Thankful

If there is one word to describe my attitude the last 24 hours it is THANKFUL. Yesterday I experienced a parenting nightmare. Faith fell down the stairs. I was watering my plants and heard her crashing down. I was sick! She really was a trooper though. She didn't cry that long at all. But her head looked pretty rough. I was concerned but she didn't show any signs of trauma other than her banged up head. If you look closely on the left hand side you can see the imprint of our carpet.

I am so thankful that God protected my daughter. It is a horriblle feeling to realize your child experienced pain because of your mistake. I thought the gate was closed-but it wasn't... I know that this situation could have turned out much worse. Everytime I think about what could of happened I tear up and once again offer a prayer of thanksgiving for my baby girl's safety. As soon as Faith quit crying I gathered her and Grace up and began to pray. Immidiately a memory from my childhood popped into my head. When I was a little girl I had to cross the highway when I got of the bus. Because I was so young a highschool girl was assigned to help me cross the highway to my mom. One day the girls wasn't paying attention and a car illegally passed the bus. We were almost hit by a car. I will never forget how rattled my mom was (although I remember not understanding what the big deal was!) She took my brother and I and prayed thanking God for keeping me safe. I'm also thankful I had a mom who taught me what to do when a tragedy is avoided- PRAY.

I know it may take some more prayer to work through the seriour mommy guilt I am feeling. But even my guilt is overshadowed by my sincere grattitude the Lord watched over Faith. Here she is banged up head and all. (She doesn't look like she knows what the big deal is either!)

A Girlfriends Weekend

Baby Hannah's First Craft

Our Little Girls: Hannah, Belle, Grace, Faith, & Sadie

Fun Painting!

Faith "helping" Stephanie see what the future holds with an active baby in the house!

Last weekend the girls and I took a road trip and had LOTS of fun. Jeremy and family & friends were helping to replace our roof. But we were 4 hours away having a great time. We left Friday and spent the night with Stephanie (one of my college roommates). It was the first time we had visited since she had her daughter Hannah. Grace enjoyed seeing baby Hannah and trying to "share" toys with her. On Saturday my college girlfriends all got together. We got to see Kristina, Lindsay, Stephanie, Betty, & Abby. We also had lots of little girls. Even though Lindsay's daughters were not there we still had Belle, Grace, Sadie, Faith, & Hannah! Thats a lot of girls. It was fun catching up & hearing about Abby's upcoming wedding plans. We also did a fun craft with the little girls. Everytime we get together I am overwhelmed at how close we have stayed. We had some serious fun together in college!! One of the things Jill Savage says you have to have to survive in minstry is close friends that don't attend your church. I don't really have any friends in Hannibal that don't attend CRCC. I really value the special friendships I have with these girls. They don't see me as a minister's wife. They see me as "just Jenn" a girl who had some serious bumps along the way to get where she is now. (Can anyone say Tom?) I love you girls!! And I am loving seeing our little girls have fun together now too!

Faith turns 1!

What is this?
Blowing out her candles with a little help from Grace.

I like cake!!

Opening a birthday gift from Grandpa Rick & Grandma Leeanne

Faith tries cow's milk for the 1st time...not sure yet!

On Sunday Faith had her first birthday. I can't believe she is one! Because her Birthday fell on a Sunday we celbrated by having cup cakes before youth group. She took one tiny taste of icing and then dug right in. She really enjoyed her first official taste of cake. Her big sister helped her blow out her candle. Here are some pictures from the big day. At her doctor's visit on Monday she was 29 1/4 in. and weighed 21 lbs. 10 oz. She is also walking now more than crawling. In one week she really took to walking. We are still celebrating with family in the coming weeks, so there will be more cake & presents pictures to come.

Faith,

Mommy & Daddy are SO glad God blessed our family with you! You are such a sweet little girl and we love you very much. You make us laugh & we love watching you explore, bounce, and try things you see Grace do. We pray you will continue to grow and learn more about Jesus.

Love,

Mommy

Big Truck Night

One of my favorite things about living in Missouri is an awesome program they have called, Parents as Teachers. A parent educator comes to visit us once a month and we do activities together that are specifically geared towards what the girls should be learning. They also host special family night events. Our favorite is Big Truck Night. Two weeks ago we attended as a family and had lots of fun. We parked our van and then road a bus to the parking lot where all the trucks were. Grace LOVES busses and thought it was very cool to get to ride on one. When we first arrived she was very timid. (Jeremy and I thought it was ironic because the year before she loved climbing up in the trucks without hesitation!) We walked around for awhile letting her take everything in. Faith rode in the backpack and also loved looking around. After awhile Jeremy had to leave for a meeting at church. He told Grace to make sure she drove a truck to tell him about the next day... Only minutes after he left she bravely climbed in the mail truck, and then many others! It was funny. She kept saying, "Daddy told me to drive a truck!" I was sad Jeremy didn't get to see her enjoying the trucks, but glad his "assignment" motivated her to try them out.

