Prayer Answered

I was going to title this "Small Prayer Answered", then I took out the 'small' part. Is any prayer really small? A request to God, something on our heart that we want his help with, I didn't think so. Therefore, this post is now officially titled "Prayer Answered".

When Paul took his traveling job I was concerned with him missing things, missing family events, swim lessons, baseball games, church events, etc. God seems to be there when we need him to most and my concern which turned into a prayer was answered for the first time since Paul started this job. Small to some, huge to us.

Pinnacle Hills (division of our church) had Celebration @ the Crosses this Sunday night; there was music, food, dancing (not us), baptisms and fireworks. It was a great time for fellowship and celebration of our AMAZING COUNTRY and the men and women that fight for it and baptisms of over 50 people! WOW. Anyway, it didn't start until 7 and Paul's flight on Sundays takes off at 4:15, so I was just going to take the kids. As we were heading into town for the event, Paul called (ok, messaged, we are message-a-holics) and let me know that his flight was canceled and he would meet us at the church. How awesome is that? I was just happy to have another night/day with him but through the night, as we hung out with couples from our connection group and watched fireworks, I knew God was looking down on me saying 'you're welcome'. Having him there for that night was such a blessing and very comforting.

Here are a few pictures of the evening. These are 'the crosses', they are huge and you can see them from far far away! There is a baptism pool at the bottom of them where Pastor baptized over 50 people!!!

Courtney was soooo happy to have Dada home.



The best I could do with these three! :-)

Ethan is turning into a little 'mini me'.

Watching fireworks with my baby; she loves them.

It wasn't that light outside, I just haven't figured out how to use my camera for night shots.

So cool. Zach grabbed our camera and took this picture. How awesome is that? That is only a 'media guy' is what that is. Normal people don't think to do that, but us media nerds, oh yeah, we're all over that stuff! Thanks, Zach.

Just a little update.

Courtney has been missing Dada so much! The other day I had taken all our pictures down (trying to get a 'classier' look) and they were all sitting on the couch. Courtney picked this picture up and carried it around for a while saying Dada. She sat in her chair with it, she walked around, she ran from me when I tried to take it and she posed with it. It is a picture of Paul and Ethan from 5 1/2 years ago.

As Paul is living in Tennessee most of the time, he is finding there is A LOT to do there. He went to Cooters Place a week or so ago. For those of you who don't know what that is, just move on. :-) He said he got teary-eyed when he sat in the car.



Swimming baby! She LOVES the water. Today was our 4th day of swimming and she is a maniac in the water. She doesn't quite get the concept of kicking yet, but she likes to jump off the edge. She prefers 1, 2, jump - in too big of a hurry to get to 3. She also enjoys walking off the diving board. Yesterday I walked her out onto it (instructor was in the water to catch her) and she let go of my fingers and just kept walking. She is having a blast and will be very ready for the lake and Grandma and Grandpa's pool! Ethan went with me on Tuesday and we all went today. Ethan is such a good big brother, even tried to do the hokey pokey with her today but kept putting her face in the water. :-)




Trying to do the Hokey Pokey with Etho.

Children

Do you ever sit back and look at your children and really think "I made that, she grew inside of me and now she is a little person". I do, and have been lately. Maybe it's because Paul is gone now so I am trying to make sure I tell him everything, but Courtney is doing so much that just amazes me, makes me laugh, makes me tear up, and even makes me upset. OK, not so much upset, but what is the word for when your 1 year old does something and it upsets you? :-)

