A Realistic Valentines Day List

Since Valentines Day is approaching, I thought it would be a fun to blog about things that I love. Sometimes it is good to sit down and reflect on things that make you happy and to remind you to be thankful for them. Some are serious, some are silly but they are all important to me!

I love me some Jesus! If you know Him then you know why I love Him. If you do not know Him, I would be honored to tell you about Him.

I love my husband. I must admit there are days that I find solace in imagining smothering him slowly with a pillow (as I am sure he does the same) but at the end of the day, I love him more than he will ever comprehend. He makes me laugh, refuses to let me stay angry, and never lets a conversation end without saying I love you.

I love my adorably, obnoxious, loving, energetic, smart, sensitive, crazy child. He can make me cry one minute and laugh the next. God gave me such a precious gift. It is a challenging one at times but I cherish it very much.

I love my family. I have such wonderfully Godly rolemodels as parents. I hope to be half as great a parent as they have been to me. My sister is my best friend.....not in a conventional way though. She doesn't know all my secrets, she isn't my first call, but I love her more than anything. I prayed her into this world and am SO thankful to have her.

I love my Church. We have so many exciting things going on right now at West Ellisville Baptist Church. I have met so many people who have molded me into who I am today and help carry me from day to day there.

I love my job! I am so blesssed to have found this job because rarely do openings become available there. I work with girls that I consider the best of friends which makes working there so much more enjoyable. I love that God is allowed in our work place and we have prayer at every event.

I love my cell phone. Yes I am the girl who cant live without her phone. Games, Apps, Facebook, Internet....LOVE IT!!!

If you can't tell from my blog already , I love.....let me rephrase.... am ADDICTED to Pinterest! I have found my crafty side. Most of my attempts are complete FAILS but I do manage to NAIL a few....

I love Diet Coke. Darn you Aspartame...... I have got to give this love up soon. I know how awful it is for you but it is literally like liquid crack!

I love the beach. I find myself drifting off daily into daydreams of sand, waves and sunshine. I hope to take a vacation very soon..... somewhere like this would be nice ;)

I am such a TV junkie. Colby monopolizes the TV in the evening so it works out perfectly for me to sneak to my room and watch a few shows of my own. I love Glee, New Girl, Pretty Little Liars, Greys Anatomy, The Big Bang Theory, How I met your mother, Project Runway, Whitney, Raising Hope, and True Blood. I told ya I liked TV.....

Bazinga....

I love my new daily devotional book. If you have been looking for a good one I highly recommend it! It is Jesus Calling by Sarah Young.

I love music. There are a constant flow of song lyrics running though my head. Sometimes I will answer people with a song lyric. I am the girl who sings to loudly in the car to Adele that I am sure the cars next to me can hear. I love all kinds of music. My favorite 80s band is Roxette. Colby loves music too. He alerted everyone in Walmart this morning that he had the moves like Jagar....

I love to be tan. Everyone knows that tan fat is much more appealing than white fat....

I love to buy a new purse.... suddenly makes you feel good!

I love a good Mani/Pedi/Massage. I do not get to indulge in such very often but when I do I thouroughly enjoy it.

I love my mommas cooking! My one regret in life is that I didn't spend more time with her in the kitchen growing up. Now I subject my husband to repeated hamburger helper and spagetti! My mother is such an inspiration to me. I see more of myself in her everyday.

I love being married to a cop! It provides this extra sense of security for some reason or another. I feel like I am going to bed with Chuck Norris or something....

I love my fantastic friends. They are stretched everywhere from Texas, to Memphis to Biloxi to Washington and we may not talk everyday but each friend I have makes up a little of who I am. Most of my best friends are still right here at home for which I am thankful. They each mean so much to me and I love them dearly.

So there is a taste of things I love! I also love blogging eventhough I do not get to do it as often as I would like. I hope you have a great month and a fabulous Valentines Day. Take a moment to think about the things you love and show a little extra love to the ones you love the most.

A Fun, Fantastic, Exhausting Day

Last Saturday was a very busy day! We got up bright and early and went to the Children's Museum in Jackson with our preschool department from church. I can not believe we haven't been here before! If you have never been, I highly recommend going. Colby was most excited to ride the church bus over anything else. You can only IMAGINE my excitement of riding a bus for 2 hours one way with a bunch of 3-6ish year olds. Fun times right there.....   Anyways after a million "Are we there yet?" 's from Colby we finally arrived.

We played with catfish

We raced sailboats

We didn't listen very well to "Please DO NOT get wet"

We got to fish for catfish...

And got wet some more....

