Where did the time go???

My baby Lauren who was born October 2003 2 months early because her 2 1/2 year old playful brother jumped on my belly, not knowing what he had done, just playing with his mom but caused EARLY labor - my precious premie who left the hospital at a mere 4 pounds 1 ounce is growing up and I'm trying to figure out where the time went.

We had her Mother's Day Tea at her school last week:



Tomorrow is her graduation from preschool and I can't believe it. Tim and I are having a hard time with this one, our baby girl, our little premie is graduating preschool and growing up. Today she told me: "Mommy, I'm getting older, and soon I will be married, I'm five you know" : )

Mother's Day 2009

I think Mother's Day 2009 will go down in my history as one of the best ever. I know I need to cherish these wonderful days when my two children truly love me (not that they won't always love me I hope, but the precious way they do now in their young age). Tim had to DJ late last night and both of us were sound asleep in bed this morning when I got a tap on my shoulder, looked up and my two wonderful children were standing there and said "Happy Mother's Day". What made it super special was what they were holding. Luke was holding a plate with jelly toast and Lauren was holding a glass of orange juice. The toast was made out of the heal of the bread and the jelly was hap-hazardly spread across the bread but it brought tears to my eyes. Luke had woken Lauren up, they had tip-toed downstairs and he had problem solved how to make his mother breakfast. Lauren proudly boasted that she got the cup, held the glass and got Luke the knife. PRECIOUS!!! I just love my babies!!!

Tim showered me with wonderful gifts, Disney shirts, Disney plates and glasses, and a digital keychain loaded with pictures of the kids. We met my parents and my brother and his wife at our new church, WHAT A WONDERFUL SERVICE! I can't describe the way these services, the music, the messages make me feel. AMAZING!!!! So glad to have found our new church home. Everyone enjoyed the service, then we headed to an incredible brunch at a local restaraunt - it had more food than you could imagine, and my favorite: a chocolate fountain with strawberries for dipping - YUM! I even was able to get a nap in today.
I am so blessed and I thank the Lord for my children and my wonderful husband. I will always remember this Mother's Day when my two babies got up and made breakfast for me all on their own. I never thought that jelly toast made with a heal of bread would go down in history as my favorite breakfast of all time.

Stranger Danger!

Luke came home with an alarming letter in his backpack today warning us of an incident that happened a neighborhood over from ours. A man in a white van approached an 11 year old boy while he was waiting at a bus stop, asking the boy to come inside the van and play video games, thankfully the school bus approached scaring the man away. What is so scary about this is how close it was to home obviously but also that the very same day this occured I foolishly let the kids walk a street over together to play with some friends. I don't let them do this often and have always found comfort when I did allow it that they were together but NEVER AGAIN! I had a serious conversation tonight with both kids about stranger danger tonight. I didn't want to scare them to death but also wanted them to understand the seriousness of it. Luke broke my heart by asking, "what if you say no and run away but the man keeps coming at you". Fear and chills ran through my head as the thought of my poor baby ever being caught in this situation overwhelmed me.
I did a quick Youtube search trying to find a stranger danger video that I could show them, I found this one:

The kids listened attentively. Luke nervously said "I'd just punch the guy and run", and "he looks wimpy, it'd be no problem" While he was saying this he was red in the face and he looked nervous, I could tell the effect it was having on him and knew these comments were just his nervous reactions to what he was seeing. Lauren asked to watch it several times and kept asking good questions. Luke and I also had a good discussion about what he learned and how he felt. What a rough night this was, I hate that we live in a world where these terrible things happen to precious children. I pray the Lord will protect my babies and they will never EVER have this happen to them, but I feel better that I have prepared them and educated them about the evils of this world.

Movie Night!

You can tell the nights are getting warmer when Tim breaks out his DJ equipment and projection equipment and we invite the neighborhood to a movie night. The kids were SO excited. We selected Hotel for Dogs, invited everyone over, popped popcorn and got candy ready and the movie night began:

The kids had so much fun, we had fun socializing with the neighbors as all of our kids watched the movies. I pray that when my kids look back on their childhood these are the small things that they remember and puts a smile onto their faces.