In the last week she has

• said her first prayer: the other night i asked her if she wanted to pray. she clapped her hands together, mumbled for about 7 seconds, then said ame(n)
• brought me a diaper and laid down to be changed: today she smelled. i said to her 'go get mama a diaper', she turns around says 'dia' (while she grabs her butt), goes into her room (i watched her and this was funny) forgot what she went in there for and looked around so I said 'diaper' and she repeated 'dia' (again while she grabs her butt) and grabbed a diaper, came out and handed it to me. i then asked her to lay down - totally not thinking she would and she did! on the tile, in the kitchen. later, she did it again, so it wasn't a fluke!
• told me something was ho(t): she was eating raviolis for lunch today (or was it dinner) and i had cut them up. she reached down, picked one up and it was too warm (i promise it wasn't hot) for her and she put it down and said 'ha'
• says so many new words or at least the first couple letters of them - pss being the best one. that means please.
• longs for attention: (this is on the 'upset' list) she was throwing a fit in the kitchen today and found out i couldn't see her because i was in the living room so she moved to the dining room so i could see her and continued her fit
• calls dada about 10 times a day: she has figured out how to call him, i am not even joking. she calls him (speed dial), his picture shows up on the phone and she says 'dada' then talks and talks, carries the phone around and puts it to her ear with her shoulder even!
• knows on and off: (another for the 'upset' list) she does NOT like watching tv and therefore does not like mama to watch tv. she turns it off when i turn it on and turns around and looks at me like 'don't turn that on'. then i turn it on and when the sound comes back on she turns real quick to see that it's on then goes and turns it off. Also, the phone is on the floor in our room, good place for it, i know. either way, she knows how to make the answering machine guy talk and she knows how to turn it on speaker phone so the operator will talk. she enjoys that a lot BUT when i tell her to turn it off, she does. until she turns it back on again.

Anyway, that all just seems like she is growing up so fast! It makes me happy and sad all at the same time. What an amazing blessing God has given me; I just wish it didn't go by so fast.

Summer Fun...I love being a mama

What a weekend.

What a great weekend! Paul came home on Thursday night, I let the kids stay up until 11 to wait for him - he was quite happy about that. We all had a wonderful time spending family time together and just enjoying the time we had. Although Paul had only been gone a few days, it still made us realize what it's going to be like. Poor Paul had to spend Friday doing the yards - I don't want 3 acres anymore! While he got all that done, I took Ethan into town to get some shoes as he has enormous feet and could no long shove his toes into a size 12 (he wears a size 2!). He was so happy to get some "Air-Raiders" - they are Sketchers and every cool kid has them. I was not even aware these shoes existed, I must be getting old. It was the first time in a while that I was able to spend time with Ethan without Courtney and it was awesome. We really had a good time. He is so much fun and since he's getting 'older', he actually enjoyed just hanging out.

Sunday was Father's Day and we went to church and the lake. I went in to Ethan's church after we got out for some reason I am unaware of and he asked if he could come to our connection group with us instead of his. I didn't get it, but said yes of course. So he hung out with us while Zach talked about the difficulties of being a Christian and how we so often forget about our "First Love". It was a good message for Ethan to listen to while he ate his muffin and drank my Coke.

When we got out of Church we headed to the lake and had a blast! Ethan tried so hard to wake board and just can't quite get it yet. He gets kinda nervous still but we'll fix that with the boys in CA this summer. He did ski though and did awesome. He went over another boat's waves and caught air! Then crashed. Stefani's Dad has a house on the lake, so we took him up to her via Jetski - I sat on the back of our 1100 3 seater and have never held on so tight! I truly thought I was going to fly off the back and no one would know. It took us longer to find their dock as for some reason we all thought it was a good idea to rely on a 7 year old to give us directions on a lake!

We had some friends with us who watched Courtney while we delivered Ethan which was nice. Then we got to business and wake boarded, skied and jumped the wake of the boat on the jetski. Did you know it is illegal to jump the wake within 300 feet or something? I did not know that but our friend got a 'warning' for it. Glad we know now I guess. After hours of no sunscreen we were all fried (other than Courtney who has a nice golden tan).

Paul went home yesterday morning and this time is definitely different. Last time was only 4 days and I had stuff to do every day so it wasn't so bad. This time is almost 2 weeks and it's an off week with NOTHING going on! Last night was pretty hard but I'm sure it will get better. The Lord has us here for a reason and some day he will let us know what that is.

