Shoes

Evie is all about shoes these days.  She will bring us her shoes that are in the basket by our door and sit down and want us to put them on her feet.  Last week she even seemed to have an opinion about not wanting one pair she had and brought me her other pair to change to them before we left for church.  She also loves finding her sisters shoes and trying them on.  It is so cute :)

 Not sure about her crazy face other than it was bedtime and she was tired :)

Trying on "sissy's" boots!

We are looking forward to the next few days, having a break and hopefully some family time!  SK begged us yesterday to go ahead and get her pink Christmas tree out, so we did.  How can we resist such a cute sweet face :)  So we have her tree up and she was so excited.  Hope to get more pictures tomorrow or at some point this weekend!

Happy Thanksgiving y'all!

Randomness...

I want to catch up the blog, but my thoughts are jumbled as to where to start.  Let's see.  Last week was miserable.  I will just leave it at saying that I despise the stomach bug.
We are half way through this week though and it is looking like a better week.  Evie didn't eat solid foods for about 8 days and is slowly starting to ease back into eating and less screaming at us.  And a little more sleep too.  We didn't get much of that last week.
SK was/is our lone survivor who didn't get the stomach bug.  Poor kid though.  She has gone to sleep the last 3 nights with the trash can (cleaned, I will add) in her bed because she is scared she feels like she might throw up.  One night Michael went in her room to take the trash can out of her bed after she had fallen asleep to find her face right in the can while sleep.  Kids are disgusting sometimes.  Or maybe more than sometimes...
Michael is 1/2 way through the 4 papers he had to do this week.  Whew.  So close to the end of the semester....so so ready.

What else...

*When the stomach bug hit our house at 4 a.m., I made homemade lysol at 5.  Our house was pretty stinking clean and that was nice :)

*Evie is starting to communicate more these days.  She says "thank you" (in her own little way, maybe not completely clear...) and "no".  She waves bye bye and signs "more" and "all done".  I had music playing yesterday and she was wiggling her little booty dancing.  It was pretty cute I must say.

I need coffee.  Can't think of anything else to blog about right now.

More to come hopefully next week or this weekend when we make it through the rest of this week and maybe I can think straight.

SO much in my head...

I have so much going on in my head right now I feel like I can't see straight.  Really.

I think I have said before on here that I am taking Marriage and Family Counseling this semester.  Whew.  Why did I wait till my last year to decide I wish I could at least have audited more counseling classes.  I am thankful at least to get this one in.  Dude.  It is rocking my world though.  What is hard right now too is that I can't find the time or brainpower to process what all is talked about in the class.  I will explain more later maybe...I can't even process what I want to share on the blog really.

Pray for me.  That I can process these things that are rolling around in my head.  That the Lord will use this to grow me and use it to further His kingdom.

So this last class, we had a speaker come from Firstlight here in St. Louis.  She spoke on the Trauma for spouses of men (which can also be said for the opposite as well) with sexual addiction issues.  The stats are crushing.

50% of Christian men say they are addicted to pornography.  (That is PRESENT tense...)

9 out of 10 boys are exposed to pornography before the age of 18.

75% of PASTORS say they are not accountable to anyone for their internet use.

67% of young men report that watching pornography is an acceptable way to express one's sexuality.



Maybe I am going to step on toes with this.  Do I care?  Maybe I need to.  There are more stats if you look on Covenant Eyes website.

What upsets me as I begin to process all that was talked about is that we don't address this in the church.  That is a generalized statement, I know, and there are some that are for sure.  But how many times do you see a woman come forward for help because she is suffering from PTSD due to her husband dealing with a sexual addiction.  Do women (and yes, I know it can go the other way as well...) feel safety somewhere within the church to find help, to get support and help.  Or do men feel safe to say that they are struggling with a sexual addiction, or a woman feel safe to say she struggles as well with the same.

