A quick note from Ryanne

A big THANK YOU, THANK YOU, to my friend Jess who watched Ryanne today while I worked at Morgan's school. After you left today she said,"mama, I love Jessica!" Very cute. I know how much I hated to babysit when Morgan was only a couple of months old so thanks for dragging Ethan over and hanging out. Ryanne wanted to make you a picture. She colored it all by herself.
When I got home Jessica informed me that she and Ryanne had a little "life lesson" during lunch. I guess she was breast feeding Ethan when Ryanne asked what he was doing under there. Jessica did her best to explain that babies eat from their moms breasts and thats how they get milk. Ryanne exclaimed,"that's grose!!" Then a little later Jessica asked Ryanne if she was ready for her to get her pizza ready for lunch. Ryanne said," yes but then are you gonna feed me from "that?" (pointing to her boob) Kids are SO funny! Thanks for the laugh Jess. Did I get the scene about right? ;)

Mug Shots & OUCH!

We are always making fun of Ryanne in the mornings cause she looks like she either pulled an all nighter or slept standing on her head! I caught her looking in the (dirty) bathroom mirror to see what all the fuss was about and no kidding these look like some celebrity mug shots I have seen on the news recently.At least she can laugh about it!
Here she is thinking,"Man, it's gonna hurt to have this combed out!"
Just a little side note. A little girl in Morgans class fell off the bars last week and broke her arm above the elbow so badly that she had to have surgery and has pins and rods sticking out all over the place. I told Morgan to PLEASE be careful and watch herself on the bars. So yesterday I go to pick her up and she comes around the corner with her hand over her eye saying she doesnt want to show me what happened. I tell her that eventually she will have to lower her arm and that now was as good a time as any. She lowers it to reveal a bit of sand road rash above her eye and a bruise on her cheek. She says proudly," ya' I fell from the top of the bars and landed on my face but at least I didn't break my arm like Alize right mom?" Ya' Morgan falling on your face is much better. Good looking out! HEeelloo This coming from the child who fractured her mouth when she was two and has had black eyes and knots the size of eggs coming out of her forhead. There has to be something said about the kid who actually puts their hands out to catch themselves. Ahhh.....the joys of motherhood. If she is anything like me when it comes to athletics and playing I could be in a world of trouble.

Rain or Shine......................

If you live in California and you are reading this you will understand what I mean when I tell you this. We woke up this morning to a "sheet" of rain and freezing cold wind blowing against our house. Now this would have been fine had we been able to stay home in our PJ's all day but ohhhh no we had a swim meet. I asked as we were loading the kids in the car if anyone else was feeling sorry for themselves and mostly I just got grunts. God smiled on us for a couple of hours though becuase the clouds parted as we pulled into the high school and the warm beautiful sun came out. Just long enough for us to thaw out and watch Morgan compete. I kid you not we got home this afternoon and down came the rain again. The minute we got there I was reminded why it is that my oldest daughter has been able to so easily suck me into a sport that I knew nothing about. It is a family affair. Everyone gets involved and helps out. Everyone serves in some capacity and everyone cheers everyones kids on no matter what. Its got this adreniline rush to it that I love as well. It's crazy cause you sit around for hours and do nothing and then they call your kids event and its madness for like 30 seconds and then it's over and you sit for hours again till' their next event. All these reasons make it very fun and oh ya' cause I love her and would follow her anywhere and cheer her on in anything she decided to do helps too! ;)
She LOVES the water. Her favorite event is the butterfly which I still swear at this age seems like child abuse. The first time she was able to compete in the butterfly was back at the beginning of December. She did it in 37.3 this time she was prepared for it and worked out all week with her coach. She did it in 32.3 That is huge!!! 5 SECONDS!!!! And this time it was beautiful to watch. Less of a drowning motion and more graceful. I almost flung myself into the water as I was jumping for joy but then I remembered how cold it was. :) He,heeee! She always walks over to us at the other end of the pool and rattles of her time that the timers gave her, all business. Too cute!
Here is she is with a couple of her team mates after a race. Eating donuts of all things............yup' breakfast of champions.
They play poker for money while they wait, kidding! Its UNO. Hey, how did you think we were going to afford to send her to the Olympics?
Ryanne doesn't care how long we are there as long as there is enough food to go around. :) Thanks for being a good sport Ryanne and for kissing and hugging your sis after each event. And good job Morgan!!!!

