a break from the 30 day picture blog...  I have had a couple of crazy days!!  I would like to share some experiences from them though.

I was able to help someone as they waited for a ride.  A man's truck had broken down at noon and while he didn't have a cell phone he knocked on my door at 5pm to use the phone.  He had been waiting outside in the heat since noon!!  He was in the middle of an asthma attack and needed help.  He was able to drink a glass of water and cool off and calm his breathing.  He didn't bring his inhaler because he was just running to the store!  Through all of this I was able to witness to him about the ministry I am apart of and how knowing Christ has changed my life.

I was able to sit with my co-workers and share with an outside organization about our ministry.  This lunch meeting lasted hours.  It is amazing working with other people who are passionate about this ministry and being able to talk to others about ways that they can help this ministry as well.

Tomorrow I get to talk with a Sunday school class that has already been involved in this ministry but tomorrow we will get to do a question/answer time about the ins and outs of what we do on our campus.  After speaking my husband, some friends, and me are running in a 5k mud run!!  I can't wait!!!!!!!

All work and all play!

Day 6: Work

We have been so blessed to be put in the situation we are in right now.  Last summer I was a nervous wreck about what childcare was going to cost us!!  Then God, who was probably laughing at my stress, said "Hey I got this!!"  He opened an opportunity for us that we never could have imagined.  I received an e-mail about praying for a job opening at the Oklahoma Baptist Homes for Children OKC campus.  We prayed and prayed and after coming to the campus and learning more my heart was changed!!  I just KNEW, and yeah God is laughing again, that I would retire in the classroom.  Now I get to work at home with my kids! They get to see me ministering to the needs of those around me and how important it is to be loved and to show love to others. This also opened another door for our family into homeschooling.  This wasn't something that we had considered doing before.  God has certainty changed our hearts and minds on homeschooling especially after hearing Voddie Baucham, going to a homeschool convention, and being surrounded by other homeschool families.  We are blessed to get to play at work!  We get to play with each other, other families, and our dear co-workers.

Another blessing we received this year is a job closer to our home.  We were so blessed that he was hired for an amazing position that he loves with a very awesome company!  God loves us and He has provided for us above what we had dreamed for our lives!!  God knew the desires and wants for our future before we had the chance to pray for them and He gave them freely!!

This picture is what I do!  Groups, Sunday school classes, volunteers, and many others come out to give their time to this ministry, give financially to support us, and/or pray for us.  This particular group came out and helped us make our flower beds look good.  This is so important to the families living here as this small act makes our entire setting feel more like a home.  If you would like to support us please click here!  Thanks in advance!!

Bad Habits...

Day 5: A bad habit

Haha!! Well my idea for this day was to get a good picture of Little miss picking her nose!  She didn't do it at all when I had my camera out!!!  And for G man I wanted to get him touching his ear while he drank his milk, and yet again it didn't happen.  So plan B... our biggest bad habit is that we drink WAY TOO MUCH chocolate milk.  I joke that my kids would have to have it intravenously!  We have a new rule that they have to drink a water cup or a juice cup before they get a chocolate milk cup.  Will little miss pretends to choke on her water and coughs and then G man tries his best to convince me that the water is burning his throat!!  They are so funny... and hard headed!!  My husband and I are just the same though only our vice is Diet Coke!!  We go through more 12 packs and bottles of chocolate syrup in a week then I care to share!!

Well there ya have it... the ugly side!! :)

Love!

Day 4: Love

Well this is easy Mother's day was yesterday so I was showered with love!!  I wanted a new refrigerator because ours had some cosmetic issues (missing a handle and looked old) and a few inside problems as well.   My dear husband fixed the inside problems then took 2 days and fixed the cosmetic parts!! He sanded, took off the remaining handles, filled in holes from handles, painted it black, then taped off areas and used chalkboard paint!!  I LOVE IT!!!!  

