Sunday, December 20, 2009

UPDATE: first week of the 12 days of christmas...

when we first started 'the 12 days of christmas' i was so excited that God was using our family to bless this homeless family, i had no idea the huge blessing that i would recieve. yesterday as we were dropping our meal off to them the middle boy ran up to me and gave me a huge hug, he then grabbed isaiah's hand and they took off. i was so blessed and filled with joy! then the husband told us that they wanted to join a bible study and start going to church. we haven't witnessed to them yet but we have just been showering them with love and friendship, and by God's grace Gods love has been shining through us. i feel so humbled and blessed that God is using us. THEN....remember how i said in my last post that i was hesitant at first cause we don't have alot of money right now, and how God told me HE doesn't need my money.....well, today he showed me even more that he is the ULTIMATE provider. two families came up to me today and gave me money and giftcards for gas and groceries!! isn't that awesome!! today at church our pastor was talking about mary and how God's plan made no sense to her, it was confusing and impossible. but she was obedient. that is how i feel right now. at first we were a little hesitant and even a little confused by what God was asking us to do. there were some things that happened that made us question if we were doing the right thing. but we put all that aside and just walked in obedience with what God was calling us to do despite our reservations. thank you God for blessing this family and for blessing us!

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

the 12 days of christmas..

two years ago (october) seth lost his job. he was out of work for 4 months. it was a very hard time for us but we made it. by God's amazing grace we had family and friends supporting us financially, and emotionally. one family (who still to this day is anonymous) did something a.ma.zing. the 12 days leading up to christmas they would leave something on our doorstep. every morning we would wake up and a present would be waiting. the kids LOVED IT!! we were so blessed. we always said that when things got better for us we would do that for someone that was in need. well, it's 2 years later and things are better but not huge where we have tons of money to give away. seth does have a job, actually owns his own business now, but we still live paycheck to paycheck and every week we get on our knees praying for God to provide. but as i look on my life and everything i have i am so RICH! praise God we live paycheck to paycheck, atleast we have a paycheck to live on. i have a house, healthy kids, medical insurance, 2 cars, a refrigerator full of food, cable ect...i could go on and on. anyway, i felt like i was waiting until we were wealthy for us to be able to help someone. God stopped that way of thinking real fast and i am so glad he did. who am i anyway, he doesn't need my money to help someone, he just needs me listening and willing to follow HIM. so, this year w/out alot of money we have commited to helping a family in need for 12 days (just as that anonymous family did for us). a few weeks ago we were talking to the kids about the importance of giving and how we wanted our focus this christmas to not be about us and our needs. we told them how we wanted to help someone out for 12 days. they were very excited. smooshie mentioned a family that we had seen in the stater bros. parking lot a few months ago (surprised he remembered) , a family of five living in their car. with much enthusiasm he says "let's buy them a house!!", how sweet the heart of a child. i told him we couldn't buy them a house but we could provide them with food and necessities and hopefully some toys for christmas. so as a family we prayed and all agreed that this would be the family we would help. i was talking to a friend a few days later and she said she wanted to help to. after a few people hearing about it we now have 4 families and a friend helping. so from dec. 13th-dec. 25th we are doing something for them every day. not only are we providing them food and shelter (helping pay for a motel) but we are praying and hoping that they will see the light of Jesus through us. just last night a friend of our's gave us some money for no reason. my first thought was , hmm.. what can i buy with this, and then God knocked me upside the head :) and i realized i should give it away. that was God's way of providing so we could use it for the family. we were able to get them 4 nights in a motel for the week of christmas. they will have a bed and a shelter for christmas, i am so excited :) praise be to God for all of his provisions!! i am not writing this to be prideful and to show what an amazing family we are, far from it. God has humbled me in ways i could never imagine. i don't naturally have a heart for the homeless, and giving is actually very hard for me to do. i am smart with our money almost to a fault where i get stingy with it. i am so blessed though that God has called our family to do this. he always uses the weak , right?? and that is DEFINATLEY us. we are walking in blind faith being obedient to what God has called us as a family to do. this year has been a HUGE year of obedience and trust for us and i am excited to keep living in faith and trusting in God almighty.

"we know what real love is because Jesus gave up his life for us. so we also ought to give up our lives for our brother's and sister's. if someone has enough money to live well and sees a brother or sister in need but shows no compassion- how can God's love be in that person" 1john 3:16-17

Wednesday, December 09, 2009

thanksgiving...

we took our annual family trip to tuscon for thanksgiving. what a blessing to spend the week with all our family.we did a ton of fun stuff while we were there. we went to old tucson, pima county air museum, and pinnacle peaks.











every year after we eat we all take a walk down to the wash. we have been doing this since i was a baby!! it's so fun to be carrying on these traditions with my kids now :) i think this is the first year we have ever gotten a picture of all of us down at the wash. i decided to use my timer on my camera! why didn't we think of that before?



thank you sissy and uncle jerry for being such gracious and generous hosts. we love you!!





