Bullet Points: Monday

• I have been up since 4:20 this morning and am still managing to feel pretty good! It was actually a fun/productive morning. I took care of Jack, worked out, showered, made breakfast for my honey, had some quiet time, etc. ALL before my kiddos woke up!
• Max and Sophie had Mom's Day Out today, good for all involved!
• I put up a few more Chrismtas decorations and am loving the way our house is looking!
• I got to go to lunch with my mom, dad, and sister today! Just like old times! I love my family!
• The calendar has filled up fast these past couple of days with the weeks leading up to Christmas! Why is the "season of peace" so busy??
• I am reading the book of Job right now during my quiet time and honestly I am struggling to get through it!
• It is a cold, rainy day here so I think we will be having breakfast for dinner!
• Not much on the agenda the rest of the week and I am very happy about that

Hope everyone else is having a good day!

Gratitude

Today our pastor preached a sermon on gratitude. It was awesome. Especially right after Thanksgiving. Our church is currently doing a sermon series called "Abandon" and the title of today's sermon was "Abandon Entitlement". It isn't up today but soon it should be so if you want to hear the sermon go here, http://www.calvaryonline.cc/page.asp?sid=1&page=554 . My absolute favorite quote from the sermon was "gratitude not expressed is percieved as ingratitude or entitlement". That totally hit home with me. I can totally relate to feeling unappreciated and it made me realize how often I forget to show gratitude to Christ. How often I feel entitled. I remember when we first moved to St. Louis and I didn't have any friends. I prayed and prayed for months that God would please give me just one friend! Soon, in His perfect timing God began putting some amazing women in my life and I now feel like I have several very good friends. But, I rarely thank God for blessing me. As soon as I had a few friends I began to feel entitled to having friends. I want to change this about myself. I want to have a grateful heart, not just during the month of Thanksgiving but all the time. I am so thankful for our church and our pastor. I guess maybe I should express that to them? Hmm...

Here are a few of the people I am most grateful for right now. And, today I am making sure to let them know it!

Black Friday

This post really doesn't have anything to do with shopping! But, everyone calls today Black Friday so I thought I would go with it. Actually, Nick and I kind of stay away from Black Friday sales. After hearing about people being killed in large crowds of shoppers we just decided that it wasn't something we wanted to be a part of. Plus for me, something just doesn't feel right about giving thanks all day one day and then waking up at the crack of dawn, standing in long lines in order to CONSUME the very next day. But, I totally get that people want to save money on Christmas gifts and score great deals. So, no judgment here! Just for me, I would rather spend the day cozy at home! Which is exactly what I have spent the day doing.

Thanksging yesterday was wonderful! I did most of my cooking on Wednesday so most of Thanksgiving morning was spent munching on cinnamon bread and watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade with my crew. We had lunch at noon and our friends joined us and we had a wonderful meal. Natalie brought several side dishes and the pies and it was all fabulous! We had a great time and are so glad they could join us! The rest of the day of course was spent napping, watching football, playing Wii, and having a great time together!

I am just loving that today is only Friday and my hubby will be home with us for the rest of the weekend! Daddy time is AWESOME! I am hoping to get a little of my Christmas shopping done online during the next few days and continue to relax as we get ready for the business leading up to Christmas! Even when trying to "keep it simple" I know that my days leading up to Christmas will be filled with our Ladies Dessert Gala at church (my friend Natalie and I are hosting and decorating a table), Paren't Night Out at church (praise Jesus!), family get togethers, wrapping presents, etc. I really go LOVE this time of year!

What I am thankful for!

I LOVE Thanksgiving so much! I have been posting what I am thankful for on Facebook everyday this month. It has been fun and a good practice to look for the joy in each day. I saw on a friend's blog that she listed 100 things she is thankful for! I was impressed! I could definitly think of 100 things! But, for times sake, I think I will list 15 things I am thankful for this Thanksgiving!

1. Jesus. He saved me and has blessed me when I didn't deserve any of it! Everything on this list is because of Him!
2. My husband. This Thanksgiving our marriage is stronger than it has ever been. Nick loves me sacraficially and I could not have asked for a better husband, best friend, and partner to raise a family with!

