Looking Ahead

There's 3 types of "starts" to the year:
- The actual year (starting Jan 1)
- The fiscal year (usually July 1)
- And, the school year (um, next week)

Maybe because my husband works in the school district, but I still operate on the third. My church seems to do the same, so it becomes a natural flow for us. And subsequently, in the past few weeks, Jason and I have had numerous lengthy conversations about the upcoming "year".

Here's the "to-do" list for the upcoming months. Now, I operate under the pretense of "make some plans, but be open to God changing them all" mindset, so...to clarify, some of these are tentative and contingent on other things:

1. Lead a Cell Group: this is not tentative since it starts in 2 weeks and I'm fully committed. :) I am SUPER excited about this! Me and a few other girls are leading a 7th grade cell group with intent to lead them all the way through the end of high school - pumped. I'm excited about this on about 10 different levels. Even better, if he can make it work in his schedule, Jason is possibly going to be doing the same with a group of high school boys. I'm really excited to get involved in student ministry again.

2. Go through Discovery Group with our church in the fall (Jason and I) which will result in us being members of our church and many other cool things.

3. Start back up women's ministry on Tuesday mornings (can't wait for this again!!)

4. Go to the Philippines with basketball coaches + wives over Spring Break on a mission trip

5. Go on a mini vacay with Jason and other couples (sans kids) to Six Flags (Dallas) in the fall.

[The latter two are those contingency plans that are currently being prayed about - some details need to be worked out].

Excited about the months to come and to see what God has in store for us through these things!

Friends Make Me Smile

My friend Bethany and her sweetie Ellie came over for the day. I always enjoy our conversations and am blessed to have her as such a great friend (now she needs to sell her house and move her little butt over to Bentonville!). And of course, when the sweet little girl comes to play, the cameras roll out. :)
And I have to share some of the pictures cause, yall - she's that stinkin cute.

Street Cookout

So I live by some pretty fun neighbors. And here recently we had a new one move to the hood sandwiched in between Amanda and I. His name is Ira and he's great. He's from New Orleans which means he can cook. This past weekend a group of us on the street decided to do a cookout. Ira said he was in, too, and his driveway became the central point. Welcome to the neighborhood full of extraverts, Ira! :)
There were lots of kids, lots of food, tons of fun, frequent laughter, and good ole times.

(BTW, how cute is this picture of Jason with our neighbor GK??? We definitely need us a little girly)

Got Cake?

Pinterest. Had no clue what this was until my neighbor Ashley wrote a post about it. So I went, I browsed, I signed up to pin (whatever that means...I'm still not sure), and I left a little confused.But I did stumble upon this cake...of course leave it to a cake to catch my eye.

Now mine doesn't do justice to the picture I saw, but it did turn out way better than I was expecting and was a massive hit amongst all males in my household.

Behold the cake in pictures:

A certain toddler was CRAZY excited for cake time tonight. It was literally as if a magnetic field was drawing in his hands toward the icing.

(See the hand?)
But the part that won me major cool points was when it was cut open:

4 layers of sheer awesomeness (if you're a 2-year-old).

So back to Pinterest...is it for the not-so-creative (me) to glee amazing ideas from others?????

Almost Getting It

As parents we're suppose to instill morals, compassion for others, and an undying love for Jesus into our children's hearts. I think I both fail and succeed at this everyday. What a responsibility...what a challenge...but what a privilege.

After years of watching my friend Christine parent her 3 little ones, I've picked up on many things from her (cause she is an excellent mommy role-model), but one of the things I love that she does is talk about "happy hearts" with her kids.

I in turn use this language on a daily basis with mine. Lincoln knows that Jesus gives him a happy heart and when his heart is grumpy, we pray and ask Jesus to give him a happy heart. Sometimes it's a process to get the happy heart, but when he does, he'll run out to you and exclaim, "Mommy! I happy now! Jesus gave me happy heart!"

He gets it. It's great because all I have to do now is ask him where his happy heart is and he gets it. This language can often snap him out of a grumpy mood or lead him quickly to the path of getting there.

Another word he gets is "Obey."

I have found that when he's testing the limits, the only word that he really understands is obey. He knows this is a serious word because he knows the consequences of not obeying. We taught him the bible verse "Children obey mommy and daddy in the Lord for this is right." We taught it back when obeying was seeming to become a big issue. So a lot of times if he's not making a good choice, we use that word, and ask him what his Bible verse says about obeying. Amazingly, this works for him.

Now, we also work on a lot of "sorrys" and "I forgive you's".

Yesterday, Lincoln pee-ed his pants three times throughout the day. He started digressing some a few days ago, so when he does this (unless it was an accident from us tickling him or something) we immediately take away something fun he is playing with/watching.
When he did it yesterday, he happened to be watching one of his Veggie Tales movies.
So I turned it off and explained to him why.
He whined some and was upset, but was able to explain back to me why I turned it off.

Then he came and sat in my lap and snuggled and goes,
"Mommy, God will help me not pee-pee my pants!"
I told him he was right and asked him if he wanted to pray and ask God for some help. He said yes...we did...then he goes:

"Mommy, God will help me not pee-pee my pants AND he will help me watch a movie!!"
Hmmm....

He said this about 3 more times, then he goes (in the sweetest, tender voice):

"Mommy, I forgive you...I forgive you for that pee-pee..."

Ha! I wanted to bust out laughing he was so cute and I appreciate the effort of him trying to piece all of this together.

Success

Today we went swimming...twice. And in-between, we ate Popsicles, played outside (which is why we ended up going down to the pool again...that hot), took naps, made new friends, hung out with old ones, and literally wore out. I consider it a success. :)

A Story to Share

I know vacation's way gone but there was another story that about made me die of both laughter and embarrassment that I forgot to share.

On our insanely long drive home that Saturday, our three car loads all made a much needed joint stop at a huge gas station for snacks and drinks. Lincoln had picked out a package of Teddy Grahams and was quite proud of them.

We took them up to pay, and then he said he was going to hang on to them until we got to the car.

No big deal.

We rummage some more around the store...I pick out a nice looking roll of Sweettarts, and then my mom motions me over to the fountain drink isle, asking me if she can buy me a drink. Why sure.

As we're standing there getting drinks, I notice Lincoln has been standing in front of the microwave, just staring at it intently.

Mind you, the microwave was the height of a 2-year-old - right within his grasp...really???

Lincoln still wasn't moving from that microwave...just staring. I asked him what he was doing.

"Just cooking mommy!"

I thought, "Oh how sweet...he's playing pretend kitchen."

Then I noticed the microwave was on and he no longer had teddy grahams!

I quickly swung the microwave door open to a burning heap of what used to be teddy grahams! It smelled awful and the bag had literally burned up (those bags have foil in the wrapping!).

He never blinked. He reached in, grabbed it out and goes "Look mommy! I cooked it!"

Oh dear.