Are you ready for this??????

Not sure how many readers I have, but I wanted to share this fabulous giveaway going on right now!

Go to www.mycharmingkids.net for a chance to win Adobe Photoshop or Lightroom! Amazing!

Man, I would LOVE to win one of these!!!! I have been really getting into photography lately and took two families pictures for Christmas! I am planning on taking some photography classes in the spring and hopefully learning more about my camera!

This giveaway would be such a blessing, as so far Scott and I don't have money for gifts for ourselves for Christmas. I know it is more blessed to give than receive, but this year is going to be the hardest!

Head on over for your chance to win! With love....

COME BACK SOON-REAL SOON!

Come back soon for some fun-filled posts! I have been wanting to catch up on my blog and this week is the week! I still have to post about our Las Vegas trip, our summer fun with my brother, my new niece and Blake's fabulously(is that a word?) cheap baseball bash!!! So, come back soon for excitement and fun-a giveaway is also in the works:)

Some funny things that Cadence has said...

The other day Cadence came home from school and was telling me how the boys at school were chasing her. She expressed that she wasn't sure she liked this.

ME: "Well, maybe they just like you?"

HER: "Oh, they do, they think I'm cute."

ME: "Oh, really?" "How do you know that?"

HER: "Well, when they're chasing me, they're always smiling at me, that's how I know I'm cute."

The next one was this:

ME: "Cadence, I think you should wear your skirt, it is so cute."
HER: "You know mom, I don't have to wear a cute skirt to have people look at me and tell me I'm cute!"

I always dreamed of having a child that was more confident than I was, I guess I got my wish! She gets this confidence from her dad!

Remember 9/11

Today started like any other day.

We clambered to get dressed.

We gulped down our cereal.

We rushed the kids out the door.

We arrived safely at school.

Then we went to a 9/11 assembly at Blake's school.

Moving. Beautiful. Tears were flowing.

Boy scouts raised the flag to half mast.

A trumpet played in the background.

Tiny "babies" stood with their hands across their hearts.

Wow, is all I have to say.

This school is simply amazing. Now your assembly may have been better or they may have done something to honor the fallen heroes that was more elaborate, but this, well this, was amazing!

The kids sang patriotic songs. The principal gave a short message and EVERY child sat listening to his words. What a wonderful school and experience to have on this day. I now have a deeper appreciation for all of the heroes in our lives and a deeper respect for our country.

While controversy swirls in politics around us and opposing views argue and bicker, it is often difficult to be proud to be an American. But today I can honestly say that I AM PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN. God Bless America and may it continue to be the land of the free!

Another Dream...

Okay, so I shared with you my dream about Las Vegas and now I am going to share yet another serious dream, as I can't get it out of my head. Here is my dream:

Scott and I were installing a commercial real estate post. It was taking too long and the kids were with us. So, we decided to call it a day and come back the next day. So, on Sunday, we dropped the kids off at a park with family and friends and left to go put the post up. I was a nervous wreck the whole time, as I knew how crazy our kids could be at the park and when swimming, which they were going to do.

After many hours away from the kids, we made our way back to the park. When we got there everyone was sitting under the ramadas, looking rather solemn. I knew immediately that something was wrong. Blake came running up to us and he jumped into my arms. I looked around and didn't see Cadence anywhere. I asked Blake where she was. BIG, HUGE crocodile tears poured down his cheeks and he answered, "Gone."

"What do you mean gone?"
"She's gone, she, she..." His voice trailed off and he turned to look at the grandparents sitting beneath the ramada. My mother in law came up to us and said, "There has been an accident."

I started screaming, "What, what, what, tell me what happened?"

She shared with us that everyone was swimming and Cadence wanted to look at the fish in the pond. They didn't know that she had wandered away and when they found her it was too late. She was already gone.