3. Max, my sweet first born. Max has been a challenge sometimes this year but he is growing up so much and has the best heart. He loves one on one time, animals, super heros, being loud, playing rough... he is all boy and I love him for it! He is also an amazing older brother and it has been neat to see him step up even more into that role over the past few months.

4. My Sophie Girl! I was never one of those people that had to have a daughter but God knew just what I needed. Sophie is girly, sassy, strong-willed, and makes us laugh everyday. We are so blessed to have her in our family.

5. Our little Jack. We just love him so much! He is the sweetest baby and our whole family is just head over heels for him. He truly is such a perfect addition to our family! I can't wait to see his personality form over this next year!

6. Our home. We have lived here a little over a year now and we love it so much! I believe this house was totally a gift from God and we are so thankful for it. I don't think a week goes by that either Nick or I don't say, "I love our house".
7. Our church. It took us a long time to find a church home here but now that we have we really feel at home! We are so blessed to be making new friends, learning, and worshipping in a place we love.
8. Living close to family. I can't say it enough but it is awesome! My kids get to see their grandparents at least once a week. They have amazing relationships with their grandparents, great grandma, and aunt and soon to be uncle and my extended family. Plus, free babysitting never hurt anyone either!
9. My sister moving to St. Louis this year. It is not only awesome to have our whole family living in the same area but getting to hang out and be friends with my sister is just awesome. And her fiance is pretty awesome too! We love getting together for dinners and game nights! And our kids love it too of course!
10. Our new friends here. Making friends was one of the absolute hardest parts about moving here and it took a long time. I now have some amazing girlfriends that I love and have so much in common with. I love living life with them and they have taught me so much since I have been here! What an answer to prayer they are!
11. Our friends from Springfield. Even though we aren't geographically close I love that I can still count on them and that they are still basically a part of our family! I love that we pick up where we left off whenever we see each other.
12. Friends from highschool. I love that I get to stay in touch with friends from high school because of the phone and of course Facebook! I also love getting to see people I knew in high school as mommys now! It really is a sort of sorority that just brings us all together.
13. Getting to stay at home full time. I feel beyond blessed that I get to stay at home with my kids and don't have to try to juggle a job too. I love that my husband encourages me to stay at home and doesn't want me to ever work unless I want to.

14. Friend2Friend. Our women's Bible study at our church is what really got me connected after we moved here and it still blesses me every week!
15. Coffee. Yep, can't leave that one out! I love it and it makes me happy everyday!

(Photos taken by Under Grace Photography)

Turkey Day is almost here!

It is almost Thanksgiving and I am starting to get REALLY excited! We invited our sweet friends, The Yevoli family to join us for dinner and I am so excited! Natalie, Deron, and Colin are such a wonderful family and we are so thankful to have them as our friends! So, I guess it makes sense to have Thanksgiving with them! Ha! Natalie and Deron's family is all in New Mexico and since our family is abandoning us traveling this Thanksgiving it will be great to celebrate together! Natalie and I kind of split up the menu. I am doing the turkey which makes me a little nervous! I made it last year and it was delicious but I feel the pressure! I just love Thanksgiving!

This past weekend was a really great one! My friend Christina, who recently started selling Premiere Jewelry came and had a little party for me and some of my friends and family! It was super fun! And I got lots of free jewelry! Even better! After the party Nick and I (and Jack!) got to go out to dinner with Christina and Wyatt and it was so fun! Since we have like a million kids between us we haven't gotten to go out as adults in forever! It was a WONDERFUL time! We are so blessed by the Jenkins!

Well, I better start dinner. Does anyone else find it hard to cook the days leading up to Thanksgiving? Ha!

It is Friday!

Good morning! And good morning to you Company Girls visiting me! I had so much fun visiting many of your blogs last week!

I am SO happy it is Friday! Sadly, sometimes I feel like I live for Fridays. Weekends mean Daddy is home and that is just priceless around these parts.

I think our little Max has recovered from his sinus infection and is back to sleeping again! He is acting like he feels better too which is fabulous for all of us. Unfortunatly, now our little Jack has a really bad rash that I haven't been able to get rid of so we are headed back to the doctor's later this morning to get that checked out! With three kiddos I feel like we go to the doctor all the time these days!

