happy 3 day weekend!

i hope you all are having a wonderful memorial day weekend.
it is finally sunny and beautiful here.
i am loving it.
except for the fact that my feet are so swollen, it's embarassing.
but i'll take hot over rainy & dreary any day. :)

my friend ashley sent me some more pictures from our family retreat last weekend.

my little 8 year old avery on the rope swing....made me so stinkin' nervous.
he looks so little!
he couldn't even reach it, aj had to lift him up to get him on the swing.

i was trying to be a good boy mama and let him be brave, but it was hard!

such a fun time.
i love summer.
and it's finally starting to feel like it around here. :) Pin It

a family retreat

last weekend we had the best time at our church's family retreat.
aj and i are not so much into men's or women's retreats but we love the family retreat.
honestly, we just really like to be around each other.
we have the most fun when we're all together.

the retreat was friday evening through sunday morning.
a whole slew of families from our church came & our children's pastor, his wife {who is also on staff at our church}, the youth pastor and his wife and a bunch of interns worked their tails off to make this an amazing weekend.
you can tell that so much planning goes into it.
you can also tell that they know kids.
it was great.

when we loaded all of our stuff into our room, sawyer was so excited about the bunkbeds.
much more excited than his six month pregnant mama. ;)

he wanted to be zipped up in his sleeping bag immediately.
which he didn't even use...he actually slept in a pack n play in the bathroom. ;)


we had several "chapel times" with praise & worship led by the interns, skits & Bible teaching.

all of it was super geared towards young children.
the lessons were short & very interactive.

even sawyer listened really well.....which was probably due in large part to the fact that he was sleep deprived.

on saturday we had a beautiful sunny day which was a miracle in itself.
we spent the morning doing field games.
each family was a team.
so. fun.

the afternoon was full of fun....horseback riding, swimming, canoeing, kayaking, napping, etc.

you wanna know what one of my very favorite parts of the retreat is?

yep, the food.
prepared for me.
cleaned up for me.
it was bliss, really.

okay this is a cruddy/grainy picture, but i just love how sweet the boys are with their arms around each other...i had to share it.  :)

we were totally exhausted by the end of the weekend but it was so worth it...so much fun family time and time with our community group.
love making memories with our family. Pin It

school

how to school our children has not been an easy decision for us.
i wish i were one of those women that just know how they are going to school their children.
most of my friends/acquaintances seem to be that way.
school is something i have agonized over for the past few months.
years before avery started kindergarten we were asking God where we should send him to school.
we prayed and prayed and prayed.
we felt the most peace about providence, a university model, classical education school.
it's been a good fit for our family these past 3 years.
we have taken it one year at a time, praying each spring about what we should do the next year.
i have loved so many things about providence, which i've written about before.
however, i am now feeling God releasing me from this role and we are prayerfully considering sending our kids to public school in the fall.
we are not considering this lightly.
we have spent hours praying about this and like i said, i have literally agonized over this decision.
i so want God's best for our children...for our whole family.
i don't want to settle.
i want to train my children to be men and women of God.
i also don't feel like providence or private school or home school is the only way to do that.
one thing that is hard for me is that i know that some people won't understand this decision.
and that is hard.
i have to let go of other people's expectations of me and focus my attention on Jesus.
His opinion is the only one that matters.

i am looking forward to having some more structure in our days.
i am looking forward to some intentional time focused on sawyer and our new baby girl.
i am looking forward to my boys going to school right down the street where i can pop in any time i want.
i am nervous as all get out.
but Jesus is so faithful and so loving and I know He is going before and behind us and hemming us in on all sides.




  
p.s. i want to thank you so much for you sweet words & prayers for our safety through the storms last night. it was a long night, but the storm passed us by.  so thankful. ~ Pin It

another storm

my mind is swirling with thoughts right now.
i have several things that i want to blog about.
but all i am thinking of right now is tornadoes. 
this has been a rough spring for the south. 


and this:
National Weather Service is predicting that today will produce the worst storms to date for our general area for this year. NW Arkansas are very likely to see, “long lived, violent tornadoes this evening."

