This Little Piggy

Trunk or Treat

2011-11-23T14:00:00.000-06:00

This was our first year to go to a Trunk or Treat. My sister-in-law had a "trunk" at her church's and invited us to come. Sounded like fun, plus it gave Ella another reason to wear her costume and wig that she loves!

Ella & her Aunt Ashley!

The toilet paper throw! Apparently my girl has impeccable aim! I honestly would not have thought this. Ella is the sweetest child ever, but not the toughest. She'd kill you with kindness but not so much with her muscles. Well, after this day, that thought changed! Almost every "trunk" at the Trunk or Treat had some type of tossing game. I am not kidding when I tell you that Ella never missed. Not once. She would walk up to the game, aim, and it went in every time. It was pretty incredible! I think she might be a softball player like her Mama after all!!! :-)

Bam!

Bam!

We were at this one game that had 5 buckets placed at different distances and the goal was to get the bean bag in each bucket one right after another. Ella got all 5 bean bags in all 5 buckets on the first try! The boy (probably about 12 yrs old) working that "trunk" was so impressed that he ran over to his friends and said so excitedly, "She got all 5 of them!" Ha! Love it.

This has nothing to do with the Trunk or Treat, I just thought it was cute. :-)

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Pumpkin Patch Tradition

2011-11-22T12:00:00.000-06:00

Our fall tradition is to go to this cute little pumpkin patch by our house. The past 2 years, we've been able to go with our good friends the Lewis's. It's a lot more fun with our besties!

Like father, like daughter. My two crazy heads.

This is how Laney & Ella greeted each other. They love each other.

And then they were off.

Some good friend's of the Lewis's were also there. They have a precious boy named Max from China they adopted a couple of years ago. Him and Ella hit it off. They ran and ran and ran!

This year, we didn't even have to ask the girls to pose. They did it freely on their own! :-)

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Pumpkin Patch Field Trip

2011-11-09T15:44:00.012-06:00

Ella's school went to the Flower Mound Pumpkin Patch for a field trip. I'd heard lots of great things about this patch but had never been. It definitely lived up to it's expectation. There was tons of stuff for the kids. We had a great time.

We got to take a hayride to a small patch of pumpkins to pick one out to take home!

I'm not sure why...but this might have been Ella's favorite part. She thought it was so cool! :-)

They had this very elaborate hay maze. It was a little daunting for the smaller children. I definitely pulled a few crying toddlers out and over the side who could not find their way out, bless their hearts.

The reward to making to the end was this slide.

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Happy Halloween!

2011-11-09T15:34:00.007-06:00

Halloween was different for us this year. For the past 5 years we've done the same thing. It was definitely a tradition. But things changed up a bit this year so we had to say so long to that tradition and do something new.

The day started off already so fun! At the school I teach at and Ella goes to, we had a fall festival. Everyone wore their costumes to school and we played games and made crafts!

Here is my sweet girl dressed up as Ariel!! Let me tell you that she wore that wig for 3 solid days! She wants her hair to be long so badly that she'll take towels, shirts, or a jump rope...whatever she can use to imagine her hair is long. So this wig was just the best thing ever.

This is one of Ella's really good friends, Annie.

Part of my job as the music teacher is that every Monday morning I lead the entire school in some silly songs. This morning I had to get a picture of all the kids (or some of the kids) in their costumes before we did our songs. They were just so cute!

This is one of Ella's teachers! She's so sweet!

Ella & Joshua...Melissa (Josh's mom) and I were SHOCKED because we can never get a picture of the two of them together. It's one for the record book.

This is Ella's Kindergarten class!

After school was over, Ella & I headed home and rested for a couple of hours. We still had a whole evening planned. After resting, I took Ella trick or treating for a just a bit around to our neighbors houses that we know.

We live in a neighborhood with a lot of retired people. We love them. They are so sweet and love Ella and are always looking out for us. I can't tell you how many times one of them have come over to let me know that I left the doom light on in my car. ha!

Our normal Halloween tradition is to go to our church's huge Fall-A-Palooza! It's always so much fun and Heath, Ella & I always go way out on our costumes (which is always a bit stressful for me). This year, our church switched it up a bit. Instead of having one big event, we had church families volunteer and throw kind of like mini Fall-A-Paloozas at their houses. That way we're taking our church into the neighborhoods. It was a way for families to build relationships with their neighbors and be able to share with them in a smaller setting the Gospel. It was a HUGE success. Every host home had amazing stories to share. I'm so glad it turned out so great.

Ella and I went over to our good friend's house, the Murrells. They were a host home and we wanted to support them. It was lots of fun. This is Ella & her precious friend Klaire. This year, Heath and I did not dress up as tradition, which took a load off of me!

The Murrells had a bounce house, which I think Ella would live in if given the option. :-)

Another picture of Josh & Ella! 2 pics of them in one day is definitely a record!

When Daddy got off work, he was just in time to enjoy some bounce house time with his little girl!

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Pumpkin Carving

2011-10-13T13:44:00.004-05:00

Tuesday night, Heath, Ella & I went over to my mother-in-laws house to carve pumpkins. Ella is all things Ariel from The Little Mermaid right now. So she was very excited about carving Ariel into her pumpkin. So we got a pattern and gave it our best go at it. :-)

Here she is!

I have a really funny video of Ella sticking her hand in the pumpkin to clean out the seeds. My sweet little girly girl only did it ONCE because she thought it was soooooo disgusting! Ha!

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New Job/New Chapter

2011-09-20T09:07:00.002-05:00

This summer my family has had a couple of really neat stories unfold. As all of you know, I've been gearing up for the past several months for my little baby girl to start kindergarten. As my only child, I was not ready for this transition at all. Emotionally I was fighting with the fact that it was going happen.

We have a perfectly fine school right down the street from us. But I just knew Ella wasn't supposed to go there. I started exploring other options, but there weren't any doors opening in any direction. But I still knew without a doubt that Ella was not going to go to that big, bad (not really bad, I'm being dramatic)school that she was zoned to.

I work on staff at our church and in May our pastor sent us an email letting the staff know that we are going to be opening up our doors to a Montessori school that has planted it's roots at a nearby church for the past 35 yrs. This school was needing to change locations and after much prayer, our pastor opened up our church to become that new location! I was with all of the ladies on staff at the moment and thanks to smart phones, we all got this amazing news at the same time. We all have kids that were in preschool or going into kindergarten, so we were just giddy thinking about this possibility!!

Another part of this news was that our pastor was giving staff half off tuition. Awesome, right? Everything is falling into place so perfectly!! So I thought...

I went home and told Heath with much jubilation, but he was not so excited. He thought this would be an incredible opportunity, however, his exact words were, "Why do we need to pay this much a month when there is a perfectly good school right down the street that is free?" Spoken like a true provider. :-) My bubble was burst, but I still knew that this was somehow going to work out.

A couple days later, I was talking to our pastor's wife about it. She advised me, with much wisdom, to call the principal of the Montessori school and just ask her if she has any job openings. Our pastor's wife was speaking from experience because she taught just a couple of days a week at this exact school when it was at the other location and both of her children got to go there for free!

I immediately called and got to speak directly to the principal (who is the sweetest person in the world). She was very honest and said as of right then it looked like there were no job openings, but that she would be in touch as thing settled down a little from all the craziness of having to pack up a school with a history of 35 yrs at that location.

So I waited about 3 weeks, hoping with everything in me that there would be an opening. When I finally heard back from her this is what she said, "I'm not sure if you are interested, but we do have ONLY ONE position available, and that's the music teacher position." I could not believe my ears. I have no idea how I responded but I know it was with much excitement. If I could have chosen any position, it most definitely would have been the music position. It was just so perfect! Come to find out, she had already spoken with our pastor to make sure I actually knew something about music and he told her I would be a great fit.

So here we are in September and Ella is currently going to the Montessori school. I was able to keep my part time job at the church because I only teach 1 day a week! And Ella is literally 30 yards away from me at all times! She gets to ride with me to work each day and ride home from work with me. It's really a dream!

I never could have thought this up how perfectly it worked out! And I'm so thankful! "Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen."

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Ella's 1st Day of Kindergarten!

2011-09-07T11:52:00.007-05:00

Ella (and mommy) had a great 1st day of school! The anticipation was definitely worst than the actual day. I really like to build things up in my mind, so I was anticipating a melt down (from me, not Ella), but it never came and here we are on week 3 and still doing well.

We talked Kindergarten up a lot so that she would be really excited about it. For weeks leading up to the first day, she kept saying that she was really nervous to meet her teachers and new friends. So on the Saturday before school started, Ella and I volunteered in her classroom helping her teachers set up. After that, she was golden.

Ella's school didn't start until Wednesday of that week, so Monday night was Meet the Teacher. Since Ella had already met her teachers, she got to meet some new friends. While we were still there, she came up to me with a huge smile and said, "Mama, I made some new friends!" And that was all it took. Not a single other butterfly in her tummy.

The next day on Tuesday, we went to Target to get a couple last minute stuff and let Ella pick out a new toy to celebrate starting Kindergarten. Shocking that this is what she picked! :-)

Wednesday morning, I went and woke Ella up early with a bit of a lump in my throat, but overall ok. She was so excited it didn't phase her that it was SO early. However, it only took about 3 wake ups for her to be done with waking up so early.

Sweet girl all dolled up and ready to go.

Our dogs kept getting in the pictures. I was trying to shoo them away, but Ella wanted to play. She loves her dogs.

One reason for my emotional stability that morning, was because it was a bit chaotic. When I went to start my car, the battery was dead. We were already running a little late, so after transferring everything over to Heath's car it was full speed ahead to get there on time! We also were going to take Ella on a donut date that morning, but we ended up having to skip that part and she had to eat her donuts in the car on the way. All this to say, I'm kind of thankful it happened that way because it didn't give me much time to sulk. And it was still a great morning.

Walking into school.

See no tears! You would've been proud of me. :-)

The teacher, so kindly, let me snap a few pictures of her in the classroom even after she had started teaching.

Ella is going to a private Montessori school this year, so the classroom isn't set up like a traditional classroom would be.

We couldn't be more thrilled that she has this awesome opportunity. It is a really COOL God story of how it came about for her to get to go to this particular school. I can't wait to share it with you.

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Lake Day!!! - Picture Overload

2011-08-10T11:27:00.009-05:00

A couple of weeks ago, Kristin called to see if we wanted to go to the lake with them! Um...let me think about that for a second...YES!!!! Going on out on a boat is my favorite thing to do. It's a piece of heaven for me.

We had a quick picnic before heading out to the boat!

Laney & Ella!

Ella was so pumped! She's only been on a boat a few times and it had been a really long time, so I'm not sure if she even remembered.

Ella & Kristin!

Me & my sweet girl! Ella had some blue gatorade right before we got on the boat, so in every single picture I took this day she has blue teeth. Ha!

Ella & her daddy!

I'm not a big fan of tubing these days. I guess I'm getting to old because the last time I tubed a couple of summers ago, I fell off and hit the water so hard it knocked the breath out of me. So I've decided it's not for me. Needless to say, I was pretty nervous at this moment watching my little girl go out for her first tubing experience EVER!

