Monday, April 13, 2009

2 years ago at this moment.......

I was holding my newborn little Kenzie who was just over an hour old. Where did the time go?! It was always my dream to be a wife and mom and it is hard to believe I've been a wife for close to 4 years and a mom for 2. What wonderful years they have been.

Our precious Makenzie Rose is growing up to be such a delightful little girl and I am so very thankful that I get to be her mom. My prayer is that the Lord would richly bless her, not only in this life here on earth, but most importantly that He would bless her with a true knowledge and belief in Himself. I pray that she'd be able to trust in Him and rely on Him when she faces the troubles of this world and that she'd do so from a young age. And I pray that I'd be a mother who lives out the love of Christ in her life each day.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY my sweet Makenzie Rose!

In the belly.....


Pre-birth......she'd been growing for 28 weeks:

Just minutes old:


20 hours old....


About 2 months old...a rare cranky moment.


4 months old


6 month old ladybug : )


9 months old


HAPPY 1st BIRTHDAY


One year old


15 months old


18 months old


21 months old


My TWO year old.....








(More Easter and birthday party pictures coming soon....hopefully.....gotta catch up with the past month and a half first!!)

Saturday, February 28, 2009

Another month.

Another month is ending. We're saying goodbye to February 2009.

Ryken is 7 months old sometime in here (not sure when exactly...since there is no February 29th this year!) How did that happen?! Where did my tiny little newborn go?

Kenzie is just 6 short weeks away from being 2. Wow. She'll always be my baby. She was the baby that made me a mommy. I love that.

Here it is. The end of February. It was 85 degrees today. Amazing.

Something exciting that happened this month was that I read the Bible every single day. I had mentioned back on January 30th that it is something I struggle with doing everyday, and yet I always make time to get on the computer...check my facebook and email. So I had set my homepage to be the Bible. I couldn't avoid it. And now....I LOOK FORWAD to it. It has been such an amazing thing. It was one of those things where I KNEW it would be a blessing. I am always GLAD I read when I take the time to do it. It is always fun to learn more about the awesome God I serve. But I just never did it regularly. But this month I read all of 1 Samuel and I am part way through 2 Samuel. And I am THANKFUL to the Lord for helping me in this area. It is a wonderful thing to look forward to each day.

Hm. What else. I am supposed to be working. I really need to. So I will go and stop procrastinating. New pictures are coming soon : )

Goodbye February 2009. We sure enjoyed you. But as always we're looking forward to future and the story God has written for us!

Friday, February 27, 2009

A Week of Blessings.

This week has been wonderful. There haven't been many things out of the ordinary....God has just been gracious to open my eyes to all the small yet amazing things in my life each day : )

Monday we went to Costco. Ryken sat in the cart with Kenzie for the first time : ) I have pictures but haven't uploaded them...I'll try to remember to put it in here once they are on the computer. We stocked up on some food items and had yummy hotdogs and pizza for lunch. It was a fun little family outing.

Tuesday I did some grocery shopping in the morning with Kenzie while Chip stayed home with Ryken. It was fun doing something with just my little girl. She was so good on our little shopping trip! That night I took the kids to eat at Joes Real BBQ. This is something that we've done quite often but I won't be able to do as much anymore since we're selling our 2nd car tomorrow and will only have 1 for awhile. It was sad knowing we won't get to go visit daddy at work as often....but it was a beautiful evening and we ate outside and had a great time.

Wednesday I went to the dentist. I haven't been in 4 years! YIKES! Apparently 4 years of no dental work was to my disadvantage as I have to get NINE fillings! Oh boy! But there are even blessings in this....#1. We have dental insurance....so instead of an estimated cost of $2000 for my 9 fillings, we will only have to pay about $500. Still quite a bit...but not even close to what it could be! Blessing #2 is the fact that ALL of these cavities are really small and giving me NO PROBLEMs whatsoever. No pain. Nothing major. Just some small places they want to take care of before they become problems! Wednesday night we got to have a wonderful date night. Chip's parents babysat for us and we were able to go to dinner, get gelato for dessert and go to a movie, complete with popcorn....and the whole night we only spent $1.07! Yahoo! Hurray for giftcards! We saw Slumdog Millionaire and both really liked it. It was done really well and we were glad we went.

Thursday I took the kids to playgroup and got to see a friend's new house. It was beautiful and I am so happy for them : ) The kids had fun playing and I had fun being with some other moms! It was Chip's turn to go to the dentist that day. His enamel is holding up better than mine apparently...as he only has to get ONE filling. Oh well. He was able to go shopping for some new work pants and got a GREAT deal on them....3 pr of jeans for $35. He REALLY needed them!! We got home and hung out for the afternoon while the kids took naps (or at least played in their beds!!) Then last night we walked to Chip's grandparents house for dinner. We had a wonderful meal of Orange Chicken on white rice with stir-fried broccoli. YUM! We try to go over for a meal and visit with them a couple times a month since they live SO close! We walked home and put the kiddos to bed and got to spend more time together...catching up on all of our shows and playing a game.

Today has been nice. Chip let me take a nap this morning since I had gotten up with Ryken at 6:45am. Chip had to leave for work at 11:30. The kids and I had lunch and they went down for a nap. I got some work done and now, here I am. Ryken is up...playing on the floor. He has been somewhat fussy the past couple of days because he is getting his first teeth! I can't believe how fast he is growing up! He is crawling all over the place now and is so excited to be able to keep up with his sister a little bit better! Kenzie is still asleep. She laid in her crib singing and playing for about an hour before she went to sleep and has been sleeping for about 2 hours now. I love that I have good nappers!