I didn't have to look far to find a correlation between this story and my relationship with my heavenly father. I like to check new things out, look around, hold back even. But sometimes when God asks me to do something I find myself willing to venture outside my comfort zone. Why is that? Because God knows what is best! But sadly unlike Grace sometimes my father asking me to do it isn't always enough motivation. Sometimes I doubt. I cling to the comfortable because I'm just not a risk taker by nature. I settle for thinking I can just be faithful where I'm at. I'm still being faithful right? When I look at my daughter's face in these pictures I know I need to trust God to lead me on an occasional adventure-because that is where joy is. Not in faithfullness in the easy comfortable places, but faithfullness in the uncertain adventure.

A Walk to Remember

I am glad to be back to updating my blog. Last Wednesday we left for a family vacation. While we were gone one of our friends here fixed our computer. (yeah!) So I am glad to have access to the Internet again. I am working on going through all the vacation photos...we took over 400. (Did I mention I just got an amazing new camera!!!) But until then I wanted to post about special moments from yesterday. Vacation pictures & memories coming soon....

Yesterday was a special first for both of my girls. I will start with Grace. We have been trying to take a walk each day after they get up from their nap. We had gotten out of the habit of walking because I can't navigate the double stroller in our neighborhood with the bumpy sidewalks. So Grace has been riding in the umbrella stroller and Faith has been on my back in the backpack. (plus I count this as a workout for me:) So yesteray we were getting all ready to go and I decided to ask Grace if she would like to walk.... A risky proposition but with Faith on my back my hands would be free to hold her hand. After some discussion she decided she would very much like to walk and hold my hand. It was a wonderful walk! She held my hand the whole time and did a good job of listening. It was really fun, and another victory for us. We are planning another walk soon so she can collect leaves. Something she couldn't do for herself while riding. As we walked hand in hand it was like one of those moments you feel like you are in a movie. One you want to capture and never forget-her little hand in mine as we went on a neighborhood adventure. There is nothing quite like holding hands.

As I was thinking about blogging this special walk Faith surprised me too! Last night during small group she took the most steps we have seen. She was cruising along our ottomon and then she just took off on her own. She took 3 or 4 steps then stood for awhile and took maybe 2 more. I totally interupted prayer request time I was so excited! She is really getting to be a big girl these days. She is much more interested in tagging along with her big sister and even thinking about trying to climb things. I can't believe on Sunday she will turn one!!

Although all of our days are not perfect or picturesque they are such a blessing of joy to me.

Fun at Papa & Grammy's House

This past weekend we had a fun trip to Papa & Grammy's house (my parent's house). Jeremy was gone volunteering at Super Start (4th-6th grade CIY) so we went to visit. The girls of course had lots of fun. Two highlights were Grace getting to ride in the Artic Cat to help feed the moos with Papa and feeding the goats. Down the road from their house are some goats (yes, on the edge of their town). Both the girls enjoyed feeding them. Grace's favorite was the white one. The goats loved the leaves off the nearby trees. We also took Grace for her first visit to the library. She enjoyed that too.

City Wide Garage Sales

Everything we bought!! Can you believe it?
A closer look at our garage sale steals!
Grace's new $2 dress for her dress up box (thank you nana!). It is made entirely of sequins.
Grace apparently takes after me, she didn't like the scratchy neck.
A pop up bed for traveling, complete with princess sleeping bag. A hit with both of my princesses.

Well another city wide garage sale weekend has come and gone. My mom & mother-in-law came once again to join in the bargain hunting expedition. We are crazy, did I mention that? We left the house at 6:30 am. It was so much fun. Here are my favorite purchases this go round.
-A khaki colored oversized chair $60 (I was super excited I have been looking forever!)
-The pink pop up princess bed
-A super cute Old Navy coat for Grace for $5
-A Leap Frog Letter Radio for $.50 (Grace LOVES it!)
-Lots of cute dresses for both the girls.
-Fun clothes/hats for our dress up box
-An antique looking fire engine car for $30(This was my mom's big purchase for her photography business)

Probably the funniest moment this time was all three of us ladies driving around in the country at 10 o'clock trying to figure out where a sale for the next day was that wasn't on the map. Did I mention we are crazy??