Control...

is one of the hardest things to give up. Some days I feel so overwhelmed and I try to give God the driver's seat. It seems to work so much better that way. But then I seem to give him a good shove out of the car, grab onto the wheel, and jump over the seats into the drivers seat while the car is still moving. Or at least that's what I feel like sometimes when I realize that I'm overwhelmed and out of control! And then I just have to pull the car over and throw my hands in the air and say "God, I 'm so sorry....I was fine sitting in the passenger's seat. Let's try this again, please." I just realized that is the kind of day I am having. I just put my hands on my head at my desk and said it outloud a minute ago. I don't know what I'm doing God. You do know and I'm completely confident in that truth. Let's try this again.

Time "stealers"

I hate time "stealers"!! I mean something specific when I say that.

I'm a sucker to time "stealers". I just turned my phone on when leaving my office and a notification from Shutterfly popped up. "Last Day for 101 free prints!" My first thought was ...oh, who cares. But then I thought...well, I never print pictures anymore...it would be nice to print some and make a nice album that the girls would enjoy looking through...and for free! (plus shipping I'm sure).

So I clicked the link and started sorting through my shutterfly albums to pick my 101 photos. It was taking awhile to load on my phone so I decided I would wait until I get home and do it on the computer to be quicker.

And then it dawned on me....I didn't plan to do this. I don't mind doing things unplanned...I just do that too often. And its not really the unplanned part that will get me. Its that when I get home there will be some issue with getting the computer to work or making decisions on which pictures or something....anything...that will make the 20 minutes task end up taking me 2 hrs!! And will I give up after 1 hr because its taking too long ...no...I won't give up...I will feel like its a challenge... something I have to conquer and complete or then it would have been a complete waste of the hour I already spent! (I know...I'm such a goofball!)

But seriously this is one of my pet peeves about myself...letting myself be robbed by time thieves!

~ Stacey


P.S. - I did it anyway. I took the time and luckily it probably only took me about a half hour and I did it while I was eating... can we say "multi-tasking"!! (I'm okay with anything that could be considered multi-tasking!) LOL! But then the next problem in this whole scenario might be that these thing end up becoming money "stealers". Because I didn't just get 101 photos, I, of course, got about 50 more. That's how they get ya! :-) Money Stealers!!!

FYI - I put "stealers" in quotes because it's not a real word but I like it. I don't want anyone to think I just make up my own words and think they can be found in the "Dictionary of Stacey" therefore they must be real words. LOL!

My babies....Charlotte

Charlotte Eve

Charlotte will be turning 5 in a month and, man, what to say about this kid (smh)......seriously, she is one of a kind.

 

She's the little comedian. She's just like her Dad! She loves to make everyone laugh, even herself! Andy and I always said that some of the best comedians ever are the ones who make "themselves laugh at themselves". I think her favorite is making her sister laugh. Drea thinks Charlotte is hilarious as much as Charlotte thinks Charlotte is hilarious. My favorite times are catching Charlotte and Drea just playing and laughing together. The sound of Drea's authentic belly laugh and Charlotte's giggle (because she is causing the laughter) are the best sounds ever! She has often made all of us crack up over just a weird look or a silly face she is making, often without even trying. She just has that look of orneriness!

Charlotte is very headstrong. Very stubborn. Well, that almost makes it sound only negative. But it's not. The thing is...Charlotte knows what she wants. She makes decisions fairly easily because she knows what she wants. It's very hard to convince her she wants something that she doesn't....and you really can't talk her into much of anything. I have found that I can't buy her clothes if she's not with me to pick them out (well, I just have to be ready to take them back.) If she didn't pick them out and she doesn't love it, she is not wearing it. I'm serious. Even Drea has begged her to wear the same outfit and be "twins" sometimes and she just refuses to. She really likes being an individual. I stopped caring a couple years ago about what she wears to daycare because she loves putting her own outfit together and making her own style. (That is very hard for this Momma!)

She is so inquisitive. She always wants to know how everything works and loves to get her hands dirty to figure it out. Since she was a baby she has always wanted to build things with us and help us with mostly anything. She "helped" work on the house when we were remodeling and while Bob was building the garage addition onto their house, she could often be found out working (or as she says "wo'lken") right along side Bob. If you get involved in any project while Charlotte is awake, you can expect she will be right beside you.

She is definitely a five year old little sister. She wants so desperately to be just like her big sister. She wants to read like her and do everything she does. But...and that's a big ole' but, she loves antagonizing her and driving her crazy, too. Boy, can these two get some good fights going!