And as you can see from this picture...she LOVED it! She was such a rock star. Heath said she cracked up laughing the entire time and she even learned the signal on how to tell the driver to go faster and used it often. My little daredevil.

Ella waving to her friend Laney!

Next it was my turn. I told Ella before we took off that I was a little nervous (because of the whole air being knocked out of me thing). She told me, "Mama stop worrying. It's FUN!" Ha! Love her!

We had a blast!!

While we were on the tube, I was wondering why we kept speeding up. I found out when we got off that Ella was giving the driver the thumbs up to go faster and I never saw her do it once!

This was the 1st time for all three of us to ever ride on a jet ski. It was love at first sight.

Heath and I took turns driving. And at one point, we may or may not have flipped it over. Not because we were going too fast, but because we were going too slow! That would only happen to us!

We took occasional breaks to jump in the lake to cool off.

Melissa was in the water catching all our babies.

My treasured friends, Melissa & Kristin!

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4th of July Party!

2011-07-14T15:07:00.007-05:00

Our 4th of July tradition is to go to Kristin and Laney's house for their annual 4th of July party!!

There's always a food contest every year. I think I've won only once in the several years we've gone. I guess I need to pick up my game. This year I choose festive strawberries.

They always have this very fun water slide for the kids. It's definitely a big hit. I think Ella went down it no less than 120 times.

They took a short break to stuff down a hot dog.

Then we're back to the slide!

Kristin and I just can't handle how big they are. This was them on this same slide at the 4th party 3 years ago. Ughh!

Sweet girls!

Laney's 5th Birthday Party!

2011-07-07T07:00:00.000-05:00

I'm so behind on blogging, but I couldn't resist posting these pictures, even though they're from April. They are from Ella's bestie Laney's 5th bday party. It was Fresh Beat Band theme, which was perfect for Ella too.

This picture takes my breath away. Kristin and I continually talk about how incredibly blessed we feel because of Ella and Laney's friendship. They were born just 2 1/2 mths apart. Their lifelong friendship began when Kristin and Todd returned to DFW airport when Laney was 9 mths old after just picking her up from Taiwan. Kristin and I often dream about their lives years from now...being in each other's weddings, starting families together, their kids being friends. It's fun to imagine. :-)

Keeping with the theme, all the kids decorated their own paper guitars.

We LOVE you Laney bug!!!

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The Zoo!!

2011-07-05T11:10:00.001-05:00

Heath and I celebrated 9 years of marriage at the end of May! For our anniversary celebration we took our sweet girl to the zoo and then him and I went out for dinner just the two of us. It was a perfect day!

This gorilla was so sweet and so cute. I felt kind of badly for him. He just looked so sad. Is that weird to say?

Ella was really afraid to go up to the window. This was as close as she would get. That is because earlier in the day, there was a huge school group at this exact window and this gorilla, who I just said looked sweet, started banging on the window really hard and that entire group of school kids SCREAMED at the top of their lungs. It was actually very entertaining because I'm pretty sure he did it to get that exact reaction from them.

This gorilla seemed really sad too! He was wearing this potato sack over him the entire time we were watching him and then at one point he walked over to a corner of his cage, got into the fetal position and put the potato sack over his head so nobody could see him. Every few minutes he would peek out with one eye and then hide his face again. This guy needed some serious alone time.

Riding the train

Ella and the giraffes. We love the giraffes. They're mine and Ella's favorite.

We love Bonnie the elephant statue. It's become our little zoo tradition that Ella takes a picture with Bonnie whenever we come. Not sure why this came about, except that I'm really good with coming up with all kinds of random traditions. :-)

This was 2009

2007

Silly Daddy & Ella

We was such a fun and perfect day!

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My Sweet Graduate!

2011-06-23T10:42:00.000-05:00

The end of May, Ella graduated from Preschool. Like I said in my last post (which was a LONG time ago), we have LOVED this preschool. They have taught her letters, words, math and the Word! It's been awesome and we're sad that we won't be walking those halls next year like the past 2 years.

Her graduation was PRECIOUS. It was the cutest thing to see 100 tiny people walking around in caps and gowns.

This is Ella's graduating class on the wall outside her classroom.

This is their year book they give to the kids at the end of every year. It's called the Me Book. I am SO thankful to have this with pictures of all the fun things her class did throughout the year.

Before the actual graduation, they put on a musical. This is at the beginning when Ella spotted her entourage. Pointing and smiling and blowing kisses.

There were groups of about 7 kids that put on little plays in between the big group songs.

Ella's group put on the play the Boy Who Cried Wolf.

This is Ella running to the boy who was crying wolf.

She gets there and asks him "What happened?"

Then she marches back to her spot mad.

She is very mad at that boy! Ha! We practiced this face before her performance. She's too cute to look mad. :-)

This is her "I'm trying not to laugh mad face"!

Once again the boy tricked her and once again she is walking away angry.

I was so proud of her that she didn't freeze up. I think she loves the stage, unlike her mama. But very much like her Daddy.

Time for graduation! They are so precious I can hardly handle it. Notice how tiny Ella is compared to her classmates. My sweet LITTLE girl.

Getting her diploma and sweet hugs from her teachers.

Ella and her sweet friend Nathan. Love this story...I won't go into the whole thing right now, but Nathan's mom, Karin, and I worked together 11 years ago at DBU. She was a very good friend. We didn't keep up after I graduated. Then randomly our kids end up being in the same preschool class. I don't think for a second it was random, but that it was very much ordained for many reasons. It has been amazing getting to reconnect with her.

Big hugs from Grandma and Granddad!

Our sweet girl!

The family

Along with Ella's Me Book, they also gave each graduate a diploma and the Read With Me Bible! Have I mentioned how much I have loved this school?

Last Day of School

2011-05-24T15:36:00.008-05:00

This past week was Ella's very last day of Preschool. In 3 SHORT months my sweet baby girl will be going to a big kid school. A big kid school...my little girl. I would be lying if I said I didn't feel like I'm being punched in the stomach every single time I think about that.

Ella has attended the same preschool for the past 2 years and it has been AMAZING! We have loved this school. It was the perfect balance of fun and learning. And they are so sweet with the kids.

The school planned a field day for the last day. Heath and volunteered for the last half of the day, which was SO fun to get to spend her last few hours as a pre-k with her.

Pictures as we walked out the door that morning. Next time I take a pic like this it will be before she heads out for her first day of kindergarten and I will be the one bawling trying to steady the camera.

Hair painting! This just made her day.

Making a sand cross.

The bubble station

Ella and Abby. Her best girl friend from her class.

Face painting station

Pizza party!! YUM! Another pic of Ella and Abby.

Daddy helping pass out more pizza

Ella's 2 wonderful teachers from this year!

Ella getting stuff out of her drawer in her classroom for the last time.

A picture that her friend Abby drew her. Isn't that so sweet?

Ella getting her backpack out of her cubby for the last time. Tear! Can you tell I'm struggling with this change? My husband was seriously annoyed the whole day with my dramatic response to this being her last day. Ha!

One last pose.

So deep breath for next year. Any encouragement would be appreciated, moms? Ha!

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Easter Part 3 | Easter Day!

2011-05-20T10:27:00.000-05:00

We had a great Easter day celebrating our risen Savior at church and with our families!

After church, we headed to my parent's house for Easter lunch and an Easter egg hunt. Ella scored 2 Easter baskets this year.

The one thing she wanted most of all was a jump rope.

Aunt Cathy & Meme swinging the jump rope for Ella. I had never seen Ella jump rope before and she surprised me with how well she did!

Ella loves to throw the ball for Meme's dog to fetch.

Easter Egg hunt time!

Ella getting some help from her Grandma

Ella and her Grandparents!

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Easter Part 2 | Dyeing Easter Eggs!

2011-05-11T08:33:00.004-05:00

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Easter Part 1 | Church Egg Hunt!

2011-05-05T12:23:00.008-05:00

We had so much going on this Easter that this is going to have to be a 3 part series of pictures! :-) I know you're on the edge of your seat.

The Saturday before Easter was the annual Easter egg hunt at church! This is always a chaotic blast.

This year Ella's little drama class started the morning off with their Easter performance. They are called Drama Todds. As you can see, she is very shy. They sang us parents a precious song.

And the bow...

Ella and her sweet friend Klaire.

Next, we were off for the egg hunt. Standing on the starting line getting some coaching from Mr. Jared.

And their off!

Trying to get some pictures of her with these pretty flowers, her daddy was making her laugh as usual.

Sweet friends...Jonas, Samuel & Lily Kirk

More sweet friends. They were all comparing which eggs they found.

This next series of pictures make me so happy. I just can't tell you how much I love them. It's tradition for us to take pictures with these kiddos at the easter egg hunt every year. I think this is the 3rd year we've done this.

We were having some issues getting them to all sit still and look at the camera and smile. I just can't imagine why. So Jared decided to sweep in behind them running and yelling. Well this was the magic remedy. They were laughing so hard and we captured the sweetest moments.

This last one is my favorite. Of course it was not taken by me. Talented Amber took this one so I stole it from her facebook page. Thanks Amber!

Such fun!

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My Little Maestro!

2011-04-22T07:00:00.000-05:00

A few months ago at Ella's school they had a day where the kids got to dress up like what they want to be when they grow up. Leading up to this day, I explained this to Ella and asked how she would like to dress up.

She very confidently responded, "Like a director". An orchestra director. I laughed so hard because it is just not one of the more common things a 4 year would choose to be when that 4 year old grows up. She said just like her Granddad and Mr. Will (who is the choir director at our church.)

So we started working on her costume!

She was so happy! Her eyes lit up when we handed her the baton that Daddy went out and got her.

I thought this was so special because music runs deep in Ella's genealogy. I grew up with a Dad who was a music minister my whole life. He also was a trombone major in college!! Have you ever met a trombone major? Ha! And he comes from a family of very talented singers. He has passed some of that along to my sister and I and now to Ella! I love that this passion for music is something we will be able share together, hopefully for a long time.

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Zach & Ella's Bday Party

2011-04-20T11:39:00.000-05:00

Can you tell I'm playing bloggy catch up? It's been a while since I've posted anything.

I did a bday post from Ella's friends bday party, but I didn't post pictures from Ella's family party. Ella and her cousin, Zach, have birthdays only a few days apart. So we always have a combined party for them every year which is SO much fun!

Here are some pics!

Ella with her Team Umizoomi Milli band on.

Ella and Cousin Ethan

Ella got a Rapunzel blanket and pillow from her cousins. Pretty ultimate for her!

Ella's Great Granddad and Grandma Angel made this lamp for her! We cherish it.

Ella giving her Great Granddad a great big thank you hug.

Her reaction when she turned it on.

Thankful for family!!

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Ella's Choir

2011-04-19T08:00:00.000-05:00

Ella's choir sang a couple of months ago at church for a special night of worship called Night of Psalms. I couldn't resist posting some pictures!

This is Ella and her bestie at church, Karoline!

Silly girls!

My girl is not shy at all when it comes to being on a stage in front of people.