I kept screaming and screaming and screaming in my dream. How could this be? Cadence's life moments flashed before my eyes, like a book being thumbed through. I could hear her laughter, I saw her smiling face, I heard her cries, saw her stumbling first steps, her first tooth, her....It was too much for me! I wanted off this road, I didn't want to be on it. I just kept screaming. I yelled that I wanted to see her. They said that I could, that she was in the nearby building. I had to see, but I didn't have the strength. I am not sure what Scott was doing at this point, as all I recall from the dream were my screams. I had to go see her, but I wanted someone to go with me. They all so graciously offered. But it didn't feel right. I didn't want them to go with me. I kept saying over and over, I just want someone to go with me, I need someone to go with me.

Then it was as if all time stood still. My mind cleared and I realized once again that I needed God. I needed HIM to walk beside me and help me face my fears. I needed HIM as my firm foundation to give me the courage to walk this road. I stood at the front of the ramada and addressed the group of people solemnly sitting there.

I began, with a lump in my throat. "God knows the plans He has for our lives. He knew about this day even before it arrived. God showed me the blogs of other believers and knew that I would one day have to draw upon their strength to get through this tragedy. With God all things are possible." With that, I turned toward the building and WOKE UP! Crying. I grabbed Scott and told him about the dream. He held me close and I could sense that he wanted to cry along with me. While we still have our precious daughter here with us, it made me realize how truly special each and everyday is. How our days are numbered here on this earth and that I need God to be my firm foundation.

I am still resisting it for whatever reason. It is something I struggle with on a daily basis. I want to know God, but I am afraid to. I am afraid that I am too much of a sinner for Him to want me back. I am afraid that I am not worthy of His love. I have these dreams quite often. I want God to be an important part of my DAILY life, if I could just make the time to do it, I know that I can become the Godly woman he wants me to be.

A Few Random Things

Blake has started school. I will post pictures and a cute story later, but I wanted to share with you our conversation from yesterday, as it was just too cute.

When I pick Blake up from school he is full of stories and adventures from his day. He LOVE'S to talk while we drive home. Yesterday the conversation turned to what he wants to be when he grows up. This is the first time that I think he truly understands what this means. Here was his list:

Cowboy
Police Officer
Vet
Horse Doctor
Demolition Derby Driver



Pretty great aspirations if I do say so myself. Well, after he told me what he NOW wants to be he decided to tell me what he USED to want to be.

Last time ago (his words for the past) I wanted to be a:

Doctor
Construction Worker
Someone who fixes trains
Daycare Worker (Whoa! Can't believe I had that much of an impression!)
And????

Well, I think he told me about 10 other jobs. When he never mentioned what daddy does, I figured I would ask him.

ME: "So you don't want to be a post hole digger and put in real estate posts?'
HIM: "No way, that is way too hard of work!"



I had to laugh-I am glad that he realizes how hard his dad's job is and that he sees his dad working hard to provide for our family. While I know Scott would like to "check-out" and be done with our business. He can't. He won't. Unless of course, he knows that there is another way to provide for his family. I love Blake's honesty and once again I love that he recognizes that his dad works hard. I hope someday that Blake will have a job and work hard to provide for his family.

Thank you Scott for providing for our family!

NEW POSTS...

I am starting back in May and adding new posts in order of them happening. Scroll down to earlier dates to see some fun and exciting posts, Cadence's birthday, Vegas, family visits, etc. all will be added!

Eight Years Ago Today...

Eight years ago today I married the man of my dreams.

Eight years ago today my life forever changed.

Eight years ago today I became a wife.

Eight years ago today I professed my love to my husband.

Eight years ago today I said, "I do."



When I met Scott I was living life on the edge. I was depressed, lonely, and scared. I was scared by the way I was living and knew that something had to change. Meeting Scott saved my life, as he showed me unconditional love, day in and day out. I had never felt that way before. I am being honest when I say that Scott and I didn't fight for the first four years that we were together. The two fights that I can even recall were silly and both ended in a play wrestling match where we laughed until we cried. Everything just felt "right.' He was forgiving, honest, confident and had high moral standards. He still is and does.

The last few years have been rough for our family, but through it all we have prevailed. We have stuck by each other's sides through the worst of times. He has forgiven and I have forgiven. He has shown me mercy and I have shown him love. We compliment each other well and there is no other person that I would rather be with. I thank you Scott for being my stronghold, for being the rock for our family to stand firm upon. I thank you for forgiving and loving unconditionally. I thank God for bringing you into my life and I hope that we have many more years together-good or bad.