Charlotte's love language is physical touch. (...in my opinion.) She has an obsession with snuggling, cuddling, and always wants to feel her face against my skin. It may sound weird but it's really cute and endearing. She looks like a cat sometimes.

Some other awesome things about Charlotte:

• Charlotte is pretty athletic like Drea. They both love to be outside...but Charlotte keeps telling me that she can't wait for the warm weather because she hates being out in the cold. (I think this is ironic because she is always warm. Drea is always cold.) She also loves to be riding her bike, playing on the playground, playing dollies outside, bubbles, kites, swimming...anything active outside in the summer especially.
• She is constantly moving. And I don't just mean she likes to be on the go...I mean even when she's doing a "sitting still activity", she's not sitting still. You have never seen a kid watch tv and keep her eyes on the tv while flipping around like she's on a jungle gym constantly. When she stops moving...she's going to fall asleep. If you know anything about how much Chad, my Dad or I move....she is about 100 times worse. Chad even videotaped her one time because he couldn't get over it.
• She's a hoarder. I've never seen a kid stuff more things in pockets like this kid does. And not just her pockets...up her sleeves, in her lunchbox, in her purse, in any container she can find. And it's so funny because it will either be little baby dolls or rocks. Yep, rocks.
• She does like her clothes and shoes like Drea although not to the same extreme. She likes to put on fashion shows and dress up in princess outfits just like Drea. They are so cute when they get their little fashion shows going. But one thing about Charlotte, you will usually find her in a skirt or a dress. She used to always say every morning that she needed her ballerina on. Drea was similar but acted pretty prissy to go along with it. You can find Charlotte in her skirt building a garage though! Drea used to always want to wear dresses and skirts too and grew out of that stage into a fashionable Justice sweatsuit stage that insisted on comfort. Wonder if Charlotte will make the same turn in a couple years. :)
• Charlotte is a home-body. She would much rather be home than out and about. She would be perfectly content with having no plans and not leaving the house for a week.
• She loves chocolate, playing the iPad or games on the phone, doing "homework" with her sister, playing dolls with her sister, books, board games (although she is a good cheater!), and relaxing with a good movie! lol!
• At the age of four (creeping up on five), she...is getting ready to start kindergarten next year(!!!) and can count to 12 and knows her shapes and what her letters look like....she hates taking showers and could probably spend the whole day playing in the tub....she would rather go to daycare and play with her friends than stay home with mommy or daddy (the little social butterfly)...still crawls in bed with me most nights at some point in the middle of the night...just stopped wearing pullups to bed and is completely potty trained (sometimes the night time part takes awhile!)....also hasn't lost any teeth...and just like her sister loves her cousins and her friends and spending lots of time with them! ...AND she makes my heart happy every day!

Charlotte is growing up so much every day! Some days I can't believe she was the little baby I was holding just yesterday but I feel so lucky to be raising her and watching her grow! I pray she always knows that I'm proud of her no matter what she does!

~God, as I prayed for Drea...please help me to show her my unconditional love and teach her how to love like that and that your love is greater than all and will never fail her. Thank you God for always helping her make people smile and showing me how to encourage her as much as I can! Amen.

 

 

Best Day Ever

If your life is anything like mine, you her the title of this post to the tune of One Direction's "Best Song Ever." Lol! If not, feel free to ignore me and move on to the next paragraph. I seem to constantly have teeny bopper sounds in my head anymore.

I have had the best day today. I took the day off to spend the day with my girls. Drea didn't have school today because it was an IS day. I realized that I didn't really get to take any of the recent snow days off with them so I was going to actually take a day off work. We took Charlotte to school...yes, Charlotte would actually prefer going to daycare to hang out with her friends...so I thought it would be a good opportunity for alone time with Drea. We bargained with Charlotte to pick her up at 1 pm before naptime to spend the rest of the day with us. I have them lots of ideas of things we could do including the movies but they both said they would just rather hang out at home. I love it! That was perfect. And I'm glad they reminded me that we just need to stay home sometimes and those end up being the best days.

Anyway, Drea asked if we could paint after we took Char. I was so excited because we love to paint together and I hadn't even thought of it. So we got our supplies together and decided to try some new techniques that we had seen before but never tried. You use palette knives of different sizes and edges. I also started some paintings for the girls room. You can see our palette knives paintings below.

Then we went to pick up Charlotte and we have been playing Barbies, dancing, eating, coloring, etc. They still have an agenda of making bracelets, taking baths, making crescent roll pizzas and painting nails left. And its 5:30....wondering if we will get all of that in! Ha!

