bay beach

this past weekend we went to bay beach. bay beach is a local-ish amusement park to us. it's super duper cheap (we're talking 25-50 cents a ride!) and we had a blast. shaun's sister and his cousin's daughter (who is right around the girls' age) came. and we had our friend's two little ones as well, because their momma was having a baby. it was our own party at bay beach! here are some fun pictures from the day...

the girls walking in...i LOVE this picture.

 all eight kiddos. ( we had one 7 year old, one 6 year old, two 5 year olds, one 4 year old. one 3 year old. one 2 year old. and one *almost* 2 year old)

 enjoying rides...

 shaun and kimberly were awesome at taking the kiddos all down this slide. i don't like heights at all, so i was fine with watching the six kiddos waiting!!

we truly had a blessed day together. it always brings so much joy to see the look of fun and laughter on our kids' faces.

wordless wednesday {sno-cones}

*just a note...evaleigh DID have her own. but dropped it within SECONDS of my buying it. breigh was nice enough to share hers, because i was not nice enough to buy her a new one. she was told to sit in the stroller, and didn't. and the result of the disobedience was the consequence of dropping the sno-cone. i have a feeling next time, she'll sit in the stroller. :)

be sure to enter the giveaway!!

GIVEAWAY!! Child Training Bible

giveaway now CLOSED!! congrats to comment number 63. kelsey allenstein, who won the giveaway!! :)



i can NOT begin to tell you how excited i am about this review and giveaway!!

what am i review AND giving away?! well, i'm glad you asked it is this

and that is the child training bible!!

the child training bible is awesome! it was designed by a homeschooling momma of four. here is what it says on the site::

  I love the Word of God and I desperately desire to use more Scripture in training up my

children for the Lord.  There are many moments throughout the day that I want to speak a word of truth to direct my children.   I have tried biblical child training charts, verses on notecards plastered on the refrigerator and Bible memorization.  In all my efforts it seemed that something was missing, something that I now realize is absolutely essential.

I must give my children a physical experience with the Holy Word of God.

They must see the Bible.  Open the Bible.  Become familiar with the text of the Bible.

Whenever there is a problem, I want to train my children to immediately run to the Lord, seek His Words, and allow His truth to saturate the situation.

Going to the Scripture chart on the fridge is…good.  Using Scripture notecards in my pocket during the day is…good.  Bible memorization is also very good. 

Opening the very Word of God is…the best!

i have to say. reading that...totally speaks MY own heart. child training Bible takes SCRIPTURE and deals with issues that can arise during parenting (and heck, even in my own life) along with sharing the gospel. here is some more info from the site::

      The Child Training Bible is tool that allows parents and children (and anyone that loves the Word of God) to go directly to the pages of Scripture for instruction in 20 key areas with a complete section dedicated to the gospel. 

The CTB was designed with Colossians 3:9-10 in mind.  “You have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self.”  The Scriptures selected for the CTB teach why we are to “put off” certain behavior and what godly behavior we are to “put on” instead.

The front key of the CTB is a visual index of the areas that Scripture teaches us to “put off.”  These areas correspond to color-coded tabs and highlighted text.  CTB Scriptures address both negative and positive responses with the emphasis on Jesus Himself, His perfect life as an example and gift to us.

To make a Child Training Bible you will use the CTB charts that include over 200 Scripture references, heart and gospel questions, and sample prayers.

