Saturday, June 28, 2008

A Wonderful Husband

I know I've talked aobut friends and family being such a help to me and how I love my husband and miss him terribly when we are apart for any amount of time. But today asomething happened that made me see him as an awesome husband and father of my kids. I've been taking two math classes this summer, which I'll never do again, and it's been really stressful. So today I had to go take a test for my College Algebra class. I have MRSA again on my eye this time. If you don't knwo what that is, it's a boil that you get and then it pops and goes everywhere. It's not fun to have or to look at. I might post a picture of it later but maybe not depending on if I want everyone to see how I look. So I took a nap because I was extremely tired. When I woke up from my nap my house was clean. It wasn't completely spotless but it was a lot more clean than when I went to take a nap. He also just got done vacuuming out the van and making pizza for dinner. He does this every once in a while so I want to praise him for it when he does.

Precious Blood of the Lamb

Alyssa sang this song at VBS, not this version a kid version, but she kept asking her daddy to play it for her all the time. So here it is.

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Clipless Pedals

I'm going to tell on myself a little here. I got my bike about a week ago as you all know if you've read my blog before. With my bike I also got clipless pedals. For those who don't know what these are I will explain. These pedals have a spot to clip special shoes that have a cleat into the pedal so that your feet don't shift when you ride and you can also pull up and push down to give you more speed because your shoe is completely attached to the pedal. In order to get the cleat out of the pedal you have to kick your heal out and it will detach. So I was riding a couple days ago with a friend and I stopped at the first stoplight no problem, second stoplight, I stopped and no problems, third stoplight I stopped and forgot to take my foot out of my pedal. Yeah I fell off my bike, the bike fell on top of me and my friend was behind me so she almost hit me. Now other than my ego being hurt pretty bad I didn't get hurt other than a bruised knee. It could've been worse than it was. I told myself that would never happen again. HAHAHAHA. Yesterday I went for about a 9 mile bike ride and did really well the whole time. I unclipped my foot out of the pedal and everything when I got home. I hit the curb and was so focussed on my pedal being unclipped the bike started tipping to the side opposite of my unclipped foot and down I went... again. This time the metal pedal hit my ankle. It hurt pretty bad and I have a bruise from it but again it could've been worse. I also have other bruises from where my pedals have hit my legs while not riding my bike. If I get a chance I'll take a picture of my legs so you all can see the beautiful bruises a new bike leads to. By the way you can laugh... I do.

Bike Hunting

I just realized that I told you all that I got a bike but didn't tell you how I came to get the bike I got. We looked around for a long while and decided that I was going to get a Jamis Ventura Sport. It's the lowest price of the higher end bikes and I thought it would be perfect for what I was going to use it for. So we went to the bike shop and ordered one since they didnt' have any my size. They said it would take about 7 days. I called back a couple times between 10 and 14 days and they just said that my bike hadn't come in yet. So I waited and finally after about 2 1/2 weeks I called them back and they said that the company had sent them a different bike not the one I ordered. He said that they were out of the bike that I wanted. So I asked what is compareable to the Jamis Ventura Sport for around the same price. He said that a Satellite would be a compareable bike. I said ok and ordered it. So I started doing a little more research on the bike and come to find out it's a steel bike. The one I wanted was Aluminum and there is a weight difference between steel and aluminum bikes. Finally I went, after more research, to a bike shop closer to my house and bought a Giant OCR3 for about 100.00 more than I originally wanted to spend. My giant has a couple features that are better than the Jamis Ventura Sport anyways, like it has a carbon fiber fork. Carbon is extremely light. Anyways I'm finally a month and a half later getting phone calls saying that my Satellite bike is in. After a month and a half I don't want it!! Anyways. In case you were interested that is the bike story.

Friday, June 20, 2008

Triathlon

The triathlon that I'm doing is coming up soon. I'm really excited and really nervous. I just got my bike on Tuesday and have only ridden it once since I got it and I love it so far. I was kind of nervous to ride it because it's a road bike not a crumby Wal Mart mountain bike. I think I'm pretty ready though. I better be since it's next month. Since now I have one of my friends coming with me to do it I'm a little more relaxed. I feel like I'm going through it with somebody and not by myself anymore. Well, I just wanted to keep you all updated on my training and let you all know that I'm still planning on doing it. I'll post some pictures of my bike and my bike shoes when I get a chance. Have a great day everyone!

Thursday, June 19, 2008

More Misc Pictures


Mara being cheesy

Our beautiful family

Syssa

Mara

More Misc pictures


Mother and Baby


The little ones


Mara


Nattie

Misc Camping Pictures


Ahhhh such good friends.


One of our meals. This is so that there is proof that the moms really went on this camping trip. We were mainly the ones holding the camera though so not too many pictures of us.


Syssa got to go Putt Putt golfing. She had fun.


Looking at the water.

Swimming

Here are some swimming pictures. It goes Mara, Nattie, Syssa.


Sleeping and the morning

On the first night the kids didn't get to sleep until around 11:00PM. The adults around 2:00AM. Samara was the last one up. She slept in at least 45 minutes more than everybody else did even though it got loud in the RV fast. Alyssa was the first one up at 6:15AM because she was so excited to go swimming and go down the waterslide. Come to find out she couldn't go down the waterslide unless she could prove that she could swim. She can't quite swim yet but she still had fun in the pools. Pictures of that next.






