Snow Day!

As I mentioned in my post from yesterday, we had our first snow day here in Colorado. It wasn't alot of snow and most of it melted by noon but the kids had a blast. It was really cold and Emily and I didn't venture out but Cody and Grace were out within minutes of waking up. Here are a few shots which I took from our kitchen window.

Life is Good!

I am posting this morning as I look out my kitchen window to a beautiful snow covered backyard. Yes, we had our first snowfall last night. Although it is only about an inch, it is truly a treat for this Florida girl's eyes. I can't wait to wake the kids and experience their excitement and joy as they view their very first snowfall. But before I do I wanted to prepare a quick post. I have added some slideshows of some of our recent activities that highlight some of our activities. We have been enjoying the beautiful scenery of fall as well as the cooler weather. God's creation continues to WOW me! We finally received all of our furniture and I have done a little bit of decorating of which I included some pics. Lots more to do but our house does feel so much more like home and that has lifted my spirits. We celebrated Grace's 6th Birthday with brunch with our friends Sara, Bill and their boys and a trip to Build A Bear Workshop. It is truly hard to believe that my beautiful daughter is 6. Thank you Sara for being my offical photographer for the day! We have made a few trips to a local indoor pool and the kids continue to enjoy playing outside with neighborhood friends. We helped host a neighborhood block party where we discovered that we have some of the most fantastic neighbors. Homeschooling continues to get better although I still don't think that I am doing a great job with Grace but I give it my best effort everyday and I pray that God will honor my efforts and bring fruit from my labor. Mike continues to do a great job with Cody and I am so blessed by seeing my husband pour so much of himself into our son. The time that they have together is strengthening their relationship and the spiritual growth that we are seeing in Cody makes my heart swell. So in closing, I will say that after months of struggling we have hit some sweet spots and I can say that life is good but more importantly GOD IS GOOD! I am so thankful that "HE knows the plans that HE has for me" and that although I don't see the riches that lie ahead, I can always trust that HIS plans are to prosper me and that HE longs to bless me with goodness. Sometimes I have to endure hardship and pain but oh how that endurance makes the goodness that much more sweet. Life for us is still full with way too much to do than there is time but we are enjoying the days that He has given us and we rest in the fact that HE loves us beyond our comprehension. Hope you all are enjoying life and I pray today for each person who reads our blog that you will feel the tremendous impact of God's love for you. You are precious in HIS sight and may you know what a treasure you are to HIM! Enjoy the pictures and thanks for stopping by!

Some Fun Photo's

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Grace's Christmas Party

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Ooops!

Please forgive me but it seems as though I duplicated alot of the pictures in the slideshow. I am just learning how to negotiate and create these things and haven't fine tuned my abilities.

Sorry!

