For a sick friend

 man made this cute alligator for his friend (who is a girl) that was sick and stayed home from school. I thought it was the cutest little paper craft ever. I told him I was sad that he did not make it for me. :)

Love my crafty, thoughtful, little man. 

Above the clouds.

We decided to go hiking as a family today. It was awesome. Let me tell you why...

1. It was beautiful. I definitely get the winter blues in January. And this was the perfect vitamin D boost I needed. 

2. The princess, although so cute, is well known for her catch phrase, "hold me" but she did the ENTIRE hike all on her own two feet,and even ran parts of it. she insisted that we stop every once in a while to stretch. 

3. I have been working a lot lately. (Were Saving for a house) so it was a nice family outing. It's times like these that remind me why we have families. 

4. It was beautiful above the clouds. 

5. This monkey got his energy out. I guess I use that phrase too much because he likes to use it against me bysaying  things like "we need to go to the park to get my energy out"

6. He has had a beard for 3 months now, and today he finally got to be a mountain man. Maybe he will get rid of it now?

7. I knew we were having pizza at work so it was nice to burn all those calories beforehand. Plus the view was incredible.

You forget how much you need to get out until you finally do it.  

It was wonderful.  

2014

HOLY MOLEY...

What happened to 2013? It went way too fast.

I cannot believe it is already the 13th day of the year 2014. When I was in elementary school, I remember counting the years till 2000 and wondering what it would be like.

IT IS 14 YEARS PAST THAT NOW. WHEW!!!

I cannot believe it is the year 2014!

And I can't believe how big my kiddos are getting... That is right 1996 me, its 2014 and I have two kids. Wow time just blows my mind!

I feel a blog post coming on.

It has been a long time since I have "felt a blog post coming on." In fact, I would not consider myself a blogger at all anymore. today is the first day in a long time that I have felt like writing on the blog, I just had to take a break. I promise deep down inside my heart I am a blogger, I just have a hard time finding time for it. And that is ok. But today the blog has tugged on my heart and I wanted to visit it with a new years post. If you are a long time reader of my blog, you will know that new years resolutions (or new yous resolutions as I like to call them) are a big deal to me. 2013 was a big year for us, we made a lot of changes and used a lot of prayer. At the begining of 2013 I made 3 new years resolutions, 2 of which I compleated successfully, and then quit after making awesome progress. :( And the third I was hit and miss on. So this year my goals are very similar. And I am ok with that. I was reading in Matthew this morning and a particular scripture jumped out at me as fitting seeing as it is new years. It gave me a little boost of motivation that I think I needed. He was talking about the scribes and pharisees and he said...

"All therefor whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not."

I dont want to be that person who says they will do something and does it not. Especially when it comes to spiritual matters. now, using this scripture to motivate me to floss my teeth more often maybe a stretch, but when it comes to teaching my children how to stick with something, even as silly as flossing my teeth, I dont want to be like the scribes and pharisees. Another source of motivation I am pulling from is this quote...

It has been one of my favorites for a long time, but I am finding renewed motivation from it. I dont think I can say much more about it. It is just so simple and speaks for itself. 2014 should be great. There are still lots of changes for our family and probably lots of prayer. But it is all good, and God is good. He is soooo good and we feel very blessed on a daily basis.

Kroten says.

Kroten has become quite the articulate fellow. Who teaches him the things he says? For example...

This morning I was getting breakfast ready and he waves his arms in the air and says "OK. Lets plan this... Get... me... a ... drink." 

He often says "actually" like "actually I want to go to the park." or "actually I want to wear theses shoes."

Silly Boy!