Nattie on day two. Princess Flower decided to make cool crowns for them out of the little flowers laying around.

Our First Camping Trip of the Season

This past weekend we went camping with some of our good friends. Again I will list their nicknames and not their real names. Here are all 7 girls getting ready to go.


Samara, Ladybug, and Butterfly


Nattie, and Dragonfly


Syssa, and Princess Flower

Alyssa working out

When I get home from running or biking or swimming I usually do some sit ups and push ups. Alyssa saw me one day and thought it would be fun to try. She started doing her sit ups and said Mommy I can't do anymore they make my tummy hurt.

PREEMIE FROGS

We have some drainage ditches over by our house that are pretty well filled with water. When you walk outside, especially right after it rains, there are a ton of these "preemie" frogs everywhere. Alyssa immediately wanted to catch them and hold them. Samara was a little more hesitant but when she saw Syssa do it she braved up and did it too.



Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Sleepy

After the sleepover Alyssa and Samara were very tired so they layed in the playroom and watched Lion King. Alyssa fell asleep and Mara almost did but not quite. Notice there is no thumb in Alyssa's mouth. She hasn't sucked her thumb very much since a couple days after her birthday.
As our friends were leaving today to go to there homes after a wonderful sleepover Nattie said Bye Bye and waved to them. She has waved before but this is the first time she's said bye bye. It sounded more like "bu bu" but it was pretty darn close to bye bye.

SLEEPOVER

So Micah and I wanted to start going on date nights so we asked some of our friends that have 4 girls of their own if they'd like to do a date night swap. Last week was my birthday so we got the chance to go out without the girls. Last night was our night to watch the beautiful 7 girls. Ages went 8 months, 9 months, 2 1/2 years, 3 years, 4 years, 5 years, and 7 years. What cuties.

Dragonfly and Nattie playing. Nattie likes to try to poke Dragonfly's eyes. She wants to touch them. Dragonfly doesn't move much whereas Nattie does so I have to be extra careful Nattie's not a bully to her. Nattie is the one in the green.


Our friend Dragonfly lounging.


6 of the cute girls. I think Nattie's taking a bath. She made a mess at dinner.


From left to right: Ladybug, Samara, Butterfly, Alyssa, Princess Flower, Nattie, and Dragonfly. Those aren't the real names of our friends' kids but that's what they go by. There they are, all 7 of them. What cute girls. 7 GIRLS!!! What would we do if they were all our own?

Birthday Party

Our friend ladybug had her 3rd birthday party! It was so much fun. It was a chocolate so all the kids had a blast eating tons and tons of chocolate. There was a chocolate fountain and painting with chocolate pudding. Thanks ladybug for the wonderful party.







Last day of school

Alyssa's last day of school was on June 2nd. Here's some pictures of her teacher and her teacher's assistant.



Our first pool trip

This is the first time we went to the pool this summer. We've already had a ton more pool trips. We plan on going a whole lot this summer too. This first time the girls got in except for Natalie and even the older two got out about 20 mins after being in. Nattie now does get in as well. They all love it. We're looking forward to many more trips to the pool to cool off. It's supposed to get up to 100 today not to mention the humidity. YUCK!!!







Friday, June 6, 2008

My Girls

I was standing in the bathroom putting makeup on when Alyssa runs in saying, "Mommy, Mommy I'm five years old now so I taught Mara how to pray. I taught her to say thank you for the bowls and spoons and cups and blinds and ....." the list kept going and going. She then said, "God made everything so I can pray all by myself and teach Mara how to pray all by herself to thank God for EVERYTHING since that's what He made." She was so excited. I just can't believe how awesome and smart my girls are.

Then to put sugar on top of everything this morning, Christian came this morning and wanted a poptart because the other girls had one. I discovered that there were none left. So Mara broke a piece off of hers and gave it to him. As you all can tell we're having a pretty good morning so far. Alyssa said that she didn't even need to pray for Jesus' help to be good today because she's doing it all by herself. I told her to keep praying that he helps you just in case you fell like doing something naughty. Just wanted to share my beautiful girls' thoughts with you this morning.

Thursday, June 5, 2008

Family/Friends

I've been thinking quite a bit lately about my family and friends and how important they are to me. I don't know what life would be like without any of them. At times I want to be by myself but I think I'd go crazy if I was by myself all the time. I've realized recently how a good friend is that is pursuing Christ in the same manner as you are is. I've realized that my girls even though they drive me nuts sometimes are some of the greatest blessings that my life will ever hold. I hope that they remember that no matter how old they are I will always be here for them. They are the lights of my life and I wouldn't trade them for anything. Today driving home from my math class I called my hubby up and asked him if he remembered when we were in high school and every time we were apart for more than 10 minutes we'd be writing to each other or calling each other on the telephone saying that we missed each other. Now my math class is about 2 hours and it takes about half an hour to get there and back but between that time I missed my husband. I wanted to just sit with him and snuggle with him. I'm starting to see that if we want our marriage to be something great we've got to get back to the basics and just WANT to be with each other as much as we can. I just want all my family and friends to know that I appreciate all you do for me. I love you all!!!