after watching the dozens of rotations on the tv screen sunday night and then learning of the devastation that hit just an hour from us....this is very, very real.

i'm going to make a choice now to focus on Jesus.
because He doesn't change.
He sits enthroned above the storm.
He never leaves or forsakes.
HE is our shelter in the storm.

please join me in praying for the hurting people of joplin, missouri and also pray for northwest arkansas...please pray that all of this disipates and is nothing.
thanks, friends.

okay now i'm going to go collect some items for the joplin relief and fix my thoughts on something else. :) Pin It

ten year annivesary trip, part 3 {final}

happy monday friends. :)

first of all... i have to say that it is a bit hard for me to think about something as lighthearted as our vacation when joplin, mo, {a town not far from us} was so devastated by tornadoes last night. 
my mind and heart are having trouble wrapping around it all.
the boys and i have been praying today for the people of joplin.
this has been a rough spring for so many southerners.

that being said....i do want to share about our wonderful trip so maybe this will be a good diversion.

okay get comfortable...it's time for some more vacation slides. :)

we stopped at two ports on our cruise.
the first one was jamaica.

so, we did not love jamaica.

that was disapointing.
i think we would have if we had been able to do one of the fun excursions.
however, being in my special condition, we didn't think it wise to be climbing up to a waterfall or riding a sky lift through the jungle.
instead, we thought we'd just venture out, do a little shopping, and maybe relax on the beach.
well....we lasted about 30 minutes.
basically it was just really uncomfortable.
the pier led us out on this street with no shops.
you had to walk a bit to find them and about every 3 steps or so a really agressive jamaican tried to sell you something, get you in their cab, hand you something they wanted you to buy, etc.
it seemed like there were about 5 of us from the boat and about 200 of them.
it just felt weird.
not like tijuana pushy.... i can handle that....this was just weirder for some reason.
i guess you had to be there. 

 

so we headed back and decided to spend the day relaxing on a nice, quiet boat. :)

we enjoyed another wonderful day of eating, reading, swimming & relaxing. 

our second port was grand caymen.

we really enjoyed grand caymen. 

first thing in the morning, we took a tender boat over to the island.

we had a little time to shop around and find some treasures for the boys before we took our bus to the beach. 

there were many neat little shops and things to look at. 

we spent several hours at tikki beach. 

i was so excited to get my toes in the sand. 

i  love being at the beach. 

i collected a bunch of shells for the boys and did a lot of this:

we ate lunch at an outdoor restaurant right on the beach. 

aj and i shared that strawberry smoothie. yummmmm.

once we left the beach we went back to catch our tender boat. 

aj waited in the long line while i got myself a fresh coconut. 

the coconut milk was not nearly as good as i had hoped.

maybe i got a bad coconut?

 

the next day was our last day at sea. 

we did more of the same....eating, reading, relaxing, enjoying being alone together. :)

that night we took one last stroll around the deck and watched the sunset over the water. 

we had such a great time soaking in our last moments....but we were also ready to get home and see our boys.

our cruise was 5 days. 

with travel we were away from the boys for almost 6 full days. 

we decided that was the perfect amount of time...not too long, not too short. 

we are both so thankful that it worked out for us to go.

it was such a blessing and so good for our relationship.

it was great to focus on each other without all the demands of normal life.

i'm also really thankful that it worked out for us to have a big, fun trip before a new little one joins our clan in august. :)

**don't forget to enter to win my dayspring giveaway!!**

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it's friday, so let's have a giveway!

let's take a break from the vacation slide show for a minute and talk about dayspring.

dayspring has a special place in my heart.
i grew up in the little town in arkansas where dayspring is located.
my dad worked there for over ten years.
i spent a lot of time in those offices, perusing the cards and gifts & home decor.
it was a sweet, comforting place.

not only does dayspring offer meaningful cards & gifts, they also host the website, (in)courage. 
don't you love it?
if you haven't stumbled across this gem, it's a website/community with daily posts by christian women bloggers.
i get the daily feeds in my inbox and am always encouraged by them.

sooooooo......
i was super excited to get to review a dayspring product!
they have this super cool line of wall art and frames, called urban soul.

here are some of my faves:

and here is the one dayspring sent me...