Make a CTB for your family to have Scripture accessible and central in your home.

so now that you know a little about what "they" say about their product...what do i say?

well, i love it. plain and simple. as a parent i'm checking out "parenting" books when i see them, but have never found one i absolutely loved. or pertained fully to my needs. using the child training Bible...is brilliant! because when an issue comes up, we can look at what God's word says, not what some author thinks. brilliant. seriously!! and really the benefit is not only for children, it's also for the parent. because God's word applies to EVERYONE!! not just kids. not just adults, it applies to ALL of us. 

the price point on the child training Bible cards is $9. so a great price for a great resource!

after buying the cards, you will then need a 6x9 Bible, and seven different colors of highlighters and post it flags. i found mine at office max. and honestly, the highlighters were the most expensive out of the lot. ((but with school supplies hitting shelves soon, you may be able to find a deal!)) you can also find links on their site.

amelya and breigh have been enjoying going through the Bible with me. i have only had it put together for a few days, but wanted to post the review and giveaway NOW! we've gone through issues that they've been dealing with and it was so nice to see what GOD said about the issue, not just what momma or daddy said. it's opened up some really great conversation with them. i want to implement this in our family as a Bible study, and am super excited to do so!

i also love that it shares the gospel clearly. and right. it's a good way to explain the gospel to anyone, and if you're not confident in sharing...this makes you confident and makes it easy!

it does take quite awhile to make up the Bible. there are over 200 scriptures that you'll highlight and tab in your Bible. but the time is SO worth the end result. i took mine in the car when we drove to church and worked on it. and then worked on it during nap time/after the kids went to bed. 

child training Bible also offers bulk discount! the Lord really has laid it on my heart to do a workshop with these. so i'm gathering together as many people who are interested to place a bulk order and spend a night or a day doing them together. it's great fellowship and a great tool to take home. i also have a friend who doesn't have little ones anymore, but is making one for her daughter and daughter-in-law as gifts. i'm really excited about this! seriously, if you could see me right now you would gag at the smile and excitement in my eyes. ;)

child training Bible put together a great video tutorial on how to put together the Bible. it helped me out, i just wanted to be sure i was doing it right. :) 

i'm not sure if i've said it already, but i LOVE this product. ;)

now...what you have all been waiting for!! GIVEAWAY TIME!!!

MANDATORY ENTRY::

leave a comment telling me your favorite Bible verse.

EXTRA ENTRIES:: (please leave a separate comment for each entry)

like child training Bible on facebook.

like "popp"ing out one letter at a time on facebook.

be a follower of...or become a follower of "popp"ing out one letter at a time. 

the giveaway will be open until JULY 5th at MIDNIGHT CST.

child training Bible sent me the cards to review. all opinions expressed are mine.

short..but so sweet.

first off, the giveaway ends today if you haven't entered yet, GO DO SO! :)

this weekend a dear friend of mine had a baby. so i'll just leave you with a sweet picture of him. he seriously made my uterus ache. it is the FIRST time since having evaleigh a baby has done so. i think i'm in trouble...there are two more of my close friends having babies in our church. and then another friend. and i can think of two more...

sorry to keep this so short. we had a busy weekend. and i'm beat. :)

getting prepared.

the picture above is *most* of the books we'll need for unit one of tapestry of grace. and of course unit one of tapestry. i ordered the books required for the unity from half price books, and saved a lot of money. my goal is to get into the half price books near us and check for the rest of the units.

i'm so excited to start school. i think we'll be starting in a few weeks. my goal is two weeks. we've also been enjoying our summer, and have been pretty busy. when we start i think it'll be a slower paced start til fall. i'm really just so thankful for God providing the finances for the curriculum and the books. i love the way He works it all out.

we'll be starting year one of tapestry of grace ((i bought the Tapestry of Grace/Digital Edition: Year 1)) within each year there are four different levels, you just decide where to place your child. it's either lower grammar. upper grammar. rhetoric. or dialect. so i'll have caitlyn and breigh in lower grammar, and i'm starting out amelya in upper and we'll see how it goes. i only ordered student sheets for breigh for lower grammar and figured i can wing it with caitlyn. she'll be 5 on the 6th of september, so technically i have an entire two years to get through K with her. BUT i know she's "ready" for 'formal' schooling, so i love the beauty of homeschooling and i can start her whenever i want.