We did have one slight moment of her pulling her dress up above her head, but thankfully it only lasted about .5 seconds unlike last Christmas when she did that and swayed back and forth. And we had no booger picking and eating this time either, unlike last time. Ha!

Here's the video of them singing "This is the Day"!

Ella's Choir Performs 2-27-11 from Janelle on Vimeo.

Love, love, love her and her sweet self!

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MSI

2011-04-14T08:31:00.009-05:00

In March, Ella and I got the amazing opportunity to participate in our very first mission trip together! I must admit, I was a little anxious going into it. It was actually a local mission trip, focusing primarily on a mile radius around the church we attend. So myself, Ella and 30 other people slept in our church for 6 nights. Thus why I was a little anxious. However, it ended up being hands down one of the best weeks of my life!

Ella could have not have been more perfect. She loved getting to sleep in our church so much, she wishes it was our permanent home. She never cried, never complained, never threw one fit. Even though we were incredible busy during the days and were all pretty exhausted. I know her mama was for sure! It was amazing. I don't know if we had extra heapings of grace upon us, but it was wonderful! It could not have been better.

MSI (Mission South Irving) was designed to where we would do service projects in the community in the mornings and then in the afternoons and evenings we would split up and go to parks, walk the streets, go to the library, go to starbucks, all within a mile of our church and literally just share the gospel. Our leader wanted that to be our focus. So we didn't pack our schedules with a lot because we wanted plenty of time to be able to just go out and meet with people.

At the end of each day, we would come together and share who we were able to talk with. We filled up a huge white board with names of people w/in a mile of our church that we encountered that are lost and/or have LOTS of hurts. We had about 100 names on the board. And that was just 30 people going out into the community for 6 days right around our church. It was unbelievably eye opening. By the way, moms, having young kids and going to the park is the BEST bridge to be able to meet people you don't know and talk with them about life and Jesus.

This was the first service project we did. We picked up trash at this huge local park.

This is one of my bestest friends, Michelle! And this is what we had to wear to clean the park! Ha!

Ella served in MANY ways that week, and one of the ways was by helping our church sharpen the pencils to go in the seats in our worship center. Such the helper!

Another service project we did one of the mornings was go to our local Salvation Army and clean.

I can not tell you how much I love this precious girl. Her name is Maison and she is the daughter of Michelle (the lady in the pic above). Her two girls, Maison and Logan are the sweetest daughters and they LOVE Ella. They are just so sweet to her. So this is Maison and Ella getting ready to do some cleaning.

One afternoon, we all went to a park and threw a big bbq for the community!

A short break at Sonic! Ella was the perfect balance of needing and wanting to hang out with me, but also thinking she is such a big girl and hang out with the college students! It was precious to watch her hang out with them and they were so precious to let her. She's pretty fun!

This is where we slept for SIX nights. It actually wasn't too bad. I told Heath, I think this air mattress is more comfortable than our mattress at home.

This is Logan, Michelle's other daughter.

Getting some cute braids!

We did a lot of drawing on the board in our room during down time.

The night of our picnic we had a sunburn contest to see who got the most sun. I am the bad mom that let my daughter get a slight sunburn. It was not near as bad as some of the others who were in the contest, but any excuse to get on the stage Ella will take. :-)

Ella and Allison (the sunburn winner)

My husband totally suprised me by giving me these when I was walking out the door to leave for the week at the church. It was an encouraging note for everyday we were gone! Awww! :-)

I am kicking myself for not getting some pictures of the most precious part of the week with Ella...One of our most favorite people in the whole world is the lady who runs the kitchen at our church. Her name is Pat and she's our food coordinator. She is my mom's age and a grandma herself and just adores Ella! Pat was in charge of our meals for the entire week. Ella's favorite way to serve that week was helping Mrs. Pat in the kitchen. Sweet Pat would give Ella little projects like to set out the food or help make desserts. They spent hours in the kitchen together. It was the most precious thing I've ever seen. I am SO grateful for Mrs. Pat and her letting Ella help her. It was also incredible for me because this trip fell under the ministry that I work for at the church, which means I was involved with all the planning of it which also means I had some work stuff I needed to get done throughout the week. This enable me to be free to be able to do some of that work. Thanks to Mrs. Pat!

The Baptist Standard and an Irving newspaper both covered this story. Ella's picture made the front page! Here's the link to them if you would like to read more on what the group did that week.
The Baptist Standard

Irving Neighbors

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1st Foster Care Experience

2011-03-30T09:30:00.004-05:00

Heath and I just completed our first experience with the foster care system. Let me back up a smidge.

Last Friday, March 18, I received a call from the director of our agency that Heath and I are officially licensed foster parents. As you read in my last post about our journey, we were wavering in our decision on if this was the path we were/are supposed to go down. We came to the conclusion that we will keep moving forward until the Lord shuts the door.

So with some reluctance, I turned in our final paper and literally got a phone call 20 MINUTES later telling us we are licensed. Yes, it happened that fast!

As it would be, 72 hours later we received our first phone call from our caseworker asking us if we would be interested in doing Respite Care for a 2 month old for 4 days.

In my head I was laughing, thinking that's nice of them to ask but we will probably need to pass. I'm not sure why I was thinking that was so ridiculous of a thought to bring an itty bitty baby into our home for a few days. After all, isn't that what we signed up to do by spending the past 9 months of turning in paperwork? Isn't that why we have spent hours in trainings?

I told the caseworker I would call my husband and we would give her a call back in a few hrs with an answer. I didn't even call Heath because I knew he was going to say no. I just texted him this "Just got a call for respite care of a 2 mth old for 4 days. Ha!" His text back to me was "If you think we can".

Wait what?

So after a few hours of pondering this, I called the case worker back and told her yes and then got very, very excited!

Sweet baby D was with us from Saturday thru last night (Tuesday). Here are some things I learned from these past 4 days:

1. Baby D is the most precious, sweetest baby ever.
2. It is possible to fall in love with a little one in just a few days.
3. The foster system is not near as scary as I thought it would be.
4. Foster babies are normal babies.
5. I actually remembered how to take care of a newborn!
6. It was VERY difficult to say goodbye to her.

I think the Lord knew I needed these 4 days to clear up a lot of fears and misconceptions I had about the foster system and foster children. I'm still not 100% at peace or confident about us going down this path. There are still a lot of fears and questions I have, but this experience could not have been any better.

"Then you will know which way to go, since you have never been this way before." Joshua 3:4 God knows this path is scary for us because it is uncharted territory for us. We've never walked this way before, but He will show us which way to go!

Please pray for Baby D! She is actually transitioning back to some blood relatives in a couple of weeks. Her AMAZING foster parents, who ministered to me so much these last few days, were hoping to adopt her. I am desperately praying that Baby D will be abundantly protected and comforted and have a peaceful transition.

Love her so!

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Ella's 5th Bday Party!

2011-03-03T08:00:00.000-06:00

This year Ella requested for her birthday party theme she wanted a Team Umizoomi party. For those of you that are not all knowing when it comes to nick jr. cartoons :-) this is a cartoon where the characters solve problems using mighty math powers and pattern powers.

As you can imagine, finding Team Umizoomi decorations was not nearly impossible, it was impossible. So I ended up having to make all the decorations. But it was okay. I do have a smidge of arts and craftiness in me, not much, but a little. So it was kind of fun to make everything. Plus I had lots of help from my mom!

My sweet girl dressed up like Milli from Team Umizoomi. And we got Ella's hair cut the day before her party! It makes her look so different, but I love it!

This cake my mother-in-law made. She's amazing and has made all of Ella's cakes since her 1st bday. I keep telling her she needs to start her own business. I'd call it "Kay's Cakes" or "Cakes by Kay"!

Ella made most of this paper chain herself. She loved helping make her decorations.

I prayed so hard that this day's weather would be perfect. I knew we were looking at almost 50 people and that if we had to have them in our house it would have been the most chaotic situation. I can not tell you how thankful I am that it was the most perfect weather day!! We were able to keep our back door open and the kids ran in and out playing so hard. It could not have been better. Which was funny because that exact day 5 years prior was the day we brought Ella home from the hospital and it was literally freezing and icing to the point where the hospital staff almost didn't let us leave. Gotta love Texas weather.

My man grilling Umidogs and Umiburgers for lunch.

This swing set was literally finished being built about 15 hours before her party. My Granddad, Dad and husband spent ALL day Friday building it. If they weren't madly in love with Ella it could have been a miserable situation. But to see her face when it was done was worth the HOURS they spent on it. That will be my next post.

Ella and her little guy friends.

Ella and sweet Kayla.

Brothers, Josh & Gabe

Kristin helping a table full of kids with their lunch.

Ella's swing set has this adorable little picnic table under it. It's absolutely tiny. But they managed at times to fit 4 of them around it to eat.

The Lewis clan! Love them.

Precious, adorable Klaire Bear!

Daddy giving a little thank you speech before Ella blew out her birthday candles.

Me and my 5 year old.

I wasn't going to have Ella open her gifts with all the kids there because I know sometimes it can be a bit of a beating for the kids and parents. But Ella's friends were all so sweetly excited to have her open the gift they brought it just kind of happened. It was precious to watch her friends show such delight in giving.

This is Ella's best friend from her school. Everyday when Ella is dropped off, usually Bradford is being dropped off at the same time. They seriously run and give each other huge hugs every time, like they haven't seen each other in months. It's one of my favorite moments of her school days.

This was my favorite birthday party of Ella's so far. I felt so blessed by all the family and friends that were there. And there was something neat about getting to host them all at our house and just let the kids run free and have fun. It was a great day!

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My 5 Year Old!

2011-02-22T12:56:00.000-06:00

Last Tuesday, my precious girl turned 5! I won't bore you by saying this a million times, so I'm just going to say it once very passionately...I CAN NOT BELIEVE SHE IS ALREADY 5!! Okay, I think I've got it out of my system enough to get through this blog post. :-)

We had a great birthday week planned for Ella and it was all so much fun!

We woke up Tuesday morning and her daddy and I took her for a birthday donut breakfast date before school.

I love traditions, so one tradition I started at Ella's 1st bday was taking a picture of her at 3:32p.m., the exact time she was born. I love it. So here is her picture this year. VERY sadly, this was the first year I was not by her side at that exact minute to wish her happy birthday, but thankfully my mom was...so she got to take her 3:32 pic this year.

After school/work, we planned a very fun birthday dinner at Chuck E Cheese with a few of Ella's besties! This is tradition #2. Every year we try to get together with the Murrells and Lewises on Ella's exact birthday. And then of course they come to her birthday party too. Laney, Joshua and Ella were all born within 2 1/2 mths of each other, so we started this tradition for their 1st birthdays. Here they are that 1st year with their itty bitty selves! I wish I could go back to that day and squeeze those little cheeks!

While Ella and I waited for Daddy to get home from work before heading to Chuck E Cheese, Ella bounced some in the bounce house we borrowed from the Billups for her bday party. Thanks Billups!! We love you!

We had the best time at Chuck E Cheese!

Ella and Laney never left each others' side. They played every game together and rode every little ride together.

We were able to wrangle them in for a quick picture. Joshua, Ella, Laney & Gabe!