Chatty Girls Weekend

Settling In

Last week I had prepared a "woe is me" type post. I don’t know if you remember the old Hee Haw song "Gloom Despair Agony on Me", well that was tune of this post. Well, as the Lord would have it I just didn’t feel a right spirit about posting it. Oh how good it felt to "vent" but I have always wanted my blog not only to be a way of recording the life events of our family and an outlet for me to write but I so want everything that I post to be glorifying to My Creator as well as uplifting to my readers and I just knew that the words that felt so good to pen were not honoring to Him so here I go again and hopefully I can do a better job at recapping the last couple of weeks without grumping and complaining.
Most of my "grumps" in life right now have nothing to do with being in Colorado. In fact, outside of missing my sister and family I love being here. There is so much to love out here.....beautiful FALL weather (haven’t experienced this in years), incredible scenery everywhere I turn, tons of opportunities to grow deeper in my relationship with the Lord, a great house and neighborhood complete with terrific neighbors and kids who seem to be loving life enjoying lots of things that they don’t get to do in Florida. We are trying to take advantage of all the great things to do outside like taking hikes, riding bikes, relaxing in the hot tub on cool nights as well as enjoying the company of our new friends. I have to say that life is really full for us right now. We try to take advantage of every opportunity we have to get to know other people and given that there are so many friendly people out here who are eager to engage us and our family we find that our calendars are fairly full. We continue to furnish the house and even though the pieces are slowly trickling in we are still lacking in all those little decorative touches that really make it feel like home. I found some pretty picture frames and displayed a couple of family photos and was amazed at how good it felt to do something so simple. In addition to continuing to work on making the house feel like home we are fully into Home-schooling which for me has been a hard task. I have struggled from day one of schooling the kids with managing the education of a highly energetic, easily distracted 6th grader along with a Kindergartner who only wants to do arts and crafts while keeping a 3 year old occupied. This is all coupled with the daily upkeep of the house, meals, laundry, paying bills and the countless other things that occupy my "to do" lists. To say that it has been overwhelming is an understatement. During that first week my admiration for all of you mom’s who school your kids at home grew while my confidence plummeted. I am sad to admit it but during this week I yelled at my kids more, felt more stress than I had in years and the physical exhaustion was incredibly draining. After the first week, I was "done". Experiencing a full meltdown (mom’s have meltdowns too), I told Mike that we just needed to put the kids back in school because I couldn’t do it. Fortunately, he was insightful enough to see that I truly was beyond overwhelmed and he took on Cody’s (our 6th grader) school which has lifted a huge burden. Mike is doing a fantastic job and although I think he misses having the extended time he thought he would have to write and study he enjoys the interactions that he and Cody are having on a daily basis. Cody has written some of the most beautiful book reports and once he settles into his day he seems to enjoy his schoolwork. He has often commented that he is lonely and misses his friends at MICS which I can completely understand. Home schooling can be very isolating which is one of the reasons I think that I have struggled with this new way of life. When kids are in school there are built in interactions with other kids as well as moms each and everyday while when one schools at home those interactions have to be planned which takes effort and time that is often not available. When you home school, your kids are with you ALL the time and I have to admit that I do miss having time to myself and I think that they miss having time away from me too. I love and adore my kids but I have come to believe that I appreciate them so much more when I get a break from them. I so miss having personal quite time without interruption, time to put my house in order but mostly time to connect with my husband. Of course, Mike is with me all day but we actually had more time to connect when he was working full time. Mike has been a great help and is trying to make it easier but this transition in life is not something that I have taken to instantly. I have never been one that enjoyed change. Even though I know that change can often be