*sigh* seriously staring at the picture gets me all giddy. :) God has truly given me the joy of homeschooling my kiddos. i'm really excited to see what this year brings for us. the first three weeks are all about egypt, and i'm super excited about learning along with the kids. it seems i learn about things i never even remembered learning to begin with.

tapestry does a much better job of explaining their year one, and all their products. so i encourage you to check them out. they also give you three weeks free! i love that part, it's honestly that, that got me sold on it. just click the picture for more info. :)



**i will also let you know that i am an affiliate with TOG, so if you purchase through the links, i'll get some credit for it. this is not the purpose for this post. and i don't care if you buy it through me or not. i just thought i should let you know!  i just wanted to share the 'giddiness' of my love for homeschooling with you all!**

wordless wednesday

we live in the country. and i love it, most days. today is one of those days. even with 95 degree weather we had a beautiful breeze and it didn't feel hot out at all. the kids, enjoyed it as well. :)

success!!

our rummage sale was a success!! it went super well! don't mind miss evaleigh crying in the picture. she was super crabby that day. in fact she had a fever one of the days of the sale and THANKFULLY my sister in law (who is my parent's neighbor) came over and then took her home and hung out/napped with evaleigh. then on saturday i noticed she had hand foot and mouth disease. THAT explained the fever and crabby baby! she's doing much better after that. 

i was selling two of my baby carriers in the sale and sold one of them! ((i still have a sakura bloom ring sling to sell!)) and in the meantime got great use out of my ergo carrier. dustin hung out in it for a little while one day. and the day evaleigh was crabby (*sick) she was much better in the ergo! aren't they cute!

 it was a successful sale, like i mentioned. and i absolutely had fun making the day of many people. there was a little girl who was SO ecstatic about a dora outfit. and then a boy who acted like the teddy bear he found was the BEST thing he's ever seen. and even better i loved seeing some of my favorite outfits go to good homes. in fact, the next day after buying something, a girl stopped over just to show me a picture of her daughter in the dress she bought. it was SO much fun to see. i seriously got all giddy about it. and i gushed over every outfit that someone bought that was my favorite, people probably think i'm crazy!! ;)

one day on the way to the sale breigh brought her baby. her baby was safely buckled into the front seat. ((of course we do not recommend this with REAL LIFE babies)) it was just sweet. and it totally fits my breigh. :)

here's a sweet picture of miss evaleigh. it was fairly warm each day, so she enjoyed some water to cool off.

AND...praise GOD!! it rained on saturday! it's been so dry here. and awful dry. so we were so excited to see water falling from the sky! shaun even called me to ask me if i saw it was raining. our crops needed it. our lawn needed it. everything needed it! and the kids LOVED playing in the rain!!
 
a friend from college was there when it was raining and all of them enjoyed playing together. it was so fun to catch up with friends who made it to the sale. seriously, those things made me more excited than making money at the sale!

it was also fun hanging out with my sister for the week. the kids all had fun playing together and we had fun chatting and helping each other with the sale. it was a blessed week...but i was sure glad when it was over! rummage sales are a lot of work!

a sweet giveaway

GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED!!
** CONGRATS TO COMMENT NUMBER ONE, PICKED BY RANDOM.ORG, STEPHANIE!!**


did you know this is my 600th post?! crazy, huh?

in celebration of my 600th post...i thought i'd post a giveaway. because really...who doesn't like free.

the giveaway...and review is sponsored by my friend shannon, who runs and owns...

i met shannon at church. we bonded over the fact that we had petunia pickle bottom diaper bags and that we cloth diapered. she approached me to see if i'd be interested in doing a review and giveaway on my blog. i happily agreed!!

sadly, shannon recently moved away...so i waited to post this until she was settled and ready to go again. :)

my review is for a wet bag. i LOVE wet bags. i choose a girly print, because now that i only have one in diapers and it's a girl...i can go all girly. and really...i'm a girl, so i go girly more often than not. the girly pattern shannon made me my wetbag from was SO cute...see:

i don't have  picture of the wetbag, it's dirty in my diaper laundry. but trust me. it's simply adorable.