Apparently this was a wild ride!

This was the funniest thing. They were on a roller coaster simulator. Every time the roller coaster on the screen went down a hill, they would giggle so hard and squish their little faces together as if they were actually on the ride. It was adorable.

Ella, Laney, Miles & Sam playing skee ball.

Daddy and Ella!

Birthday brownies!

Joshua & Gabe gave Ella this very fun My Little Pony. Of course, Ella loved it and slept with it that night.

Kristin MADE this dress! I'm amazed. Not only did she make this for Ella, she made a miniature one exactly like it that fits her Build A Bear Bunny. It's adorable!

We are so blessed by these friends!! So thankful they are in our lives and that we can share big days with them.

I keep thinking I am going to write a letter to Ella every year on her birthday like my friend Amanda does. But I just haven't done it yet. I am determined to though. I just really struggle with finding the words to describe the immense amount of love I have for Ella. I could sum it up with saying sometimes I feel like my heart is going to explode, but I'd rather go into maybe a little more details than just that. :-)

Happy birthday baby girl!

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Snow Days!!!!

2011-02-10T09:54:00.007-06:00

5 snow days to be exact. We had 5 fun days of snow, off of work & school, in Texas. It was a blast. I love my job, but to have that many days off with my hubby and sweet girl was priceless.

When Ella looked out the window to see all the snow that first morning, she gave the biggest gasp and left behind her itty bitty hand prints.

We ate breakfast and got dressed as quickly as possible to go play!!!

Catching snow flakes on our tongues.

Front yard

Back yard

I need to watch out, this girls got a good arm.

We did a lot of throwing the snow up in the air!

Even the dogs loved the snow. By the way, we got a new puppy (the blonde one) that I haven't introduced yet. I'll leave that for another post because it's kind of funny why we acquired her. But she is precious and so sweet.

Ella and her are great buds.

Just some cuteness for you!

Ella and her daddy got into a great snow ball fight!

Ella about to lob a good one at her daddy.

Isn't watching snow fall at night just the most beautiful thing. Heath and I stayed up really late one night watching a movie. Right at midnight, the snow just started pouring down. It was breathtaking. I'm so glad we were up to see it. If I was a gifted photographer I would have been able to capture the beauty of it, but instead I am left with this.

It's been an awesome week to live in North Texas! Now I'm ready for the snow to go away and it to warm up for Ella's birthday party next week!! :-)

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Show Us Your Life - Adoption Stories

2011-01-28T11:04:00.002-06:00

Today over at Kelly's Korner, she is doing Adoption Stories. You can link up and share your adoption story and/or read all the other stories that people have posted! I am so pumped about this today.

I wish so desperately that I had the time to read everybody's stories, but I definitely will read as many as I can.

I was tweeting with Kelly a bit last night just telling her how this is such perfect timing for us.

We are just about licensed for foster care. We should be licensed in the next few weeks!! As exciting as this is we, are feeling very much like we are at a cross roads praying fervently for direction. I don't know if it's my own fear of the unknown or if it's the Enemy trying to thwart an amazing plan the Lord has for us, but over the past 2 months I have been inundated with doubt. Questions like:

Are we sure foster care is for us?
What if we get a kid that we aren't equipped to handle?
What if we get a kid that we are madly in love with and then CPS comes and takes them away to pass on to somebody else?
How am I going to continue to work and do this?
Why does the process have to be so difficult?
Why is the wait so long?
Should we go a different route?
How is Ella going to be able to handle all of this?

The list goes on and on. I find myself constantly fixated on this doubt which then turns into gripping fear.

Why can't I surrender and trust?

But this is exactly what the Lord is teaching me right now. He has brought me to this place to teach me this very thing.

Never in my life have I had something so completely out of my control that makes me HAVE to trust and rely on the Lord. Isn't that kind of sad? That for 31 years, I've pretty much lived my life in control of what I do. This wasn't a conscious thing most of the time, I really just didn't realize I was doing it. Everything has just kind of clicked and worked together in my life. Looking back at things, I know a lot of that working out stuff was because of the Lord's hand, sometimes without me even realizing it which breaks my heart.

Suddenly now I am faced with a situation that is completely out of control. I can not will myself to get pregnant. As much as I have obsessed over it and prayed for it, I can not force my body to conceive. It's out of my control.

As much as I have this perfect scenario played out in my head of the foster kid(s) we will get and be able to adopt, I can't force that to happen either. It's out of my control.

What is in my control however is if and how I am going to trust that the Lord is in control. And that is exactly what I am choosing. Trust! I will trust in the name of the Lord because He is my refuge and my fortress.

Isaiah 26:3 is my verse for this year that I am clinging to. "You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on YOU, because he trusts in You." My God promises to keep Heath, Ella and I in PERFECT peace if we trust in Him.

2011 is going to be an interesting year. I am thankful for 2010 and the way it's hardships revealed changes I need to make in my life. And I am thankful already for 2011 and the sanctification it will bring. At the end of this year, I pray that I trusted the Lord fully for whatever He brought our way. Whether we have a new baby or not, whether that is through domestic adoption or foster care. Whatever His plan is for us, I want to trust Him because He promised that He works it all out for the good of those who love Him.

So thank you Kelly for today's adoption stories. I'm excited to read and be inspired and encouraged all over again! I look forward to the adventure He has for us this year!

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Playing in the leaves

2011-01-22T07:00:00.000-06:00

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Santa On The Roof

2011-01-20T07:00:00.000-06:00

One of our yearly Christmas traditions is Santa on the Roof. One of my besties, Kristin, puts this on every year with her sister. They invite tons of families to their house to sing carols and eat yummy desserts. Then Santa gets on the roof and has a present for every kid that is there.

It's really fun and so cute. Santa calls out the name of the child and they walk up to the house and he throws the present down. They kids love it!

Ella with her gift that Santa just threw down.

Joshua and Ella with their presents.

Ella and Laney with their presents.

Ella telling Santa what she wants for Christmas!

Sweet girl!

Okay, I put this on my blog EVERY year when I do this post because it is one of my most favorite pictures of ALL time! This is Ella and Laney's first Santa on the Roof on December 6, 2007! It's just priceless. We definitely felt a little guilty snapping this shot, but we quickly rescued them.

Ella, Laney and Tessa (Laney's little cousin)

Sweet friends!!

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Christmas Day

2011-01-18T09:13:00.000-06:00

Christmas Day this year was at our house. It was really fun to host Christmas for the first time in our home. We started some new traditions this year because of it that I'm really excited about.

Christmas Eve, Ella set out our cookies and milk for Santa.

And the reindeer food outside!

This is Christmas morning after Santa came. My sweet girl has my sleeping genes. So she did not wake up on Christmas morning until 9:30. Heath and I were just waiting and waiting in anticipation. This did however let us get a lot of stuff done and kind of get ahead of the day.

But when she finally woke up she was awake and energized! Pouring out her stocking. She got a bunch of those squinkies. Do y'all know what those are? I'm not sure exactly what she is supposed to do with them but apparently they were a hot seller for this year.

My delicate little girl is crazy about Sponge Bob. I would never had thought that she would love it so much, but for whatever reason she does.

Love her morning hair in these pictures!

After we opened gifts from Santa, my parents, Heath's mom and sisters came over to spend the day with us. Then Ella got to open her presents from the family!
She got Tiana.

And Rapunzel.

And Flynn Rider.

And the big gift we had been anxiously waiting to give her was finally opened.

Rapunzel's tower! It was the one thing she had asked for this year. Apparently lots of little girls asked for this because it was quite a task trying to find it. But Heath and I were on a mission and we finally tracked one down.

Ella is really into blankets! She has 3 specific ones that she has had since she was a newborn and sleeps with every night and takes with her most of the time. But they are little blankets and they aren't covering much of her body anymore. So Heath's mom had some big blankets made, still with the silky edges she likes, that hopefully she will take a liking too like her beloved ones.

They were a big hit.

I made these fun name blocks for the family. They are so super easy to make!

As soon as we were done opening presents, Heath put her tower together and Ella immediately went and put on her Rapunzel gown that she had gotten the day before. She stayed in that gown the entire day and played with her tower! She was stinkin' adorable.

Ella's other big gift was a much needed swing set for the backyard. We didn't have a chance to build it before Christmas, because it takes 8 HOURS to build. 8 HOURS. So we had to give it to her like this. We really just need to hire somebody to build it because I have no idea when we are going to have a solid 8 hours to build this sucker. But she is very excited. I can't wait to get it up.

Later in the day, Heath, Ella and I delivered Christmas breads to our neighbors. It was really fun. I think it's going to be one of our new traditions.

Still sporting her Rapunzel gown and the Rapunzel doll had to come with us also to deliver the breads. :-)

After all the presents were opened, we started on dinner. This is a fun pumpkin dip that a friend of my aunt's made for Thanksgiving. It's ridiculous. It's like pumpkin pie goodness in dip form. I knew I had to make it for Christmas. However, mine did not turn out as yummy as the one I tasted at Thanksgiving. I need to figure out how that one was made. But man it's good.

Heath decided for this year he was going to try to smoke a turkey. We have never tried this before. But Heath is the ultimate smoker of meat, so if anybody could do this without any previous turkey smoking experience, I knew he could. This is early Christmas morning as he puts the turkey in.

And this was the result! It was by far the best turkey I have ever had, even over deep friend turkey. That is a perdy turkey.

After dinner, we all settled in and played a wild game of Catch Phrase. I have to apologize to my family. I don't think I've ever played this game where I don't get all worked up. I think I permanently damaged my sister in law's right ear. She had the unfortunate spot of sitting next to me. :-)

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Christmas Lights & Swinging Ella

2011-01-16T07:00:00.000-06:00

A few days before Christmas, my parents, Heath's mom and us went to this really fun park close to our church that has this fabulous Christmas lights display you can walk through.

Ella had a blast letting us take turns swinging her all around!

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Christmas with the Angels

2011-01-12T08:52:00.007-06:00

I'm finally doing it. I'm finally posting my Christmas pictures!! Seriously, what is wrong with me? I'm going to do several quick posts, so here we go. :-)

Christmas with my dad's side of the family was on Christmas Eve Eve and Christmas Eve.

We always start out our Christmas festivities with a nice dinner.

Ella and her cousins.

It did not take the cousins long to eat so they could get back to playing and being so silly!

Daddy teaching Ella some fighting moves. He tells her she can only use these moves on boys. :-)

The next day, we had our traditional Christmas morning breakfast (even though it was Christmas Eve). And then we let the kiddos open up all their presents.

This precious Christmas bear with Ella's name embroidered on it is from my grandparents.

My precious grandparents!

Tinkerbell tea set from my cousin Tiffany. So fun!

The ultimate gift...Rapunzel dress up gown!

She loved it!

My uncle's company moved my aunt and uncle to Singapore last year right after Christmas. Thankfully they were able to come back for Christmas this year. They got Ella this adorable t-shirt!

And these adorable pajamas and slippers! Isn't that so fun?

Sweet cousins!

Ella having fun with my Uncle Jim!

This Christmas was really fun! We dialed down the amount of presents and other stuff and were really able to focus on being together as a family and enjoying that time!

