Thankful Thursday

This is one of my new life verses. In the past few weeks I have allowed frustration, resentment, anger, & gossip to creep back into my life. It led me to feeling just yuck on the inside and unclean. I kept doing my quiet time and prayer but I was not feeling it. I did not want to be the person that I felt like. Finally I just came to realize this week is that I was going to have to discipline myself to getting these things that I listed out of my life even when I did not feel like it. When we were out Christmas shopping I thanked or complimented every clerk and went out of my way to be nice to people in the stores. My thought was, well if I feel rotten on the inside I am going to go out of my way to be extra nice to those around me. I thought that would fix my melancholy but it didn't but, that is where faith steps in. Just keep doing what you know is right to do even when you are not feeling it. Feelings and even hormones change. So today I am going to get back to my Thankful Thursdays. Because I really am trying to notice and thank God for every blessing in my life. I love the movie Pollyanna especially when she would play the glad game. I think we as women need to follow that thought process in our homes and it will change the temperature of out homes and teach our kids a valuable life lesson. So here is my glad game for the past week.

1.Frustration: My washer and dryer went out the day before Thanksgiving and could not be fixed. I did not have the money to buy a new one and the timing of Christmas was perfect. Then on the day I was catching up on the 10 loads of laundry my dryer went out too.
Blessing: My in laws bought a new washer and dryer giving us their old set for free. It is newer than mine and nicer.

2. Frustration: Feeling like a single like mom with Darin's new work schedule. He has not had many days off and it is very undependable about when he gets off and when his days off are.
Blessing: He has a job that is paying him better than he has in a while and he is happy with his work. I get to be a stay at home mom and many moms don't. I do appreciate it.

3. Frustration: My kids and their demands and fighting with each other.
Blessing: They are all beautiful, healthy and smart children. We never had any trouble getting pregnant, not had bad pregnancies. I am blessed with three kids.

4. Frustration: Messy house and feeling like I am the only one who cleans it.
Blessing: I have been homeless living with my parents. I have a beautiful home. It is one story and easier to keep up with than my two story house. I have sweet neighbors that are Christians.

Blessings:
1. My family. My parents live in the same town as us and Dalton is at the same school my mom teaches at. My bothers and sister-in-laws are close by. Yesterday when Darin and I were Christmas shopping and he got called into work I was sad and did not want to go home yet. But I also did not want to go shopping with the girls by myself. I called Stephanie and Jenny and we all met at Academy and then went to lunch. It was awesome.

2. My friends. Moving is hard when you have to make new friends. Moving back to the area you grew up in has been awesome. I reconnected with my group of close girlfriends and am actually living closer to them than I was before. I reconnected with my best friend from high school and we are having fun with our girls together.

3. The women in my life through Mary Kay. They are so positive and uplifting. If I never made a dime or did anything else I am blessed because of these women and the love they pour into my life.

4. Last but not least I was blessed yesterday. I got pulled over yesterday and discovered that my licence was expired, I had not put the new insurance card in my wallet and I was going 11 miles over the speed limit. The wonderful officer only gave me a ticket for the licence and said to contact the judge when I got it renewed. It could have been so much worse and the judge is my friend on facebook so who knows what she will do when I contact her. Thank you kind officer!

Worship Wed.

Purify my heart
Let me be as gold and precious silver

Purify my heart

Let me be as gold, pure gold

Refiner's fire, my heart's one desire

Is to be holySet apart for You, Lord

I choose to be holy

Set apart for You,

my MasterReady to do Your will

Purify my heart

Cleanse me from within and make me holy

Purify my heart

Cleanse me from my sin, deep within

I heart Faces

Napping with Grandpa
I am trying to link this up to the I heart faces contest and I hope it works. This week's theme is Sweet Dreams.

Friday Top 10-It Ain't Christmas Until I've seen this on T.V.

These are in no particular order

1. Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer (The old claymation one.)

