Dress Rehearsal Video

Princess watching her class perform their ballet routine...someone wouldn't go on stage...Her class without her~When she did finally decided being with her class wasn't the end of the world, her brother enjoyed watching the tap routine!

And then we have the video for you to watch!

Thankful Thursday

This might seem silly to you all, but I am thankful for being on the path to finally discovering who I am. The last several years have been such a transition time as a wife, mom, Christian, daughter, sister, and so on....

June 2nd 2001 I became a graduate
July 2001 Started dating my future husband
August 2001 Lost my Grandma & Started College
January 3rd 2002 Became engaged to my future husband
May 2002 Ended my only year of college & broke my engagement to my future husband
June 2002 Turned 19 & became re-engaged
August 10th 2002 Became a Mrs
October 2002 Became a Interim Pastors Wife
September 2003 Became home owners and moved away from home town
October 2003 Became an Associate Pastors Wife
December 2003 Discovered I was pregnant only to find out we were miscarrying #1
April 1st 2003 Got our little Meshach Pomeranian puppy
July 2004 Started the adoption process
August 20th 2004 Miscarried our second baby
November 2004 Matched with twins due in Feb. 05
January 20th 2005 Miscarried our third baby
January 2005 found out we would not become parents to the twins (and throughout the next year had this happen 25 more times!)
April 26th 2005 Miscarried our fourth baby
May 2005 Started working at Ben.Franklin.Crafts
February 2006 Became foster parents
March 30th 2006 Bought property on the other side of our state before turning in our 2 week notices or even thinking about selling our house.
April 2006 Had to pack up our entire house in less than 30 days because it sold in 7 and we needed to be out, moved across the state to a church basement. NOT A PASTORS WIFE anymore!
May 2006 Started building our house
August 10th 2006 our 5 year anniversary
August 11th 2006 Got our Mini Doxie puppy
August 2006 Sang in Jason's Grandpas funeral
September 27th 2006 Became parents OVER NIGHT!
December 2006 Said good-bye to my other Grandma
December 27th 2006 our son was born and we didn't even know it!
December 30th 2006 Mom & Dad renewed their vows and I threw their 'wedding' for them
January 2nd 2007 Our son came home at 6 days old!
January 7th 2007 Became a pastors wife again.
January 22nd 2007 finished our house just to put it for sale
March 30th 2007 Finalized our daughters adoption
May 2007 Moved into a parsonage
June & July 2007 Spent many hours in hospitals and clinics trying to figure out what was wrong with our son.
March 2008 Our son crawled, walked, and started talking within a week of taking dairy and gluten away from him!
June 2008 Diagnosed with PCOS
July 2008 Started fertility treatments
August 1st 2008 FINALLY finalized our sons adoption!
September 2008 stopped fertility treatments because my doctor was moving to New Zealand!
October 28th 2008 Opened my daycare
December 7th 2008 Not a Pastors Wife anymore
December 2008 Have 30 days to find a house an get moved out of the parsonage.
December 2008 Tried a new church
January 22nd 2009 Moving day
March 2009 Became members at our new church

And here we are, on our way to discovering who we really are. I know this may be boring to some of you...but Thankful Thursday is about me keeping the right attitude toward my wonderful Lord Jesus Christ. I can look at all of what has happened to us (and this is just quick by memory with very little detail) and get upset as to why people like us have to go through all of that. Our desires in life were to live our life to glorify God and to have a family. We try with everything in us to live every day for God, we fail, but then need to pick ourselves up again and start over. But if I decide to have a negative attitude about this (which is very easy) it would make me and everyone around me miserable. If I decided to look at it as Gods way of molding me into who I am suppose to be for Him, it is a blessing. God has worked harder on me than anyone I know! He is trying to help me become a good servant for Him and I pray that I am worthy!

I am thankful for the rough times!