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Quick List Update

2011-01-03T11:40:00.002-06:00

I definitely took a break from my blog this month. Not really on purpose, December just really went by quickly. Also, Ella suffered from a really bad ear infection that stemmed from her left ear drum that busted a couple of months ago. So that consumed a week of this December.

Here's a quick update on what's going on with us:

1. We had a great Christmas with family. I'll post pictures soon. The month of December was full of fun events with sweet Ella.

2. 2011 is here. I don't think there has been a year that I can remember that I so desperately was ready for. I have no idea what 2011 will hold for us, the trials we will come across. But 2010 was a bit of a beating in a lot of areas of my life. Full of ups and downs. The Lord did some major pruning in me and it was hard and it was tiring. He is absolutely not done with me either. There are still some things I am working through that when I woke up on 1/1/11, I was well aware that they are still there. So I'm glad 2010 is behind me and I'm feeling renewed and refreshed for 2011! Anyone else?

3. Yesterday, Heath and I took part in a really cool and powerful thing at our church. Have y'all ever heard of Cardboard Testimonies? If not, I strongly suggest you google it and watch a You Tube clip. It WILL move you. Our church did this yesterday and our pastor asked Heath and I, along with 12 other families, to be one of the testimonies. It was one of my favorite mornings ever of life. I will go into this more on a later post when I can publish our video, but it was a life impacting morning. I'm so thankful for our redeeming testimony and the redeeming testimonies of the other families that shared yesterday!

4. We are getting VERY close to being licensed foster parents. We have 2 more things to turn in. So it should be this month. Praying desperately for God's direction on this.

Well, I thought this list would be a lot longer, but I can't think of anything else. I hope you had a great Christmas and new year filled with new hope and renewal for 2011.

Love,

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Bought Me an Ella

2010-12-15T08:00:00.000-06:00

When I got home from the grocery store the other day, Ella had a blast with one of the paper bags. Isn't it amazing how they can have more fun with a box or wrapping paper or bags then with whatever came in those things?

Anyway...

Her little self climbed in the bag and Heath pretended like he brought her home from the store.

She is SO much fun!

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Pumpkin Waffles

2010-12-13T07:00:00.000-06:00

The preschool that Ella was in last year and this year has a tradition the week before Thanksgiving that involves the director of the school making pumpkin waffles for all the kids. I can not tell you how much Ella loves these. She talks about them for weeks. In fact, another parent who had helped with the waffle making, stopped me in the hall when I was picking Ella up and told me that Ella had seconds and wanted thirds. I thought, are you sure you got the right kid? Because getting my Ella to eat is sometimes like pulling teeth. This girl just doesn't like to sit and eat.

So when she told me that I had an idea. At that moment I knew we needed to implement a new tradition into our family. I love traditions and was excited to start this one.

I decided that for Thanksgiving morning every year from here on out, we would start our day with Thanksgiving waffles. And it was very convenient for me that her school gave each kid a copy of the recipe! :-)

They were yummy!!! If you would like, I can definitely pass on the recipe to y'all!

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Thanksgiving '10

2010-12-09T14:57:00.005-06:00

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving!! It was pretty low key, which was nice because Heath had to work Thanksgiving day for a bit. So Ella and I, joined my parents at my uncle's house in Mansfield. It's always so fun. We ate good food, played games and Ella got to play with her 2 cousins that she LOVES!!

Ella with her Great Grandparents!

Ella and Cousin Tiffany!

Sweet cousins Zach & Ethan!

Words can not express how much I love these next pictures! I just think my grandparents are the sweetest, most precious people ever! And I think these pictures are the cutest pictures I've ever seen.

I could just cry at how in love they are with each other! I pray that Heath and I are exactly like them when we have been married that long.

This is my granddad trying to give my grandma a kiss! It was so cute!

Can you tell that I can't find the words since I keep saying cute, precious, sweet? I haven't used adorable yet! :-)

They really are the rock of this family. My granddad is still a preacher at his church. I think he just always will be. They love the Lord and they taught their children to love the Lord. Who taught their children to love the Lord and we are teaching Ella to love the Lord. The legacy they are leaving is priceless and I am so thankful.

Ella and Ethan had a little bit of outdoor time. It was 35 degrees this day, so I lasted long enough to get a few pictures and run back inside. Ella and Ethan didn't last much longer.

My mom and dad so sweetly washing all the dishes for us!

When we got home that evening, daddy was off work and Ella was done with the long, hard day of playing. So this was just the perfect ending to the day! So sweet.

It was a great day!! LOTS to be thankful for!

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Gavin's Fire Station Bday Party

2010-11-19T08:00:00.000-06:00

This past weekend, one of Ella's sweet friends from church, Gavin, had a birthday party at a historical fire station in Dallas. It's historical because it's one of the oldest working fire stations still around and it is only 1 of 4 that still have a pole that the firemen use to slide down when a call comes in.

Did y'all know that they are taking out all the poles? I had no idea. I'm not sure why that makes me sad. It just seems strange to me. As a kid, when I saw a movie or show that had a fireman sliding down the pole in an emergency I just always thought it was so cool.

It was a great party! The kids and the adults had a blast.

This is Ella, her friend Layla and the Gavin the birthday boy walking from the parking lot to the fire station.

First sight of the fire truck.

Looking down the hole where the pole is. After all the kids got to look down the hole, we all walked back to the bottom floor and got to watch our guide demonstrate sliding down the pole.

Showing us how they put on all that gear.

Getting to sit in the firetruck. Ella said this was her favorite part.

I'll let you know here that once again I forgot my camera and had to take all of these pics with my phone. So the quality is horrible. Especially this picture, but I wanted to show how the tires of the fire truck are as big as Ella.

It was so fun that they let them spray water out of the hose. One of the kids almost soaked a man and his dog that came around the corner and didn't see them spraying the water.

The ambulance and one of the fire trucks got called out while we were there. It was very exciting. I think the adults were more excited than the kids! It was pretty funny because our tour guide was the ambulance driver and when the call came in, without hesitation he was in the ambulance and gone. Practically mid sentence, he turned around, hopped in the ambulance and took off. So another fireman had to take over.

It was a great bday party. I recommend this for a party if you are trying to think of a fun thing to do for your kiddos.

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Pumpkin Patch

2010-11-17T08:00:00.000-06:00

We love this little pumpkin patch farm that is close by our house. It's family owned and operated and so quant and wonderful. It's become one of our family traditions over the past few years.

This year the Murrells & the Lewises joined us!

The first thing we did when we got there was have a picnic dinner.

My sweet, sweet girl!

Ella could barely get her food down fast enough before she was off and running with Joshua.

After the hay maze, they took off for the tractors.

A quick break for some kettle corn! I LOVE that stuff!!!

A cute picture with Laney in the hay house!

Family picture time.

We always let Ella pick out her own pumpkin. Thankfully she always goes for a little one or as she likes to call it, "A punkin size pumpkin."

The "perfect" pumpkin!

Group picture of all the kids! Sam, Miles, Laney, Joshua, Gabe & Ella. As you can imagine, I took about 25 shots of this and it was quite an experience, but we got them all.

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God's Faithfulness thru our Homestudy!

2010-11-10T08:39:00.006-06:00

Praise the Lord, our home study has come and gone. It seemed pretty surreal. The reason is because adoption is something Heath and I always felt we would do, much like most people probably. But is it something I thought we would actually do before are biological children were grown and maybe even out of the house? I don't know. I knew the desire was there, but I had absolutely no idea what that looked like and how in the world is was going to play out.

So for this woman to be sitting in our home, completing our home study, a surreal feeling come over me that this is actually happening. I can't believe it's actually happening.

Is it happening in my timing? No. Is it happening under circumstances I would prefer? No. But nevertheless, it is happening and the Lord has deeply rooted in my heart for the past 9 months a joy and calling for this.

Let me explain to you the events leading up to the home study days before.

I got a call on Friday, October 29 that are home study is scheduled for November 8. I freaked because that only gave us a little over a week to prepare and we were NOT ready at all. Heath and I were currently in one bedroom and needing to move all of our stuff to another bedroom because we felt the bedroom we were currently in would be better suited for foster children. We had to then clean the room we came from and set it up as if children were coming at any moment (crib, toddler bed, daybed). We had to clean the house. We had to lock up all medicines. We had to organize closets. The list went on and on and on and I quickly, within seconds of hanging up the phone that Friday, became instantly overwhelmed.

I did have some sense, surprisingly enough in that moment, to pray and tell God, if you are planning it for that day, then you will work all this out for us to get done.

Because it wasn't this never-ending list of stuff to do that had me totally overwhelmed, it was mine & my husband's schedules for the next 10 days also. We had literally one of the busiest weeks of our lives leading up to November 8. So in my head, there just wasn't enough time in the day, unless I did not sleep for 10 days. I'm so serious.

I'm going to tell you my schedule, but at the end it's going to be a great moment of AHA!
October 30 - Different bday parties/church parties all day.
October 31 - Play on the worship team for church, which means at church from 7:00a.m. till 1:00p.m. Then halloween was that night. So spent entire afternoon getting all of our costumes ready.
Nov. 1 - Pretty open day to get stuff done. Thankfully!
Nov. 2 - Worked until 5:15p.m. Worked very hard that evening to get stuff done.
Nov. 3 - At church from 8:15a.m. to 8:30p.m. Got nothing done that day.
Nov. 4 - Worked until 5:15p.m. Worked very hard that evening.
Nov. 5 - Open day to work on stuff!
Nov. 6 - Women's conference at church, which I was in charge of the worship team. So at church from 7:00a.m. to 5:45p.m. Then totally exhausted when I got home.
Nov. 7 - Play on worship team so at church from 7:00a.m. to 1:00p.m. Had evening service that night (which we rarely have) so was at church again from 5:30p.m to 8:00p.m.
Nov. 8 - Home study lady comes at 9:00a.m.!

I wanted to show you this because I was so sure that this was the absolute worst timing for us to have our home study. The absolute worst. When I opened up my calendar, to see what the next 10 days held, I thought there is no way! I even tried to get out of it, but the director of our agency really encouraged me to keep the date.

Our Women's conference Saturday was called Generations. We had 5 speakers from 5 different generations from our church speak. The theme was how God has been faithful to them through their life.

Are you catching my aha moment? As I sat through almost 5 hours of listening to these women, whom I love, speak about the ups and downs of their lives and the hugeness of God's faithfulness, I wanted to weep.

At the end of the day on Saturday, I was on to God. :-) I knew what He was trying to get through my thick skull. That He is faithful. It wasn't by chance that this was planned on the busiest week I've had in a long time. It was a gentle or not so gentle reminder that God is faithful. And He will supply all my needs. And He did that through a very good friend/mentor of mine gifting us with a team of cleaning ladies to come in and clean our house on Saturday while I was at the Women's conference. He did that by having close friends that came over and helped me organize. He did that by allowing my husband and I time, even though it was not much, this week to move all of our bedroom stuff over. He did that by having a mom and mother-in-law that helped watch Ella. He did that by having countless people praying for us.

