Friday, March 22, 2013

Brooke's Baptism


A few months ago Brooke came to us and said she really had the desire to be baptized.  We had just watched one of her older friends get baptized so I thought she just wanted to do it because he had done it.  I asked her why she wanted to be baptized and she said "Because I believe in God and I know Jesus was His son and the Bible says if you believe you should be baptized." 

For the next couple months we talked about what the Bible says about baptism and why we do it.  I love this picture.  It just makes my heart fall in love with Brian all over again when I see him leading our children.  

A few weeks ago the church had a class for people who where interested in the next steps towards baptism.  We took Brookie to the class and they sent her home with a little work book.  She was all about that.

Pastor Brian and his family have become precious to us and Brooke was excited that he was going to baptize her.  


So many thoughts were running through my mind at this point.  

"Where have the last 6 years gone?"

"What will the next 6 years bring?"

And just how stinkin' proud I was of her.

Her face just screams pure joy.  She was so happy in this moment.  

Brooke's "Best BFF" and Ava where standing by watching. 

  

I love how Ava adores her big sister.
And Brookie's a great big sister to look up to.

We love you Brookie Cookie.  Daddy and Mommy are very proud of you.  You have an amazing heart and we are excited to see what big things God has planned for you.  

A few days after the baptism we got a package in the mail from Grandpa Jim and Grandma Marcia.  Grandma made Brooke her very own prayer shawl.  She loves it!


She also got a special prayer tin from a friend.  It has little papers in it that she can write her prayers on.  There's a poem on the top that I love. "When your head starts to worry, and your mind just can't rest, put your prayers down on paper and let God do the rest."  Brooke has already committed this saying to memory.

There have been many sweet moments watching her use her two new gifts.


While I was trying to get a picture of Brooke with her new prayer shawl Parker and Ava where standing by asking if they could be in the pictures too.  What happened next was too much fun!







These three are too much.  I still can't believe that I get to be their Momma.  

Saturday, February 9, 2013

Daddy Daughter Dance 2013

It's that time of year again.

Daddy Daughter Dance time!

Time to bust out the sparkling grape juice and get the at home salon ready!  This is our third year doing this tradition and it just keeps getting more fun.


The girls look forward to it so much, and I love their excitement about it.

Ava said "Why don't you teach Daddy how to do this girl stuff?  He is taking us to the dance, this should be his job you know?"

Ava wore the dress Brooke wore two years ago.  

While I was getting the girls ready Brian brought me a picture he had in his bedside table from that dance.  The girls looked so little!  Here's a link to the post about that dance.  

Two years ago... seriously?  Wow.  

And I had to get a picture of Ava's shoes.  She had to have them.  She has a problem... a Michael Kors problem.  I blame Auntie Chelsea.


The girls helped me find what they wanted their hair to look like.  Ava picked this look.  She said it is like one of the fairy's on her Barbie Fairytopia movie.  

Brooke's turn for pampering!

Brookie's Cinderella dress.  I just love that brand.  It's like the 5th Cinderella dress we've bought.

Parker thinks Sissy is pretty.



Staged picture warning!  I told the girls to hug and act like they like each other.

That lasted about two seconds.

Daddy with his girls

A few minutes a go Brian sent me this picture.

And this one.  Looks like they're having fun.

And so are we!

Spending some one on one time with my littlest man.  We're enjoying a Thomas The Train marathon.  I was just informed that we have to "watch just 5 more Thomas and then we can take a bath and brush our teeth."  Sounds good to me boy!

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Currently...

I have been horrible at staying up to date with things here and I hate it.  I love documenting the little things because it's so easily forgotten down the road.

That being said here's what's being going on with us so far this year:

Currently... New Year = New Do

Currently... Ava has been into making things and writing letters for her friends and family.  I found this picture on my phone.  It's a poor quality picture but I wanted to share her sweet heart.  

"This paper is for Daddy."

Tell me that is not the cutest thing you ever did saw!

Currently... A member of our family is minus a fingernail.

Nice huh?  Ava got the year started off right with a Urgent Care visit.  She tripped while on a walk and caught her finger nail on something on the way down. 

Brian said she cried for about 30 seconds and that was it.  It was still connected on one side so we figured we better let someone look at it.  Plus Ava told me "Your Mom is not a Doctor so I don't think you should touch it."  How can you argue with that.  Home girl has a point.

Sitting in the Dr.'s office with her was quite a treat.  I think she was nervous and apparently she's a nervous talker because she did not stop talking the whoooole time.  Even the lady at the front desk was cracking up at her.  

