10 Things to Smile About: April

Wow!  April is over - how in the world did that happen?  It was a crazy month around here - a good month, but a bit of a blur.  So here are 10 things that made me smile last month...

1.  Grace continuing to grow in knowledge and in her heart.  She came home with this handwriting work from school - this made my heart so happy.  God is growing her.

2.  Easter.  We had a lovely brunch with my parents, followed by an Easter egg hunt.  With all that's been going on in life, this was a truly sweet day.

3.  Lots and lots of time with new friends.  I'm amazed how quickly I've grown to love a group of people, I've only known for a short time.

4.  Autumn turned 2!

5.  Continued success with our journey to become debt free. Our grand total since September 2011 is $10,900.  Lots of hard work to do still.  But we've made a ton of progress and I can't wait to know how it feels to be able to say "we are debt free".

6.  A new workout routine that I'm incorporating with my workouts at the YMCA.  The workouts are hard, sweaty, but somehow super fun.  I'm seeing some good progress in just one month... can't wait to finally be ok with swimsuit season.

7.  Going to Harvest University in Chicagoland with my new church... wonderful teaching, inspiring ministry and God-glorifying worship.  It was truly amazing.

8.  A sleepover with 3 Kindergartners.  It was crazy.  It was loud.  It was exhausting.  It was fun.  Oh, and thanks Mom, for putting up with all my sleepovers.  I had no idea!

9.  Our first trip to the zoo this season. 

10.  With only a month of school left, we are making fun plans for the summer - a trip to the East coast, a trip to Seattle and some horse riding lessons for Miss Grace.

She's 2 & I'm Sad About It

If you follow me on Twitter or are friends with me on Facebook, then you are well aware that Autumn turned 2 today.  I'm sorry, but I'm one of those moms who is so in love with my kids that I expect you to be, too.  And you should.  Because they're pretty awesome kids and super cute, too.

Anyway, we celebrated Autumn's birthday the same way we did with Grace when she turned 2 - with a trip to Build-a-Bear and then lunch at Chuck-E-Cheese.  The trip to Build-a-Bear was hysterical - she went crazy and ran from one thing to the next... free from her stroller and with so much stimuli.  It was fun and she now has a bear named Crissy.  We were then off to a heartburn-inducing lunch at Chuck-E-Cheese.  It was fun.  And I'm pretty sure Joel and I had as much fun as Autumn did, because skee ball is awesome.

At the end the day, a dear friend came over and had dinner with us and helped to celebrate Autumn's special day.  While the kids were playing, I confessed to my friend that although we had a lot of fun today, I felt like I was mourning Autumn turning 2.  As a mom, you always want  your kids to grow.  There would be something wrong if  you never wanted your kids to grow in age, knowledge and understanding.  That is your job as a mom - to make sure they get from being a newborn to a thriving adult.

But I'm having a hard time with it.  Something about 2 says that I need to say goodbye to Autumn as a baby.  And I'm not quite ready to do that.  But she is - as evidenced with two new Autumn words today: "mall" and "pizza".  My baby isn't quite a baby anymore.

Happy birthday, my sweet, funny little girl!

10 Things to Smile About: March

March is by-far, one of my favorite months.  Not only is my birthday in March (*cough*) but March always means spring and spring just makes me happy.

So, here are 10 things that made me smile this month...

1.  Shamrock shakes... those things are a both lethal and delicious.  It's probably a good thing that McDonald's doesn't sell them year-round!

2.  Grace turned 6!

3.  Road trips!

4.  God's continued leading in our lives... this time He has lead us to help with a church plant.  We are so ready for this challenge!

5.  Warmer weather means the grill has returned to it's home outside... many hot dogs have been consumed in March.

6.  I turned one year older, too... but I'll still be 29 forever.

7.  Spring means spring/summer clothes shopping... which I've done within budget, mind you.  I can't wait to wear some new dresses soon.

8.  Tulips.  Oh my gosh, I adore tulips.

9.  Hunger Games.  Yes, I'm one of those people.  I'm on the 3rd book right now... and Joel treated me to a 9:45 am showing on Sunday.  9:45 am is a weird time to watch a movie with the smell of popcorn all around - & it brings out the weirdest people.

10.  Sunny, warm weather. 

Anything make you smile this month?

My Baby is 6!

Grace turned 6 this week.  Six.  I can't wrap my mind around it.  I just cannot believe she's six... in six years she'll be 12, and that's just unthinkable.

But my Gracie has grown up so much this year... she loves to read, pretend to write cursive, walk around the house like a dog/horse... Grace loves on her little sister so much, which makes me proud.  Most importantly, Grace loves Jesus - and that means more to me than anything else.

She's my tough girl... my girl who's survived with me during Joel's last 3 deployments.  She's grown up too much from that, so I'm trying my hardest to keep her 6 for as long as I can. 

Happy Birthday, sweet girl!

MilSpouse Friday Fill-In

It's been a really long time since I participated.  Thanks, Wife of a Sailor!

1. What is your favorite/most unique anniversary/birthday gift from your spouse? suggested by Bel at Being a Better Me

For our 1st anniversary, Joel got me a revolver.  If you know my husband at all, you know how appropriate this gift is.  And as girly as I am, I love it.  It's a fun gun to shoot...and for those of you who have gone through deployments know, it's always nice to feel like you can defend yourself when your hubby is away.