This is Paul's job, such a beautiful sunset. His job is GINORMOUS!
These are some rocks that were under the ground. Apparently where he is sitting was flat before they blew the living day lights out of it. He is LOVING the blasting part.

Still a little wobbly.

So the other day Courtney got into my bathing suit drawer and managed to get this on. So what if it's upside down! then I grabbed the camera and she stopped and said "chs".

Ethan had his last game last Thursday and they got these awesome trophies. They are WAY better than the little plastic guy we used to get. Thanks AW Bravis!

Ethan sharing his new shoes.

Long time no post...

Ha, like it would ever be a long time without a post! I think it's been 2 days - wow, I'm bad. It's been longer since I posted pictures though, does that count? Here are some pictures of the kids from the last couple of weeks.
Ethan found a crawdad down at Nana and Bopa's lake. He was acting like he was going to eat it so I could send a picture to his mom since she thinks they are soooo nasty! He thought is was pretty funny - and so did I! :-)

After Ethan's baseball game he stayed with me to watch our friend's son play then we went to the park for a few minutes. He took Courtney on the slide and she loved it.


This is Courtney's present from Daniel and Alisa, it is SO LOUD! It is a great toy though and she loves her ABC song which this plays, so it's all good. It also teaches her colors; I am trying to start teaching her colors so that was a perfect gift.

Mama and baby on the lake. My little water baby never fails. After church last Sunday we took the TS and the stand up out for about an hour. Courtney rode around the whole time and loved it. She likes the TS because she can stand up and hold on. When we stop she does the boat sound for us to go some more. We put her in the water and she didn't like that so much as it's still pretty cold but she climbed back on and sat down while Daddy climbed on the back. She is so awesome and I am getting more and more excited to take her to the Pursley/Cushman lake trip in July!

I was taking pictures of me and Court to send to Paul and I zoomed in on accident (yes, on accident, I take a lot of pictures of myself but Courtney was actually smiling so I didn't want to get just me this time). This is just a picture I actually like of myself, so why not post it!

Big brother shopping with baby sister.

My little freak-o.

So since Paul left I virtually watch ZERO t.v.. Partially because I just don't like it all that much and partially because Courtney has learned how to turn it off and every time we sit down to watch something she turns it off and goes about whatever she was doing. Buuutttt, tonight I turned the tv on and was trying to find a baby friendly show that wasn't on Noggin (that is very hard to do these days) and came across So You Think You Can Dance and Courtney was all for that. She LOVES music and dancing, put them together and she is in awe. These pictures are of her kicked back watching her new favorite show.

Not Understanding...

Wow, life is difficult. Paul just left for his new job and I'm a wreck! It's been 5 months that he has been looking and this is a wonderful opportunity, but I wish he wouldn't have found it. He is going to be gone 2 weeks at a time and home every other weekend. Yes, I now have joint custody of my husband with his job - and his job won! We are so confused in our hearts right now. Why is God having him leave his family, why isn't there something here, why is this the only way? We don't understand right now, but we both agree that it's where we're supposed to be. At lunch I said to Paul "I'm having a very difficult time with this right now. It isn't making sense to me that you have to leave your family, go stay in a hotel and strange town alone and work while I stay here with the kids, house and our normal life". I asked him why I am more deserving of him for the time with our children. I told him if we both worked he wouldn't have to do this. His answer to me was that he really isn't sure, but he feels that if God wanted us to be doing something else, he would have presented it.

On my way home it was really bothering me; the whole part of being a stay at home mom/wife and him not getting to see Courtney grow up. It just isn't right to me, I am NOT any more deserving than he is. I had an idea of going with him - and I'm able to make it work, just not immediately. Within 6 months Courtney and I will be able to move out where he is working. I told him when he got home that I will do all I can to cut expenses until we are able to move out there. Even that, we own a house here, we can't just get rid of it - but I don't have to have a house out there, I don't have to have a Tahoe out there...I just have to have my husband by me at night. An apartment, one less vehicle, fewer amenities - anything is worth not having this be our permanent situation. We can't do it ALL all of the time. So, to keep my hopes up and myself up, I will make this a temporary situation. In the mean time, I am now beginning to understand the sacrifices a man makes for his wife and children and understanding even more why God put them in that role and not women.