There were so many opportunities for me to see His faithfulness throughout those 10 days, I'm so glad that I did. Help me not to forget Lord, the next time something seems impossible or overwhelming.

The home study was great! There are just a couple of things we need to do to our house, but that's it. It will still be a little bit before we are officially licensed. We still have another inspection and some more paperwork, but we are definitely one HUGE step closer with this behind us.

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Texas State Fair!!!!

2010-11-04T08:00:00.000-05:00

It is one of our family traditions for us to go to the great Texas State Fair every October. So we went last Tuesday and had a great family day!!!

This year we started out at the petting zoo. It's always so cute and Ella loved it more than ever this year.

Next, we went to The Jumping Dog Show. This is Ella's favorite part of the fair every year! She asks all year long when do we get to go see the dog show again.

I'm a bad mom for forgetting Ella's sunglasses and it was very sunny that day. So at times I had to relinquish mine so she could see. But I thought they looked pretty cute on her. :-)

Finally the moment arrived when we got our Fletcher's Corn Dogs!!!

Ella loves Big Tex! She kind of thinks that Big Tex is Texas. She doesn't really get that Texas is a state that we live in. So she says things like, "Mama, we are going to see Texas?" And as much as I try to explain geography to her, she can't quite wrap her mind around it yet. It's pretty cute!

Time for our traditional picture! We did this the very first year we went to the fair with Ella and thought it was really funny. So every year we find a truck we like and pose the exact the picture! Here's the progression...
2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

Ella was very excited to take a picture with Bumble Bee. In fact I wasn't thinking much about Bumble Bee until Ella came up to me and asked if I could take her picture with Bumble Bee. It was really cute that she wanted to have that.

Watching the Acrobat show.

Fried Frito Pie!! This was the new fried thing I wanted to try this year and it was actually really really good!! If you are not familiar with the Texas Fair than you don't know about this strange thing they do where they literally fry everything. Everything!! It's pretty bizarre.

Mother Goose story time. This is what Ella and I did so Daddy could have some extra time at the Auto Show.

Ella's pink cotton candy.

Playing a fishing game so she could win this little pink bear. She has slept with that little thing every night since she won it, which makes it worth the ridiculous amount that we paid for her to play this fishing game. :-)

The Bird Show is another one of our favorite shows to go to at the fair. They let these birds go from the back of the arena that literally have a 10 feet wing span and they fly inches about the audience's heads. It's actually really cool. Well this was Heath and I Ella on the jumbo tron, which Ella got really excited about.

At the end of the show, they collect money if you want to give some to their bird cause. I'm not sure what it goes towards. But we always let Ella give a dollar because it's really fun to let the bird take the dollar out of your hand and put it in the box.

Just a sweet picture of my sweet girl.

Another tradition we have is we always share a turkey leg.

Yummy!

And as if hadn't already had enough junk food...

We had a great day and the weather was perfect!!! I ended up taking pepto at about 2:00a.m. that morning because I felt so sick, but it was worth it!

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Fall-A-Palooza!!

2010-11-03T08:30:00.000-05:00

Our church, like many of yours, has a fall festival on the night of Halloween each year. Ours is called Fall-A-Palooza. We have gone every year since Ella's first Halloween.

Heath and I get a little into the dressing up part. I'm not sure why, but I do remember growing up, my family would get really into it. So I guess that's where my obsession with all 3 of us dressing up comes from. Regardless, it's always a lot of fun!

This year was possibly my favorite year.

Here are year's past:

Halloween 2006
Heath couldn't make it this year, so I was a flower pot and Ella was a ladybug.

Halloween 2007
We went as 80's Aerobic Instructors

Halloween 2008
We went as a bathtub, a ducky and man in the bathtub.

Halloween 2009

We started our evening off with a little trick or treating.

Once we got to Fall-A-Palooza, we played some fun games.

Ella & Karoline!! It is precious how much they love each other!!!

Ella had never placed in the costume contest. I have let the judges know how bitter I am about this. They're my friends so it's okay. :-) Well this year we broke the curse of never placing and Ella got 2nd place! To her, it was like she won an Olympic gold medal. She got so excited. I'm not really sure at what point in her life either Heath and I instilled such a competitive spirit in her, but regardless, it is there.

Ella & her sweet friend Annie waiting in line for the costume contest.

Entering in for the contest.

Ella leaping onto stage.

And doing a little twirl for the judges. It's moments like these that I know she is her daddy's girl. She loves the stage and being in front of people.

Her candy prize and 2nd place ribbon.

My sweet Alice!

Some playtime with Karoline!

Face painting.

A quick stop for some Starbucks! :-)

She actually won twice that night because she won this adorable present in the door prize. So she really struck gold this night and couldn't have been happier about it.

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Another Divine Encounter

2010-10-23T17:49:00.004-05:00

A few months ago, I got an email from a lady that had found my blog through Amanda. She got in contact with me because of my fostering posts.

This interested her because she is a "mom" at a foster home in South Africa. She is from America and moved over there a few years ago to work at a home called Baby Haven that was a transitional home for babies that needed to be adopted.

While working at Baby Haven, she saw such a need for a children's home that she felt compelled to start, through the same ministry, a home for children called Child Haven! She cares for 12 precious children ages 2-10.

Ever since she contacted me, I have been keeping up with her blog and we've been emailing back and forth some. She's been a great encouragement to me. Y'all would not believe how adorable her kids are!! I mean they are just the most precious things. When you go to her blog, you will fall in love.

Well, about a month ago she emailed me saying she would be in town for a conference and asked if we could meet up! Ummm...let me think about this...YES!!!!! Oh my goodness, I was so excited.

It just amazed me that she is not even from here and of all places for her to have a conference it was in my city!!

The days she was here, I had to work, but she so sweetly came to my church (where I work) and hung out with me for a couple of hours. My church is incredibly mission minded, so it was exciting to get to introduce this missionary to my church staff!

We had a great conversation and I was immeasurably blessed by her visit. In fact, so blessed I came home and told Heath I think we need to pack up our things and move to South Africa to join her team at Child Haven!! :-) I'm not sure if that's from the Lord or just my immense joy in talking with her. But oh how I would love to meet her sweet children and love on them.

The foster system in South Africa is actually pretty similar to ours. She told me however, they don't have has many agents as we do, so only the absolute EXTREME cases are placed into foster care. Unlike here where there is a wide spectrum of extreme cases. So I'll let you use your own imagine on what the kids have gone through that eventually make it into her care.

The children at Child Haven are adoptable, just like our children in our foster care system. They adopt domestically and internationally. But of course, just like here, most of the kids are adopted out of Baby Haven and not Child Haven. So there is definitely a need for these children to be adopted into loving families.

The timing of this visit was incredible because I had just finished reading the biography of Amy Carmichael. And my sweet friend from South Africa's name is also Amy!! There stories parallel each other so much that I couldn't help but call her our modern day Amy Carmichael!

(Amy, I hope it's ok that I got this off of your blog. It's just so cute I wanted everyone to see.)

She is an inspiration and a blessing to this world. She encouraged me and was beyond precious! Please join me in praying for her ministry there and for strength for her in continuing to do what she feels called to do. I know it is not easy all the time and she misses her family and friends. I so very much look up to her and want to be like her. :-)

Please, if you feel led, visit Amy's blog and maybe leave her a word of encouragement. You will be blessed.

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My Dad's 60th Bday Party!

2010-10-19T14:00:00.000-05:00

My Dad turned 60 a few weeks ago. We had a big surprise party for him last week with family and friends!!

It was a blast and we made some crazy memories.

My dad knew we were having a little family gathering, that part wasn't a surprise. However, we did have some family there that he wasn't expecting. What we didn't tell him was that we had invited some of his dearest friends.

My mom & I were in charge of getting the party ready while Heath, my granddad and my sister kept my dad occupied by taking him golfing. I'm not sure who got the better end of that deal. Oh wait...yes I do. Just kidding. I loved being able to get the party ready.

This is when my dad first arrived before he new that we had a room full of his friends waiting to jump out for his 2nd surprise!

Ella running in for her surprise hug. She new about the surprise party for a few weeks and did such a good job keeping it a secret!

Getting his 2nd surprise when another room of people came out.

These are some really special friends of parents since they were newlyweds. They came in from Cameron, TX to be with my dad for this big day!! So special.

Okay...I have to stop here to tell y'all a really funny story! It's funny now...but not as much in the moment.

Let me confess to you that I am not the best homemaker. After 8 1/2 years of being married I have definitely taken some good strides in the right direction, but it's just not my spiritual gift. Especially when it comes to cooking. But I have to blame a good part of that on my husband because he is a phenomenal cook, so why should I have to be if he fills that role. I mean am I right? And I don't want to put words in my Mom's mouth, but I think she would agree because my Dad is the same way. So cooking just isn't one of our strengths.

However...my mother-in-law is known for her AMAZING cooking. In fact, she has done a lot of cooking for special occasions for us since I got married to her son and she LOVES it. She finds so much joy in being able to use her gift.

So when we started talking about my Dad's party a couple of months ago, she willingly offered her resources. Yay!!

Little did we know that my mother-in-law would come down with a terrible intestinal virus that would maker her bedridden for a week...the EXACT week of my Dad's big party.

Which meant that there was nobody to cook. My husband was already on top of smoking the briskets. He was prepared for that and did that. But the day of stuff he couldn't do because his job was to occupy my dad. And then my dad, who would also be our cook, was obviously not an option. This meant my mom and I had to take on this task on ourselves.

Please, please if you know me laugh out loud right now. I give you permission. Imagine 3 ring circus if you will? That about sums it up.

My mother-in-law gave us the list of dishes she was planning on making along with all of her recipes. It was now up to my mom and I to pull them off.

So I started on the journey with my phone close to me so I could call her at a moment's notice for advice when something "wasn't looking right".

Over the course of 24 hours I made 8 dishes/desserts that I have never in my life made. And you know what? They actually turned out great. I couldn't believe it. Who knew that the Lord was going to stretch me on this day?

In this picture, to the left is a corn, tomato, black bean, avocado salad.

Left is a very difficult (just kidding) already made spinach artichoke dip from Sams. But the middle is homemade guacamole and on the right is my hubby's amazing homemade salsa.

On the right is a 7 layer dip.

Homemade cherry cobbler and lemon bars...even the crust is homemade on both. Are you impressed yet? :-)

Ella made a special chocolate cake for Granddad. And decorated it herself. I would say this was the best dish of the day!

My sweet grandparents. These are my dad's parents.

After we all ate, my granddad gave a toast to my sweet dad!

It was very touching and obviously funny!

Ella presenting her cake to her Granddad.

And a happy birthday kiss!

Ella had a blast playing with all of her cousins who were at the party. This is Ethan. They have been good buds since Ella was itty bitty. She thinks he is the funniest human being alive, besides her daddy of course.

These next two pictures are of Ella and her 4th cousins (I think.) They are my 2nd cousin's children. So I'm not sure what that makes them but man am thankful they are in our lives! Ella always has a blast with them and I think it's neat we have this amazing connection with such an extended branch on our family tree.

Our cousins Tiffany, Ethan & Zach. These are my dad's brother's children. Love them!!