Then you look at the statistics dealing with children.  That makes me want to go throw up really.  What really it needs to make me want to do is get on my face and cover my children in prayer over this issue. Maybe that is what the Lord ultimately wants to teach me in all of this.

Ack.  My head is spinning.  Lord, come quickly.

Trick or Treat!

We had a fun week last week :)  First we will start off with our annual "Charlie Brown" party that our neighbor upstairs always throws.  The kiddos got to decorate cookies then watch "Charlie Brown" with some popcorn.  SO many cute kiddos :)

Then came Halloween...First off we had a silly spider:

Then we had a "Jessie"...which was a last minute throw together.  SK was originally going to be "Ariel", but decided after getting new cowgirl boots for the fall/winter, she wanted to be a cowgirl.  That was easy enough to get an outfit put together for.  I had already bought her the red hairspray for fun, so we decided to still use it and call her Jessie :)

AND let me tell you..that red hair spray is strong smelling and SK's hair is slightly still pink...

Daddy with his 2 girls...

Since it was raining, we didn't get to do the annual parade, so instead we had a big group picture, or an attempt for a group pic, then let the kids run to each apt. collecting their candy...

Fun times!

Life...

Life lately...

It's busy.  That's for sure.  How about I tell you about what the girl's are up to though instead of complaining about being pooped...sounds like a better blog doesn't it??!!

Little Miss Evie...

She is a mess.  She can be quite the booger, therefore earning the nickname "booger bear" at times.  Other nicknames would include Sugar Bear, Evsters, and Boo.  She loves to giggle.  She is now a walker!  She will occasionally still resort to crawling if she wants to get somewhere quickly, but she is walking all over the place these days.  She has 3 teeth, yep, that's it so far :)  She takes 1-2 naps a day, seems to be moving towards just 1 nap, which is okay with me if that 1 will be a good long one.  As far as bedtime...sometimes I wonder if she will ever consistently sleep through the night.  Some nights she will, but I can't count on it every night that is for sure.  Makes for me being the tired momma that I am these days.

On to Princess Sarah Kate...

Michael and I have decided she is an off the charts extravert.  That girl would hang with friends all day every day if it was up to her.  When we get ready for dinner each night she immediately asks who is coming to eat with us.  AND most of the time will be quite upset if she finds out it is just us eating together as a family.  I guess the Lord knew what he was doing when he created her, seeing that being around people will be part of life for us as we go to do ministry in England.  Yesterday she asked if she could have a friend come and eat lunch with her on our patio, to which I said sure.  Next thing I knew, she had about 8 girls out there having a picnic (she even came in to get the picnic blanket for them).  I love it and it helps that her daddy and I are both extraverts as well, so we love being around people too :)

She is doing great with school (most days...).  She is really starting to pick up reading.  I am trying to not stress over it too much this year, but enjoy this time with her.








Off to do laundry.  Then clean up the house, since we have company coming for dinner...SK will be thrilled :)

Fall Break

So we are on Fall Break (read that as Michael doesn't have class, but there has been plenty still going on...).  Michael flew out last Thursday to go down to Alabama to be with our friends, Trace and Bruce.  Let me first explain that Trace and Bruce are the 2 elders of Culcheth Community Church, which is the church we are going to in England.  Trace is from Alabama (same home church) and Bruce is from England.  So Michael flew down Thursday afternoon, then the 3 of them hit the road on Friday for South Carolina.  They spent the weekend there (and from the sounds of it, had a greatly encouraging time there) then drove back to Alabama on Monday.  On Tuesday, they hit the road to St. Louis.  Yes, that is a lot of time in the car for these guys.  They stayed here till yesterday, then Trace and Bruce headed back to Alabama yesterday.
I was glad they were able to make it up here a couple days.  It was good to get the time to talk with them more about us coming there and hear from them more about their take on the state that England is in.
Hearing them talk though made my heart long to be there now.  I don't want to wait 16 or 17 months to get there.  I want to go now.  I want to dive into to ministry and building relationships.  I am anxious to see how the Lord uses our giftings there.  What will it end up looking like?
I have to stop myself though.  I have to remind myself that the Lord has us here for now.  And it is good that we are here.  It is good.  The waiting will be good.  I have been in this waiting spot before.  I remember.  I will wait on the Lord and His timing.  I don't have to completely understand it or be all overjoyed by it, but I will wait on the Lord.  I will trust that HE is good and wants to use us here for this time.  He will get us there.
Dude.
We are excited that the Lord has called us to this purpose.  We know to that it isn't going to be easy.  Some days, my mind goes to "What are we getting into?  What are we about to put our children through?"  Such a range of emotions over the whole thing really.