Before and After

Well, I decided to crack down and jam through the girls bathroom. So for the last two days I could be found painting and getting it all ready for them. It was really plain and ugly before. I used to go in, clean it, and then shut the door; my least favorite room in the house. The problem was I couldn't decide what to do with it becuase I didn't want it all baby girl so that they would be sick of it in a few years & since it is connected to both their rooms pleasing them both became a joke. So after getting Morgan's opinions (she wanted a surfing bathroom like her room) and Ryanne who just wants everything red (ya' that will calm her down) I decided to ignore everyone, lock them out and do something I thought they would both love and could grow into. So here it is before all boring........................ More boring shots..................
And now...................
The pictures aren't that great. But I did the walls a light brown and did the towels and rugs in different shades of brown. I still have to find curtains I like or make some. Can't decide yet. A couple pictures on walls and I think I actually like this room now. :)

Happy MLK day

First I have to give credit where credit is due. And since we wouldn't have had the day off it wasn't for Martin Luther King Jr. ; I looked up a few things that he said that I thought were very interesting:

"He who passivley accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helped perpetrate it."

1958-MLK

"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." 1963-MLK

Love it!!

So with that said we had the BEST day off in so long I can't remember. It never seems that Morgan has a day off of school and we have nothing to do. And for it to line up with Dan's day off made it heaven. Morgan's best friend Caleb had a sleep over last night. I use the word sleep loosely becuase they got up at three in the morning thinking it was a "decent hour" and proceeded to start arts and crafts, pillow fights etc. Ya' I think the site of me in the doorway at three in the morning was enough to scare Caleb half to death. Frankyl when I went to the bathroom afterwards my own reflection scared me. ;)

So anyways, we rolled out of bed early and decided to treat the kids to breakfast at Copper Kettle here in Yucaipa. It was all rainy and cold so the kids got hot chocolate and pancakes.............yummy!!

Morgan got Legos for Christmas so this is where you could find Dan and the girls ALL afternoon.

They were so excited to sit in Morgan's room all day and build stuff together. I love that it's the little things like being home on the floor with their daddy that still pleases them.
Tiger stood guard on the bed right behind them just incase they needed him. Good watch cat!
Morgan snapped this picture of me starting on the girls bathroom. Both girls rooms are ajoined to the bathroom so I was able to keep up with the family conversations that were taking place in Morgan's room over Lego's. I love days like this. Sadly they are to far between for my liking. But I will take them when I can get them. :) I hope you all had a restful day & enjoyed your families.

Oh Baby, Baby.....

This weekend was my sister in laws shower. So Saturday morning Morgan and I got up and headed down to San Diego for the fun. We entertained ourselves by opening the sun roof and singing at the top of our lungs pretty much the entire way. :) Below is a photo of the food table that Kim had set up for the tea. It was beautiful and everything was YUMMY!!We all took turns decorating onesies for the twins. It got kind of addicting as I could have said sat there all day painting those things. Morgan's is the one up in the right corner with the sunshine in the middle.
Morgan followed Suzanne around most of the day keeping watch over her cousins and even felt them kicking around a few times. She also insisted on sitting right on top of her and helping with all the gifts.
Here is what will probably be the last photo of the three of us before she has the babes!

How exciting!
This is my other sister in law Kim. She threw the shower for Suzanne at her house. Thanks Kim. You did a great job and we had tons of fun! We always feel welcome at your house and getting to kiss Tyler on the way out was icing on the cake. :)

Out of the mouths of babes

Last night I was tucking Ryanne in and she must have remembered me telling Morgan that it might rain next week because this is what she prayed;

"Dear Jesus, I just pray the rain won't come because I don't want Noah to have to build another ark, thank you-amen."

Do you just want to die? That is the best. I swear she can be a holy terror all day and then things like that come out of her mouth and I just want to squeeze her to pieces. Oh and the fact that she keeps telling me I am the best mama in the whole world helps a little too. Am I being set up for something here? ;)

Before and After.........

Nothing to exciting around here, just a few little projects that I had been wanting to get gone. I have these two really large windows in my kitchen that I just LOVE but they are a bizarre length and so after searching and searching for ones to buy I caved and made some. Seriously though, after sewing with that satan/silk stuff I think I will stick to quilting. :) Anyways, here's the window before and below is the after............................ Ya' you caught me, it's the window on the other side but you get the idea. I had to switch it up because of the lighting. Luckliy Dan doesn't read my blog cause the hole I accidentaly put in the wall is not pretty. At least for now the curtains are covering it up. I am affraid he will notice eventually though. ;)
Then we had these hand me down bar stools that dont get me wrong serve their purpose but are just ugly. Plus the kids have run them into the ground so I got the bright idea to re-do them. You know recycle what we already have and save money.
Here Dan is wondering out loud how it is that every project I start eventually involves him. I told him I didn't want him to get bored on his day off. And besides after a few minutes that power sander hurt my hands! :) Dan was a little puzzled also because when he left for his last shift I was pulling everything together to re do the girls bathroom and when he got off shift I was making over the kitchen. He should know after all these years I get easily distracted. I was walking through on my way to do something in the bathroom and got side tracked. Hopefully though I will have photos of the girls bathroom all done in a couple of weeks.
So nothing to exciting but they got a little face lift and it helped me pull the black into the room like I had wanted. Thanks honey!!
Here my cat is thinking,"cool, new chairs!" Have a great day everybody!