Tomorrow we're selling Chip's car. A couple came and looked at it yesterday so tomorrow they are meeting at the bank to transfer the money and sign over the title. It's funny because we really RARELY NEED 2 cars...but a part of me gets a little bit panicky when I think about not having a car. It is like even though I hardly ever take the kids anywhere when Chip is at work...and even of the times I DO go somewhere it isn't somewhere I NEED to go....it still scares me that I will be "stuck" at home with no option of going anywhere. But it won't be forever. We'll save up for another vehicle...most likely a mini van (are we really getting to that stage in life already?!) But in the meantime we won't have to keep paying for repairs on his car and we'll be able to get SOMETHING out of it before it is completely dead. Not only that but we can save a tiny bit on insurance for awhile. I know it will be fine, but a part of me is still sad/scared/anxious about it. Stupid, I know.

So where in the world did February go?! I can't believe that it will already be MARCH on Sunday!

Ooo...other exciting/terrifying news!! We've booked plane tickets for Indiana!! We're going to see my sister's family...including their newest addition, our little nephew Sheldon, who is just a day shy of 2 weeks old today (he was a little Valentine!) We decided to go from March 31st through April 7th...before Kenzie turns 2 on April 13th so that both kids could fly as lap children for free : ) We're hoping to see some other family and friends in various nearby cities/states while we're there too. Should be quite an adventure with a 23 month old and an 8 month old! But we're up for the challenge!

Hmm...I think that's about it for now!

Blessings all over the place!! And as always, the biggest blessing of all is being IN HIS HANDS : )

Saturday, February 21, 2009

A BEAUTIFUL picnic with my GORGEOUS family on a PERFECT spring day : )

Lunchtime today was wonderful : )

We decided to take a walk to Krazy Subs and get their lunch special to eat as a picnic meal. We loaded the kids into the double stroller and walked about a block and got our sandwich. We walked back to our condo complex and took the kids to the little park area in the back to eat and enjoy the nice weather.

We had fun playing, eating, running around, listening to music, relaxing and just enjoying one another and the amazing day that God provided today : )

It was pure bliss.



















Sunday, February 15, 2009

Nowali Moccasins...Review and Giveaway!

I came across a blog called Potamus Prefers. Its a nifty blog that reviews products and will do free giveaways of some of the products! Great idea, huh?!

Anyway....if you'd like to learn more about Nowali Moccasins for babies and kids and possibly win a free pair, go check out one of her current reviews/contests here:

Nowa Li Moccasins Review and Giveaway

Good luck everyone : )

Saturday, February 14, 2009

My newest WONDERFUL/HORRIBLE discovery!

Ok....so recently my friend Melissa emailed me a very dangerous recipe.....it was called 5 Minute Chocolate Mug Cake. Basically...it is chocolate cake that you can make in a mug in the microwave and prep/cook time combined is five minutes....but you obviously already picked that up from the name of the recipe. HA! Anyway.....Chip and I decided we had to try this. Seriously! So we made it twice. We ate it with ice cream. And while it wasn't bad, we felt it could be MUCH better. It was VERY "cakey" and while it wasn't dry, it also wasn't the wonderful gooiness of a warm choclate brownie under our vanilla ice cream. So I got to thinking....if there is a 5 minute microwave chocolate CAKE recipe, SURELY there HAS to be a 5 minute microwave BROWNIE recipe. And if there WASN'T one, I was bound and determined to make one! But guess what. There was! So...after some testing and tweaking, I thought I'd share this wonderful/horrible discovery with you!

WONDERFUL: I can have a brownie and ice cream sundae ANYTIME I want in less than 5 minutes.

HORRIBLE: I am going to be eating SO MANY MORE brownie sundaes that I will either A: gain 500 lbs B: have to start working out more or C: (and this is by far the worst) actually have to practice some self-control and discipline...heaven forbid!

SO here it goes:
THE THREE MINUTE MICROWAVE BROWNIE

Dry ingredients: 4 T flour
4 T sugar (I like to use 1/2 white and 1/2 brown)
2 T plain cocoa powder
a pinch of salt or a dash. whatever you'd like.
1-2 T chocolate chips (optional...I ALWAYS choose YES though!)
Wet ingrediants: 2 T water
2 T oil
a tiny bit of vanilla (optional)
Mix the dry ingredients in a mug or glass bowl. Add the water, oil, and vanilla and mix well. Put in the microwave for about a minute (if you know your microwave cooks hot I'd do 45 secs). It will look a tiny bit "wet" when you take it out.....then either wait for it to cool and eat it, or put a nice scoop of ice cream on top and ENJOY! Yumm-o!

PS. Lately I've been cutting the recipe in half so I don't feel so guilty : ) I only cook it for 45 seconds when I do half!

Friday, February 13, 2009

Thanks for voting everyone! : )

Well....we didn't win....but that's ok! We still had fun and WE still think Makenzie is the CUTEST!

Makenzie ended up coming in 3rd place....not bad! Please please remember to check up on little Kayleigh from time to time. Recruiting you for votes was a one time thing, but she and her family need your prayers ALWAYS!!