Booked

My hair appointment for Friday that is! I haven't had a hair cut in, um, years?! That is really sad. The other day (about 2 weeks ago) I was sitting on the couch and looking at the ends of my hair. They were split and dead and just a hot mess. SO I got out my little nail scissors and started cutting all the split ends I saw. No need for a hair cut I just fixed my problem right?! WRONG. A week later I was looking again and saw a bunch I missed so I repeated the above process. I thought that should be good enough now. Well it wasn't I am still finding them. Which brought me to my breaking point, I need a real hair cut that gets like 3 inches of hair off of my head. So I did it. I called and made an appointment. I guess $75 for let's say two years is good for hair care.

On the topic of hair Peanut was outside riding her bike. We are currently working on her riding two wheels. It isn't going so well. Anyway, I was putting on her helmet and was looking at the ends of her hair and I saw split ends. I didn't think little kids could have that?! I asked if she wanted me to cut her hair and make it healthier so it could grow longer and be like Rapunzel. She was all about it. I took her to the bathroom and cut about an inch off of her hair. It looks SO much better now. GG needs a trim too. The girls are both growing their hair out to either donate or sell, so they've got a ways to go before they have the length needed. Haha I just wrote a post about hair. I have other things on my mind but I'm not willing to share them. But I wanted to write.

Oh in other news...I just got the book The Vow, you know the book that the movie is based off of? I read it in two days. It was so good. Nothing like the movie. I actually think I liked the book better because it was a true story. Though it has put a fear of driving in me. And we are taking a road trip this year. OY 

Ahhh

Let me catch my breath. This weather has been absolutely gorgeous which means lots of days playing outside and all together busyness! On Friday night was the Sports banquet for the fall teams. Since GG was on the cheerleading squad she was able to attend. This was our first of many sports banquets I'm sure. It was really cute. And the best part is she won the Charger Spirit Award. I was SO proud of her. What a great award to win as a CHEERleader. Spirit is definitely something you should have an abundance of! I still haven't gotten a picture of her with her trophy...see we have been *that* busy. It is a really quality trophy with her name on it!

Jeff and I had been talking about whether we were going to go look at a van on Saturday all throughout the week with neither of us really committing to spending our Saturday van shopping again our curiosity won out! It was the best priced van we have seen for such low miles.The down side was it was an hour drive from our house. Since we had a ton of time in the van on the way there Jeff said he spent most of it praying that God would show us a clear sign if this was "the one". When we got there we were immediately greeted and shown where the van we were going to look at was. As we drove to the van the fan in our van started acting really funny. We turned the heat off and the fan started blower higher. It was so weird. First sign it was time to get a newer van. We looked at the new van and took it for a test drive. We were sold. Then we started talking price and they dropped the price a lot right off the bat and took our van for more than we were looking for and they gave us a FULL tank of gas. Which one dealership said they would absolutely would not do. This place was so nice and friendly. We drove away with a van with the lowest miles we have ever own in a vehicle. The only funny part of the day was the fact that all the kids loved the new van and wanted us to buy it and when we actually bought and we were driving away three of them started crying over leaving the old van. OY.

Another thing that stuck out in my head about the day was how many of the employees complimented us on the kids behavior. At least 5 people said something about how well behaved they were. I was very proud of them as we were there for at least 4 hours. Ok I'll tell you my secret. The three older kids have a ds and Peanut uses Jeff's ipod and we let them play games in situations like these. They don't have access to their ds at all the times so it makes it special when they get to play. Also they don't get bored playing them. It has worked great for us. I'm not a big fan of letting kids sit infront of a screen as much as they want. And it works in our house!

Today was Monkey's first practice of the season and it was beautiful outside. I think they are going to have a really great team this year. All the boys looked like they knew what they were doing. I am really excited for the games to start up. Plus, a boy whose mom I became friends with last season is on the same team! Good times. This week will probably drag though because on Friday I am heading out of town with some friends from church for a girls weekend/moms conference. I am looking forward to some free time.

sicky

Sickness always throws me for a loop lately. Like when the school nurse calls and asks you to come pick up one of your kids from school early because they have a fever or is puking. Thankfully we only get the calls to pick up for fevers and not puking. But those calls always seem to come at the worst possible times. For instance, today 10 minutes after Peanut fell asleep for her nap, which she only naps on church nights (Wed and Fri) because they are late nights, the phone rings. I finally found someone to sit at our house while I ran to school. It is now almost 3 hours after she came home from school and she is completely fine. Her head doesn't hurt anymore and she was running around with her brothers outside. Here's the kicker she can't go to school tomorrow even if her fever never returns tonight. So here I am with my 11 year old at home, the rest of the family is on their way to church for the evening. I guess a quiet night at home with my oldest child is just what the doctor ordered. 

So blessed

This post is mostly for me to remind myself just how blessed I am. Sometimes I lose sight of the blessings. In our Sunday School class we were talking about this topic and one of the men was sharing that when we go through trails/struggles is when our relationship with God grows and how that is the biggest blessing that we can receive. I have been thinking a lot about that. When things aren't going exactly the way we want or things are just hard. First do we stop and lean on God through it and secondly do we count our blessings of the growth in our relationship to Christ through it? I would love to answer those questions both with YES. But if I really stop and think and I'm truly honest I think I do maybe 50% of the time or maybe even only 40% of the time. Let's just use tonight as an example. A typical day would be me picking up the kids and getting home at 3:50ish and Jeff pulling in around 4:10ish. Jeff would go over homework with the kids while I make dinner. Then we eat together and do the rest of the night together with the kids. Today I got the kids but Jeff didn't get home until 5:50 just in time for dinner, but he was still talking on the phone for work. He made it to the table right before everyone was done eating. He quickly ate and then left for a church meeting that will bring him home around 11pm tonight. Compared to my "normal" night these nights are somewhat stressful. Here is the blessing I can see in it. Today Red stayed home with me to go to a friend from church's birthday party. I had asked the teacher for his Monday homework last week so he was completely done with all homework for tonight. He is typically the kid we spend the most time helping and checking his homework. Thank you Jesus for this small blessing. There are others like it isn't shower night so it is a little more laid back. But I want to be able to count my blessings in the hard times and realize that they come from my relationship with God growing stronger!