Rejoicing!!

I sat down many times over the past week to start writing on the blog, and have been pulled away each time.  Hopefully I can get this out before everyone wakes from nap.  Today has been an awesome  day!  The sun is shining, and I think life just looks better when the sun shines!  When the sun shines, it's easy to remember the many reasons for which you are grateful.  Here are the reasons I'm rejoicing today:

1.  The sun is shining...did I say that yet?

2.  We got out of the house this morning.  Even if it was just a trip to Target, we still go out of the house and returned home happy.

3.  I've had to break up very few fights today between the boys.  The last few weeks have been discouraging for me, feeling as though the boys are constantly bickering, whining, teasing, and stealing toys.  I felt like a referee most days.  Today I have enjoyed watching them play together, taking turns with each others toys, and enjoying each others company.  Wow, what an improvement!!

4.  Watching the boys race their trucks around the house.  It's very loud, but I love to hear them giggle!

5.  Everyone is napping!!!  I even took a quick 20 minute nap!

6.  My very dear friend delivered a healthy baby boy over the weekend!  I'm so excited for her and her family!  Having a boy in the family will be a wonderful new experience for them, and he is so lucky to have two amazing big sisters that are going to help take great care of him!  I look forward to visiting them soon. :)

The boys and me on my birthday.

7.  We celebrated my birthday a little over a week ago (two days after Jeff's) and the boys made me feel so special.  Both my parents and Jeff's mom and husband gave us wonderful birthday gifts!  They drove out here for the past two weekends to stay with the boys so we could spend some time away from the house.  It was the best gift to just get to spend time together, just the two of us.  Thank you to both my parents, and Jeff's mom and husband for coming out here to give us time together.  We love to have you visit and miss you when you leave!

Dinner at Portillo's and birthday cake.

Happy birthday to both of us!

Once again, I got pulled away from the computer, so now the day is over, everyone is fast asleep and I'm just going to add one more thing...

8.  I am so thankful for the special women in my small group.  I look forward to every Monday night that we get together.  Each one of them was put in my life for a reason.  I always leave our group feeling re-energized (even if it's after 10 pm), encouraged, and ready to tackle the rest of my week.  They are blessings to me!

Now it's off to bed with hopes for another sunshine filled day tomorrow!

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Take #1

Take #3

Take #5

Take #6

Take #10...I tried.

Daddy's home!

Happy birthday Daddy!  Can you tell they are both very excited to see each other?

What is it?  What is it?  No surprise for Jeff...Jackson spilled the beans a few days ago. :)

Making Daddy's birthday cake, red velvet cake, yum!

Happy Birthday Babe!  Thanks for being the amazing man that you are.  We all love you so much!

Happy Valentine's Day!

I hope everyone enjoyed a wonderful Valentine's Day with the ones they love most.  In our house, we always say, "Love you no matter what."  Tonight Jackson told me, "Even when I make bad choices, I still love you Mom."  :)

Our homemade valentine decorations.

"My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you."  John 15:12

Comedy Relief

I seriously need some laughter in my life this week.  It's been a very challenging week to say the least!  This video is so funny, I dare you to watch this and NOT laugh!  Make sure you turn my music off before you play it so you can hear the lyrics.  ENJOY!!

Blizzard

Along with many of you, we were hit with A LOT of snow last week. I'm not sure I've ever seen this much snow at once in my lifetime. I heard it was around 18 inches, but it was so hard to tell with the enormous drifts. The snow was drifted up to the top of our fence in the backyard and in some places was up to Jeff's hips. We didn't even attempt to take Grant and Cooper out in it in fear they may fall into a drift! Jeff was home for two days so we enjoyed some unexpected, but much appreciated family time. By Friday, Jeff was back at work and the boys and I were feeling pretty cooped up. I planned on taking the boys out to the mall to run around, but unfortunately went out to start the van and the battery was dead! So for one more day we were stuck inside. Thank goodness over the weekend we were all able to get out of the house a little.  I sure hope that March will bring some warmer weather and sunshine because we have a lot of snow to get rid of!

The snow drifted to to the top of the fence in our backyard.

Our front window covered with snow from the terrible blowing winds.

On our front walkway in front of the porch.

There is a sidewalk under there somewhere!

The front of our house.  Can you see two little faces at the door?

Our backyard

Attempting to play in the snow but we kept sinking down past our knees.  I have Jeff's warm gloves on so my hand's look huge!

The second day of the blizzard, they brought in a tractor to remove all the snow from the elementary school playground right behind our house.  The boys loved watching it scoop up the big mounds of snow.