How I became a stay at home mommy!

I am trying to get into a routine since school has started. I am still working on Drew's nap schedule, but besides that I am adjusting to it just being the two of us. I have enjoyed spending time with him. He has been taking his naps after we pick Grace Anne from school, so that has allowed me to have some one on one time with her as well. I feel so blessed to be able to stay at home and devote all my time and attention to my family.

As I think back when I found out that we were expecting our first child(Grace Anne), I can remember someone asking me if I was going to continue working or stay at home with the baby. I quickly answered with "oh no I will go back to work, that is what daycare is for!". Boy was I young and dumb or what?:-) I had know idea what God had in store for us. After I had Grace Anne everything changed, my plans, my desires and so on. The first day I took her to daycare I knew that I was not being obedient to God's calling. He was calling me to be a stay at home mom. I wanted to accept that calling, but in my mind, I thought it was impossible. We had bills to pay and with ALL our bills that required me to work. After a lot of prayer and conviction, I accepted the calling to be a full time mommy when Grace Anne was 3 months old. To be honest with you it was HARD and scary. Daniel and I did not know how we were going to make, but we knew that we had to believe and trust that God would provide. He did provide and still is providing our every need.

I am so thankful for the time I have had with my children. I know that all moms are not called to stay at home full time, but I am glad that God has allowed me to. Like I said before, it was not my plan or desire, but it was Gods, and He has blessed me beyond words. I am loving my current assignment and look forward to what God has in store for us. I will always treasure these special moments with my children. I thank God for allowing me to have this awesome job and pray that He will guide me to be the wife and mother that He has called me to be. I know that sometimes I do not take my "job" or I guess you can say current assignment seriously. I find myself taking it for grated at times.
God, please forgive me and help me to live my life to the fullest, I pray that I will not take life for granted, and that everything I say and do will honor and glorify you. Amen

So, I guess I can end this story about my life like most of others.................God's plans are much better than my plans! I think I will stick with God's plans! :-)

Barnyard Fun!!!!

Happy Birthday Deane!!!
We had a great time at Deane's 1st Birthday party. Deane is one of our Sunday School babies! He is the sweetest and cutest little baby! We keep Deane sometimes and always have a great time with him. Grace Anne and Drew adore him and loves it when we get to babysit him. We were so excited to help him celebrate his special day!
The Birthday boy with his mommy and daddy! They are such a sweet family and are very special to us!

Grace Anne and Deane, he is sooo cute!


Now to the fun part, the party was a barnyard theme. It was sooo much fun, the kids had a blast. They loved feeding the animals and Grace Anne's favorite part was the pony rides. Drew loved to jump in the big bouncy house. He was not a fan of the pony rides, he watched from a distances!:-)

Here is Grace Anne with some kids from our Sunday School class feeding the goat.

I love this picture, Drew came up to me and said "CHEESE MOMMY"! I took that as he wanted his picture taken!!!!:-)


Grace Anne riding the pony, she rode it 3 times:-)

Pinata Fun, Drew was so excited, he did not know that candy was in it! He was amazed when candy fell out of the horse!!!:-)


Well, that is all of the pictures from the barnyard party. Thanks Doug, Jessica and Deane for a super fun night! We love you guys and are thankful for your friendship.

Well, I have made it through week 1 of being a mom of a kindergartner! The first of the week was tough, but it was gotten easier everyday. Grace Anne is loving school and I am sooo glad! Daniel was off yesterday(Thursday) and I went and helped out in GA's class. It was a lot of fun, but helping 27 kids paint their hands and arms to make trees was hard work! It was neat to watch GA in class with the other kids. Last night we had parent orientation at her school. Daniel and I went while Brandy and Scott watched our kids. That was Daniel's first time of going into the school and her classroom.

Drew has been missing his sister! He has asked about her all week. Today he has really missed her. He keeps walking around with pictures of her and asking for her. I am glad it is the weekend so they can have a few days to play together.

I am so excited, we just had another addition to our Sunday school class. Pam and Robert had their baby girl, Meredith Grace this morning! Our class has had so many babies, I have lost count on the number! We are truly blessed to have such a wonderful church family. I am thankful for the friends that God has put in our path on this wonderful journey. Also this week one of our dear Dothan friends/college student got engaged!!!!! Congrats to Josh! It has been an exciting week for us.:-) I look forward to what else God has in store.

We are looking forward to this weekend. We are going to Deane's 1st Birthday party Saturday night and on Sunday we will be celebrating our pastors 20th anniversary at the church. I will try to post some pictures the first of next week. I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Kindergarten Day 2!

Here are some pictures of Grace Anne's 2nd day of school!!!! She is loving school and is having a great time!

Drew and I are missing her like crazy. Drew has been asking all week where Grace Anne is! I have enjoyed spending time with him, we have had fun playing together! This week Drew and I had lunch with Daniel and the senior adults on Tuesday and today we sat at the car dealership all morning waiting on our van to get fixed! We are looking forward to Daniel's off day tomorrow and spending time with him. Well, that's all for now, have a great week!!!!

Grace Anne and Mrs. Reynolds

I had to add this picture of Drew playing football with his daddy's shoes on!:-)

Kindergarten here I come!

