Reason to Rejoice

We have been talking about Fruit of the Spirit in Sunday school recently and I will do a series of posts with all of the lessons that my FABULOUS teacher has done (he's my husband) ;)  A few weeks ago we talked about joy and I have just been thinking so much about that word.  The definition that we talked about in Sunday school was: joy - "having confidence in God's goodness despite your circumstances."  Obviously this is not the Webster's dictionary definition but I think it's perfect.  Rachel has gotten into this trend where she has been grumbling and complaining about everything.  She is just not happy about anything and we had a discussion the other day about joy and about being content.  Her kindergarten teacher even looked up the verse in Philippians where it says "do everything without arguing or complaining" Philippians 2:4.  Now, if she gets into her "funk" I will say, "Rachel, what does Philippians 2:4 say?"  She wil

I hate that I am so behind on blogging but I have just been so stressed and busy with the new job.  I am hoping that my little vacation will help me get back on track.  I have missed the "blog-o-sphere."  :) Rachel Mackenzie, my first born ball of energy and sensitive beauty, turned six years old on November 14th!!  I will never forget my pregnancy with her as I was a nervous wreck.  Most of you know my history and can understand when I say that I felt that I did not deserve the blessing that was growing inside of my body when the Lord decided to allow Brice and I to bring Rachel into the world.  I was constantly thinking was something wrong with her.  I called the doctor all of the time when I felt "funny" or when I couldn't feel or move when I thought she should.  Needlesstosay I am sure I drove that doctor NUTS!!!!  I even drove myself a little crazy! :S  I was due on December 5, 2006.  I had a seemingly uneventful pregnancy until Friday, October 13th.  I

My friend Amanda with Amanda Rooney Photography did a GREAT job taking the pictures and designing our Christmas card this year!!!  I told her that I wanted something whimsical and fun and she came up with the design!  I didn't get a family picture this year because getting all of us together and happy at the same time is next to impossible!  I really wish that I could send a Christmas card to every person that reads my blog, is my friend on Twitter and/or Facebook but I just can't so consider this your personal Christmas card from our home to yours!! :)  Merry Christmas from the 5 of us!    

Wow!  It has been a long time!!!  As my husband reminded me tonight, the last time I blogged was Halloween!!!  SO MUCH has happened since then!!!  I will tell you as much as I can think of and leave out the stuff that isn't  too  important!! :) Probably the biggest thing that has happened since I blogged last is that I changed jobs!  I put in my two week notice at Arlington Memorial Hospital and my last day there was Friday, November 16th.  I was there for almost 5 years and the decision to leave was one of the hardest decisions I have ever made.  I absolutely love that hospital and those 5 years, granted not without challenges, were some of the best years of my career.  I am now working at Baylor Surgical Hospital in Fort Worth.  It is United Surgical Partners hospital, mainly owned by physicians and a small portion owned by Baylor Healthcare System.  It is a small 24 inpatient bed surgical hospital that cranks out A TON of surgeries per day and stays plenty busy.  My start date

Halloween this year was a fruit basket turnover!!!!  Lauren has proven to be in a little of a challenging stage.  Let's just say this: she is 3 years old!  Is that enough said?  Okay, thought so.  Now that we have established that fact, for that reason, I let her pick what theme the girls would be for Halloween this year so that she would cooperate.  We got the Chasing Fireflies catalog in the mail this year and she and I sat down and looked through it. She picked the banana costume!  I was actually shocked!!  She is just my introverted child.  She is quiet, shy, and does NOT want to be the center of attention AT ALL!  The fact that she picked the wacky banana costume was so funny to me!  She laughed and giggled and just went crazy over this banana costume.  What is so cute about Lauren is that she is a clown!  She loves making people laugh but she is just painfully shy about it.  She really is funny though.  So, we went with a fruit theme.  Rachel wanted to be a fairy. She t

Well, some might think so As I posted in my last post, Rachel recently pulled HER OWN  tooth at the Arboretum during her school field trip.  Okay, I am new to this whole tooth fairy business!  And for those of you that are wondering, NO, there isn't a tooth fairy, sorry to break the news to you on the world wide web!!!  And YES, everything you read on here IS THE TRUTH!!!!  ;)  Anyway, I digress....I got on here and asked my ever so trustworthy group of know it alls friends on Twitter about how much teeth are going for these days and got some ridiculous answers!!!!  There was a wide variety of answers, for one thing.  I just decided that Brice and I would figure it out and go with something we thought was reasonable for an almost-6-year-old who doesn't know the difference.  So, we the tooth fairy gave her $.50 for her tooth.  I find out later that we apparently are CHEAP!!!  I have been told this by more than 5 people, by the way!  I heard of one kid getting $20 a tooth a