My cousin Jerrod made these awesome washer boards and gave them to my dad for his birthday! Isn't that so fun?

Sweet Ella.

After some fun at washers, we broke out my parent's croquet set. It was the most perfect day for a party. The weather was beautiful!!! So I'm glad we spent some time outside.

Ella was so funny. She was very into it. This picture cracks me up.

Ella also got to spend some great quality time with my sister who was in town for the party. They even got to have a slumber party on our couch bed that night which was just the ultimate for Ella.

One way my mom decorated for the party was she put old pictures of my dad out. We also had a running slideshow of about 300 pics from my dad's childhood through adulthood. It was really fun to see all of them!! And relive some fun memories.

This magazine my dad is holding is an old magazine that my Uncle had and gave to him. It's from the year my dad was born. I thought that was really cool!

Happy birthday Dad!!! I hope you felt a little bit of the love that day that you have shown all of us throughout the years!! There is no doubt that I am your daughter because I look so much like you. But more importantly I hope that I possess your character and personality traits. You have been the spiritual leader of our family and I appreciate that now more than ever as I realize how absolutely important that is for a family to survive and thrive.

We have had a blast my whole life!! My goodness...I can't imagine a boring life with you and mom. We have some major outgoing personalities in this family. And it's always kept things exciting. I'm so thankful for that. I love that Ella gets to experience all the fun and these amazing gifts as well. She is one blessed granddaughter.

Love you Dad!! I pray 60 is a blessed year for you and Mom.

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Sleeping Ella

2010-10-17T21:37:00.003-05:00

I just wrote a post about this recently, but I find so much entertainment in Ella when she is asleep. It is always a surprise how I will find her laying and/or which and how many stuffed animals she will have in bed with her.

A few nights ago, I tucked Ella in with this little pink bear that she won playing a game at the state fair we had just gone too. That was it...one little pink bear was all she had in bed with her when we said goodnight.

When I checked on her a little while later after she had fallen asleep, this is what I found...

Love it!

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Bowling!

2010-10-05T20:19:00.005-05:00

A few weeks ago, we got to celebrate Tobey's birthday, a very sweet friend of Ella's! His precious parents had his party at Main Event, which is fun place that has bowling and games, but in a very nice environment. This was our first time to take Ella bowling. She went last summer with her Mimi, but we had never been with her. We had a blast!

I LOVE this whole progression of pictures of Ella and her Daddy helping her bowl. Their special relationship makes my heart smile!

Heath was especially excited to help her with this sport because he is a fan of bowling himself. He even has his own ball..."the green machine". Yes, I know.

Her happy dance! Love it!

As you can see, Ella got second place. But for the record, Tom's dad was a little too helpful. So REALLY Ella WON. But that's just for you and I. I, of course, did not tell her that. I'm not quite ready to project on her my competitive nature. Unfortanetly she will learn that in due time.

See the little tiger? That's is Shoulie. I have no idea how to spell the name Ella gave him. She definitely comes up with very creative names (or made up words) for her animals. Anyway...she loves that tiger. Sadly, it kind of replaced Pablo in her heart about a year ago. Poor Pablo.

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Feeding the Ducks

2010-09-28T09:53:00.003-05:00

Love, love, loving this weather!!!! Yesterday, Ella & I went to our local park to feed the ducks. It was SO nice to be out in this gorgeous weather that is just too few and far between for us Texans.

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Foster Care | Part 9 - LAST Training Update

2010-09-21T10:23:00.004-05:00

We are officially done with all our classroom training!!! 27 hours in a class over the past 1 ½ weeks and I can’t believe it’s over. We still have a lot we have to get done, but that is certainly one HUGE check mark off the list.

Just like last week, at the end of this weekend of training, I was filled with much joy and peace over this process and our coming journey! VERY minimal anxiety, which is a huge testimony!

The training this past Thursday, Friday & Saturday was a lot more of the technical stuff with the process, so it was at times a little boring. But my brain is definitely on information overload.

As strange as this sounds, I’m kind of sad our trainings are over. There is something so comforting about being in a room full of people that are at the same place as you in life. There were probably about 30 others there besides us and just knowing that we are all about to embark on this same journey together brought me much hope. It’s kind of a feeling of…if they can do it…I can do it.

I had one incrediblely divine appointment on Saturday I have to tell you about because I’m still so excited over it! Part of the training on Saturday was CPR training. As a foster parent you have to have your CPR training renewed every 2 years. So a couple came in the back of the class just for that part of the day.

They were very noticeable because it was a middle age Caucasian couple with a little adorable African American boy that looked about 5 years old.

When they came in, they sat in the back of the room. The entire time I kept thinking to myself how badly I wanted to go talk to them and hear their story because Heath and I very much so have envisioned are family similar to what we were seeing. And he was just the cutest little boy and so cuddly I couldn’t just watching him!

I’m not typically the type to go up and talk to a stranger unless the perfect opportunity presents itself. And I so badly wanted that to happen. Well, just as God would have it, that opportunity presented itself none other than in the ladies’ restroom. I mean would it be anywhere else.

I asked her while we were at the sink washing our hands if this is her foster child. She said that he is actually her adopted son. They got him from the hospital when he was a newborn. I was excited when she said that because Heath and I are setting our age bracket for newborns to 2 yrs old. I have heard a lot of difficult stories about getting newborns, so I have felt a little bit of anxiety over it. But to see this successful story in person brought me much hope.

Through conversation, she told me that her and her husband go to Gateway. I told her that there is a huge foster ministry at Gateway (as if she didn’t know that) that I often get on the website for research and support. She said, “My husband and started that ministry at Gateway!” WHAT?! The veil was lifted from my eyes and in that moment was in awe of the orchestration of this moment. I knew I needed to soak it in.

We talked for quite a while and I told her about my 2 main concerns.

1. Getting a newborn and thinking we will be able to adopt this newborn and then 4 or 6 or 10 months later, that newborn gets taken out of our home and placed with a family member. Ultimately, I do realize that this is probably the best for that baby, but how heart wrenching for the foster parents.

2. My concern for Ella and protecting her heart and her emotions through this.

She spoke such amazing truth to me, not holding back! This is her passion and it showed. She basically was telling me that I cannot protect Ella. But God can! That I cannot guard her emotions but God can and will. That I cannot guarantee a baby staying with us, but God knows. That I cannot control my heart breaking many times through this process, but God has already supplied the grace needed.

She was telling me how strong her little 5 year old boy is. That when a baby comes in to their home and then leaves, the 5 year old will come up to his mom and pat her on the back and say, “It’s okay mommy.” I know. She told me he is stronger than she ever could have imagined.

I have always felt that God has something in store for us that is a little different than the norm because of our daughter. If you have ever met Ella, you noticed her joyful, sweet spirit, but also sensitive spirit. She is a very compassionate child and very intuitive. Rarely misbehaving, but constantly striving to be pleasing to us. We've always noticed this, and I have always thought about what God could have for us by giving us a child with these characteristics. Over the past year, as this plan has been unfolding, it has become obvious why this strength and compassion has been in her since the beginning. God has been equipping us for the past 4 years and we had no idea!

This lady also told me that she used to hold one arm up to the child (metaphorically) so the child wouldn’t get to close to her heart, while with the other arm holding the child close. It was her way to manipulate her feelings so if the baby was taken away, she wouldn’t be as hurt. But she said after doing that with the first few, she felt God very strongly telling her to STOP IT. To love that child like you would if he was your own and if he doesn’t stay, then God will supply the comfort and grace at that time. But to stop trying to manipulate her own feelings and to trust HIM!

It was AMAZING to me that my two biggest concerns about this process was exactly this lady’s two biggest concerns. Isn’t that awesome? I still am getting goose bumps thinking about how God is even now preparing Heath and I for the journey He has for us. It’s so true…if He has called you to something He will equip!

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Foster Care | More Training

2010-09-16T14:31:00.002-05:00

Just wanted to let y'all know that we have our last 3 training sessions this week. Thursday and Friday night from 6:00p.m. - 9:00p.m. and then all day Saturday.

Please pray for perseverance. As you read in my last post, this has been a non stop kind of week. And to top it off, I locked my keys in the my car last night after worship rehearsal. So the band and I were at the church until 10:45 waiting as a former fireman friend of ours worked to get them out.

So I'm pretty exhausted already.

Thank you so much!! I'm so pumped to be finished with these trainings. That is one huge check mark on our list of things to get done!

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Foster Care | Part 8 - Trainings Update

2010-09-15T08:37:00.007-05:00

My intention was to update immediately following our training days last Friday & Saturday, but it has been a whirlwind ever since.

I have praise band rehearsal Sunday mornings, which means Sundays start for me at 6:00a.m., which means Sunday afternoon naps start promptly after lunch! :-) Can I get an amen? Then we had church Sunday night. One of the classes being offered this semester is a class on fostering/adoption taught by an amazing lady in our church that worked for Buckner for several years. Isn't that so perfect?!

So this brings us to Monday and Tuesday in which I attended the “Refuge” conference put on by Student Life. It was designed to be a time of rest and renewal for youth leaders. Since I work at our church for our student ministry, I was asked to go. I wasn't sure what to expect, but man am I glad I went. Not much in the way of resting but great for some renewal.

The speakers were Greg Matte (First Houston's pastor), Matt Carter & David Platt! They were out of this world amazing! I will be processing their messages for a while. I’m trying to find out if there's a podcast of the sermons. If so I’ll let ya know. Regardless of your involvement with youth they are so worth hearing.

ALL THAT TO SAY...this is the first non-working, non-sleeping, non-mommy moment I have had to sit and record my thoughts on our trainings.

Let me first stop and say thank you to everyone for all of your facebook comments, tweets, texts, and voicemail messages of encouragement! I am truly thankful for my family and friends, my church family and staff that are supporting us and covering us in prayer during this time. I literally several times throughout the trainings would grab my phone and read through comments or tweets. Those messages helped me immensely get through some intense and very sad moments and for that I am so thankful. It was once again a reminder of the great people God has placed in my life.

I am SO glad that I did not come home Friday night and get on my computer and write my thoughts from that first night. Let's just say it would have been a COMPLETELY different post than what it has become.

Friday night was rough. The stories we heard and the video that they showed of real life situations was really hard to hear and watch. The video was a documentary of a CPS worker who went into people’s homes and took their kids away due to abuse or neglect. It's was REAL LIFE. Not a reenactment. I’m not going to go into any further detail, suffice it to say it sucked!

So after 3 hours of that on Friday night, I had a mini breakdown and pretty much came home and went straight to bed. One of my fears was that I would be haunted with those images all night and not sleep a wink. But as I was going to see throughout the weekend, the Lord was beyond faithful and allowed me to sleep. When I woke up that morning, I told Heath that was the best night of sleep I have had in a LONG time. And it helped that Ella was having a blast staying the night at my parent's house, so the house was very quiet.

His mercies ARE new every morning!!!

Saturday I woke up refreshed and excited and ready for our 9 hours of training that day!