2. A Christmas Carol

3. A Christmas Story "You'll Shoot Your Eye Out"

4. How the Grinch Stole Christmas (Cartoon Version)

5. The Grinch (Our Favorite!) I want a whoville Christmas.

6. Meet Me in St. Louis

7. Mickey's Christmas Carol & The New Mickey mouse Christmas one that came out last year.

8. National Lampoon's Holiday Vacation (The crazy old grandma wrapping the cat up and then the cat catching the tree on fire is the funniest part.)

9. Polar Express

10. Elf "It's Santa! I know him!"

11. Shrek the Halls ( A new favorite.)Ok so I did 11! It's my top 10 and I can.

Brighton is 5!

I remember the day I found out I was pregnant with baby number two and immediately knew it was my chance at a little girl. When we found out for sure I was so excited. I finally had a bow head I could dress in pink. I was going to get my Brighton. We had her name picked out way before we started having kids. I was induced on December 3rd and after three hours of active labor she was there. Brighton has been everything I envisioned my little girl would be and then some. I wanted a mini me with big blue eyes that was girly. Brighton has been a girly girl since she came out of the womb. We called her our little "Cindy Lou Who" baby because that is what she looked like. With her two little pig tails and her big blue eyes sucking on two fingers. She got up and walked at 10 months because she was not going to be out done by the other kids running around at bible study. Her first word was "Happy". She got it from Dalton who's favorite song to sing at two was "You are My Sunshine." Brighton has always been a prissy, dramatic, giggly little girl with a stubborn streak that would test any one's patience. She is a middle child with the personality of an oldest child. She has her way of doing everything. She does not walk, she flits and priances wherever she goes. Brighton has always had an imagination that was well advanced for her years and a vocabulary to match. Even before she had her little kitchen set she would pretend to cook a full coarse meal with absolutely nothing in her hands and then serve it to everyone in the room. At three years old her playmates were Cinderella, Spiderman and the three little pigs. Throughout that year Batman and Robin were added to the group along with Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox. After Brighton's 1st trip to story time at the library, she came skipping out of the kids room by herself. I asked her if she had a good time and she said, "Yes but the free lidle pigs got board. (the three little pigs)." Then later that day as we were shopping she was riding in the basket and called out to the open space, "Hurry Brer Rabbit. Get in the basket." Then sticking her hands out she stated,"No, No Brer Fox you are not going to knock his block off." After that scene in Ross we decided to leave all of our "little friends" in the car when we went in places. Brighton could often be found making soup for one of her little group that might be sick. (Once for Robin, who was in the hospital because he got ranned over by the bat mobile.) At bath time she is often stiring up poison to feed the bad guys. Or creating a birthday cake to celebrate one of playmates birthdays. She could tell me all about Batman's birthday, what they ate, what he got and all the details. Once I even herd her in the bathroom grunting as she struggled to go potty and then sigh and say, "Oh my gosh Cindawella! Do you smell that!" Now that Madie has gotten older and she wants to play with Brighton, the imaginary friends are not around as much. She has a new little playmate to have tea parties with and cook with in her kitchen. As long as little sister's follows Brighton's rules. If not then we have to hear how "She is wunning evwy thing!" On a side note don't drink the water at one of their tea parties. You may not want to know were it came from.

Age four brought an entire new level to her playing. She became the damsel in distress. She would tie herself to things and call for Dalton to come rescue her. One day I caught her standing in her upstairs playroom with one foot in the windowsill and one on the art easel. (Not to mention that that window was open.) I tried not to yell so not to cause her to fall. I just asked her to get down. She looked at me and very matter of factly said, "But mommy I am locked in the tower."