We got them to stop for just a minute for a quick photo

We learned how exercising is important and rode a bike with a skeleton (far right corner). He was a little creepy but very interesting.

We got to put on construction clothes and play....

This is priceless! My child the pimp! They had a stage where you could dress up and put on a show. This is what the kids chose to put on.

We got to dance.....Colby has some serious white boy moves. He gets that honest. Ever seen his daddy dance???

They got to dance again to a song of their choice and be filmed why doing it. This took alot of coaxing but they finally agreed to do it.

The spiral art was very neat. I can remember having one of these as a kid.

We dug for dinosaur bones.... the kids all thought this was very neat. Melanie and I had to take part in this our self. Very fun!

Best friends!

Our group before leaving. They were tired and hungry. We then fought the most crowded Chick fil A known to man to eat lunch but it all worked out just fine. These kids aren't just our churches future, they are our present. We take great strides in making sure the word of God is planted like a seed in these tiny minds. Colby recited me the first verse of the Bible the other day and told me exactly which book it came from. He remembers each story he is told in Sunday School and his growing with God classes. I am so thankful for the wonderful people who sacrifice their time and energy in working with our children. It takes alot of patience and love to work with preschoolers.

After the long drive back full of " I gotta use the potty" and "he has the toy I want" and "Are we almost home yet".... we finally arrived. Mommy needed a night out! Jason took Colby to a motocross Arena race (which he didn't mind at all as you can imagine) and I went out for some G rated fun with two of my dearest friends. This is what fun at 30 looks like!

We went to Rocket City Diner to eat and we had a blast. Melanie D had the bright idea to take these photos. We felt like dorks but hey we made a memory right....

We also went bowling. This was so much fun.

The very one who swore she sucked at bowling beat us! She has mad bowling skills...

A little fun at the arcade before leaving. We couldn't manage to get a good pic of all three of us but we had a great night. We stopped at the twist and taste on the way home for ice cream. I highly recommend it if you have not been yet. Lots of laughs were had and fun memories made. I am so lucky to work with people I also consider the best of friends. We may not always get along and have to come Jesus every once in a while but we love each other very much. I look forward to the laughs we have every day at work.

So far this year has been a pleasant one! The weather has been very odd for January but I have actually enjoyed the spring like weather. My power bill will love it too. We spent Thursday afternoon in the doctor with Colby with a severe case of pink eye in both eyes. I can remember having it as a kid and remember how bad it hurt. I tried  very carefully to wash my hands after touching him but if you know me at all you know keeping my fingers out of my eyes is somewhere near impossible. So of course I ended up with it too. We are spending the day today taking it easy and hoping to be in the clear to go to church tomorrow. Heavens knows Colby needs to interact with people his own age after 3 days with just me and Jason. As do I........ 

It's gonna be a great year

It has been a very busy last couple of weeks! We had such a great Christmas this year and were blessed beyond measure. I don't know about you, but I have been threatening Colby with Santa since before Halloween! Although its only about 2% effective, it it the easiest rabbit to pull out of the hat. Since Colby rarely actually behaved when threatened with "Santa" I had to be sure to reinforce that Santa indeed had been watching him all year. That came in the form of a letter that Santa left Colby on Christmas morning. The letter in a nut shale stated that Santa had a very generous heart this year but that he would not be so forgiving next year if Colby insisted on behaving like Satan's spawn! Colby immediately ignored the letter and refuses to this date to discuss it. If you try bringing the letter up he will quickly change the subject or give me a remark of "I don't care". So here are a few pictures from Christmas.

We went to look at Christmas lights. I say we looked......Colby ran like the flash through the entire thing. I think we were done in 5 minutes.

One of the few family photos that we have.

This kid LOVES his nana. She couldn't hold him after her surgery so she agreed to get down on the floor with him.

About the only smile I am gonna get..... why do men hate taking pictures so much?

                                             My hero! Love her more than she will ever know!

                                               They both drive me bonkers but I love them still.....

                                                Another shot from looking at Christmas lights

            Santa got Oreo balls and diet coke this year rather than cookies and milk. We figured he wouldn't mind a change. We also fed the reindeer outside but those pictures didn't turn out so great. Someone forgot to eat the reindeer food though so we were a little disappointed the next day that it was still there. Oops.....

He loves this part!

Jason worked New Years Eve so after I attended a wedding for some good friends of ours (Congrats Joel and Kelli) Colby and I got in our pajamas and watched TV. I didn't make it to midnight but Jason did drop by to wake me up for a New Years kiss. That was a great way to start my new year. He will now be embarrassed I shared that but in his own words..... Oh Well. 