When the Dr. came in and decided to just take it the rest of the way off he told Ava, "OK I'm going to just wiggle it a little bit and you tell me if it hurts and I will stop."

He twisted and tugged a little then looked over at Ava and said "Is this hurting?"  She nodded yes but kept staring straight ahead, tear free.  After about two minutes he was able to get the nail all the way off.  I was really impressed and so was the Dr. that she did not scream or cry one bit.  

I've always known she had a high pain tolerance but I didn't know it was that good.  Our first clue she handled pain well was when she was about 16 months old and she had to get shots.  I remember her just laying there on the table with a confused look on her face while the nurse gave her the shots.  When she was done Ava sat up off the table and shook her tiny little finer at the nurse and said "No, no, no!" 

Currently...Parker has become quite a little talker too.  Here he is at a dentist appointment earlier this month.  That boy looooves going to the dentist.  

One of the funny little things I wanted to write down before I forgot was this story from the other day.  

We were in the car on our way home from somewhere and the girls were trying to convince me that they "need" another baby brother or sister... I know right?

In the middle of all of this Parker chimes in "My Daddy is going to buy me a hamster... and I'm gonna name hims Hello Kitty... and I gonna be sooooooooo sec-cited (excited)!"  Then, without missing a beat he turns his head, stares out the window like nothing ever happened and starts singing "Rub some bacon on it..."

Who's kid is this?!

Currently... Auntie Chelsea came to visit and we were all very "sec-cited" about that!  She came for a whole week (!) to watch the kids so Brian and I could...

fly to California.  We went for a Management Conference with his company but as an added bonus I got to...

Surprise my Bestie at her Gender Reveal party!

It's a girl!

I think she's forgiven me for lying to her about my not coming.  It was only a little lie.  I wasn't really in Northern California but Marina Del Ray IS north of Irvine, right?!  So it was only a half lie.

Brian and I had a great time in California.  We were thinking about it and that was the longest we'd been away together without kids in almost 7 years.  Wow!  We so needed that.

Currently...The next big thing to happen in our household happened this last Sunday night.  The kids were all wrestling around in the living room and at one point it got a little too rough and Brooke bonked her forehead on the kitchen tile.  She cried and said she felt "confused" and "nauseous."  We had them all settle down and watch some cartoons.  For awhile Brooke acted fine.  But about an hour later when it was time for bed she started crying really hard saying her head hurt really bad.  

Brian got her up and checked her pupils and said we should take her to get checked out.  Now usually I am the first to want to rush the kids in to get things checked out, but this time Brian was saying it was necessary and that made me nervous.  I knew it was serious then.  

She stopped crying shortly after we got her in the car but the whole way to the hospital she was making me nervous.  I kept having to talk to her to make sure she stayed awake.  While I was signing her into the ER she just walked away from me and I had to stop and ask her where she was going.  This was totally not like her.  Even though she's my oldest she's usually the shyest and attached to my hip most of the time.  She said she was going to lay down on a chair but two seconds later she ran back up crying and said she was going to throw up.  By this point the guy behind the desk grabbed something for her to throw up in and quickly asked if she was running a fever and how long she had been having "Flu-like symptoms."  

You know there's a Flu epidemic when ER nurses automatically assume that's what you are there for.  Haha.  

Anyway they ended up getting us back in a room pretty quickly which was good because she end up throwing up a couple times.  A nurse came in and he started asking her lots of questions to try to determine just how badly she was injured.  She was able to answer his question about who her best friend was and what she got for Christmas.  But when he asked her what she had for dinner she could not remember.  That made my heart drop because you could she she was really struggling to remember but she just couldn't. 

  They had her do a CT scan and gave her some anti nausea meds.  

After that she seemed to recovered surprisingly quickly.  We were able to go home within the next couple hours with instructions to wake her a few times throughout the night and treat headache and nausea as needed.  

She's supposed to take it easy for the next week but other than that Dr. said the CT was good and that she will be completely fine.  He also told Brooke "You tell that big brother and sister to be careful with you!"  He chuckled when I told him it was her younger brother and sister that had caused all of this.  

Brian told me that when Brooke and I left for the hospital he went in to check on Parker and Ava.  He saw Parker sitting up in bed and asked him what was wrong and he said "It was just an accident."  Poor little guy.  He felt so bad.

Thank you to all our friends and family who prayed for our little Brookie during this scary time.  

Saturday, December 1, 2012

Keep Christ In CHRISTmas- With A Little Help From An Elf

So a few years ago we jumped on the "Elf on the Shelf" bandwagon.  We've had fun seeing what kind of shenanigans this little guy, lovingly named Lincoln gets into while we're all asleep.  