and it's simply amazing. i used it when i had the two in diapers yet...and even though it was a "small" wetbag...it held 4 diapers...and could've held more. ((i really stuff my diapers in the bag. if you don't, you may find that you would not get that many in)) and not only did it hold the diapers. it held IN the smell. dustin had a super nasty number 2 and i was thoroughly impressed with the "non-smell" of the bag when i got home with it. 

i also love that you can use wetbags for not only cloth diapers...but for wet clothes. swim suits. messy clothes. just about anything you'd want really. 

i'm sure you'd like one now too. right? well you're blessed to know...that shannon is going to give one of you a wetbag too! woo hoo!!

 shannon is not only a wetbag maker...she truly is a gifted sewer. and knitter...i saw her at the knitting workshop just going to town. 

she has a super cute dress listed on hyena cart.

how to enter to win a wetbag!

MANDATORY ENTRY::

leave a comment. let's make it fun...if you were given $600 (because it's my 600th post) and you had to spend it on YOU...what would you do with it?

((my answer...i would do a spa day for sure. and go all out. and spend it all there. ;) ))

EXTRA ENTRIES:

please leave a comment for each entry

like sweet panda boutique on facebook

like "popp"ing out one letter at a time on facebook

this giveaway will be open until midnight CST on 

MONDAY JUNE 25th

shannon was awesome to provide me with a wetbag to review. all opinions are my own.

happy father's day.

to all of you daddies. although i'm assuming it's mostly mommies who are reading this. if you happen to be a daddy, i'd love to know. :)
happy father's day to MY dad...((who i don't have a recent picture of, so thanks to my sister i got one off of her facebook. that is my goofy niece aryssa and my dad))

 and to the daddy to my babies...

and a simple reminder of the one, who is our father...God. on this father's day i'm thankful for the love of my earthly dad. my husband. and for the love of my Heavenly Father and Savior.

normal.

as the second oldest breigh saw a lot of this...

nursing babies. 

and it was normal. it is normal. and why wouldn't you nurse your baby while trying to do this

((the girls wanted to sell water at the rummage sale and decided to give all proceeds to the church's building funds. speaking of the sale, it runs today and tomorrow morning, if you need a cool bottle of water!))

nursing is a natural thing that was never hidden around the kids. i never went and hid to nurse when we were places. i just fed the baby. so even though my nursing days are long gone...i love the lasting impression it left on my babies. :)

6 years ago..

to my breigh.

i can NOT believe you're six!! how can you be six already?! but alas, you are. i can't stop time, or you from growing up. so happy birthday my breigh-breigh!!

you are growing up so fast, and each day i see the tender heart God has given you. the servant's heart towards babies and little ones. it is like there is magnet in your heart pulling you towards any little baby. you love wednesday night church because you have a 'job' to take care of the little babies in the nursery. and the babies love you. keep that sweet heart of yours and you'll always feel blessed by the love you have for little ones and the love they give you. even though evaleigh tries to use it to her advantage...i love seeing her love you so much. she will go by you when she's been disciplined and mad at me. ((which we have found a balance in!)) and she is always so excited to see you, and sit by you, and talk to you.

i love watching you play and giggle. your giggle is so contagious. it does not matter how i'm feeling, when i hear that giggle...it just brightens my day. right alone with that little smirk you give. or the eyes you make. you're full of so much emotion and joy radiates off of you.

the love i already see you have for Jesus, blesses my socks off. you love to sing and dance and your favorite song remains to be "God's not dead". i love that you are not ashamed (which we shouldn't be) to sing to Jesus, sing about Jesus, talk about Jesus and share Jesus with others. The joy of the Lord is hidden in your heart, don't EVER let it leave!! i love that you always find the good in people, at least twice a day you tell me "that person showed kindness by....." your perspective is one that more should have.