This picture is my favorite!! This is what his feet looked like after only 2 coats of paint!! :)

Here is the finished product!!  G man of course tried it out and he says it writes great!!  I have my own chalk board by the stove to use and the freezer door since it is too high for the kids and then they can have the bottom.  Now all I need is a magnetic chalk holder to put on the door!

The kids made me these in their Sunday school classes.  G man was so proud of himself for putting "tissues" on his flower pot and I just love Little miss' hand as the pick in the flowers!!  I am such a blessed mommy!!  

Cloud gazing!

Day 3: Clouds (A day late... sorry)

One or our favorite things is to pick out cloud shapes.  Everywhere we go G man can find a cloud and make up an entire story about it.  Today he found a cloud that looked like a rocket ship with a jet pack but his jet pack only had one blaster on it.  The rocket lost his blaster because it blasted too fast and flew away!  This is a game that is so much fun to play and I love hearing his creative stories.  I hope he never forgets these moments right here, right now.

I love his expressions and fun stories!!

Clothes are everywhere!!!

Day 2: clothes

The only thing I can say about this is that I HATE folding laundry!  I have all of the clothes in our home clean but they are just thrown on top of my bed!  I want to do things with my kids instead.  I have a routine and laundry just doesn't fit into it :) I clean the kitchen before waking the kids, wake everyone and get dressed, breakfast, go on morning route, homeschool lesson, nap time (my quiet time), lunch, play play play, start making dinner.
I have ranted enough about my hate of folding clothes so I will tell you a positive to my lack of folding.  My dear sweet husband will always help me fold! I love folding nights with him even though he may not feel the same.  During these times we get to talk about the work week, the kids behaviors, school progress, and many many other things.  I love quality conversation with him and we are being productive!

This picture is Little Miss' closet!!  I love buying clothes for her!  She also gets excited about shopping!  We are going to be trouble for Daddy later on!!

G man has been practicing folding towels and now he loves helping put up his clothes after we fold them.  This is his drawer of how they look after he carries them from the bedroom to his dresser.  I am learning to not sweat the small things... and this just makes my heart happy!!

After all of this I still don't feel ashamed of the pile of laundry on my bed I think it shows how much more important playing and parenting are then the chores!!  Besides laundry talk with my hubby is too much fun to start folding laundry everyday ;)

Hope you enjoyed!!

30 pictures in 30 days!

I had seen this challenge on Pinterest but it was geared for professional photographers... which I am NOT!  So I had thought and thought and came up with my own Mommy list of pictures to take for this month.  Here is the list I came up with.  I will be taking pictures of my children/daily living this month to fit these categories.  I hope you enjoy!!  Here is the link to the professional list.

Day 1: Kids                                         Day 16: home

Day 2: clothes                                      Day 17: Comforts

Day 3: clouds                                       Day 18: siblings

Day 4: Love                                         Day 19: outside fun

Day 5: a bad habit                                Day 20: swimming

Day 6: work                                         Day 21: hands

Day 7: childhood memory                     Day 22: feet

Day 8: sunset                                        Day 23: fun with chalk

Day 9: eyes                                          Day 24: silly faces

Day 10: Reading                                   Day 25: playing with photoshop J

Day 11: obsessions!                             Day 26: technology

Day 12: all boy                                     Day 27: toys

Day 13: all girl                                      Day 28: favorite place

Day 14: broken                                    Day 29: True love

Day 15: happy                                     Day 30: Leave it to the pros!

Day 1: Kids.   I love these two more then anything and I felt it was important for me to show you my inspiration for taking 30 different pictures in 30 days!  We had so much fun thinking and talking about what pictures we are going to take!!

G man is my crazy man!!  He loves to show off all of his silly faces and his muscles!  I love all of his personality and humor.  He keeps me on my toes and constantly laughing :)

Little miss is really coming in to her own!  She is a bossy and sassy little tough girl!  She has to be to keep up with G man though!!!  If this photo had motion you would see her busting a move!!  She loves to dance and twirl in circles.  Together their favorite thing to do is wrestle :) got to love these crazy kiddos!!