healthy and a great growing experience but oh how I don’t like it when my little orderly world is turned upside down. Predictability is something that causes me to thrive emotionally. When I know what to expect and when to expect it I am at peace. Well, now that I am in a new city, a new house with little to no furnishings that are familiar, a husband and children who are now home 24/7 there is very little that is predictable and my house varies in levels of messiness and disorder. Soooo, I am a grumpy mess. I am vacillating between knowing in my heart that great things are available to our family here in Colorado to a deep longing to return to what is so comfy and familiar in Florida. I have always tried to see difficult times in life in a spiritual sense...am I being attacked or is God refining me. Well, I think that in this situation, it is a little of both. I am learning that I need to completely depend on God. I am prideful in that I think that I should be able to do this in my own strength and God doesn’t want that. He wants me to do it in HIS strength. Amazingly, I am studying Daniel in a ladies Bible Study by Beth Moore. WOW, each week I am convicted, encouraged and brought into a state of humbleness that although I think I walk a life of integrity, I truly fall short each and every day. Soooo, is this a time of refining...absolutely. Do I like the pain of refinement?....absolutely not! But I know that when I have withstood the fire I pray all that is not like Christ will be burned off . Am I being attacked?....I believe so. I think that the enemy knows when we are weary and he also is well aware of our weakness and when he senses that God is preparing a blessing in our lives he will go for that which he knows will thwart the fruition of that blessing. I also believe that in families as a unit he will go after the "weak link" and I have to say that right now I am that link that is most vulnerable. Life is not always easy. There are emotional and physical mountains and valleys and in comparison to what some others may be experiencing my valleys are very small and I pray that I will never be so consumed in my own difficulties that I cannot see the pain in other’s lives. This is a season of life that will pass. I will grow, I will learn and trust that the Lord will have had the opportunity to further perfect me in the process.
To end on a bright note.....Mike and the kids are doing great. Mike continues to settle into our Colorado lifestyle and loves meeting all the wonderful folks out here. I am amazed at how relaxed and happy he is. Even though there are some difficulties on his plate as well, he has such a positive spirit is so encouraging. Cody has settled in nicely as well. He is doing things that he would never do in Florida. We visited a different church last Sunday that is a VERY large church with the most amazing kids program and Cody eagerly participate in the kids worship service telling us after church that "he raised his hands in worship and went forward during the time of prayer and prayed to receive a childlike faith". For a child who has a tender heart but has never been really excited about church....to hear him tell of his experience brought joy to my heart and soul. Grace and Emily are continuing to enjoy life as well but are hoping that we meet some families with girls soon. So far everyone we hang out with has boys. We have joined the local YMCA and are all enjoying the activities there. Mike and I are working out and I am trying to exercise more and take off some of my "post China weight gain. The kids are swimming and playing basketball. Cody went to a Tween Night last weekend and had a blast. We are LOVING having a Whole Foods grocery store right down the street. I hosted a my "Chatty Girls" and their daughters a few weeks ago and we had a blast. It was so fun to spend a weekend chatting face to face, loving on each others children and just simply soaking up the love of friends. I really could go on and on about the greatness of that weekend but I will simply let the pics do the talking. We are looking forward to experiencing some Fall type activities in weather at actually feels like Fall. We are heading up into the mountains this weekend to hopefully see some beautiful fall colors, we are planning a trip to a local pumpkin patch, my neighbor and I are planning a fall themed block party and I am looking forward to figuring out this high altitude baking by trying some of my favorite fall recipes.
I thank so many of you for emailing us and checking in. We appreciate your prayers and thoughts. We miss you so much and hope that you all are doing well. Please check in and let us know how you are. Stay tuned for the next update which I promise won’t be a novel.
Love and Hugs to you all!

