I......

I Am: A Christian, a wife, a mother, a niece, an orphan, a scrapbooker, a crafty girl, and a survivor!

I Want: my kids to have all the things I didn't have growing up. And I don't mean material things, I mean to know their parents will always put them first, self assurance, to know that they can come to me with anything and I will protect them. To not have to know what alcohol, drugs and abuse can do to a child and most of all to know that I love them unconditionally.

I Have: an amazing husband who makes raising three kids fun, easy, and more manageable than I ever thought possible.

I Wish: I had all my friends and family all together in one place....not spread out across the country!

I Fear: not seeing my children grow up.

I Hear: Yo Gabba Gabba for the first of many times today.....it is the kiddos absolute FAVORITE show! Even the twins love it! (For those of you with a comment about kids and t.v., keep it to yourself thanks! It gives me my sanity some days!)

I Search: for a balance in my life between mommy hood and not losing me. It is a work in progress! Raising my kids is always first and foremost but it is nice to get a chance for me time and the things I enjoy every once in awhile too!

I Wonder: what my mom would think of this family that I have created, if she was alive today. I also wonder if my Dad is still living or where he is. Does he ever think about me and the family he is missing out on?

I Regret: not spending more time with my mom the summer before she died.

I Love: fiercely, if you are someone I consider to be a friend or family, then I am loyal to the end. I will fight for you or be there for you....whatever the situation calls for. Because I love big!

I Always: take way to many pictures, trying to get that PERFECT shot!

I Usually: start my day by settling the kids in with breakfast and their sippy cups, then logging on facebook to see what the rest of the "world" is up to! It is my instant connection with the rest of the planet! LOL!

I Am Not: one who has a problem with speaking my mind......I usually tell it like it is. I have a strong set of beliefs and I stand by them!

I Dance: in the living room with my kids! Even when Kyndall tells me "No dancin' momma!"

I Sing: at the top of my lungs, with the car radio turned up loud and the windows down every chance I get!!

I Never: get tired of listening to music. My life's soundtrack would take you all over the spectrum into lots of genres (think hip hop, country, rap, pop, and jazz!). I truly believe there is an appropriate song for every occasion!

I Rarely: buy something without a coupon! I am a huge fan of Gymbucks, Children's Place Rewards, Old Navy cash back, Kohls Cash....I could go on and on...but you get my drift. I am a bargain shopper!

I Cry: freely. I wear my heart on my sleeve and it isn't uncommon for Jordan to find me blubbering over a commercial or a music video if they strike me just right. What can I say? I'm an emotional girl!

I Am Not Always: ready to jump right out of the bed in the morning! Probably cause I have a tendency to stay up entirely too late!!!

I Need: to keep making my health a top priority! 2009 is my year to have it all!!!!


I saw this list on my friend Paige's Blog a few days ago, and made a mental note that it was something I wanted to do on my blog also. I fell in love with the concept of journaling prompts in college, it always seemed to make writing assignments so much easier. Now as I blog there are days that I find myself stumped. I will have thoughts and ideas that I want to get out, but not a great concept as to how to put them together! So it little lists like this that help me to express myself. Thanks to Paige for posting it and for helping me to put some words to paper, eerrr, I mean computer screen! LOL!

Wordless Wednesday!!

Just a few more photos from Class night 2009!!! Just a few short days and Adam and Allie will be ACSHS alumni!

