Like mother, like daughter

Bekah was very adamant that I take a picture of the beautiful flowers that have bloomed on the tree in our front yard. "Mommy! You just HAVE to come see this! The flowers are SO beautiful! Bring your camera!" I guess I'm rubbing off my kids, lol.

The big 3-0

Today I'm turning 30. Ahhhhhh!
And so far today we are doing a lot of this...






...a whole lotta nothin!
We (as in me and Maddie) are fighting colds. See her poofy sick eyes?
But I still got serenated :)...TWICE
I love her. Check it out.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!

Blah, blah blah

I feel like I should blog since I haven't facebook'd in almost 4 weeks. I feel like I'm in isolation or something, lol. I'm going stir crazy. That combined with the fact that spring break has pretty much sucked for us. We all got sick at some point. Bekah and I were hit with a yucky puke bug. That sucker knocked me out for almost a week, thank God it didn't hit her that hard. Then Russel made a little visit to the ER where he found out he has gallstones and pancreatitis, due to some kind of infection. ??? ugh. He meets with his doctor tomorrow for follow up and to find out whether or not he will need to have surgery. Good part of all of that is he's had almost the entire spring break off with us, at home, chilling. Then Bekah's allergies started acting up, or at least i think it was her allergies since she had no other symptoms of a cold. But now Maddie woke up last night with a barky cough out of nowhere so I don't know what on earth that is. And of course the weather still sucks, with a capital S. I am so ready for sunshine and warm weather it's not even funny. I know, I know...you're sick of hearing about it. I'm sick of talking about it. So enough of my griping I guess and onto less depressing topics.

The cherry blossoms are blooming! We had a break in the rain yesterday so we went up to the capital to walk around. It was so cold, so that didn't last very long, but I snapped a few pictures. As usual Maddie didn't care to stop and smile at the camera for me, but Bekah knows what her mama likes.





Ok, yea, that's it. We really have done absolutely NOTHING so I don't even have any pictures to share. Let's hope this blog perks up a lot and soon!

Surviving without Facebook

This is Me.
Well, not literally me, obviously. But the cartoon version of me. If i had to sum it up in a picture, this ones best suited. Thanks Google!



I am surviving. It's really not as hard as I thought it would be, honestly. BUT I'd also be completely lying if I said it didn't suck. I feel very out of touch with my friends and adult interaction is totally lacking in my life right now big time. But...I'm surviving. It'll have been one week tomorrow, only...5 weeks to go. CRAP! Who knew I could live without facebook!

On a happier note, spring is creeping in. I photographed these beauties on the tree in our front yard yesterday morning.




Spring makes me happy. Im dying to get out there and see what else I can find but the weather is still so cruddy! We had one pretty day on Friday, Russel washed his car and the girls rode their bikes and played outside for an hour or so, that was nice.










I'm ready for sunshine and warm weather. Parks and picnics. Walks around the lake and outside exercise. COME ON SPRING TIME!!!

Fasting for Lent

I have never practiced Lent. To be honest I didn't even fully know what it was until two days ago. Where have I been hiding, under a rock? I know. But as of yesterday I am officially fasting facebook for Lent. No facebook... for 40 days....Yeah I know, that's just CRAZY talk! Believe me, no one is more shocked than I did it than myself. It was a completely spur of the moment, impulsive decision I made yesterday morning after I saw a couple of friends taking part in it. "Hey! That's a good idea! I'll fast from facebook too!" Uh...wait..what did I just say? Crap!" Lol. Like I said, I didn't know anything about fasting for Lent. I had no idea that morning I would be clicking off my all time favorite website for 6 whole weeks. And I'd be lying to you if I said I didn't panic and semi-regret it at first. It took me a good 15-20 minutes of staring at my facebook page and mentally talking myself out of doing it, to actually make my decision. Pathetic! Which in turn is why I did it. If something so little as facebook can control you so much, it's time to take a step back.