Guardian Angels

Thank God for Guardian Angels watching over my babies and keeping them safe. The other night Lauren came running downstairs and I could tell by the panic in her face she had done something wrong and was upset. She kept saying "I didn't mean to do it, I didn't mean to do it". What she "didn't mean to do" was push her foot onto her open window by her bed thus popping the screen out and landing it on the lawn 2 stories below. She had obviously leaned out of the window (gasp) to see that the screen was down below (again, TWO stories below) because she informed us the screen was fine and it wasn't ripped. At first I was angry with her for pushing on her window but then as reality sunk in we thanked the Lord for watching over our baby girl, for sending his Guardian Angels to protect her as she leaned her little body out of that 2 story window inspecting the screen below. HOW SCARY. As I climbed the stairs and put her screen back in I told her how serious this was, that in leaning over she could have fallen out and been seriously hurt or even died from the fall. I explained to her that we wouldn't have heard her (we were in the basement watching t.v.) and wouldn't have known until we would have come up to check on her before we went to bed. I could see the fear in her eyes as she was listening to me as I was trying to put the fear of God into her. One more reason I believe that the Lord has his angels here on earth protecting us. Guardian angels have protected me before. I was so excited to jump in the Polar Bear Plunge for Special Olympics after raising close to 900 dollars for this worthwhile charity! The crowd was ROWDY and I was nervous. I had never done this before, friends and coworkers were there to support me on this VERY cold day. I was the only one "going it alone" on that day as other teams and coworkers jumped together. There were backflips being done, belly dives, etc. The M.C's of the event were making fun of those who simply jumped in and didn't get their hair wet. I made a split second decision to dive in fearing the mocking of the M.C's. STUPID MOVE! Here I am on that fateful day:

Yes, that was me bleeding on the ladder as I exited. I swear you can feel/sense the guardian angels pulling up on my ankles that day and saving my life. The medical crew on the scene and at the hospital that day that had to put the stitches into my skull swore to me at that angle and velocity I should have been paralized at best. Again, thank you Lord for your Guardian Angels!

Searching for a new home

When you decide that you want to move it can be a very difficult decision in life. You have neighbors close who you consider family that mean the world to you and you know you will miss dearly. You have fond memories that resonate in your head that will be hard to replace. You have ties and connections and so do your children. It's hard to uproot your kids and you want what is best for them in all of this as well. You do a lot of research to ensure that the place you will be moving to will meet your needs and be a wonderful place to raise your family.
We are going through all of the above right now but not with our regular home, but our church home. We have a very strong church family that we love VERY much and consider our family (some is family) but we have a VERY long commute and it has been very hard on us especially as the kids get older and we have more activities going on. We want to find a church home that is not only closer but that is biblicaly sound, a Bible teaching church is SO important to us. Not only do the beliefs (most importantly) have to be there but as mentioned in the opening paragraph, we want it to be a place where our children will be nurtured in the Word. We want it to be a place where they will have a lot of kids their own age, have great programs for them to attend and where they can build life long friendships with children close by so when they are teenagers and those tough decisions come their way in life they will have a solid set of Christian friends around to help them make good choices.
We think we have found a new church home and would appreciate your prayers as we continue our "moving" process. We still want to have ties with our old church, it would hurt to much NOT to. Before we "sign the mortgage" to or new church home so to speak we want to educate ourselves even further by continuing to attend their services, attend their new members class to gain information and we continue to pray about it so we have a peace about our new home. We appreciate your prayers as well during this "moving process" and adjustment phase in our lives.

Happy Earth Day

Happy Earth Day everyone! Our family celebrated by going to see Disney's new movie Earth.

I was worried that the kids wouldn't sit still for a 1 1/2 hour documentary but we all LOVED IT!!!!! Watching movies like these makes me so proud to be a Christian and makes me once again realize what an AMAZING Earth our Lord has created for us. I watched in awe at the incredible film. It went into full depth following tons of animals over the course of a year, our effects the earth has on them and them on it, their migrations, births, deaths, and fights for life. WOW!!!! There were some intense scenes for the kids during some hunt scenes but fortunately Disney didn't show any of the actual killings, just some of the captures.
We laughed together, got sad together, and were on the edge of our seats during a DOCUMENTARY, it truly was amazing. I still can't get the father polar bear out of my head - I won't ruin it for those of you who haven't seen it yet.
I am glad that we took our kids to see this movie and have exposed them to the wonderful circle of life that the Lord created. They enjoyed it and I could tell by the discussion and questions following that they have a deeper appreciation of it all.