Happy 8th Anniversary!

New Haircut!

Here are some before and after pics of my new haircut! Enjoy!

BEFORE



AFTER

Deep Thoughts...

For as long as I can remember I have had VERY vivid dreams at night. I will awake in the morning not knowing if my dream was real or not. I have even been known to carry on conversations at night and scare the living day lights out of my husband.

But last night, last night was different. While I did have a dream, one in which I will share with you in a moment, it was, shall I say, not as detailed as normal. It was more of an abstract dream, with muted colors and many questions were left unanswered at the end of the dream. However, I think that Someone wanted me to wake up and answer the questions and interpret the dream myself. This dream has changed my life, it has made me think of where I want to go and who I want to be.

This was my dream...

We were in Vegas(in real life we just got back from Vegas) and I was trying to get back to our room. I kept turning down the wrong hallways and getting lost, when finally I found an escalator. The escalator was broken(also a common problem on our recent trip) but I climbed it anyway. As I neared the top, I could see a huge gap between the top of the escalator and the flooring. I continued to climb. When I reached the top I knew that I would have to jump, so I gave it everything I had and jumped. I didn't quite make it and I grabbed a brass rail, as I began to plummet into the gap. An elderly woman was down the hallway on my right and she chuckled and told me that this was not the right way. Duh, like I didn't already know that. Plus, why wasn't she helping me? She pointed me to an old staircase next to the escalator and said, "That is the right way!" I looked toward the old staircase and swung on the brass rail. I swung right onto that old staircase and landed with a loud thud. Within moments, my nephew was by my side, climbing those old stairs. As we stepped on each stair, it creaked and groaned and the nails that were holding it together would pop out. The old lady cackled above us and said, "Yes, yes that is the right way." "But it's hard," I complained. She just kept saying, "Yes, yes that is the right way!" I was so frustrated. I didn't want to go this way. I was scared. I was afraid of falling. What if I failed? However, I kept going. I made it to the top! And guess what? There was no gap. Just solid flooring for me to stand on. Then, I woke up!

This is my interpretation:

I used to be a strong believer in God. I used to attend church regularly and I volunteered my time helping in the church. I prayed daily and read my Bible. Somewhere in the rush of life, I have forgotten HIM. We stopped going to church because we are TOO busy. Okay, I know that is not a good excuse, but we are just worn out and tired by week's end. I felt that I could just take the easy way out (the escalator) but even when that route proved to be hard, I thought I could do it alone. I neglected to remember, HIM, the One who created us. The One who forgives our sins. The One who shows us His grace and love. When I was finally willing to listen, I still endured a difficult road(the old staircase) but in the end I found HIM! HE is all I need! He is my firm foundation! Today has been a different day! I have had energy. I have more joy. I have a skip in my step. Even though today was a tough one, I knew that at the end of the day, HE would be here for me, to love and accept me, no matter what.

My life has new meaning today and I am glad that God has given me the gift of dreaming in detail!

Happy Birthday, Cadence

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it has been too long since I last posted. I have to catch you up to speed on our life and there is no better place to start than Cadence's Fourth Birthday! Cadence wanted a Dora the Explorer birthday, however, I am not big on character birthdays. So, since her birthday is on Cinco de Mayo, I decided to have a "Mexican Fiesta" type party.

We decorated with tissue paper flowers and I used the colors hot pink, orange and yellow as the colors. I think that it turned out really cute. We had the party at our neighborhood park and besides it being a little warm, the kids had a great time. I made Dora sand toys by putting wall stickers on the buckets, we had Dora jump ropes and balls, and hula hoops in coordinating colors. The kids had fun just running and chasing each other in the grass. Here are some pictures from her party:

Day 2-Sea World

We put our car troubles aside and decided to go ahead and enjoy ourselves for the rest of the weekend and deal with fixing the car on Monday. We were even hoping that someone else would tell us that we could drive home in second gear-hoping being the key word.