My babies... Drea

Alexandrea Carmella

Drea just turned 8 in January and she amazes me on a regular basis.

She is beautiful...truly beautiful. When she smiles or laughs, it is infectious. She lights up a room!

She is so smart! She reads on a level usually two grades above her current grade. One of my hopes for her was that she would love to read so much that she could lay in her bed at night and read until she fell asleep. It filled my heart with joy when that start happening this year.

You can tell she is an 8 year old right now. She has a constant annoyance with her little sister and she thinks she knows everything... and she absolutely knows whats cool and whats not. I have always struggled with treating her the actual age she is because she usually acts older and has alway been way smarter than her age so I have to remind myself of her actual age...or she helps me remember when she starts whining. :) I especially have to remind myself of this when I have unrealistic expectations of an 8 year old.

She is an extreme thinker. There isn't anything that she doesn't put a lot of thought into. Whether it's what she is going to wear to school, what toothbrush she's going to use or how she can spend her Toys R Us gift card, she could take days to decide. Ironically, sometimes it's because she knows what she wants but she can't have it or it's not available.

Drea's love language is quality time. (...in my opinion.) She thrives on one-on-one time and truly can't get enough.

Some other awesome things about Drea:

• She loves art! Any type of art, craft, etc. You've never seen her so focused as when she is doing anything artistic, even just coloring.
• Drea is very athletic. In the summer she loves to be outside...riding her bike, playing basketball, jumping rope, swimming. She has even really gotten into sled riding with her Dad this winter...and she used to hate getting cold outside. And if she isn't getting plenty of exercise outside, you can usually find her dancing...anywhere and everywhere. She could play outside at the playground all day and night during the summer. She would prefer to be outside all the time in the summer....she even loves camping with her Dad. Recently, she has enjoyed going to CrossFit with me and doing her own workouts. She is built very athletic too. People are always commenting on her muscles. She has abs like she does a couple hundred crunches a day! She looks like she has spent years doing gymnastics.
• She already has a clothes and shoe fetish. She is a regular little fashionista! Loves shopping and trying clothes on. Justice is her favorite store. And luckily Papaw and Grandma's neighbor passign her lots of hand-me-downs from Justice since it's not the cheapest store ever.
• Both of my girls love yard sale-ing and visiting the Goodwill. I hope they will always like this since it makes for finding cool things way cheaper. And good finds for the start of awesome DIY projects!
• Drea is a huge creature of habit! Once she does something once when she's with you or at your house, she will want to do that every time. For instance, we played a guessing game at my Mom and Bob's during dinner one night. Now she requests to play that game every time we eat dinner at their house.
• That probably helps my next note: she has a brilliant memory! And a very visual memory. If she doesn't know one of her spelling words for the week she can write it down once and she will absolutely get it correct on the test.
• She loves playing board games, crafting (she loves making doll furniture and clothes out of recylced materials), drawing, painting, reading, playing dolls with her sister, coloring,
• At the age of eight, she...likes taking showers (finally)....hasn't lost any teeth yet (she has strong, healthy ones!)...has won the spelling bee in her class the past couple years...loves helping me plan birthday parties....absolutely adores her cousins and spending as much time with them as she can...thinks she's old enough to start babysitting Theo...  AND has stolen every bit of my heart!!

I love this little girl so much. I only pray that I can help her know and feel that all that time because she is one awesome kid and beautiful little lady!!

~God, please help me to show her my unconditional love and always teach her that your love goes way beyond mine and will never disappoint her even when we humans fail her. Thank you God for being my strength when I am weak. Thank you for always being there for us! Amen.

   Drea, 7yr old, Summer '13

 

Waiting...

I'm getting ready to rent a house. I've been trying to decide between two houses this landlord has. They said I could have another look to decide after they finished the work that needed done to them. Before the bad weather here in our area, they thought the places would be done by Feb 1st. I called a couple times to check on progress because I'm anxious to move forward with this part of my life. I'm excited! I love the thought of moving in somewhere and doing it up my way. Anyway, I avoided calming to check on it Friday and i made myself wait yesterday too because I really don't want to drive them crazy. This morning on the way to work I was thinking that I would just call them and check. Then I started praying and told God if he just wants me to have a God lesson in patience and trusting his timing, I will surrender to that. So I've been listening for God's voice today and trusting in Him.

Then I opened up my daily devotion:
Philippians 4:6-7 NKJV

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

Thanks Lord...I hear you. :)

Normal?

My life has changed so much over the past few years that I'm not even sure what normal looks like...