How can one choose?

I have the hardest time choosing pictures to post! Since digital cameras came along and made picture taking for compulsive mothers free; picture taking has turned into a Doritos commercial - 'you can't just take one'. So, I end up with 483,489,343,494,433.4 pictures and I am supposed to be able to pick a FEW good ones? HA! I have the double whammy too. I long to be a photographer. A mom with a dream you may call me. (that sounded so corney when I typed it)

Anyway, it's late, Paul is in GA for an interview in the morning (keep praying for an offer), I am eating cheesecake brownie icecream (thanks Ben & Jerry) for dinner, watching basketball - I hate the Lakers, I don't care about them, but Paul does, wondering what to do next as I am not a fan of being alone. I'll just write...

Today was a great day. I took Courtney into town with me and we got my hair cut - virtually impossible these days as the lady that does my hair is never in. She works at MasterCuts at the mall, yes, I said MasterCuts. She should work in a salon, but I don't mind her working at MasterCuts - I get a $15 hair cut and she gets great benefits - it's a win win situation in my opinion. Then Courtney and I went off to FBCS where I proceeded to get a job. Yeah, a job - but not until August; I wouldn't want to ruin my summer plans. :-) I am going to be working KDO next year and be in the 1 year old class so I can be with Courtney. Living so far out of town and Paul possibly taking a traveling job, it will do me good to have a reason to go to town a few times a week. Then, we went off to Toys R Us - I totally forget about that store and they have some great baby stuff. We didn't get much, just a whipes case I have been looking for and some face sunscreen (that I left in the car for the part of the day she needed it). At that point we went off in the car for Courtney to have a nap. I had drank waaaay too much tea and needed to stop. I look in the back seat and she is already out! Great, what to do. I think quick and head to Fayetteville Chevrolet. Why would you go there, you may ask. Because, my husband likes to hang out there and talk to a salesman as he thinks he is going to get a Camaro in 2010 and a Vette...in...never. So, I knew I could run in there to use the potty. A bonus, there is always someone at the door - and I feel like I know them all, so I ran in there - told the guy at the front door to make sure my truck doesn't disappear with my sleeping child in it. I talked to the salesman - very nice guy - his name is Mike if you ever want a Chevy - go see him, then headed back to the car to go to the park. At the park Courtney continued to sleep so I took advantage of the moment and read my Bible. Yeah, what a concept! I was messing around with my phone and it hit me - that little red book is right there, the baby is sleeping, use the time wisely. Crazy! When Courtney woke up we went out on the baseball field and I proceeded to take some darling pictures of my darling daughter. She loves being outside and is not so fond of grass yet, so I took her to the nicely groomed grass at Walker park and she was ok with it. After a few times of the wind knocking her down; Ethan showed up to get ready for his game. He had an amazing game! He got a couple hits, a bunch of RBIs, played left field and got about 5 plays. It was great! Our friend's (I think they are still our friends) son was playing on another field so I went over to see them. When I came back, there was no one on Ethan's field...I looked to the dugout, no one....I looked to the stands...no one and my stuff was gone....I wonder - hmm..go to the truck - Stefani (the NICE Ex) is loading my truck for me. I felt pretty dumb, but it was kinda nice of her to do that when I forget my brain! Ethan asked if he could go with me for a bit and the x was nice yet again and said yeah. (I am blessed with Ethan's mom, her and I get along well. as far as ex-wives go, I couldn't ask for a better one. HAHA) It was kinda cool that Ethan asked to go with me though seeing is how Daddy wasn't even there. So we hung out and watched the rest of what I believe are our friends game. I let Ethan play on the playground for a little bit and Courtney went down the slide for the first time. He is a wonderful big brother! We took Ethan home and came home ourselves and that is what lead me here...what a wonderful story teller I am...NOT!

Enjoy the pictures.