Today was a GORGEOUS fall day right smack dab in the middle of winter. Colby woke up bound and determined that he wanted a friend to come over and play. He gets so bored and mom is only so much fun so we decided to go on a play date. He invited his friend Blair to come along. They had a lengthy discussion in the car that they could not be boyfriend and girlfriend because she already had a boyfriend named Collin and he had a girlfriend named Bayleigh so they would have to JUST be friends.  We started out at the zoo....

Who doesn't love the train....

If you know Blair Wicker then you know that this moment will forever more be entered in the hall of fame of AWESOME moments. She is obsessed with alligators and low and behold we got to pet one. Her face was priceless.

Posing by the llama that they both called a camel. A kind yet obnoxious kid kept correcting them.

            

Then we hit up the park where these two had the best time playing. We ended the night with a trip to Kids Rule to jump for a while then a dinner date to McAlisters. They had a blast and wore themselves out.

2011 was an eventful year but pleasant. I turned 30, celebrated 10 years of marriage, my baby turned 5 and is in his last year of daycare, great and exciting things going on at church, everyone I know either had a baby or is pregnant, my baby sister is now a licensed driver and my mom had surgery. I decided not to make any resolutions this year. I rarely am able to keep them anyways. I did resolve that instead of focusing on what I really wanted to change on the outside, I would focus on working on the inside instead. I hope to find myself less stressed, always optimistic, not sweating the small stuff as well as things that I can't change, spending more QUALITY time with my family and most importantly spending the time with God that he rightfully deserves. I hope each of you have a wonderful year and I look forward to documenting mine and sharing it with you.  

I've been a bad blogger......

So back in November I wrote this elaborate, beautiful blog about Thanksgiving and what all I was thankful for and it just never actually made it to my blog. So here it is all summed up..... I am thankful for my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, my husband and child, my parents, my sister, all family and friends, my health, my job, my cell phone, diet coke, that the elections were over,  my Church family, flip flops and pinterest! Thanksgiving was rather quite this year. Jason had to work as usual so Colby and I spent the evening with my parents and Lawson family. Like most everyone else, we ate too much and crashed early. Let me bring you up to speed since I left you last.....

 Colby's girlfriend Bayleigh turned 5. We attended a very fun party at Mitchell Farms and these two stopped to pose for a very sweet picture.

The very same day we added a new member to our family. Please feel sorry for this kitty...... Colby loves to torture her as you can clearly see. Her name is Cami and she is attached to us very much. She takes turns sleeping with each of us. I think she likes Colby a little bit better when he is sleeping.

If the fair was a holiday, it would be mine and Jasons favorite of the year! We spend entirely too much money and eat way too much but we have a wonderful time every year. Colby was FINALLY tall enough to ride everything so we were able to enjoy it much more.

The fair is a tradition for us to go with our good friends Jason and Noel Phillips. Warren and Colby rode all the rides together and even little Wyatt got to join them a time or two.

Who wouldn't want to be Iron man for Halloween right?!?  We kept it very low key this year and just attended treats in the streets at JCJC. Colby was a little bored until........

He met his hero!!! Colby is OBSESSED with power rangers so to meet their leader (the red ranger) was pure awesomeness! He was very kind to pose for a picture with Colby and even show him a few moves.

I am a tad obsessed with Pinterest. This was one creation of many I have made lately.

Look who came to Dixie Electric!

Telling Santa that he wanted a bow and arrow for Christmas. He then asked was he on the good list. Santa promptly lied and said yes..... Mommy had already practiced the correct reply to this answer with Santa earlier but I guess Santa didn't have the heart to tell Colby the truth....

We got to lead the Ellisville Christmas Parade with Daddy in his police car. Colby waved at each person till he said his arm hurt really bad and he asked if he could stop. 

Dixie Christmas Awards Party

We had to have Christmas with my brother and sister in law a little early this year because he works offshore and will be gone for Christmas.

Isn't he absolutely handsome? I tell you, what he lacks in behavior he more than makes up for in looks.

Typical Colby...... do you see that T Rex had to pose too?

I am looking forward to this Christmas season. My favorite things are the different smells, the lights, the food, the fellowship, the music and the joy but MOST important to me is remembering the real reason for the season. I have the most special gifts I could ask for already. They are a treasure unlike any other and make my life worth living every single day. I love you Jason and Colby more than you will ever know. I am so blessed beyond reason and no gift will ever overshadow that. Thank you Jesus for your ultimate sacrifice.... for you truly did love us enough to come to this earth, be born in a manger, live 33 pure years on this earth setting the ultimate example, and dying on the cross for me. I am unworthy and humbled at that very thought. I hope each of you have a very Merry Christmas from my family to yours.