In Honor of the Dodder Family

I was scheduled to work in Morgan's class today so as I was heading out the door to drop Ryanne off with a friend when she ran up and handed me the paper from the end of our driveway; it's just our little local paper from here in town but none the less it's the best way to keep up with what is going on in our growing community.

I was 15 minutes early to the school so I decided to plop myself down and read the paper. I unfolded it and right at the top of the front page it read:

Local Man Dies at Angels Roadhouse.

At first it didnt really catch my attention to much. Angels roadhouse is a local bar/dance place that is known for having it's share of bar room brawels. As I read further into the article I noticed the name and age of the victim as being my friends son. My heart dropped for many reasons besides the obvious. My friend also lost her husband 4 months ago to illness. I couldn't believe me eyes so I went to the parking lot and called Sondra only to find out it was indeed her son in the paper. It's very moments like that on the phone with my friend that make me so angry. I am helpless, grieving for her and her loss and no words or kind thing I could do for her will make the hurt go away. I can't fix it. Nobody should have to carry that much grief at once.

I start to ask God what makes him think her heart can stand the pain of losing her husband and son all at once. I am asking God this fully expecting a response, an explanation of some kind that I can call my friend back with. But there's nothing, just silence.

I have to start by telling you that Sondra isn't the friend I go shopping with, or on vacations with. She's not the friend you go get manicures with or swap clothes with. Sondra is old enough to be my Grandma. She was my mentore. We met through Arrowhead Springs Christian conference center and she and her husband Greg took me under their wing. I was 18 at the time and not making the best decisions as far as my future was concerned. Sondra met with me every week for almost five years. She brought me into her home reading through the bible with me, praying over me, crying with me, cheering me on, and teaching me what I was worth to God was her mission. Sondra would have me in for tea in her fancy little china cups like I was a special guest and she would tell me what to look for in a spouse. (she and Greg were married 48 yrs) She would share the hardships of she and Greg's life and how they got through things with God in the center. Greg would come home and greet me with these hugs that could fix anything. He would tell me how proud of me he was and that he loved me. What's remarkable about that is I wasn't doing to many things to be proud of. But no matter he always made sure I knew they loved me.

Sondra & I prayed for years on end for Grant (her son who was killed) that he would return to his roots and serve the Lord again. A couple of years ago when we were having lunch she explained to me that Grant was indeed back and serving the Lord with full force. And that is how he died. He went to the bar to rescue a friend in distress and ended up sharing Jesus with some of the guys for over an hour. Afterwards they stomped on his head and neck and killed him. He died doing what he felt he was privelaged to do. Sharing Jesus Christ.

I explained to my friend that in no way could I understand her pain or even wrap my brain around the turn of events over the last four months. But that her life and the life of her family had made me a better person. Her obedience to God in loving me should make her proud as it was life and heart altering. God still hasn't answered all my questions but I know he loves Sondra more than I ever could and he will wrap her up in his arms of mercy and like I told her on the phone today; words are not enough to express my love and gratitude, but one day in heaven she will get her full reward for her faithfulness and she will be with & get to share it with Greg and Grant.

Balance

balance [adj.]equivalent, evened, fair, proportional, stabalized, symmetrical.

Thanks to my Blogging friend Christy P. (you can click on her blog over there to the right) I got the best idea. She said she had read somewhere that picking a word for the year kind of sets the tone for things. Christy's word was cherish which I thought was a great! :)

After thinking about it for a couple days I decided to steal your idea Christy. My word is going to be 'balance.' I am always joking that by the time I get one end of my house clean the other end is already dirty. Or I get really consistant at reading the word every morning but forget to find time to pray as well. I eat great and dont squeeze in a work out. I try to not let my schedule get on overload but then find myself letting people stress me out for dumb reasons.

So this all got me thinking about our bodies and minds and how it really is a fine art learning to get your life in balance so that you are healthy physically, mentally and spiritually. I often let my type A personality take over and I end up focusing one area so much that the others get negelcted. I am finding that balance for me means being in the word and spending time with my God EVERY morning because I GET too. Eating healthy because I CAN, and taking that small sliver of time to work out each day becuase I don't ever want to take for granted that today my body is working. ;) To not allow stress, gossip, drama or complaining to disease my thoughts and the condition of my heart. To love & serve others expecting nothing in return from them knowing God will bless me. Oh and last but certainly not least, being able to say no to things and not feeling guilty for it. So there it is balance. What does balance mean for you?