Brighton does not call me mom most of the time. She refers to me as Best Friend. She got very indignant a month ago when my girlfriends and I went out for the big midnight showing of New Moon. She really thought she was going with me. Then after dragging in way past my bedtime I was awaken at 5:30 in the morning to a chirpy little voice that asked, "So how was the movie?" Then the next night at bath time she scolded me. "You know that best friends are not suppose to leave their best friends at home when they go out with the girls right? I should have gone with you. I would have worn my I heart Rosalie shirt and sat between you and Aunt Jenny. " She came out the other day after getting herself dressed and she had on a pink shirt, little boot cut jeans with black boots on. She asked Darin, "Do I look like mommy? Do you think she will have on her black boots today?" She is the first one to compliment my hair, my make up and my clothes when she sees me. "Oh mommy you look gorgeous!" Then it is is followed up with, "Can I have___like you are wearing when I get big." She came out of her room the other day to get in the car and she had one of my old purses over her arm. In it was one of my old cell phone, an old Mary Kay compact with a lipstick inside it, and one of my old wallets with Mary Kay cards in it. She is my mini me.
Brighton loves to sing and dance. She can perform almost any Taylor Swift song. Love Story had to be banned from my car for a little while because she wanted to hear it so much. Often I could look out in the back yard and I would see her standing on the top of slide hanging onto the A frame of the swing and singing "Some Where Over the Rainbow" to the clouds. The other day I heard her in my closet and when I went to investigate I found her singing to my shoes. She had them all matching in pairs lined up in a semicircle around herself. She was totally in her element when she took ballet and tap last year. She had the prettiest posture with her little neck held high and shoulders in place. She loved her teachers and every minute of it. But, she can also run faster than her brother and swing a might baseball bat.

She loves Fancy Nancy, well she is Fancy Nancy and has the vocabulary to prove it. One night she turned to my mother in law and said, "Oh mimi. This food you made is absolutely delicious." She expresses herself about everything. Weather it be the beautiful outfit she wants to wear, the delicious exquisite food she is eating or the terrible baby that is messing up her room. She adds the hand motions to accentuate her point. She also never comes out and says that she is hungry. She says things like, "My tummy's growling." Once she even told Darin, "Daddy my blood sugar is dropping. Can you make me a peanutbutter fold?"

Brighton has stop you in your tracks beauty. Since she was born we could not go anywhere with out someone talking to her. When she was three taking swim lessons I found out that some of the life guards were hoping to get the little princess who pranced around the pool in their swim class. Can I add that she was even prissy when she did that too. She is confident and strong. She adapts well to any surroundings and I love that about her. She loves life and loves big. I am having fun with each stage I get to experience with her.

Aunt Wee

My kids love Aunt Wee! (Darin's sister. ) She is ready to hug and play. She gets little boys because she has three and buys the best little boy toys for Dalton. She was there from the time I went into labor with him and did not leave until the next morning after he was born. But I think she is really enjoying having little neices to shop for. She gets to buy girly presents now. She calls my girls "girly girls". I knew when she kept the kids this summer she would never take them in public with out their hair fixed and topped off with a bow. She was so excited with Brighton that she got to be in the room and she never left my side the entire time I was in labor. We are thankful to have an Aunt Wee in our lives. (But we need to make sure we get a picture soon of Aunt Wee and Dalton.)

The Hill Family

I can not think of a bigger example of God's grace and provision with out talking about Craig and Becca Hill. This family lives by and walks it out daily. Their testimony about how God has used them through adoption is an incredible one. They have gone from adopting two beautiful daughters to opening an adoption ministry. Becca with two of her friends run Charis adoption ministries. Becca has been a sweet friend of mine for the last couple of years. Her warm and giving personality draws people to her and she has so many friends. To me it is just a privilege to get to be one of them. She ran a dance studio last year and gave Brighton free lessons for a year when I could not afford them. I can't express how much that meant to us. Then last year when the church could not afford to pay Darin we had to make a quick decision about where we were going to live because the lease was up on our house. We knew God did not want us to get tied into another lease but we did not know where we were going to go.
I knew that Becca and her family were going to be spending the summer in Florida for business. I was praying about what Darin and I needed to do and Becca's mother (another dear sweet lady) called me because she had the idea of us house sitting Becca's house. This sweet family opened their home to us for the summer. The house was beautiful and without hesitation they let us invade their space for two months. It was such a testimony of God's provision. Craig told Darin not to worry about it because it was his duty as a brother in Christ to help take care of another brother in need. I really aspire to be that kind of a person and with faith like the Hill family has.