Thursday, November 19, 2009

girls just wanna......

i just got back from an amazing cruise with *15 girls* for vern's bachelorette party. to say i had fun would be an understatement. it was truly amazing. i can't even explain to you how amazing cause you just had to be there. i was trying to tell seth all about it... all the inside jokes..everything...it didn't make sense to him. :) for those of you that know vern you know that she has a wild imagination and is super fun. so as part of the cruise we had themed nights. the first night was *rainbow night* and we all wore one color head to toe. the second night was *80's prom*, and the third we all wore *matching shirts* that vern and gina made us.
me and the soon to be bride vern. we have been friends since we were 7! how amazing is that?


all the colors of the rainbow


michelle and i -gray and jade :)

on saturday the cruise took port in ensenada mexico. we went to papa's and beer for drinks. it was CRAZY there.


saturday night was 80's prom. people kept coming up and taking pictures with us.


this is gina and the lurker...we gave him that name cause every night while we were dancing he would stand around us and just kind of lurk..


on saturday night after getting in at 4am (i guess it was sunday morning then, huh?) i decided to order room service. at 10 am they knocked on our door with A TON of food. i guess i ordered too much. ha ha ha! btw..this was only for 5 people :)



sunday afternoon we threw a bachelorette party for vern. we all wore these matching shirts. as part of the party everyone was supposed to bring vern a brand new pair of underwear. you couldn't write your name on the card cause we wanted her to guess who had given her the underwear. by the end of the game gina thought it would be a good idea if we wore the underwear that we had given vern on our head. so that's what we did ............
at dinner this lady from kentucky came up to us with the strongest southern accent and said "can i take my picture with you? i'm from kentucky and i've never seen anything like this."
ha ha so funny!!
thanks girls for a beyond amazing weekend!! and thanks vern for getting married :)




Monday, November 09, 2009

M3......(manly man mondays)

i haven't done a m3 post in awhile. not because i haven't had anything to write but because i haven't been very good at blogging . so today will be a m3 monday :)

seth has been working VERY HARD at work so today i wanted to pray for him and give him to the lord.

"lord, i lift seth up to you. i give him and his business fully to you. wrap your loving arms around him and give him the encouragement he needs. i pray that you would give me the strength to encourage him and to give him to you every day. i pray that you would bless him for all his hard work and dedication. i pray that he would continue to trust in you alone and to follow your will. lord, i pray for clients and i pray that he continues to stay busy. when he starts to feel stressed i pray that you would take it from him. this is your business father, not our's. we want your will to be done. praise you for your faithfullness, amen"

october....

*disclaimer*
this is a VERY long post. i haven't posted in awhile so instead of doing 5 different posts i lumped them all into one 'october post'
i love this picture. mainly because of the awesome robe. you see, isaiah got a bunch of target gift cards for this bday. one day he and i went shopping so he could spend some of his money. one of this first things he picked out was this comfy robe. i thought it was so cute that a 10 year old boy would buy a robe with his bday money. another awesome thing he did with his money was he bought he and his brother their halloween costumes. he did this all on his own just because he wanted to. :)
october has been REALLY busy. a few weeks back i took a girls trip up to san francisco to run it the nike women's half marathon. i went up with vern and dai and stayed with our friend angie. it was so much fun! the race had 20,000 women in it so there were ALOT of women in the city :)
(dai and i in front of the expo)

after our run on sunday we did a little sight seeing. it was so funny watching us walk up this hill. we were all so sore from the race, and i had a hurt knee :(..these are the famous houses in san fran that they show in the opening credits of "full house". i have always wanted to see these houses, they were beautiful!!


(angie, me, vern)
this is us at the bottom of that windey street in san fran. people actually live on this street. isn't that crazy?? can you imagine living on a touristy street.


tj joined cub scouts last month and is LOVING it. he and seth do it together which is so fun for tanner and a great way for seth to spend some one on one time with him. a few weeks ago they had a field trip to our local firestation. seth couldn't go since he was working so me and the boys walked there with tanner. we had a private tour of the fire station.
this is his little cub scout troop. aren't they cute??





every year when we get our wild river's pass they give us a one day pass to lego land. it was expiring at the end of october so we decided to use our pass before they expired. we went with the griggs family (aunt, uncle, cousins) and grandma cindy and craig.





smooshie had a halloween parade at school a couple days before halloween. it is so cute cause all the boys went to pre-school at mrs. b's and have all done the parade. i can't believe this was my last one to watch :( smooshie is in the top left corner holding his fingers like a gun.

every year old town orange hold the annual "treats in the streets". the circle closes down the streets and all the kids go trick or treating through all the shops in the circle.


the family at treats in the streets


the week of halloween was pretty crazy. all three boys had halloween parties at school, treats in the streets, and an award assembly.
isaiah's teacher surprised him with the "art award" he was so excited, and we were very proud of him.

tanner and his best friend peter. they were both 'snake eyes'

also the week of halloween the boys had minimum days for the whole week. it was nice having them out by 12:15 every day. one of the days we went to irvine park to go to the pumpkin patch.





halloween night..
indiana jones, army guy, and snake eyes
we had our 2nd annual halloween party. they boys had a blast bobbing for apples.

tanner got really into it :)



**so that was our october, very busy, but very fun!! we have a super busy november too. hopefully i will stay more on top of blogging this month :)**
















Wednesday, October 14, 2009

a big family...