i'm so proud at how far you've come in school this past year. it's amazing to me how much you've learned and grew in just a year. i am so proud at your reading skills. your awesome math talent, and just everything! i'm so glad and blessed to be your teacher!

as you enter into "two hands needed for age" remember you'll still always be my baby. my lap will never be too small for you. my heart always holds you. and i love you. serve Jesus. love Jesus and hold on tight to Him and life won't seem so crazy. because even as much as i love you...He loves you all the more. i love you baby girl! forever and always.

love.
your momma

not little forever

our babies are not little forever. so when dustin wakes up early to go to the potty...i have no problems with this...

him in our bed after. :)

we are not co-sleepers. we do have our little ones in our room for awhile (in a pack and play next to our bed). i think on average they stayed in our room at least 13-14 months. amelya was the shortest in our room for no reason other than we decided to move her. for the rest it was "ease".

the kids are allowed to come in our beds during storms, or bad dreams or what have you. but we choose to not make it a habit of every night. we have a queen sized bed, and honestly...i hog it. i don't want to share it with anyone other extra people. and you know, it's okay. AND it's okay if you choose to safely co-sleep with your little ones. :) i also have a rule, if anyone gets up after daddy goes to work, they have free reign to come in bed with me.

for me it comes down to realizing they are not little forever. that there IS going to come a point that i won't have to help dustin go potty and that he won't want to come in bed with me. or that there will come a point that they aren't going to want to cuddle all up on your lap. so i'm choosing to enjoy these precious moments.

these precious moments that are all too fleeting.

because honestly watching him sleep (or even any of the girls...) makes my heart swell with overflowing blessing.  i could stare at them forever while they sleep.

rummage.

i LOVE rummage sales.
i love being able to find good deals on good clothes. with five little ones it's impossible to cloth them all with BRAND new clothing. so i love being able to find like new clothing for cheap at rummage sales. it's even a bigger blessing when i get to have "first dibs" and go through things early...my friend let me do this last week, i made a haul!

even better. this was all under $100. most of the clothes are from children's place. i LOVE their jeans, so i was excited to get a lot of jeans. and there is a columbia zip up fleece. and tons of cute shirts. i think i only need to find a few more dresses and amelya is all set for awhile. :) seriously this is such a great deal!! 

so now, this week...i'm hoping to give others a good deal. :) i'll be setting up for a rummage sale. i'm so thankful my sister is a stay at home momma now, because she's coming to help me set up. i'm doing it at my parent's house, so if you have little girls...message me or leave a comment with your email...and i can get you the address. it's mostly girls' clothes. with some baby boy. and my parent's house is actually for sale, so if you're looking for a sweet little home...you'd be set! i've done a sale the past two years, so i'm looking forward to doing another one this year. it's fun to get some extra spending money. :)

the girls are wanting to do their own sale, so i'm thinking about how to work that out with them. i think it'd be a good way to teach them about money. and it's math. so it's school!

hope you all have a good week. i'm going to try to have some scheduled posts, since i've been pretty decent at this blogging thing lately...

boot camp

i woke up on monday to this...

pretty. isn't it? it was also 5AM. like MORNING time. i didn't hardly know there WAS a five AM. ;)

i woke up early, all for the sake of working out. i'd be lying if i didn't say i've been slacking on working out for quite awhile. when i was in california i realized just how chubby i must look, as i was talking with someone at the baby shower about my five kids and she said,"and is this number six?" 

i was so ashamed of myself. i awkwardly said nope, we're done. and will never forget the feeling of how fat i felt. and apparently looked. when i realized after i got home from california, that i had gained TWENTY pounds in the past year. i was ashamed once more. TWENTY pounds. i felt disgusting. awful. gross. honestly, i felt so gross, i didn't even CARE for a few weeks. 

then i decided. enough is enough. and started eating better. cutting out ALL soda (we don't buy it at home, but i'll have it when we go out). cutting out a few sundaes a week. shaun and i love ice cream after the kids go to bed. and other better habits.