Grace Anne has been counting down the days to kindergarten for the past month and today was the BIG day! She was super excited and could not wait to get to school today Here is a picture of her walking into her new school. She knew exactly where she was going!
Smiling outside her classroom door:-)
Mom, enough with the pictures!(she is getting too big)
Sitting down on the mat waiting for class to start!

Well, I guess you can tell that today was a big day at our house! I have been an emotional wreck all day. I never dreamed that it was going to be so hard taking her to kindergarten. It is kind of bittersweet. I am excited for her, but at the same time she is growing up and she is not a little girl anymore.:-(

I am very excited about Grace Anne's teacher Mrs. Reynolds. She goes to church with us and it has made it easier knowing that I did not leave Grace Anne with a stranger. Well, I guess she is a stranger to Grace Anne because she did not know Mrs. Reynolds until now! It made me feel better at least! Mrs. Reynolds emailed me today and said that Grace Anne was doing awesome! There are 27 kids in her class, and that is A LOT! We are praying that the school will hire another teacher so the classes can be normal size again.

I can't wait to pick Grace Anne up today and hear all about her day. I will post tomorrow and update you on her first day of kindergarten!!!!

Saturday FUN!!!!!

Today we went to Ryleigh's 3rd Birthday party at the splash pad! Thanks Ryleigh for a super fun party, we all had a blast!


We have had a pretty good weekend. Grace Anne got sick on Thursday night, we are guessing she had the same virus that Drew had last week. Daniel and I enjoyed having date night on Friday while the kids went to "kids night out" at church. It was nice to have an adult conversation and a quite dinner.:-)

Grace Anne is getting ready for school on Monday! She is so excited. I will be posting pictures on Monday of her first big day of kindergarten, so make sure you check back soon!!!! Have a wonderful weekend!!!!

This week we don't have much planned. We are just going to hang out and enjoy spending the week with Grace Anne before she starts school next week. This past weekend was pretty clam around our house, except Drew did get sick on Friday night with some type of virus. He was better by Saturday morning, so that was blessing! I pray that the rest of the family stays healthy.

I know this post sounds boring, but I am just happy things have not been so busy and crazy around here. It's been nice for a change! This weekend we do have several things planned like date night on Friday for me and Daniel and the kids have a Birthday party on Saturday to go to. Oh yea, tonight I made reservations for me and Daniel to go to Charleston for our 9th anniversary! We will be staying there for 2 nights. We are looking forward to going and can't wait until next month! The countdown is on!:-) Well, that's all for now, my next post will be more exciting, I promise!:-) Have a wonderful week!

FUN-DAY-GO

Today we took the kids to Fun-day-go. You can tell by the pictures that they had a blast! Grace Anne had a dental appt. this morning and we told her that if she did good we could do something fun today. She picked Fun-day-go! I was watching my friends boys for her today so I thought that would be fun for them all to go and run some energy out! Grace Anne and Drew had a fun filled afternoon with "Big" Drew and Bryce.

Drew jumping off the little slide instead of sliding down it, he is such a boy!

Riding the turtle


Just hanging out

Grace Anne having a blast!

Run Drew Run!!!!! And he's down!!!!!!!!!

This weekend we are planning on resting and being lazy. We do not have any plans, and that is a good thing!!!! I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!!!!

yet another fun filled weekend/week!

We have had yet another busy weekend. Daniel went to a promise keepers satellite event at our church on Friday and Saturday and on Sunday morning he preached at the jail. Grace Anne had a friend spend the night Friday night and another one on Sunday night. We also went to a back to school pool party hosted by our church on Sunday night.

On Monday, Grace Anne still had her company over and I kept one of my friends 11 month old little boy all day! He is the sweetest little baby, we had so much fun and can't wait to keep Deane again!

Today Grace Anne's 4k teacher came over for lunch. She was supposed to come over last week but we had to reschedule. We enjoyed having Mrs. Bertram over! She is so nice and really means a lot to our family. We are thankful for her and her friendship. Grace Anne had 2 great years at pre-school and had the best teachers.

Tomorrow we are going to register our big girl for kindergarten. I can't believe that the time has come for my baby to go to school! She is very excited!!! I am excited for her, but am a little nervous at the same time. I know that she will do great, but I am going to miss her not being at home with me.:-( So I ask you to pray for me during these upcoming weeks!!! Anyway, she will find out who her teacher is and all that good stuff tomorrow, she can't wait!!!

I have been really bad about not taking pictures here lately, so I will try to get better. I did want to post this one of Drew. Speaking of Drew, I realized that I have not talked about him. We started potty training with him 2 weeks ago and he has done really good. He is not there yet, but is on his way to wearing "BIG" boy underwear!!! Also last week Daniel turned his crib into a toddler bed. I did not know that he was going to do this until it was already done!!! Today I put Drew down for a nap and when I went to check on him this is what I found.......................

He was caught red handed baseball hat on and all!!! He did finally go to sleep after we cleaned off all the toys so he could lay down!:-)





When Drew saw Daniel taking the gate off the crib, he ran and got his hard hat and hammer. It was so cute to watch him help his daddy fix his bed!:-)