Simply Thankful

Today is February 3rd. It's Austin's 3rd Birthday.  And--Alexis' 8 year homecoming-versary from her 130 day NICU stay.  I just put the kids down for a short nap and I am taking a few minutes to reflect.  We.Are.Blessed!  Catching everyday blessings was the original intent of this blog and I need to do a better job at documenting them.

We have so many things to be thankful for, but one thing I'm thankful for today is the health of both of our kids.  I remember the days of endless doctor appointments, prescriptions galore, therapists, and the list goes on. I do not miss those days and I do NOT take for granite the fact that our kids are healthy.  Praise God!

I'm also thankful for family.  We had my parents, grandparents, and each of my siblings and their families over for Austin's birthday celebration last night. Here are some of the highlights of the evening...

What is it, What is it???

Ooohhhh....

It's a "fee wheeler"

Happy faces!

Mickey Mouse Cake...he was so excited!

Our evening entertainment...all toys that belong at Grandma and Grandpa's house we decided.  :)

Who needs toys when you have balloons??

What's not to love?  SO Blessed!

Busy but Blessed!

Some of you have asked me if we are doing 31 days of Nothing (January no-spend challenge) this year.  The answer?  No.   Why?  Simply put, we have too many irons in the fire right now.

What are we up to?
Well-- set some family goals for 2013 last weekend.

One of our family goals for 2013?

• Eat "real" (non-processed) food.  
• Our healthy eating goal is going to be the 80/20% rule. 
• Eat real, whole foods 80% of the time.  With hardly-ever-home weekly schedule, it's too much of a stretch to say we'd eat real food 100% of the time.  We're striving for 80%.
• Check out the resource I made for our healthy living goal, lifestyle change: http://www.symbaloo.com/mix/realfoodblogs

 What else have we been up to?

• I took on a new role at school this semester.  I'm now a part-time special ed. teacher, part time reading/behavior interventionist.  I'm excited to use some of the things I've learned over the years to help more kids and teachers throughout our school.  It's busy right now but I like to be busy.  I feel challenged, and that's a good thing!  Blessed!
• Starting 1/31, I am also teaching a night-class at my alma-mater, BVU.  GO BEAVERS!  I feel extremely blessed to be offered this opportunity.  It's going to be another challenge for me but it will be good.  I'm excited!  Blessed!
• Alexis is in pre-team gymnastics 3 days (7-8 hours) a week.  To say the least, this has kept us on  our toes. Starting next week, we have to have her at gymnastics (20 minutes away) by 5:00 p.m.  We get done with school at 4:00 p.m.  Yeah.  Another challenge.  ;)  However, we are extremely impressed with her coach. She's learned SO much in the short time she's been on pre-team.  Mental toughness, physical strength, teamwork, time management to name a few. All life skills.  It's been a great investment!  Blessed!

• Austin is going to be THREE in a few couple of weeks.  WHERE does the time go?  He's so much fun to have around.  He says the funniest things and keeps us all on our toes.  He goes to my friend Tammy's when have school.  What a BLESSING Tammy is.  We thank God for her often!  Blessed!

• Justin is done with hunting season (I'm SO sad about that.;).  He got a doe during shot gun and Austin was amused, followed by about 1,000 questions.  He can't wait to hunt with daddy someday!  Blessed (mainly because we only have one deer to eat this year.:) ha!

• Justin is also leading worship at our church.  He loves playing guitar and singing at home so when the church was in need of a worship leader after our associate pastor left, Justin took on that role.  He's also still serving every Wednesday night at our church's youth group.  He loves it and looks forward to it each week.  Blessed!

Phew.  We're a tad busy.  But BLESSED!

P.S.  I'll be posting pictures of our Texas trip and possibly about some of our other 2013 goals soon.  No, we haven't done any more home-improvement projects.  That's on "the list".