Greetings from Colorado

Greetings from Colorado! Sorry for the delay in updating our blog. Time is rather scarce these days as we are getting settled, furnishing the house, entertaining kids, meeting new friends and trying to take advantage of all of the wonderfully exciting things to do out here in the west. There is so much to share but I will try to be brief given that Wednesday was our first "official" day of home school so I have learned quickly that I need to take advantage of getting myself organized and prepared before the kids wake up.
We arrived in Colorado just a little over a month ago after a VERY long and tiring drive. We made it in 3 days and I will just have to say, it was exhausting. We have vowed that we will never do that again. Mike drove the big Haul and I our van and the kids would switch out. Most of the time he would have two of the kids which they LOVED. They were so cute sitting up in that big UHaul. Despite our fatigue, we enjoyed seeing parts of the country that we had never seen. I was completely in awe of how creative our God is in fashioning such a beautifully unique land. The rolling hills of Tennessee gave way to beautiful farms in Kentucky and the sights of driving through the bigger cities St. Louis and Kansas City were thrilling as well. Now I will have to say that I am not quite sure about Kansas. Not much to see there other than a stretch of silver windmills. But nevertheless we tried to make an adventure of it and had lots of time to sing songs with the kids and think about what we left behind and what was awaiting us. Saying goodbye to friends and family was hard. We soaked up the incredible goodness of friends from church who literally packed the entire truck for us. We were overwhelmed with the kindness of our pastor, music/youth ministers, and our pastor’s son and a friend who got us ready to hit the road. THANKS GUYS!!! I think that knowing that we would be returning to Florida in December made the goodbyes easier but still there were lots of tears shed and we have also had some homesickness since arriving in CO. More later about that.....so we arrived in Colorado to our new home and the kids were so thrilled with their new house. Our sweet realtor had left a welcome home package which got us through the night and we awoke to an awesome sunrise over the mountains. Again, I could share so many little details but will just try to give a skimmed versions. Settling in has taken a LONG time. We spent the first few weeks frequenting Target, Walmart and just about every furniture store in Colorado. Given that we had NO furniture we were on a mission to get some mattresses. Unfortunately, the mattresses weren’t delivered until about a week ago so we are now happy to say that we are getting better sleep. The furniture is now ordered and the deliveries are slowly trickling in. For the first week we ate all our meals standing up at the bar until a friend we had met through Focus on the Family brought over a much needed card table and chairs. The kitchen is now pretty much stocked with the necessities and we are slowly developing routines. It seems to be taking a while to find a schedule that works for us. We have so much that we want and need to do that until this week we have spent much of our time on the road. We have enjoy getting to know new friends and taking advantage of the beautiful weather and all the sites around town. Speaking of friends, I have to mention Sara from http://www.footballandfriedrice.blogspot.com She and her husband Bill and two precious boys have made our transition to Colorado so much easier. She and I met through another friend, Beth prior to our moving and have become great friends. She has reached out and touched my heart allowing God to use her to soothe my homesickness, encourage me in my struggles, introduce me to lots of women and simply to fill my life with godly friendship. I can honestly say that this adventure would sound vastly different if it weren’t for her as well as for my friend Beth. Beth is a friend of my best friend in Birmingham. We connected immediately and she and her husband David opened their arms and welcomed our family into their lives. She has been a great Home school resource and is so willing and eager to include me in all the fun things that she finds for the kids to do. I am overwhelmed with the goodness of God that HE would have orchestrated these friendships before we even arrived in CO. HE knew that we would need these connections to make it easier. Speaking of connecting, Mike is doing very well and making lots of connections with ministry type folks through our friend/realtor Steve. He is enjoying traveling about town and meeting with lots of men who are making a difference for the Kingdom of God through their ministries. He is also getting LOTS of writing and study time done and finds that he is loving retirement. He spends the mornings and early afternoons "working" and frequently entertains the kids in the afternoons while I run errands or continue unpacking and settling in. The kids are doing well too. Grace and Emily are LOVING being outside. They enjoy pulling weeds in the flowerbeds, searching for stray golf balls on the golf course and in our yard and Grace has become a pro at riding her bike. Cody enjoys the outside time too. The basketball hoop was used non-stop the first week but has lost it’s novelty but he does enjoy jumping on the neighbors trampoline and playing StarWars with the little boy next door. He loves his new friends Cole and Carter and begs for them to come over almost everday. He has had some moments of homesickness and although he enjoys many things about CO he really misses his family and friends in Florida. Well, that is about it for a skimmed version of our previous 6-8 weeks. Like I said there are so many details that I could share but won’t bore you with a play by play of our time. I will report more as we continue to settle in. We started Home schooling this week and I think that I will reserve my report until we have gotten our feet a little more wet. Some of the "Chatty Girls" are coming for a visit next weekend and I am SOO excited to see them and their beautiful China girls. We have a fun-filled weekend planned and of course LOTS of catching up. We are taking advantage of the gorgeous hikes, caught an Air Force Academy football game last weekend as well as a Hot Air Balloon Festival. Cooler temps have arrived which we are LOVING and church is magnificant.

For those of you who have prayed for us....THANK YOU! We are blessed by your offerings. God has brought us this far in our adventure and continues to draw us to HIM as we trust HIM and lean on HIM for strength. HE has opened our eyes to see the beauty of HIS creation and is teaching us to ‘be still and know that HE is God’....why is being still so hard? But it is in that stillness that we can see and hear HIM so much better. I will have to admit that my lofty goals of what life would be like here in CO have not be achieved yet, mainly because of the chaos of the move and settling into an empty house with no furniture but I am looking forward to doing all those things to which I looked forward before I left Florida. I hope all of you are enjoying a great beginning to the school year where ever it started. To all of you in Florida.....I MISS YOU!!! Each afternoon, my heart aches a little as I long for my school parking lot chats with my school moms as well as my time with my sister and nephew, Garrett. Garrett, Emily misses you too! I am sharing some pictures of our first weeks here in Colorado. Hope you enjoy!

Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice

Here are some shots of my "Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice" as well as a few of the not so sugar and spice.

Our house is buzzing with activity as we prepare for our departure to CO. Most of the buzzing however is unrelated to actual preparations and is more daily maintenance. Laundry, housecleaning, grocery shopping, cooking and entertaining 3 very bored and very active children. Throw in the birth of our niece (my sisters beautiful daughter) and a retirement party and we have very little time to get things ready to leave so our trip west may be delayed somewhat until we can find some time to get it all together. I am dreaming of more peaceful more organized days once we get settled in Colorado but until then we are plugging along and as I have trudged through the days I have drawn such strength, encouragement and inspiration from some amazing blogging mom's. As I have enjoyed reading through some of these blogs I am reminded of the scripture in Proverbs 27:17 that says

"As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another."

I love it how God can use His servants to point us in the right direction when we sometime lose our way as well as opening our eyes to new insights while reminding us of those things which are right in front of us but we just fail to notice them. For example Kim, from Lifesong has renewed and birthed within me a desire to pour Godly principals into my beautiful daughters while encouraging my spirit to draw nearer to the Lord. Then Kimber from 3 Peanuts inspired me with her healthy eating and living and to be more conscientious about what is going into the bodies of my family and then my sweet friend Jeannette whom I have never met but feel like I have known all my life from Threads of Faithfulness and Sara Beth Bows who reminded me how blessed I am to have these two precious girls to call daughters, reminding me not to get so caught up in life that I forget to enjoy "girly" things with them. I have felt such a deep conviction to give more to Emily and Grace during my day. I have been reminded of so many lost moments of being able to teach them valuable lessons while enjoying each of their precious personalities. I have to admit that my Cody's personality as well as his physical and emotional needs often require more of me than I am able to give therefore my girls get very little of their mama.

My girls are such blessings and I am so thankful for the joy that they bring to my life. Grace is so incredibly caring and has such a tender heart. She amazes me with her ability to absorb the activities around her and remember every detail. She is self-sufficient and is perfectly cable of running a household. She has watched me so intently and has taken in more than I imagined of what I do on a daily basis. As I have become so aware of how much she soaks in I have to confess that I have not always given her the best picture of what is a Godly attitude. My speech has not always been seasoned with the gospel and in the midst of frustration my actions have not been what I would want her to imitate. She is so eager to learn and help with the cooking and LOVES to prepare for a party. I have a great desire to spend so much more time fostering her innate desire to be a homemaker and teach her the art of gracious entertaining.

And my sweet Emily, she is just full of joy. She too is such a little lover. She is very quick to offer words and physically expressions of love and affirmation and can make the darkest day seem bright with her encouraging words. She makes me laugh with her wittiness and bright and funny comments. I love seeing how she has overcome her fears and embraces life with such energy and excitement. She too loves to kindle the fires of a pretend home and I want to make a better effort to foster that desire.

Both of my daughters are so incredibly feminine which I adore. They love to dress up and look pretty. They are in heaven when I let them play with pretend make-up and paint their nails. They love princesses and fairy tales and having tea parties. Everything about them screams girl and I love it but I don't always join in on the fun.

What a gift daughters are to a mother. As mothers we have the ability to give our daughters a picture of what God would want for them. Young girls of today are pulled in so many different directions and I pray that I will seize each and every opportunity to pour into my girls what I believe are biblical guidelines of honoring God in all that they do. I look forward to enjoying my girls and taking advantage of doing more of the girly things that we haven't been doing and that celebrate who they are as girls.

So as we embark on this journey in life I have the hope of having some new beginnings one being a fresh start to truly bask in the beauty of my girls.

My new blog design was created by Danielle at Blogs by Danielle. She does a great job at creating cute designs to showcase your blog but most importantly she is a delight to work with. If you are looking to spice up your blog I highly recommend her and now is a great time because she is having a sale. THANKS DANIELLE...I love it!

AWESOME GOD!!!!!

WOW! Look what our God made....Isn't HE awesome!