i. love it. 
love the charcoaly-gray background.
love that it says, "and this is my friend".....because aj is truly my best friend that i'm journeying through this life with.
so simple and perfect for us.

plus, i love having scripture around our home.
i want to see it constantly.
keeps my mind on the right track. :)

this whole frame is 12X12 so it's nice & substantial.
this frame is only 20 bucks,  plus during the month of may, you can use the coupon code MAY20 & get 20% off!
they are always running sales so check out the (in)spired deals page to see what's on sale right now. :)

would you like some of this goodness for yourself?
dayspring is offering one of my sweet readers a $20 gift card to their online store.
so awesome.  thank you dayspring!

okay, so let's make it simple.
leave me a comment to enter.
if you want an extra entry, you can twitter it and/or facebook it & let me know.
if you want to follow me for an extra entry, go ahead and do that to.
so that's four chances to win. woo hoo.

{fine print: this does not include shipping & you have until august 31st to use it. also, dayspring gave me the product to review but all opinions are mine. k, thanks. :)}

the giveaway will close at midnight, May 29th, so get crack-a-lackin!



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ten year annivesary trip, part 2

our first full day on our cruise was a day at sea.
we were really looking forward to these days to just relax.

after breakfast we gathered our books and headed for the pool.

we had a great morning of just laying around and reading our Ted Dekker books we brought along.
it was such a departure from our normal lives and we truly appreciated it.

we kept saying that it was like our honeymoon, but better.
we're more in love than ever plus after 10 years of marriage, we've learned a thing or two about each other.
also, we really appreciate the time to relax and do nothing because we never have that kind of freedom in our daily life.
aj kept commenting throughout the trip about how relaxed i was.
i said, of course i am, i have zero stress!
it was great!! :)

aj went on the slide and i got in the pool a bit until it was lunch time.
another favorite thing on the trip was that we took a nap every afternoon.
it was awesome.

that evening was the "elegant wear" dinner.
it was fun to get to dress up in my $10 dress from plato's closet.

that's in the entryway of our room.

and here are some very blingy pictures from the evening...the ship was one big boat o' bling.

we went to the shows after dinner that night...i think it was a comedy show and a vegas style show.
i could have done without the vegas style show, but it was still fun to be out past 10 at night with my man. :)
every evening for the show, aj would go get us some coffee to take in with us so we could stay awake for the show.
yes, we are that old and boring.

i also loved the nightly turndown service.
each night our towel was folded into some fun creature, there were mints, & a schedule for the next days' events.

we saved the mints and took pictures of the towels each evening for the boys.



okay....meet me back here tomorrow for part 3! :) Pin It

ten year annivesary trip, part 1

last week we went on a big fancy-pants trip for our 10 year anniversary.
this was big for us.
the longest we've left our kids.
the farthest we've gone together.
it was heavenly.

friday, the 6th we loaded up our 3 boys and all of our stuff & headed to kansas.
aj's parents were so kind to watch our boys for us for 6 days while we galavanted around.
that's a big job.

saturday, the 7th, aj and i got up at 3:45 am to head for the wichita airport.
adrenaline definitely kicked in . . . we were so excited!

note: you will see lots of pictures of us with aj taking the picture himself.

case in point...us on the airplane, ready to start our adventure!

i really enjoy flying...but i hadn't flown since i've had kids so that made me a little nervous.
i had to talk to Jesus a bit on those flights. ;)

ya wanna know something about me?
i always order tomato juice and pretzels on flights.
i love the combination.
i do not eat or drink either of those things at any other time.
i only like it on an airplane.

so after spending the morning in airports and flying, we arrived in miami around 12:30.
we were thrilled that both of our flights were ahead of schedule and our luggage made it perfectly....okay minus a wheel (sorry mom) but other than that. . .

we then loaded up on a bus to our cruise ship.
as soon as we got on board we went for the food. :)
that was one of my most looked forward to treats....endless food.

that's miami behind me....and an ice cream cone in hand. :)

oooh, oooh, hey there, hottie.

he didn't know i was taking that picture...i was setting up the self timer.