Class Night 2009

This is a pic of Jordan and his twin cousins Adam and Allie. First of all aren't they gorgeous!!! (the twins, not Jordan!) LOL! Secondly I am so proud of them. They are just about as good as family can get. They are great to my kids, fun to be around and both have plans for their lives after high school! It is hard to believe that on Friday night they will be graduating from high school! When Jordan and I first started to date they were just ten years old.....I know I say it too much, but gosh time flies! Seeing them in the midst of all their graduation festivities makes me realize how quickly things pass. I feel like I was just in their shoes the other day. I had all the answers (not really) and thought I had life all planned out! Did I know that I would be living in Ky with my great husband and three kids all under three!!!! No way!!! Would I have changed anything about decisions I made at that time in my life....looking back yes. But I realize that if I had made one little shift in my plan at the time, or made one different decision, my life would be totally different. I look back now and see the Lord at work. He has been with me every step of my journey, even when times were dark and I had lost all those answers that I once thought I had. I hope that Adam and Allie realize that in their futures the path won't always be well lit. That sometimes you have to pause and search out what God wants you to do. The answers won't always be just laid out before you. But I also want them to remember to enjoy the journey as it unfolds. For good or for bad, that is what will build character! If I could tell them just a few short things it would be.....keep your family first, carry Jesus in your heart, and take lots of pictures! These days are fast fleeting and before they know it they will be able to look back on their individual paths and see the good and bad decisions that got them to adulthood. I just hope for them the next 12 years of their life after high school go by more slowly than mine did! It truly is just a blink of the eye!

Wordless Wednesday

Oh, to be 1 again! :)

Night Owl Ramblin'

That is what I am doing tonight. Staying up way to late as usual, and writing this post just to break the monotony between facebook, , twittering, , two peas , and other random site surfing! I had a VERY productive day today. Got almost all my laundry done, including the parts I hate....folding it and putting it away. I dream of the day when I can hire someone just to do that dreaded part of the task!

I hosted a premier designs jewelry party at my house tonight. It was nice. I earned a lot of free jewelry and it was a great reason to clean my house from top to bottom! :) We even got the kids rooms picked up! Toys got sorted and re-distributed (with a lot of help from mom-mom, THANKS!!!) It is inevitable with 3 kids that stuff just gets mixed together. Kyndall's room ends up with baby/early toddler toys. The twins end up with her stuff in their room. Not to mention paci, sippies, and other random personal items that just go through an endless swap! These poor kids have very few things that are strictly theirs. But I guess that just comes with the territory of being in a house full of siblings. I was an only child until my aunt and uncle took me in and that was one of the hardest things for me to adjust to. Once you have other kids around it seems like your "stuff" becomes public property to a certain extent. It is probably one of the reasons that I am so particular about my things to this day! I loved my cousins, don't get me wrong, but as a teenager your stuff can tend to define you in your mind. So to share that with younger kids can be kind of a bummer, when you are used to having no one else around! I am hoping that since my kids are so close together in age, they will always foster a sharing spirit. They won't ever really remember a time when things were all theirs. They will probably only remember that they always had to share, or fight, with and for their toys! LOL! I am not sure if that is good or bad, but that is just the facts of life around this place!

The rest of the week from here out gets crazy busy for us.....I think we have something to do everyday until after church on Sunday. Shew! If I make it til then! I am super excited for Relay for Life Friday night. It is something we have taken part in here in Allen County ever since I moved here. I am praying for nice weather, as last year was rained out and they had to stuff us all into the highschool. We are deserving of a nice day, so if one is in the cards for us, I hope Friday is it!

Well I am going to try and catch some zzz's. I hope that tomorrow is just as productive as today. Of course the big challenge is maintaining the order in the house that we worked so hard today on! With 3 kids it is a constant challenge. I put away and they drag out. Oh well. Maybe they will discover some new exciting toys that they forgot they had! That might keep them occupied! LOL!

Hope everyone has a great Wednesday! I'll check in soon!

AWANA closing ceremonies 2009

So proud of her AWANA participation certificate! She packed it around the house for days, before I snuck it away to put into her scrapbook!




Accepting her certificate from Ms. Tricia!!




They were singing a song about all the things they do in AWANA.....this part was "Pray quietly" It melted my heart when I saw that Kyndall knew the words and the motions to the song!