I am super excited for this weekend. On Saturday we are having family photographs taken. I have really admired Michelle Ross' (a woman from our church) photography from the first time I saw it. And I always dreamed about her taking our family pictures. And she is going to tomorrow! I am just praying it isn't too cold and that my kids cooperate!!

On Sunday we were invited to my Grandma Powell's up in Kirksville for that side of family's Thanksgiving/Christmas. But, it is about a 3 hour drive and I just know Jack would not handle 6 hours in the car in one day very well. It is just a lot for our little family right now! Plus, we would have to miss church Sunday morning to get there and our little Max is very serious about going to church every Sunday now that he has been promoted to the monkey room! Ha! Thankfully, I know everyone will understand! We have a great family! I am sure everyone will have a great time though!

So, Sunday at our house will probably be the usual; church, leftovers for lunch, and football. Gotta love it!

I hope everyone has a great weekend! I will leave you with a new picture of my sweet little man giggling for his Mommy!

Happy Tuesday!

I think Max is on the mend! Praise Jesus! Nick took him to the doctor yesterday and our fabulous doctor said he has a sinus infection on top of his reactive airway disease (which I looked up and is basically every sickness going straight to his lungs). So, he is now on day two of antibiotics. Last night he actually slept through the night which was awesome! Unfortunatly, little Jack was stuffy last night so he was up a good part of the night needing to be held upright. Poor baby! Oh well, I will sleep someday. I really do cherish those night time snuggles when the rest of the house is quiet.

I think we are going to have a lounge around the house/Mommy gets lots of cleaning done kind of day here at our house. It is NEEDED!

Oh, and this morning I made my friend Stephanie's recipe for a "Dutch Baby" which is kind of like a fluffy/eggy pancake! She served me one with lemon juice and powdered sugar which was DIVINE! I am still dreaming about it actually... But, I served mine with syrup this morning because we didn't have any lemons and it was certainly nothing to sneeze at.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Tuesday!

Sick boy :-(

Our sweet Max is battling an icky respiratory infection right now. ICK! I feel so sorry for him. He gets them all winter long and they are just miserable. Our doc said it is super common in babies born early. So, basically any allergies or colds he gets go straight to his lungs. It is hard because he is fine during the day and then as soon as he lays down at night he starts coughing and coughing and can barely breathe. Thankfully we have a nebulizer machine and we give him breathing treatments which helps a lot but some nights it still isn't enough. Tonight is the third night in a row that he is up, unable to sleep. Please pray for him to get better soon! I hate seeing my little man not feeling well... and we could all use a little sleep!

Here is a sweet picture from this morning... Max and Daddy sleeping on the couch. (And yes, my husband is rocking a Snuggie in this picture!)

Friday morning!

Yay! Friday is here! This week has actually gone by pretty fast in spite of a few rough moments with those sweet little R's! We LOVE weekends around here because it means that Daddy is home!! Not sure who gets more excited, me or the kids?!

Some "highlights" of our week

• Soph "jumped" out of her crib onto her head resulting in a transition to a big girl bed. After one night and one nap of trying for an hour and a half to two hours to get her to sleep last night she went to bed with NO trouble at all!
• Sophie got to go to Target to pick out her own big girl bedding. To my shock she actually chose the set I wanted her to get! A zebra print set that will match everything that is already in there!
• Jack is not sleeping well at night, bummer! He is not loving sleeping in his crib these days! Thankfully, with #3 it is easier to see that "this too shall pass" and just enjoy the middle of the night snuggles while I can!
• Mr. Max woke up last night with the tightest most horrible cough I have ever heard! I really thought we were going to have to go to the ER. Thankfully because of all his respiratory issues we have a nebulizer and the medicine always on hand so after his breathing treatment he was doing much better.
• My mom came by after school yesterday and we just got to sit and chat! I love it when that happens! Most of the time when we are together she is giving the kids most of her attention (which I wouldn't have any other way!) but it is nice to get a little attention myself every once in awhile. I really have the best mom ever!
• I realized that since it is NOVEMBER I should probably start Christmas shopping!
• Nick has been awesome lately and my always helpful husband has stepped it up another notch helping me with the housework. I am so grateful for him! He teaches me so much about love and servanthood. He is such an awesome example of a husband and father for our kiddos. God is so good!