this week, i started boot camp. it's once a week from 530-615AM and this week was great. my sister in law, and my cousin and a few other people i know are taking the class too. it was fun to work out in a group setting. and despite being a little sore, it was FUN. i am actually looking FORWARD to waking up at 445 next monday morning! i've been trying to do some exercise (usually turbo fire) other days as well. i give myself wednesdays off.  (or one other day)

tuesday i took the kids to the track. evaleigh was crabbier than all get out...so after a mile of me walking and her getting madder at that point...i decided to grab the carrier and put her on my back. then she was happier than happier can be...see...

i LOVE my ergo. :) i walked another mile with her on my back. thankfully the ergo is comfortable and the other kids were great. they practiced their biking skills. shaun's sisters also came down for a little while. so it was nice to having walking partners and help getting the kid's bikes back up the hill when we were finished.

so, this time...i mean it. i'm going to lose the weight i gained. and the weight i wanted to lose last year. so in total about 35 pounds. i'm so mad at myself for letting "me" get like this. i should only have the 15 to lose. and really should have LOST it already! but i can't dwell on that. so i keep moving forward, and the next time i take a picture i hopefully won't have that almost double chin look. 

and i post this, to be real. not for you to tell me how "good" i look, don't feel fat, you aren't fat. because truthfully saying those things, won't change how i feel about myself. because i do "feel" fat. and it's changing my heart, mind and body to love myself again. because i'm worth loving. :)

worth it.

i'd be lying if i didn't struggle with feeling worth it. and over the past few months i've had harder times feeling that way...then i heard this song...

...and i realized i AM worth it. i AM someone worth DYING for.

praying that you too, realize that YOU are worth dying for.

rambling post warning!!

the past few weeks have been so busy! i have done a lot of "scheduling posts" it makes it much easier to at least post here and there, and i suppose saves you all from reading my normal rambling posts. lol.

but alas, i have some time....so a rambling i go. ;)

i've really been busy with church things the past few weeks. a few months ago i volunteered to plan our church picnic with two of my close friends. i'm such a LAST minute planner, so it was crazy for me to plan way ahead of time...okay "way" is not true, it was about two to three weeks ahead of time that we really planned it all. it was so fun to get some "girl time" while planning and a play date to make the pinatas for the picnic...truth be told, it wasn't as easy as we thought...we had a casualty and ended up just buying them.

it was so fun to have such an opportunity to serve the church in this way. there wasn't a huge opportunity to serve at our other church, so this was so much fun. we came from a very small fellowship before and i guess maybe there wasn't as much of a need, or the need wasn't shared. i don't truly know. at any rate, it's such a blessing to be able to serve. the picnic went super well. we planned a carnival theme, complete with cotton candy, games and pie throwing. we had a silent auction as well and we were able to raise some money to put towards our building funds. our church is looking at purchasing a property and we wanted to help out towards that. i seriously underestimated the "draw" to the pie throwing, we ran out of pies before we ran out of money towards them. next time...more whipped cream!

and now that the church picnic planning is done...i'm taking a part in planning a VBS! i'm super excited about it.  i have always had a heart for teaching children. there is just something about it that blesses me beyond words that i can express. i enjoy finding lessons to teach. planning out the crafts. the songs. the everything. at our other church we were teaching every other week for awhile and even though it was mostly our kids with a few others, i loved it. a decision was made to remove the children's ministry aspect of our church a few months before we left. so we attempted to quietly entertain our five littles and get some sort of message. it was a very hard thing to do. in the end, we were not being fed at all and our kids could not handle sitting for such a long period of time and being quiet. we kept attending the church and prayed about what to do (each of us take turns skipping church and staying home with the kids, keep doing what we were doing, find a new church, etc) we attended a church after a date night. and our prayers were truly answered. i can't explain it, but when we walked through the doors and after we left the church, it was like home to us. we knew it was an answer to our prayer and have been attending since. it helped the first week we attended that we just had evaleigh with us. shaun got the  message in the sanctuary and i got most of the message in the mom's room.