Dress Rehearsal Day, Pre Rehearsal

The Peter.bilt hat that Grandma Pancake brought for him...he should make Grandpa Deere & Uncle Farmer very happy! The hat makes Mommy feel like she has a big boy and not a baby any more!When I took Friday off a couple of weeks ago we went to Gym.boree and got some GREAT deals! This outfit was part of that deal, her pants match her headband....but she doesn't have them on any more in this picture, you will have to ask Grandma Pancake why! It still cracks me up Mom!Hair & Make-up done for dress rehearsalJust chillin waiting to go bye-bye in the suburban!Our little doll Chit Chatting

Singing a duet...or somethingThe grand finale!All ready to go and putting on a show! Come back tomorrow for dress rehearsal pics & a video!

The day Grandma comes!!!! (last Thursday!)

Princess sporting her princess cowgirl hat. She just could not calm down because she was so excited for Grandma Pancake to get to our house!Precious PrincessGrandma Pancake came with Easter Baskets and more...Boo was checking out this school bus in an egg!This was very neat, it is a sign that says cowboy (for his cowboy room!)Checking out her crocs-like shoes 'like Gwamas'As brother and sister always do, wanting the others new stuff more than theirs!

Grandma Pancake also brought this cake with Princess' dance picture on it...Princess was so excited to have a 'Happy Birthday Cake!' and in this picture she just realized it has her "dance class on it!" Too fun!Pretty excited about the cake!This is listening to Mommy tell her that we needed to save the cake until after her recital when we could invite friends over to share the cake with.

Her excitement is slightly disappearing as the story unfolds!

Recital Teaser

Just a little recital teaser for you today...I will get back to the 'regular' schedule of events tomorrow and other recital pics will follow in their order!

These are actually from the dress rehearsal on Friday night. There are suppose to be 10 girls in the Princess' class...I count NINE! Do you happen to notice who is NOT in this picture...yup, PRINCESS! She all of a sudden didn't want to be dropped off for rehearsal so she watched her dance friends do their ballet routine. They were pretty cute!We did manage to get her dropped off in time for her tap routine, and she did dance about the last half...so I guess her score is about 25% for the night!

It was a great experience for us all. Wonderful to have Grandma Pancakes with us for the weekend and help out. It was also great to have so many friends come to support this little Princess at the show and after celebrating at Apple.bees!

Like I said, more to come!

Hunting

I am very happy, my hunting for just the right thing to buy for the kids & daycare seems to have finally come to an end! We are working on ordering this from the Little.Tikes website...I think the kids will LOVE it! Cannot wait!

Devotion & Prayer Time

Boo patiently (or not) waiting for Mommy to finished taking pictures so we can have Bible story time! This is our favorite time of the night as a family!
And afterward we have family prayer time! We always ask Princess and Boo who or what they want to pray for.

Some of the things on their list lately have been:

*Jim S ~ going through cancer treatments

*Mark & Teresa G

*Grandpa & Grandma

*Emie & Owen

*Help Mommy & Daddy

*AG & EE to know Jesus

These are all requests J & myself have talked about together, and our precious little ones pay attention and request to pray for them too!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now a little story:

On the way down to Rapid on Friday we were listening to our favorite radio station and our good friend came on to promote his business and of course the kids recognized his voice. We had talked about how he had a rough day at work the day before and they decided that we should pray for Mark to have a better day! These are things they do on their own, without prompting of Mommy and Daddy!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One more little story:

Last week we were playing outside on the deck and all of a sudden Princess and Boo are on their knees with their hands folded. I asked them what they were up to and AG responded with "we're praying Emie & Owen!" So I told them they could carry on, they got a little embarrassed and asked me to pray so we did...the 4 of us just took a moment and prayed that God would bring Emie and or Owen into our family!

Day 3 outside...to the park!

Wednesdays are my slower days around here still, and last week we decided to take advantage of the nice weather and we walked to the park!

Boo had the most fun it seems...