We spent a wonderful day at Sea World and the weather was perfect. We even were a little overdressed with our jeans and short sleeve t-shirts!



Ummm...these were the rocks that said, "Please don't climb!" Can't keep this girl from climbing!



The best part of the day was seeing the joy and wonderment in the kids eyes. Their eyes would sparkle as each whale, dolphin or sea lion did a trick. They were in heaven!












After our fun-filled day, we hopped in the car to go find a yummy seafood restaurant. We made it less than a mile, when the car started making a wonderful clunking sound and then it would not shift into the next gear. Nice! Scott pulled over as soon as he could and we both just looked at each other.

The lovelies were in the back yelling, "Why aren't we going, we thought we were going to eat dinner?" Over and over and over again.

Scott got the car to at least go a little and we made it back to our hotel going 25mph. We asked the front desk if there was a car rental place nearby, as we were determined to not let this ruin our trip. He said it was less than a mile down the street. We gathered the kids up and we started walking...and walking...and walking. A few miles later we realized that the guy probably didn't know what he was talking about. The kids were in hog heaven! They loved the excitement of walking down the busy street and seeing some of the same stores and restaurants that we have in Arizona. Not sure why that was exciting, but it was. We finally found a nice Me*xican restaurant and had some dinner. We decided to pursue our car rental endeavors the next day...

Day 3-Car Rentals and Wild Animal Park

So, our car saga continued into day 3 of our San Diego vacation. We set out once again to rent a car, so as to not ruin our "mini" vacation. We had the front desk of the hotel call us a cab and taxi driver drove us to the airport to rent a car. Once we arrived at the car rental location, we attempted to rent a car. Did you read that? I said, ATTEMPTED! Not everyone knows this, but we no longer have any credit cards. Not ONE credit card. Not good. We do not have the best credit and we don't want to settle for just any ol' credit card. We have neglected to get one for over a year now. We used to have five. Yep. Five. All with over 20% interest rates. Ha! We won't do that again.

Anyway, back to the story. So, they would not rent us a car without a credit card. We could have paid them cash and upon returning the car, got most of our money back, but we needed the money to fix the car, remember? So, they sent us on our merry way. They found us a car rental place that charged us triple the amount for a car, but we rented it without a credit card. How nice?! Four hours after starting our car rental adventure, we were on our way to the Wild Animal Park.




Have I told you how well-behaved the kids were this whole time? Well, they were! Everything was an adventure to them, so they had not a care in the world. We made it to the Wild Animal Park, already exhausted. We took the train around the park and walked around to a few exhibits, but by then we were spent.







We decided to go to the beach in Oceanside, as the kids were begging to swim in the ocean. It was a beautiful day out and we lucked out by having sunshine the entire time we were at the beach.







We had a wonderful time, laughing, swimmming, collecting sea shells, building sand castles and watching the dolphins jump not too far off of the shore. It was the perfect ending to an otherwise stressful day. We left the beach and headed down the coast. It was such a beautiful drive and the kids slept most of the way.





We were craving seafood, as one knows that you can't go to San Diego without eating seafood. We are not big seafood fans, but every once in awhile we give it a try. We had no clue where to eat, so we decided on Joe's Crab Shack. Not bad. Next time, we will do a little more research on seafood eateries in San Diego.

One last day of our trip...

...then onto new and exciting posts!

Day 4 of our trip brought much more fun and excitement. Scott decided to head home atop a AAA tow truck and I stayed in San Diego with the kids. I didn't want to ride on top of the tow truck!

The kids and I took advantage of the second day free pass from Sea World as we waited for my father-in-law to come pick us up! The kids and I had a great time getting wet in all of the splash zones and playing in the kids area.








We then headed out to Seaport Village to eat ice cream and walk around the shops. We sat in the grass and watched the sea lions swim in the marina. We then walked the shops some more and I decided to treat the kids to $4 animal balloons. Yep, $4, oh well, you only live once, right?





Cadence got a Little Mermaid balloon and Blake got Shamu. We ended up having a wonderful day, but I was exhausted and looking forward to getting home and having our car fixed.