Mother's Day

This year our Mother's day celebration was very laid back. We went to church as a family and then had lunch at home. The girls were very excited to surprise me with a trip to Lowe's to pick out flowers. They actually kept the plan a secret for a couple days! We were originally planning to choose some flowers to plant in pots but Jeremy knew I have always wanted a lilac bush and encouraged me to pick out one of those instead. So, I finally have a lilac bush and am excited to enjoy blooms next Spring! (Although we still haven't planted it in the ground as we are hoping to move and can't decide wether to commit by planting it...)

This year the girls helped making stepping stones as their Mother's day project for the grandmas. They had a great time and this was one I let them use creative license so they were each one of a kind.

Big Apple Adventure

This past year Grace was part of our church's Kids Choir. Each Sunday afternoon they met to practice. Their spring project was a musical based on the theme for our VBS, "Big Apple Adventure." It was very cute! Grace got lots of comments on her "freestyle" or "spirit led" performance. She was very into it most of the time and not afraid to do her own movements versus the pre-learned actions. I was proud of her for not being near as afraid to perform this semester. She kept finding us in the audience and giving us a big cheesey grin with a thumbs up sign. I'm not sure if this will be Grace's "thing" but she had lots of fun.

Doing the correct actions- yeah!

Here is the thumbs up...
She was very excited Gramy & Papa came to see her dress rehearsal on Saturday night.
We are still thinking about if this is something she will want to do again next year. And Faith is definitely thinking she would like to join in next year.

Lucky Number 7 (The Year of Prayer)

On May 8th Jeremy and I celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary. I honestly can't believe its been seven years. I still kind of see us in the "young/newly wed" category sometimes (although the 3 kids & minivan do help with that...) We celebrated by a night away at Harpole's Heartland Lodge in Nebo, IL which is about an hour away. The lodge was first built as a hunting lodge, but now they have guests for getaways as well. In order to save a bit of money we stayed in the "Hunter's Lodge," but we had the entire thing to ourselves so it was great!

After dinner (which was amazing!) we went on a hay ride & then has smores at their camp fire.
In the morning we woke up early. I know, I know you are supposed to sleep in but we get up so early during the week these days we are just prewired. We went on an hour walk before breakfast on their large property. It was very quiet and gorgeous. We both really miss having time to be outside in God's creation. It was just nice to be together and talk without our 3 beautiful interruptions.
After breakfast we did some more hiking in the woods before heading home. It was getting very hot and was pretty muddy from the rain the night before. We saw a HUGE snake as well which added to the excitement. Jeremy tried to encourage it to move out of our path, but it won and we hiked through the brush to go around instead.

When we got married, my cousin/friend Kara was my personal attendant. She brought me lucky bamboo, which she renamed my "prayer bamboo." A year or 2 ago I accidentally watered my prayer bamboo with crystal light. Opps! No, matter what I tried it killed my bamboo (and made me reconsider putting crystal light in my body). Jeremy and I have gone to enough marriage enrichment classes to know that year 7 is kind of a mile marker of sorts in a lifelong marriage. (AKA a lot of divorces happen by/at year 7). I recently did some redecorating in our master bedroom and found a great place to put a new piece of bamboo, that will compliment our travel theme great. I am hoping to purchase one soon. So, instead of this year being lucky number 7 I am declaring it our prayer year. I really see how God is growing us in this area. A few months back we began praying together one morning a week. This was a challenge since Jeremy leaves for work so stinkin' early, but it has been such a blessing. At church we are currently focusing on the family and a couple gave a testimony of praying together. We found if very challenging because he has to be at work at 5:30 am. His wife's faithfulness to get up and have prayer time each morning really hit home. I knew God was calling us to make our once a week "good thing" a daily "great thing." So, I am getting acquainted with my husband's world of getting up with the sun. My spirit is willing, but let me confess my flesh is fighting me!! But, I know God is up to things in our life and I think this daily morning prayer time is going to be a part of us discovering his plan for us.

7 Blessings of our Marriage

1-Laughter (We laugh a lot, mostly at Jeremy because he is funny...and sometimes at me because I'm ridiculous.)

2-Balance (I'm amazed more and more how well we compliment each other.)

3-Fun (We still have a whole lot of fun together.)

4-Dreaming (We are beginning to pursue our dream of adoption together-horay!)

5-Ministry (We love to minister together as a team. We are finally back in the saddle again with me assisting Jeremy as he teaches 11-12th grade sunday school and him helping me teach 2-5 year olds one Sunday a month.)

6-Prayer (Just beginning to discover this one.)

7- Challenge (So thankful for the way the deep challenges have cemented us together.)