2. What’s your first thought when you see it’s snowing (or what would you say if you don’t live somewhere with snow? suggested by Poekitten from Many Waters

I'm not sure what my first thought is... but I get the same feeling at 30 that I do when I was 5.  I love snow and get excited knowing that in a few hours, the drab winter has the potential to look beautiful.  The more snow the better... unfortunately, Indiana has had an ugly winter with too little of the pretty white stuff.

3. What’s one thing in the past month you would have changed? suggested by Erika from Chambanachik

I have a few books that I'm in the middle of right now.  I wish I had turned the TV off more at night and cuddled up with a good book instead.  There's always March...

4.What was your favorite thing that happened in February?

Let's just say that God is clearly opening doors for us... there's such a relief to know that God's hand is in where you're going.

5. What are you looking forward to in March?

March is going to be busy around here.  I'm probably looking forward most to Grace's birthday and taking a little bit of a family trip together to celebrate.

Autumn is 1!

My baby girl is 1!  I had a hard time kissing her goodnight yesterday, because I couldn't get over the fact that Autumn would be one in the morning.  She has grown up so fast, and I can hardly believe our first year with Autumn is behind us.

She is our love-bug.  Our chubby baby who loves to giggle, explore the house and dance to the music.  She is our blessing.  The baby we waited for.  And she has given our family more love than I ever imagined.

Autumn's 1st ice cream at McDonald's (although I suspect Daddy may have shared some before) 

Tower of white cupcakes with butter cream frosting

(Head over to my friend, Karla, the Culinary Enthusiast, for the frosting recipe)

I Survived the First Day of My 30s

Birthdays are usually lots of fun, but for the last several months the big 3-0 started to approach too quickly for me.  Something about that number scares me.  Maybe I can't let go of the constant transitions that the 20s bring.  Maybe I think that I'll suddenly be too old to be kinda cool and fun.  Perhaps it's that I'm kinda vain and I'm worried about seeing any new tiny lines on my face.  I think most of the fear comes from remembering a birthday party that I attended as a child for a family friend who turned 30.  I don't remember much about the party, but I do remember seeing lots and lots of black and over-the-hill signs.  There was doom in turning 30.

I didn't want any big to-dos for my birthday yesterday.  All I really wanted was to enjoy a nice quiet day with my three favorite people - Joel, Grace and Autumn.  I told Joel that all I wanted was to go to church as a family, go out to one of my favorite restaurants for lunch and then just have a relaxing day together.  Well, Autumn was up throughout the night with some terrible chest cold - coughing, sneezing, an abundance of mucus and lots of crying.  Grace was up, too, because she thought she was missing out on some middle-of-the-night party.  When the girls were in bed (finally), I was up because my stomach was bothering me.  So, come 7 o'clock the next morning, we weren't going to church and my day simply wasn't going to go as planned.

Instead, we all slept in and enjoyed the morning in our pj's.  We cuddled, played and watched movies together.  And later yesterday afternoon, we managed to all get dressed and pulled together so that we could go out for dinner.  Dinner was lovely.  The kids were amazingly well-behaved and we had so much fun talking and enjoying the most wonderful food.  To top it off, I got my tiramisu for dessert.

We came home and the girls went to bed without much fuss and then Joel and I curled up on the couch together and watched Eclipse.  He even managed to watch most of the movie without making comments about the storyline or the fact that I know as much Twilight trivia as he does Star Wars....

So, my first day as 30 was not terrible, as I had imagined.  I keep hearing that it's the 30s when you really find your groove in life and start to feel settled.  I'm praying for that and can't wait to see what God has in store for me.  I also hear that 50 is the new 40 and perhaps 30 can be the new 20.  Whichever it is, I'm going to celebrate 29 forever!

Happy Birthday, Grace!

Five years ago, Joel and I were blessed when Grace Elizabeth became a part of our family at 10:21 am.  She brings such joy and purpose to our life and she has been my little buddy throughout all life's ups and downs.

Our little Gracie loves makeup as much as trains, is so proud to be a big sister to Autumn and loves all that life has offered her.  She is tender, sweet, thoughtful, funny, insightful and a wee-bit sarcastic. 

I can't imagine my life without her and am thankful that God blessed us with her just 5 years ago.

Love you, my sweet Bubbers!

Happy BirThanksMas

Happy BirThanksMas!  What?  You've never heard of such a holiday?  Well, when you're deployment is during your birthday, Thanksgiving and Christmas, you need a meal to celebrate all of them at once!

I decided to surprise Joel one night for dinner with a few of his favorites.  I got the girls up early one morning and ran to the grocery store so I could have everything prepared before Joel got home from work at the base.  Nothing like making a batch of stuffing at 10:00 in the morning on a 80+ degree July day!

So for dinner we had stuffing, Italian cut green beans (yuck, but he loves them), sirloin steak and chocolate fudge cake.  To drink was raspberry lemonade and one of his favorite beers - St. Pauli Girl.  Dinner was quite a strange mix of foods, but I wanted him to get some of his favorites before his deployment.  He gets all sorts of skinny on deployments, so I needed to fatten him up a bit beforehand.

Dinner was a hit.  We were both feeling it though - the steaks were gigantic and it was kind of hot for a big pile of stuffing, but it was well worth it.