The Puggles class performing for us! :)




This was Kyndall's first year to be able to attend AWANA at our church. She absolutely loved it and looked forward to it every Sunday evening. Whenever she would see me hanging up her Puggles (her class's name)shirt, she would get all excited and say "I wanna go there." or "let's go church". So to be able to go and have a celebration of all they have done this year was really special. Their class was the first up and they sang two songs for us. It was sooo neat to see all the little fellas lined up and Kyndall even knew the words to the songs! It was very sweet. They got certificates of participation from Ms. Patricia and Kyndall was very anxious to go up and get hers. She waited patiently (as patiently as 2 and a half will allow) for her name to be called and just looked and looked at it once she had it in her hot little hands! We had a great night with our church family and enjoyed seeing all the other classes recite their verses and get awards too. My favorite picture of the ones I posted is where Kyndall has her little hands folded to pray. It was a part of one of the songs they were singing, and it just reminded me how grown up she is. Doing all sorts of things on her own! She is such a little blessing and I am so thankful for the love and guidance she gets from all her friends and church family at White Plains Baptist Church!

Wordless Wednesdays

Okay, okay, just a few words. :) You know me!!! I just feel a little vain posting a picture of myself on here (usually I at least have my kiddos or something) But I needed to put this in a place that was well, um, public! See I am down over twenty pounds since the first of the year. It has been a long and slow process, but I am losing weight the right way no pills, or fad diets, or slimming teas. Just cutting out calories and workouts at the Y. So I wanted to put this picture up to remind myself every now and again, how far I have come. Of course I still have a long ways to go. But I need to remember that slow and steady wins the race. It is tempting to fall back into old habits once that first little bit of weight comes off. But I need to keep going. I want to be healthy for my kids and my husband. I want to continue to reach goals that I have set for myself. And this picture of what I look like now will be a reminder of that. Hopefully I will look back at this photo twenty more pounds from now and see a different person than I am at that point. I want to keep going. I need to keep going. So this is my little way of remotivating myself. I don't want to look back and think gosh you had such a good start what happened. I want to look back and think wow I am even better now than I was then!

Shew, so that just made Wordless Wednesday, become Wordy Wednesday.....back to our regularly scheduled blogging about kids, family and the things we do daily! LOL! :)

Happy Hump Day everyone!

AT THIS MOMENT..........

I should be in bed, but playing farm town on facebook is so much more fun!

I am super excited about the super cute hair goodies that I ordered from TARAMARIE

The dryer is thumping away, my husband is snoring, and some late night talk show is playing on the t.v.

I am excited about big changes that might be heading our way.

Missing my family in Nebraska has taken over a lot of my thoughts.

I am lovin' this new game I found called DeepLeap

I am saying lots of prayers for my friend who is labor right now with her first precious girl!

I can't get enough of this song:


I have lost almost 21 pounds since I started my diet.....and I need to restart my motivation for the next 20!

Having all my kids healthy at the same time would be a dream come true.

I really wish Claire would figure out how to locate her own paci when she wakes up instead of assuming that I will come in there and find it for her!!!! Especially when i am trying to blog! LOL! :)

I am patiently waiting for the day when I can take my whole family on a trip HERE!!!

I am trusting that the Lord knows what is best for me, so I need to follow whatever path he lays forth. Even if it isn't the path I may have chosen for myself. Everything happens for a reason...right??

I am still amazed at how quickly my kids are growing and learning. They do something new on a daily basis!

My toenail polish of choice is a bright pink, which makes me feel like summer will be here soon.

I am pretty sure that I will miss Jordan all day tomorrow since he has to work!

I have a whole bunch of things to look forward to in May, including a visit from my Aunt Amy and Laurie and seeing Lady Antebellum in concert with some of my girlfriends!!!!

I still wish I had a cell phone that I could twitter from. BOO!!!

Doing something scrappy is still on my weekend agenda, I just have to find a place to squeeze it in.

The urge to take a hot bubble bath has taken over.

So with that I will end this rather random post! Sorry for being such a bad blogger! Life has been busy, crazy, but good. I will update again soon!

TTFN!