Happy Friday everyone! I am leaving you with a few "retro" (ha!!) pics. It is always fun to look back at what was going on this time last year so here it is in pics!

(Max and Mommy ready to watch the Broncos game. Max loves the Broncos... not the Chiefs.)

(Sophie at 1 year. I can't believe this was just a year ago! She looks SO little!)

November!

It might seem like I am trying to win some sort of award for being the worst blogger ever these days! It says October 14th was my last post! I guess life with 3 kiddos 4 and under is keeping me a little busier than I think sometimes!

We really had a great end of October and Halloween! We have had the chance to get together with friends quite a bit which is awesome! Leaving all of our good friends in Springfield was one of the hardest things we have ever done and we are thankful that we will have those friendships forever! But, we are thankful that we are starting to build our little "family" of friends here. The Lou is really starting to feel like home!

Last week on Friday Nick took the day off work so that we could have a little family day and it was beyond great for all of us. We took the kiddos to a pumpkin patch in St. Peters which was just perfect for our little family! They had a maze, petting zoo, corn boxes, tricycle tractors, a metal barrel train, tractor tire swings, big slides, and more. And since we went on a Friday it wasn't too busy so we were able to really have fun! Then we went to lunch at Red Robin which was just the icing on the cake! We rarely take our kids to resteraunts so I had no idea if they would be good or if it would take lots of creativity and work to keep them happy and sitting their seats! But, they were great and it was so much fun!

Halloween was super fun this year too! Max is at the perfect age for getting really into holidays so it was fun to relive the excitement. Nick's mom is very taltented at sewing and had made Max a great dino outfit for dress-up awhile back. He told me he wanted to wear it for Halloween so I asked her if she wouldn't mind making dino costumes for the other kiddos. She made Soph a beautiful pink dino costume that Sophie loved and she found a really cute triceratops costume for Jack so we were totally set! But, when it was time to put costumes on Soph flat out refused to put her costume on and insisted on wearing Max's monkey costume from a few years ago! Geesh! I felt terrible she didn't wear it! Gotta love 2 year olds though! They had a blast trick-or-treating though! My parents, grandma, and future brother-in-law all came over and we had a really fun time! We ended up having lots of trick-or-treaters stop by this year! I almost ran out of candy! We just had 4 last year so I didn't expect so many! I guess next year I will be prepared!

And now that Halloween is over I guess Thanksgiving is just around the corner! Thanksgiving should be interesting/really good this year! It is just our little family for Thanksgiving (and maybe Grandma June if we can convince her to come over). My parents are going to Gulf Shores and they invited us to go too but with a baby we knew there was no way a long car ride was a good idea! And my sister and her fiance are going to Kansas City so it will be just us! I asked Nick if he wanted to go somewhere but he thought it would be fun to do our own little family thing and I think I agree! I definitily want to make sure our kids know that our little family is enough and I want to make the day really special for them! It is so easy to "go all out" for others but I want to make sure that I give my best to my husband and kids!

And then Christmas will be here before we know it! I am trying to get started on Christmas shopping soon. I don't really shop early because I never know what people will want by the time Christmas rolls around and I am trying to keep gifts simple and special. Last year my friend Natalie gave me the idea of giving each child 3 Christmas presents each year (like the 3 gifts from the Wisemen for baby Jesus) and it was awesome last year. They were able to focus and play with each of their presents and it really helped me to not go overboard (which is my tendency!).

I love Christmas and am really going to try to enjoy it even more this year! Last year Max was really into learning about the birth of Jesus and I think this year it will be even more fun! I love starting little traditions and just having lots of good family time around the holidays! After reading "Boundaries" I have gotten more confident in saying "no" so I think I will be able to really make the best decisions for our family this year. Or at least that is my big prayer for the holiday season this year! I want time to really focus on what the season is about and not focus on business and consumerism which tends to happen!

Anyhoo...
Today I think we are going to spend the day at home. I have a lot of housework to catch up on and the kids could probably use a day at home playing with their toys!

Have a blessed Tuesday! (These photos are totally out of order and I didn't want to spend any more time trying to fix it than I already have! So, they are from Halloween and the pumpkin patch!)