Miss MR took a little snooze in the stroller (she was on her way down here)We had snacksThis is about the only smile I got out of Princess that day, she got stung by a wasp and was afraid of every bug after that!Enjoying snacksMiss KB was looking very summery and enjoyed the shade under the playground... Princess did take to climbing, she actually made it all the way to the top...but I couldn't be taking pictures of her while she was high!

*Just a little side note about Princess, on the way there we were walking and she said, "Mommy, stop to rest my toes, I need!" I just thought it was waaaayyy to cute!

Thankful Thursday & ABCs of ME!

The ABC's of Me (I actually borrowed this from a couple of other blogs & Face.book)

I am actually going to turn it into my THANKFUL ABCs...everything I use is something I am thankful for!


A: AG, my beautiful Princess



B: Blogs...they help me know that there are other people out there with the same struggles with adoption/infertility that I am going through!



C: Church ~ Northpoint is FABULOUS!



D: Dark ~ nothing better to go for a walk after dark and see the beautiful stars and moon!

E: EE, my handsome little Boo Boo, and ED ~ our future (maybe) daughter...when we raise the funds to contract for adoption again!

F: Faith ~ there are times in my life that my faith has not been strong, and most times it is not strong enough...but without faith in God I know that my life would be a wreck!

G: Some dear friends last names start with G...they have been a huge blessing to us and have practically adopted us into their family~we are thankful for them!

H: Handsome Husband ~ ladies I have been blessed with one of the Best Amazing Wonderful Godly Cute Helpful (the list could go on and on) husbands you could ever find!

I: sister-In-laws ~ I have been blessed with two great sister in-laws, just wish I could spent a little more time with them!

J: Can I use this as another chance to be thankful for my husband...since his name starts with J?

K: Kids ~ anyone that knew me before AG & EE knew how much I wanted to have children, and most people that know me now know how much I LOVE having them!

L: Love ~ I cannot imagine what life would be like if love was not a MAJOR part of it!

M: Mommy...I love being one (and I love mine!)

N: Our other really good friends last name start with N, and he happens to be our lawyer too!

O: Opera House ~ I have spent a good few hours both on stage and off and have loved every minute of it! Cannot wait to see the musical this summer!

P: Pumpkin Patch Daycare ~ my business

Q: Quiet...this is something I treasure more and more every single day!

R: I have a sister who's name starts with R and I am thankful to have her as friend on FB!

S: Spring...I have never been as thankful for this season and I am this year!

T: Twenty Seven...the date both of our children were born!

U: Upbringing...while I do not intend to walk my parents footsteps exactly...they taught me that love is the number one thing children need. My parents were/are very good at loving, I never EVER questioned even once if my parents loved/love me and they are AMAZING people!

V: Vow ~ I know that my dear husband would never have imagined what he was signing up for with the 'for worse' part of the our vows...but the fact that I know when we said those vows that it was for the rest of our life on earth and I never have to wonder if we are going to last...because God brought us together!

W: Waterfalls ~ they are so beautiful

X: Xrays, the last ones I had showed that my fall on the ice didn't do too much damage

Y: Yellow ~ a color that I am loving more and more on my daughter!

Z: My brother, Farmer, his name starts with 'z' and I am thankful for him...I still think back to the days that we were alot closer, and wish that for now...but love him and wouldn't trade him in for anything (well maybe for, na...probably not even that!)

Trip to the General Store

Last Tuesday evening we made a trip to the general store, not to buy something...but instead to show the kids the bunnies & chicks! Princess kept saying "Silly Rabbit" because the all black bunny was drinking the water and we could see his tongue!Boo was a little more stand-off-ish! He is afraid of everything that moves! But he kept touching Daddy and that made it okay! She just loved it and would have watched the animals for hours!I thought it was funny when the chicks got tired they just stuffed their little beaks into the saw dust and went to sleep!He was a little more brave with the chicks than with the bunnies!We even managed a smile out of it...a success in my book!