Back to our time with Trace and Bruce.

On Tuesday, they pulled into town around 6 (after sitting in STL traffic for about an hour it seemed).  We ate a quick bite of chili, then had some people over for dessert and chatting.

Wednesday, we started out our day introducing them to Trader Joe's.  I believe Trace had orders from Ginger to not return without having been to Trader Joe's :)  (completely joking about the orders bit...)
Then we headed to Pi Pizza for lunch.  It is kinda like Chicago style pizza and it was quite yummy.  Trace ate so much that he covered lunch and dinner in that one sitting :)
Then that night we had a get together at the Kirk, where Trace and Bruce were able to share about the need in England and what is going on with Culcheth Community Church as well, ministering in a post-Christian society.
I got most of their talk recorded, so I look forward to watching it again myself :)

If you didn't get to come Wed. night and want to watch it with us, let us know!
After the Kirk get together, we headed back to our place and stayed up till 11:30 or so talking.  Good discussion happened for sure :)

The guys got together with a couple men from the Kirk for breakfast Thursday morning, then Trace and Bruce headed out to make the drive back to Alabama.

I would have loved to have even more time with them, but soon enough we will all be living and doing life together in England!

Here is a quick look at our time together in pictures:

Randoms...

I am sitting here watching a cute little baby with green food all over her face while the other girlys dance around the living room to the song, 10,000 Reasons.  Blesses my heart to sit back and see God's goodness and love through my children.
God is good.  He is so loving.  I love moments where I can sit back, stop being busy with the tasks of the day and see God all around me.  See him through my little girl dancing to praise music.  Through the sunshine and beautiful day outside my window.  Through a sweet baby now playing peak a boo with her messy face :)

Evie had her 1 year check up at the doctor this morning.  Sweet little girl is a whopping 17 lb. 10 oz!  I know, we have teeny babies :)  I think that put her in the 18% for weight and she was in the 35% for height, I think 28.5 inches...can't remember exactly and didn't write it down.  Had my hands full trying to explain to a certain 5 year old that we weren't at the playground and she didn't need to crawl on the floor to get a laugh out of her sister.  Ugh.

Then poor baby girl had shots.  I hate shots.  I know they are good and all, but I hate having my baby cry when they stick the needly in.  Poor baby.  She got fine quickly and took a little nap.


Katy, the caterpillar, is still in her cocoon.  I am thinking she should make her appearance any day now....

Life is so stinking busy.  Our schedule got crazy busy this fall.  All good stuff, just lots.  SK is loving gymnastics, then does ballet too (she actually is in my class that I teach!).  Michael and I are taking Unholy Matrimony on Tuesday nights.  It's fun to be in the classroom with him.  Then there is the homeschooling and everything else...

Michael flies out next Thursday to head to B'ham and meet up with our friends from England.  I am excited to have them here.  Trace and Bruce have never been to the STL, so it will be fun to show them a bit of this fun city!  And it will be nice to have fall break too, so there won't be classes going on at least :)

What else....

hmm...

I am so ready for fall.  I am glad it's Oct., but the temps need to cool off a bit more.  I am ready for soups and bundling up under a blanket.

Off to dance with the girls... :)

Happy Wednesday, y'all!