This year though I debated on bringing Lincoln back.  He'd had a good run.  In his time with us he did everything from make snow angels out of sugar on my kitchen counter, to take Barbie for a drive around the playroom in her convertible.  All of this was starting to be a lot of work (for me) and I didn't feel right about "scaring" the kids into behaving just because a little elf was watching.  I want them to want to do the right thing- and not just for 24 days in December.  

So a couple weeks ago when I found something on Pinterest about "Jesus, Santa & the Elf on the Shelf" I got excited.  The blogger talked about how she didn't want Santa to be the only focus of Christmas for her kids.  The more I read the more I agreed.  

I in no way want to take any of the magic of Christmas away from my kids. But I do want to keep Christ in CHRISTmas.  Included in the blog I read was a letter from Santa about the elf that would be joining them.  In the words of Gru from Despicable Me- "Light bulb!"

That's when I knew that Lincoln would be coming back; but this time with an even bigger purpose.  I took the example of the letter from the blog and tailored it to fit us.  Tonight when the door bell rang the kids ran to find a box on the porch.  They knew exactly what it was right away.  Ava even yelled out "It's from Santa!"

As we read through the letter I snuck a few peeks at the kids faces.  It was fun to see them take it all in and try to process it.  

Santa knows about God and Jesus?  

God knows about Santa?

Wow!

Now I'm excited!  The wheels are spinning and I've got tons of ideas on how we can love big, give big and help others during this Christmas season- and beyond.

Tonight at church our Pastor said something that I had heard him say before but I wrote it down again: We are blessed to be a blessing.  That's just what Brian and I's focus is for  our family. Christmas is not about all the stuff you get but rather what Christ has already given to us.

So you know me, I'm a planner and I've already got lots of ideas going about how to spread God's love through random acts of kindness. I can't wait to get the whole family involved!  

Before we put the kids down for the night I asked them where we should put Lincoln.  They suggested we put him on the shelf by the backpacks.  So that's where he is.  After we tucked them in I walked down the hall and looked up at Lincoln.  There he was sitting next to a mirror and in the reflection of the mirror I saw our cross collection hanging on the wall across  from him.  


It made me smile for sure.  We can and will keep Christ in CHRISTmas, even with a little help from an elf.

Here's the letter we got from Santa for anyone who might be interested:

Dear Brooke, Ava and Parker,

I hope you three kiddos are having a great Christmas season and getting ready to enjoy Grandpa Ron, Grandma Cindy and Grammy when they visit.  I hear they are coming in a few weeks to see you!  I also hear you had a lot of fun having an early Christmas with Grandpa Jim and Grandma Marcia.  What fun!

This package I’m sending you has a very special friend of mine in it – Lincoln, one of my little Elves.

Why am I sending him?

Well, this time of year – this time we call “Christmas” – gets very busy and kind of crazy.  Everyone just focuses on “want, want, want.”  Have you been telling your Mommy and Daddy what you want for Christmas?  It’s ok to want a few things, but I’ve seen people – grown ups and kiddos – get very selfish with all the stuff they want.  They want so many things that they forget the whole reason we even have Christmas….
Jesus – God’s son who was born a long, long, long time ago…
The very first “Christmas present” ever given to the whole big world.

I don’t want you kiddos to forget about Jesus as you prepare for Christmas.  I want you to enjoy all the fun – hot chocolate, singing Christmas songs, candy and presents – but I don’t want you to forget the most important present: God’s love for us and His son, Jesus.  

I don’t want you to forget that it’s still important to love others … to be nice to other people … to help other people (even your Mommy, Daddy, and each other) … to show other people how wonderful Jesus is.So, little Lincoln is here to help you kids (and your Mommy and Daddy) remember these important parts about Christmas: Jesus, God’s love and our job of joyfully sharing that love with others through our gifts, kind words and loving actions (the things we do for one another).

My Elf is going to hang out at your house, watching everything that happens … as a reminder for you to:
  • -Love each other
  • -Speak nicely to one another
  • -Help each other
  • -Help your friends and neighbors too
  • -Give to people who don’t have all the stuff you have
    • -Remember that God loves you kiddos so, so, so much.

Take care of Lincoln– he and I will talk every night about you kiddos and how you are doing this Christmas Season.

Looking forward to seeing great things and wonderful love from each of you,

Santa




Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Thanks Mom


26 Years ago today my Guardian Angel saved my life.
  

I call her: Mom. 

Thank you Mom!  I love you to the Moon and back.