aj had the idea to get a room with a window...so glad he did.
we loved looking out our window every day.
this is the view from our window once we got moving.

and looky how big our room is!

we were expecting a much smaller room, so this was a fun surprise.

we did a lot of walking around and exploring the ship on that first afternoon and evening.
we also enjoyed an amazing dinner and a fun show.
it was a very long day but so, so fun!
and our trip was just beginning! Pin It

hi.

a week ago. . . 

sigh. 

it was bliss. 

my love and i sailing the high seas. 

that's all you get for now....i planned to blog all about it this afternoon.

and then i needed to take a little nap.

and slept for three hours. 

and now it's time to load up three boys for avery's baseball game. 

that's life. 

we're back in it. 

see you tomorrow. :)

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fixated on food.

you know what sounds soooo yummy?
s'mores made with reeces.

and also these.

and pretty much anything that pops into my head.
i am loving this phase of pregnancy because i am enjoying food so so much.
every time i eat a meal i sound like bob.



at my last doctor's appointment the nurse said something about sausage.
all i could do from that moment on was dream about eating a big hunk of sausage.
as soon as i left, i drove straight to mcdonald's and ordered a sausage biscuit from the dollar menu.
and you know what, it was amazing.
i enjoyed every last bite.
and i didn't feel guilty.

i love food and i'm proud of it. Pin It

softly and tenderly, Jesus is calling. . .

do you remember that hymn?
did you grow up singing it like i did?

i've talked about Jesus Calling before.

it's really good.
i want everyone to read it....it's changing the way i think.

here's May 1st's installment:


"You are on the path of My choosing. There is no randomness about your life.  Here and Now comprise the coordinates of your daily life. Most people let their moments slip through their fingers, half-lived.  They avoid the present by worrying about the future or longing for a better time and place.  They forget that they are creatures who are subject to the limitations of time and space.  They forget their Creator, who walks with them only in the present.  
Every moment is alive with My glorious Presence, to those whose hearts are intimately connected with Mine.  As you give yourself more and more to a life of constant communion with Me, you will find that you simply have no time for worry.  Thus you are freed to let My Spirit direct your steps, enabling you to walk along the path of Peace.  Luke 12:25-26; Luke 1:79"

it's so good, right?
obviously, God's Word is the only 100% true, faultless word that we must depend on, but this book is a great supplement to your Bible reading.

happy weekend friends...have a great one! Pin It

wednesday schmednesday.

happy wednesday, friends.
today is our last day of homeschool for the year!
woo. hoo.
and really, they only had a couple of sheets to do and then they worked on mother's day cards & letters to their teachers.
tomorrow is their last day of school.
they are having a field day.
i think the sun might even make an appearance.
i am planning to get myself a pedicure in honor of an end to all the dreary, rainy weather.

my big boys are in a phase of arguing 24-7.
it's killing me.
i need it to stop.
please, let this be a phase.
that is over, like, tomorrow. or right now would be nice.

i have been super crabby pants mommy this week.
i blame it on the rain.
and that i'm probably anemic so i'm tired & woozy.

i was looking through my photos and found these of aj & i with our best buds, erin & zach.

we met them when avery was just a year old.
we became fast friends and have been a part of each other's lives ever since.
we are terrible at taking photos together even though we have pretty much lived life with them for the past 8 years. 

they are family to us.
it is just easy with them and i am so thankful for that.
and we laugh. . . a lot.

oh look, i'm wearing the same shirt.


okay now i am going to attempt to get something accomplished with my afternoon.
the mind is willing but the body is weak. :) Pin It

fun finds from around the world wide interweb.

thought i'd share some fun things i've spotted around the blogosphere lately. . . 

this kitchen is so dreamy.
i am in love with that island.

{source}

a picture says a thousand words. . . julie is so creative. i love her blog.

{source}

i love this dining room so much i want to cry.
it's just so beautiful!

do you read the reed life?
you should.
shauna takes amazing photos.
and she's real.
i lovey-love-love her daughter's bedroom.
that yellow wrought-iron bed is the best.

this couch is dreamy.
i love the before and the after.

you've probably seen these prints before, but i adore them.

what fun finds have you discovered lately??

please share!

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