One Word for You- Pictoria!

So, this is not really a blog for advertising, but I did want to share some amazing one year pictures that our good friend Val took of Ella. She has a website: http://www.pictoriaphoto.com/ and she takes amazing pictures, so you should check her out! Ella did a pretty good job, but she fell apart when we tried to put her in the grass. My sweet baby is growing up!

Little Green Book

So, we are a Bible reading family and Rylie has 3 Bibles that she reads from regularly, but her new favorite one is a little green one, that she has been carrying around everywhere. The other day, I wanted to just relax and read for a bit, so she plopped down beside me with her Bible and said, "Mom I just love reading with you." Then she turned and looked at her little Bible. I read for about 3 seconds and then she said, "Hey Mom, I have finger nails." "Hey mom, we hold our books with our thumbs." "Hey mom, you really like to read just like me." "Hey mom, what is your book about." You get the idea. So finally I was thrilled when she wanted to go outside and play. I watched her put her little Bible in the pouch of her sweatshirt and head outside. When I checked on her a few minutes later, this is what I found.




I am so thankful that I have a daughter who already loves the Lord and I pray that she continues to grow closer to Him!

Beth Moore Tour

So my mother gave me and my sister airplane tickets to Portland and tickets to go to a Beth Moore Conference for Christmas. We finally were able to enjoy our present last weekend when we went on a fabulous girl's weekend. Some of our dear friends live in Portland, so we were able to stay with them, go to the conference and play for the rest of the weekend. The weather was beautiful and Beth Moore was the very best I have heard her. She is this crazy, big haired, petite, woman from Texas, with a lot of spunk and some great things to say about God. Her message was about crucifying our ego, so that Christ can be formed in us! We decided after the conference that we are going to travel around the U.S. (a new city each year) and listen to Beth Moore and explore a new place. Sounds silly, but it is a good excuse for a girl's weekend. We stayed with Big Brenda (I was named after her and I always went by little Brenda) and we gave her a plug in Scentsy as a hostess gift. EVERYONE in the Boise area has one or two of them or has heard of Scentsy and it is very rare to explain how it works. I can't describe the look on her face a she examined it and waited for it the bar to melt. Her daughter Meridith kept sniffing the scents and threatening to get one for her stinky brother. Thank you Brenda, Amy and Alberta for a wonderful weekend! I love you Mom and Rebecca and I can't wait for next year.

Rylie was most excited about the fact that I met Hello Kitty!

Terrible Three's Formerly Known as Terrible Two's

Ok, so whoever is responsible for calling it the terrible two's was highly mistaken. Rylie thinks she knows the answer to everything and wants to be in charge of disciplining Ella and the hardest thing is probably her unkind words. If you think about it pray that we will have wisdom and that her heart will be open to what God wants to do (even in her little 3 year old heart). One thing that we have been doing is memorizing scripture and then using it in everyday situations. She is responding pretty well and will often change her attitude when we talk about it from a spiritual perspective. Our verse that we just finished memorizing was I Corinthians 13:4-8. We were practicing it and I thought that she had it down pretty well. Then she got to the end and she said "Love never hails." It made me laugh so hard. In the midst of her attitudes I know that God is working and teaching me patience and unconditional love. Sometimes he gives us little chuckles to remind us why we are parents and how much we really love them. This morning we were having breakfast and Rylie is not feeling very well, so I gave her a cup of red juice (with all the fruit and veggies). She turns to me in all seriousness and says "Mom, is this Jesus' blood (can you tell we read the story of the last supper recently)?" Then she said "This is not Jesus' blood, it is just juice, because I am not one of Jesus' ciples (disciples). His ciples are only boys not girls. My message for you is: that love may hail, but His love never fails even when kids are hard and we are frustrated (Thank you Lord)!

Rylie's Soccer Season

So, we wanted to sign Rylie up for soccer this spring just to get her feet wet. We missed a bunch of the sign-ups and so the Eagy family from our church decided to start a little soccer league. There are about 40 kids from our church playing between the ages of 2.5-6. Craig and I were both pretty excited to get Rylie out on the field and see if she was good at it and to see if she could even kick the ball. The first Saturday was filled with tears and requests to go play on the big playground across the park, but by the end she had joined in for a game. So last Saturday we thought, "Ok now that she knows how fun it is, she will jump right in and play in the game." We were very, very wrong. The pile of leaves over the hill looked a lot more intriguing to her than the kids running around in circles, trying to kick the ball into the net. With a little coaxing, she finally joined in and did the drills perfectly. It is great to see her some what interested and it will be fun to watch her in whatever activities she gets excited about! We were very thankful to the faithful fans that came and supported her (Mimi, Boppa, and Aunt Becca), especially Great Aunt Arni who cheered for her the whole time and played with Ella!

Spring Break

Our family was very lucky this year and we had Craig home for a two week Spring Break!!! We went to the cabin, built shelves in the garage and did some spring cleaning! Ella finally got her new carseat (our fifth since we started having children) and it is covered in pink and flowers!!! Craig scowled when he saw it, but I reminded him that the other four were navy or tan to accommodate both genders. During our fun 2 weeks, we also did a lot of cleaning around the house and one of the things that needed cleaning was our plastic bag collection. We had over 200 plastic bags under our sink, so the girls thought it would be fun to throw them up in the air and then pile them up (like leaves) and jump in them. It was pretty hilarious! Don't worry environmentally concerned friends, we recycled all of the bags after our fun! Other recent events were my 29th birthday (next year is the big 30) and getting a lot of family/friend time! For my birthday I got almost a whole new wardrobe (which I have been needing), so now I don't have to switch off between my same three shirts. My other super fun gift was from my sister-in-law and my mother-in-law and it was a Sushi Starter Kit. I love sushi and I am always wanting to make it at home, so now with all my new chopsticks, bowl, etc. and the rice cooker from the used store (for 8.50), I can make up an amazing sushi roll. I plan on watching a few tutorials on the internet before attempting my first roll. Thank you to all of my friends and family that made my birthday so special!!! Lastly, I wanted to share my new challenge that I am doing once a month. I started making a list of all the little things that we want or need. Then once a month I will get $20 and take a day to travel around to my favorite used stores and buy as many things as I can. When I went over spring break I bought a rice cooker, 3 shirts for Rylie, and 2 Melissa and Doug sets for $16. Your money goes so much further when you shop around and go for "gently used" items. I can't wait for garage sale season!!!!