*thank you LORD for this..*
growing up it was always just the 4 of us; dad, mom, me, and katie. sadly we weren't very close to our granparents and my amazing aunt sissy lived 8 hours away. most holidays were spent with just us. don't get me wrong i LOVE my family and the memories we have, but as a litle girl i always longed for a big close family. God has blessed me with 3 wonderful boys and my sister with a boy and a girl and now our little family of 4 is a big family of 11! christmas is so fun and every year all 11 of us go to tucson to be spend thanksgiving with my aunt. what a huge blessing! thank you Lord for my family.

Monday, October 12, 2009

crystal cove hike...

on saturday all three boys played their soccer games at 9am. so after their games we had the whole day free. it was a beautiful day out so we decided to go on a hike in crystal cove.
















Sunday, October 11, 2009

pumpkin patch..

last week smoosh and i went on a play date to the pumpkin patch. it was pretty special cause it was just boys and they were smooshie's friends.
(not his brothers, this is very rare!)
we had a blast. :)



cub scout...

tj started cub scouts last week. he is in a den with some of his best buddies. he was so excited to put on the uniform for his first den meeting. i don't think there is anything cuter then a 7 year old boy in a cub scout uniform :)

Monday, October 05, 2009

M3......(manly man mondays)

for my m3 post today isaiah is going to write about what a great dad seth is :)...

"dad always wrestles with us at night. i can talk to him about spongebob and starwars. and my mom has no idea what we are talking about. i can quote movies with him. we are both really good at that. he watches 'band of brothers' with me. i love world war 2. he teaches me how to surf even though i get mad at him. he always goes on indiana jones with me at disneyland. thanks for a wonderful dad you are and for making all the money"

:)

Friday, October 02, 2009

disneyland birthday...

for isaiah's bday this year we let the boys ditch school to have a family day at disneyland. of course our morning had to start with our tradition of a bday donut :)they had the park all decked out for halloween. even though it was a wed. at the end of september, it was still super crowded. isaiah kept wondering if everyone was ditching school. and i was wondering if anyone works?? ha ha!
it was super fun just spending the day with the five of us.

the birthday boy wanted 'rainforest cafe' for his bday dinner so we went took the monerail over to downtown disney for some dinner. we made it back just in time for the awesome halloween firework show.

we had a great day celebrating isaiah!
**happy birthday**




Wednesday, September 30, 2009

double digits!!...

*happy 10th birthday isaiah* in honor of 10 wonderful years and hitting the milestone of never again being a single digit age i want to let everyone know 10 reasons that you are so great (i know i could do more then 10 but since it is your 10th bday and all :).....
1. you have a HUGE heart
2. you are an amazing artist and are passionate about it. (i have never in my life seen someone draw as much as isaiah. he does it the second he wakes up, when we are in the car, after homework, after bath.)
3. you have an awesome style. i love your fashion sense :)
4. you LOVE your brothers. they are your best friends
5. you share your feelings and are very open with me.
6. you LOVE God and know what it means to have a relationship with him
7. you love to read (especially about world war 2), along w/ your art book you always have a book you are reading (and i don't even have to make you)
8. you are so social and will talk to anyone. you make friends very easily.
9. you are smart and funny (i know that's two )
10. you still love dressing up and playing make believe even though you are 10. i love this about you :)
**isaiah i love you so much and am so happy
that God blessed us with you.
you are an amazing son, brother, and friend.
happy birthday**

Thursday, September 17, 2009

first day of preschool..

on tuesday my baby started preschool. i know he's not a baby since he is 5, BUT he is MY baby! i always dreaded the day that all my kids would be in school. i am so not ready for this part of my life. i have had someone home with me for the past 10 years. this all came way to fast!everyone kept asking me if i cried. well, i didn't because i volunteered to work in his class this week. ha ha! so i was there both days for the whole 3 hours. :) so next week I KNOW i will cry. some people like when their kids are at school, but i don't. i think that's why i love summer so much. we are all home and i love it.
even though i was with him, smooshie did great at school and loved it. the teacher even commented on how much he smiles. he is just so happy and loves feeling like the big boys. i have to let him grow up. *sigh*