On Tuesday, October 23 rd , I took off work and went with Rachel’s class to the Dallas Arboretum.   It was so much fun and I loved spending the day with my FIRST baby girl! She is growing up way too fast!     Right now at the Arboretum they have pumpkins EVERYWHERE!   They have a pumpkin village where you can see all different types of pumpkins, they have houses made out of pumpkins and they even had Cinderella’s carriage with the Fairytale Pumpkins!   Rachel thought that was pretty cool (and so did her 4 BOY classmates)!   Rachel’s favorite pumpkin was the Turk’s Turbin Pumpkin!   Rachel was excited about the Arboretum because she wanted to smell the flowers, and smell the flowers she did…I think she smelled them all!   She loves flowers just like my mom!     Another thing that they have out there right now is the Chihuly Exhibit. He is a glass sculptor and there were some really neat glass sculptures there. I think the adults thought that was coo

  Yes, I am behind!!!  EEK!!!!  Here are a few pictures from Hannah's first birthday party on Saturday, October 20th!  Okay, so there are more than just a few pictures but you only turn 1 once, right?!!!  The theme for her birthday was rubber duckies.  I figured it would be an easy theme and for the most part, I was right.  Around the time of her birthday, I was CRAZY busy and overcommitted myself with a dozen other things and TOTALLY procrastinated.  It was a VERY low-key party with not many guests at all but it was perfect, in my opinion. We had some cupquacks (otherwise known as cupcakes) from Tom Thumb bakery and I just added some ducky picks that I ordered from Amazon.com.   We had some duck food (or homemade chex mix that I could literally eat my weight in)!!!     A YUMMY fruit tray      The colors of the party were pink and yellow so we had pink and yellow lemonade     And this little creation I have to admit that I stole off Pinte

Social media is certainly a new thing that many people do not understand.  Is it a good thing?  That is up for debate, I believe.  Some will adamantly tell you "no" and some will say, without a doubt, "You betcha!" Some say that it can be a generational difference and I can see that as well. I think that, like anything, it can be time consuming and too much of it can be a bad thing.  I often do much of my blogging and the bulk of my internet usage after the kids go to bed or in the wee hours of the morning before anyone gets up.  Having access to so much technology makes things so much easier and I find myself checking Facebook and Twitter quite a bit during the day as well.  It literally takes about a minute to update a Facebook status or answer a few people's questions on Twitter.  It is an easy way to communicate.  The downfall to this?  It should not replace face to face communication.  I am such a people person and I would much rather talk to someone than

All of my life I have wanted to be a Mommy!!  Even after a bad choice and after years of feeling like I don't deserve the JOY of loving just one "mini-me" I get THREE of them!!!  God is so good to me and He is SO faithful even when we are not!  Hannah Grace!!!  How did you get to be so BIG!??!  You rock my world, Baby Girl!  Look at that smile!  You came into this world when you wanted to.  I had it all planned out for you to be born on October 21st and you started making your entrance a little early and after Mommy started having some problems, the doctors decided you had to come!!!  So, at 4:30 in the morning on October 19th, you were ready!!!!  You wanted to get here so fast, Mommy's nurse had to hold your little head until the doctor could get there for your birth (you had a little indention in your head when you were born to prove it)! :)  When you were born, your cheeks were so chubby, you didn't open your eyes for 3 days!!!  The pediatrician co

October is awareness month for so many causes.  The most common is probably Breast Cancer Awareness Month but near and dear to my heart is National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month It was is a month set aside to remember those babies that have been lost due to miscarriage, stillbirth, illnesses, accidents, etc during pregnancy and after birth under the age of one year old.  In 1988 Ronald Reagan actually dedicated a day in the month to celebrate and remember these babies.  The day that was chosen was October 15th mainly because it fell in the very middle of the month.  October 15th is National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day.   All across the globe at 7:00 PM there are candles lit in memory and honor of those babies who are gone but not forgotten.  At the hospital where I work, I am the co-chair of the Bereavement Committee and three years ago we started our annual ceremony for this occasion.  We have a speaker, do a responsive reading, and light candles.  We p