i say most, because really...when we get a bunch of moms...women...in a room together, you are not going to have complete silence. but being fed whilst being in a room of women, i knew that it would work. looking back now at the season of life i was in when we first started attending the vine, i am so thankful for that mom's room. i truly was not only craving being fed the word of God, but friends. i was feeling very alone at the time. ((i also know a lot of the alone feeling was brought on by myself, not because i was truly alone)) but it was the friendships that i made while in that mom's room, that have blessed me long past my time in there. because it's only a season. after the season of a nursing baby...we moved to the season of serving in the children's ministry.

serving in the children's ministry has also blessed us so much. shaun was a bit nervous at first, but i love watching him with the kids. he genuinely gets sad when the kids in our room have a birthday and move up out of our class. it blesses me to see him as a teacher, i know he's a great daddy...and it's fun to see him be a great teacher as well. we are currently teaching the toddlers. so from about age 2 until they turn 4. it's a huge range, really. but a lot of fun! because of the huge range of age, it's hard to find a curriculum to suit it. we haven't had a curriculum for awhile, and it was starting to stress me out a bit. so i decided to plan it out. we just finished up 7 weeks of creation. we did a day of creation for 6 weeks, and yesterday they did a review. during the time we memorized the verse genesis 1:1, and the signs with it. and then a cute little song. i'm super excited to share it at church next week. just as long as i can get everyone else excited too. we teach, so i'm going to do my best to encourage them all during church and we'll see how it goes. lol.

about a month ago one of the board members of the church asked to meet with us and talk to us. as a board they decided they wanted to talk to the families in the church and get their input on the new building, children's church, etc. we were so blessed by this. it was so neat for us to see that what we had to say mattered to them, and they were listening to us. in the midst of our discussion we were presented with an awesome opportunity to pray about. children's ministry was going to be getting a new leader (actually leaders, a husband and a wife) and they wanted to also have some couples "under" them to focus on the littles, the middles, and the bigs. so we were to pray about doing that. we were so taken aback by this, in a great way. we prayed about it, and i felt it was an answer to a prayer i already had been praying. for a few weeks before that i was praying about where/what/if i should be doing something more in our church. i felt that this was an answer of direction.

and yay, praise God, shaun felt led to do it as well. because it had to be both of us, or neither of us. we met last week with the other couples and it was so nice to get together and talk about the church and children's ministry. truthfully, it feels good to feel "wanted". i'm not sure how else to explain it, but i guess it feels good to being willing to serve and for the church to take us up on it. we're so blessed by our church family. they've stood by us through some crazy things, and continue to do so, we're so blessed to have them a part of our lives.

the friendships we've made in the past year and a half have really grown us so much. without these loving friends coming up along side of us, it would've been a lot harder to get through things. and planning the church picnic, VBS and other things...are so much more fun when you're doing it with people you love, and love you. :)

so yeah. this post was all over the place. but it felt good to ramble on. if you've made it this far, congrats. now go get yourself a snack and have a good day. :)

ch-ch-changes...

shaun has always said he loves/loved my hair blonde. so for summer...i decided to surprise him with blonde hair. :)

i'm getting used to it.
shaun thinks i'm sexy. (but he always does...so i'm not sure his opinion is counted)
the girls were alright with it.
and dustin outright said...momma, i don't like your hair anymore. :)

i just love changing up my hair. so we'll go with this for summer and see what fall brings...

redneck rollercoaster

we call this...redneck rollercoaster...




shaun's sister comes out and brings her dog out to run around. we love having them over and enjoy the time we get to spend with them. her dog has loads of energy and somehow he ended up pulling the kids around in the car. it was so funny. and i love the giggles from all of us. :)