Saturday was focused all on Behavioral Management. Even if a person is not going to adopt or do foster care, but has children of your own, this class would beneficial. It amazes me that it is required for a person to have hours of training to drive a car but zero to have a kid. It would be a different world if all parents had to go through a class like what we went through on Saturday. I wish we would’ve gone through it before we had Ella.

The principles taught that day were incredible. I won't go into it all right now because your forehead might hit the keyboard. But I will say they basically talked about how the brain developments over 17 years of life beginning in utero and when brain development is interrupted because of abuse and neglect, then those effects are only seen behaviorally. It gave us an incredible understanding of not just how these kids are going to act out, but WHY!

Then that led to training on how we are to manage that behavior. It was amazing. Very eye opening.

Hang in with me because this is the part that I am the most excited about and gets me the most pumped up about!

At 4:30p.m. when Heath and I got in the car, he asked me if I was okay and if I still wanted to do this. I told him with a smile on my face, that I am not only okay but that I am filled with such joy and peace it was crazy! Not only was I totally not freaked out, I felt a bigger, stronger, stirring in my heart to move forward with this!!

Earlier that day, I had met with my pastor's wife to pray and to get some words of encouragement. If you know Jen, you know she's kind of good at that...just a little bit. :-)

I told her about the anxiety I was feeling over these trainings and how I was feeling a little guilty about even going with these feelings and asked her if I should not until I have dealt with why I have such anxiety.

She reminded me of this simple truth from Revelation...
What door God opens, man can not shut. And whatever door God shuts, man can NOT open. So I can go into these trainings with confidence knowing, if God does not have this in store for our family, we CAN NOT open the door and make it happen. It is impossible. And just the opposite, if He has opened this door for us then we can not close it.

On the way home Saturday, I knew that as of RIGHT NOW God still has this door open for us and who am I to shut it.

Foster Care | Part 7 Trainings 2 & 3

2010-09-09T11:04:00.015-05:00

It's definitely been a while since I updated about our process of becoming licensed foster care parents. It feels like we haven't progressed much since our first training night back in June.

But in reality this has been what I have been doing in regards to foster care for the last 2 months...

Working through this ginormous binder of paperwork. Y'all, it's shocking! All of you adoptive moms and dads and foster parents are amening me right now. It really is a tad overwhelming. And most of this paperwork isn't just filling out that paper. It's instructions on a much larger project that has to be done. So it isn't even just this binder of paperwork, it's much more. Like, creating a scrapbook with pictures of everybody you know. It's copies of every document that claims you exist. It is drawing out a floor plan of your home and a fire escape route and a schedule of what your days will look like and a list of rules for your home. The list goes on and on and on.

However, as overwhelming as it has been, and I feel like I've just made a dent in it...it's NOTHING in comparison with what these kids in the foster system have been through. So you know what? I'm thankful to have to spend HOURS upon hours filling out this tedious paperwork in exchange for a life of enduring, up to this point, the most minimal of trials.

Heath and I will attend our second and third trainings this Friday night and all day Saturday.

Please, please pray for us. Friday night's training is the brutal of all brutal ones. Apparently, this is the training where we will hear in detail on sexual and physical abuse, neglect and abandonment cases. Along with pictures and videos.

Part of me feels guilty for the anxiety I am experiencing over this when I am not the one that had to live through the stories we are going to hear. I am not the one that experienced the absolute most horrific traumas imaginable.

But anxiety is what I have. I'm scared. I'm terrified that when I hear story after story tomorrow night, I am going walk out of there and never look back. That I am going to want to abandon this entire process and feel that there is absolutely no way that I am equipped to be able to handle it.

So please pray that I will not be overwhelmed. That God will allow me to process the information in an appropriate way. Because I know in my heart that if God has called Heath and I on this path, than without a doubt HE will equip us. Convincing my mind and emotions of that is what the hard part is going to be. Please pray that I will believe that with every cell in my body.

Thanks y'all!! I will let you know how it goes.

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Ella's 1st Day of School!

2010-09-07T22:13:00.005-05:00

Today was Ella's 1st day of school. This was the start of her second year at this preschool and it is just precious! We couldn't love it any more.

My husband is especially excited about her school this year because one of the Dallas Cowboy's player's sons is in her class this year. Let's just say Heath will definitely not be missing any school functions this year, not that he would any way. He's an amazing daddy!

Our precious 4 year old. She is looking way too old in these pictures.

Walking down the hall to her class. How many more years can I get away with this before she gets embarrassed?

Ella's teacher greeting her at the door.

She had a great 1st day! She was so excited when I picked her up telling me all about her day. She said she loves her teachers which makes me very happy.

I really think it's going to be a great year. She goes 3 days a week this year. I'm kind of struggling with that, but I really think it will help her transition into kindergarten. But this mommy is not excited about being away from her 3 days a week.

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Ella Loves to Sing

2010-09-06T15:12:00.002-05:00

One thing I love about Ella is her animation. Heath and I are both very outgoing and animated, so she didn't really have a shot at not being that way. She is rarely not making some kind of noise. Usually she sings. While she's watching t.v. she's singing. While she's going potty, she's singing. Riding in the car...singing.

She provides her own background music for just about everything she is doing. And if she doesn't know the words to the song, she either makes them up or just sings "la la la" to the tune.

I caught this video of her a few weeks ago singing in bed before she fell asleep one night. I couldn't resist.

Ella Singing in Her Bed at Night 5-29-10 from Janelle on Vimeo.

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Vacation Bible School

2010-08-31T15:00:00.001-05:00

This past June, our church put on Vacation Bible School just like many of y'alls. Since I always help work it I get to have a sneak peak at Ella in the opening worship rally. I think I was the only mom taking pictures and video of her. Thankfully, she's not old enough yet to be embarrassed.

The theme was Saddle Ridge Ranch, so here's my sweet girl in her cowgirl apparel that she made in class.

Krystal, this is for you. hehe. This is Jared our worship leader. I couldn't help myself getting a picture of his awesome moves!

I love the way our children's ministry decorates every year. It's always so cute!

Ella and her friend Colby doing "You're my brother you're my friend."

VBS Part 2 6-10-10 from Janelle on Vimeo.

VBS 6-12-10 from Janelle on Vimeo.

Ella and her sweet friend Annie!

They danced their little hearts out.

Ella had a great week learning about Jesus! I'm so thankful for our church and the way they invest in our children. I'm so glad we get to be a part of this church family.

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Pine Mouth

2010-08-29T17:40:00.002-05:00

I have a mentor friend of mine named Michelle. Her and I meet for lunch the last Wednesday of every month to chat. We always go to the same hole in the wall mexican restaurant down the street from where we work because it is SO yummy and we like to spoil ourselves when we are together! I just LOVE her!

Well, this past Wednesday, Michelle came up with the idea for us to meet at her house and she would make me this fabulous lunch instead of our norm. Sounded wonderful to me because she is an amazing cook. Many in our church have enjoyed the blessing of Michelle's cooking.

Anyway, she had me over and made this amazing pasta, spinach salad. It had parmesan cheese, tilapia, spinach, pasta, fresh ginger and pine nuts. To my recollection, I had never had pine nuts, so I grabbed a hand full and decided they were yummy, so I had another hand full. Then I proceeded to put 2 more hand fulls in my actual dish.

The food was great and the company was great.

Flash forward two days. I was sitting at home late Friday night and started noticing that I had this weird bitter taste in the back of my mouth. So I got some water and ate some cheese because isn't the cure for anything. To no avail, the taste was still there. Woke up Saturday morning and the taste was STILL there. Saturday night and this morning, same story.

So this afternoon, I got on google and started doing a little research. I put in the search "bad taste in the back of mouth". There were 2 main topics of articles that popped up and there were hundreds on both. I was either pregnant or had eaten some pine nuts recently. As much as I was wishing it was the former, it was a little coincidental for the latter.

Sure enough, everything I read said that there is this reaction to pine nuts that they call Pine Mouth! Who knew? Crazy. And they said in most cases, the pine nuts came from China. I immediately called my friend Michelle to see if she still had the package so she could look which country they are from. But I haven't heard back from her yet.

The worst part is that every article said that the taste can last UP TO 4 WEEKS! 4 weeks y'all! Ughh! Ack!! And there really isn't anything you can do about it.

Please pray for me. :-) And stay away from the pine nuts.

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Sleeping Ella

2010-08-23T07:00:00.000-05:00

I think I could probably take a picture of Ella every night after she has fallen asleep in her bed. At some point after I tuck her in and she actually falls asleep, she gets out of bed and fills her bed with all sorts of items, usually about 5 to 10 stuffed animals. It's always a surprise as to what she will have. It's usually something as adorable as these pictures. But it's also a lot of the time hysterical to to see what she ends up.

This has been one of my favorite nights.

Unfortunately I took these with my iphone so they aren't the clearest. Has your camera on your phone made anybody else lazy with taking pictures? Or is it just me? In the past, I would run and grab my nice cannon camera that my wonderful husband bought me. But now that I have this phone, it's just so much easier to grab that instead because more than likely it's right next to me. But then I'm always disappointed when the picture turns out cute, but it's terrible quality. When will I learn? :-)

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My Little Hula Dancer

2010-08-20T14:52:00.003-05:00

A few weeks ago, our good friends the Selfs had a Luau at their house. The guys actually bought a pig and cooked it all night leading up to the party in the ground in their backyard using hot coals. Boys will be boys. I'm so sad I didn't get a picture of it and the huge pit that it was in. Pretty interesting.

Ella in her true fashion, couldn't help but break out in some awesome hula dancing!

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Making Treats w/Laney

2010-08-12T18:36:00.002-05:00

One time last month when Ella and I were hanging out with Kristin and Laney, the girls made some yummy rice crispy treats. I didn't get any pictures of the actual treats, but I did some of the cute treat makers!

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Jumping Girl

2010-08-05T15:43:00.003-05:00

Ella had a slumber party at my parent's last night. Whenever she spends the night there, my mom pulls mattresses out of a closet so her and Ella can camp out on the living room floor. Ella thinks it's the greatest thing ever!

My mom sent me these pictures today of Ella jumping on them, which is a common occurrence.

Flying Ella!

And face plant.

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My New Wheels

2010-08-03T11:41:00.003-05:00

Well, here she is. My new (very old) car!

Now I know what you are thinking. Why? Why would Janelle allow her husband to purchase her a 1989 Dallas Cowboy themed Suburban?

But follow me on this:
1) It only cost $1800!
2) No car payment.
3) It only cost $1800!
4) No car payment.
5)

Okay, that's really all I got. But it's kind of awesome in it's own unique little way. I mean we'll never lose it in the mall parking lot, right?

It does have some charm to it though. The inside is pretty awesome. Very plush seats and lots of room. And the best part about the inside is it's custom crafted wood panel sides with dear heads engraved in them. Huh?! I mean how can you pass that up.

All kidding aside, I really am okay with it. It's kind of fun. I think it will be functional for the time being for what we need it for. And a year down the road, if it's just not working out, we'll get me something else and Heath can use that for a truck. But I have a feeling she's going to be in the family for a long time.

One thing I do need help with though is naming her. Amanda said it best when she texted me after seeing the above picture of it, "That truck is just begging for a name." So bring on the suggestions.

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