For awhile now I've been wanting to cut the cord, so to speak. Facebook has become quite the addiction for me. Now I've never done drugs, smoked cigarettes or drank alcohol, so I don't know what it's like to actually have a true addiction. But for me, facebook is as close as I've ever been and I would equate it to crack. I wake up in the morning and after using the rest room and feeding my children it's the first thing I check. I couldn't even tell you how many hours a day I log on that site. As a stay at home mom there is only so much cleaning, cooking, and entertaining of children you can handle before you need something else. And the girls are at the age now where they don't 'need' me as much as they used to. They spend a lot of their day playing together, playing alone, eating, going to school, taking naps, watching tv, and that leaves me...alone. Facebook has become my company, my outlet. A way to keep in touch with the outside world when I don't work and when, for 9+ hours, 5-7 days a week, the only people I talk to are a 3 and 5 year old. It's my way of feeling connected. It's my way of knowing I'm not alone in this hard world of mothering. I keep in touch with old friends through pictures and status updates. I live vicariously through those whose lives are a little more "exciting" than mine. It helps keep these walls from closing in on me. I've come to depend on it very much. So in a way it's become a huge part of my existance, and I don't like that, as innocent as it may be.

Sunday our Pastor talked about Spiritual Disciplines that renew. And I don't know about you but I could use a little renewing. It was a really great sermon and the entire message spoke to me, but two of the disciplines really hit me in the heart. Meditating on God's word and Fasting. It's no big secret that I could use a little more time with God. I've been feeling that for awhile now. I have an amazing relationship with God and I have felt closer to him in this past year than I EVER have. But it's easy to lose sight of him in your day to day. And He should be the one I turn to first thing in the morning before I start my day, not facebook. He should be the one that fulfills me and all my empty places. I left church Sunday stewing over the fact that I needed to make a change, so when Wednesday rolled around and I saw a couple friends abstaining from facebook, I knew that's what I needed to do too.

So wish me luck! Honestly so far it hasn't been as bad as I thought it would, but maybe I'm still in the honeymoon phase. :) More than once I have grabbed for my phone or sat down online without thinking to check my page and then I remembered, I couldn't. And that is kind of a let down. But..I'm surviving!! I plan on spending more time reading my bible and worshiping God, that's still a work in progress. I know I'll get there. Baby steps, right?

Hiatus

Man, it's been awhile since my last post! SORRY! Things have been very uneventful around here and I've been in my normal end of winter funk, which is why I haven't blogged. We've done a LOT of sitting in the house, wishing it would stop raining and get warm enough to play outside. We go to school, we go to church and we have an occasional play date, the end. Life is very routine and like I said...uneventful. But I'm learning to find the joy and the blessings in the every day "mundane" routine events of our days. It's a work in a progress..

The days are starting to be longer and the flowers are starting to peek up from the ground. I saw a cherry blossom blooming yesterday and I got uber excited. I've yet to have a pretty enough to day to get out and explore with my camera, I hope to do that very soon. Until then I will try to play catch up on the happenings since I've been gone.

Bekah is doing really well in school. She loves it and she's reading! Its still so crazy to me that my "baby" can read, and she tries to read EVERYTHING, believe you me. So needless to say, we see a lot of this these days.




Maddie is growing really fast too. She's losing her baby-ness and turning into a kid. I can't believe she'll be 4 this year! She's really smart, she can identify most of her abc's by sight, and numbers too. And the girl LOVES to color. She started drawing people, and I love it!



We had a snow day in February! Just a light layer, but enough to get the girls excited. We (they) got on all their gear and went out to play (after they ran out in their princess dresses first, of course). We had every intention of taking them to the mountains this year to really play in the snow, but that never happened and this is the best they got. We made home made shaved ice with koolaid and snow, they were pretty excited about that too!










Russel's chugging away at school. Spring break is upon us so he's pretty happy to get a little break. Between work, commuting to Portland 5 days a week, two college classes, church and then we can't forget guard, he stays so busy and he's ready to just relax for a couple weeks.

And...that's about it. I told you, not much to talk about at all. Here's a few more recent (random) pictures to hold you over. And you know I'm in a funk when I barely take pictures. Ugh. Come on spring!!!!

We had a cold come through our house, here's Bekah sick on the couch enjoying her popsicle and cartoons. :)



Sweet sisters that very obviously love eachother although they fight...constantly..






My Maddie and her silly, scrunchy face smile that I love so much!




The girls got bunk beds-woo hoo!








Emily does a LOT of this! Lazy cat...lol




Bekah rockin' out my old sweater when I was about her age




And the beautiful view we've been blessed with, right outside our back door



I plan to sign the girls up for swimming lessons this month, so stay tuned for that post! They have no idea so they will be so excited.