fear

     A couple of weeks ago, I had the awesome privilege of attending a Women of Faith conference in Atlanta. I have never been to a WOF conference, so I was excited and anxious to go. I was even more excited when I realized that one of the speakers would be Angie Smith. I have followed Angie's blog for several years, and I was so looking forward to hearing her speak. She did not disappoint. She is hilarious and she kept us laughing...but she also had us all crying so hard that you could hear gasps throughout the arena. If you haven't read Angie's story...you really should.

   With that being said, Angie has a new book out called What Women Fear. Of course, they promoted the book during the conference, so I decided to buy it. I mean, all women have fears, right? So, I was anxious to hear what she has to say about fear in light of God's truth. I knew going into the book that I would be able to relate to some of the areas in which she writes. What I didn't know is that through reading this book, God would reveal to me that in all honesty my middle name is "FEAR". There is not one chapter of this book that I can't relate to. Every.single.chapter applies to me. That is a humbling thing to recognize and accept. I like to believe that I have full faith in God and that He is always in control, but I now realize that that is just not true. The truth is that I WANT to have full faith in God and I WANT to believe that He is always in control, but the human side of me struggles greatly in this area.
  I've been doing some soul searching to try and figure out why I live so much of my life in fear. I believe that it dates back to the winter of 1984 when, as a very young child, I came face to face with the fact that life is fragile. It is fragile and it can be taken away in a heartbeat. Losing my brother at such a young age had a huge impact on how I view life. Then, at the age of 11, I faced the possibility of losing my daddy. When I think back to that day, when I laid with my daddy in a hospital bed before his open heart surgery, I can feel my pulse start to quicken and the same fear that I felt that day. I was terrified walking out of that hospital that I wouldn't see my daddy again this side of heaven....and to be honest, that fear has stayed with me for the last 20 years. I've stayed fearful of my daddy's health and well being ever since I was an 11 year old girl. When my kids were born, a whole new world of fear opened up to me...and it has the capability of sucking me into a pit that I can't bring myself out of. It is a DAILY, HOURLY, MINUTE-BY-MINUTE area in my life that I have to turn over to God. Nothing scares me more than even the thought of something happening to Tripp or Makinley. Just typing the words causes me to fight tears. Please understand, I know that this is not the life God wants me to live. I really do. In my head, I totally know that I should rest in the faith of a FATHER that loves me and wants nothing but the absolute best for me. And, not only that, but should calamity strike, HE would hold me and not me go. In my head, I KNOW this. But, man oh man, my heart sure hasn't completely caught on.
  I'm thanking God for this book. Through it, Angie Smith is showing me how to "walk in a faith that transforms". She is teaching me, both through Scripture and through her own life story, about the life free of fear that God wants for me. Both of these quotes have resonated with me:
"I long to be a woman who walks in the moment God has given me, with full confidence in what's to come."
and
"I want to have the kind of life with God that allows me to rest in Him. Period. Rest in Him. Daily. Hourly, Moment-by-Moment, not crisis-to-crisis."
I pray I can find that rest.

quality time

Joey and Tripp were able to spend some quality time together this weekend. First, they ventured to Athens for picture day. They walked around campus, stood in line to meet players, and saw Hairy Dawg. Joey said Tripp even wanted to walk around the new Tate center...they walked all five floors. Tripp is mesmerized by the fact that we went to school there and wanted to know if he was going to go to school there too. You know what his daddy answered to that!

After a fun afternoon in Athens, they headed to a birthday party for a friend of Tripp's. It was a boy only camp-out. So, Tripp had his first experience sleeping in a tent, on the ground. He slept just fine...his daddy on the other hand has been struggling all day! It's not the same sleeping on the ground in the 80 degree weather at the age of 32 as it is at the age of 5! But all the boys and their dads had a great time.

have a blessed Sunday

all about me

As with any school year, the beginning is full of "all about me" activities for the students. The fun thing is that Makinley got to participate for the first time this year. She had "homework" tonight to make a collage of things that represented her. It was so fun to watch her work.

Mak in a Princess dress: she likes to dance and play dress-up
Rapunzel- "Tangled" is one of her favorite movies
bookbag- She loves school
Family beach picture- It's all of us...and we LOVE the beach
Alice in Wonderland- It's her new favorite movie
Yogurt-Favorite food
Goldfish- Other favorite food
Golden- Baxter
Books- she loves to read and be read to
Sleepy Time Turtle- She uses one every night to fall asleep
  So, that's "all about Makinley"....well at least for her school project!

getting clean

Apparently, Golden Retrievers are not supposed to be bathed very often because it dries out their skin. So, Baxter has only had two baths since we got him. The first one occurred when we had only had him a few days because he took a dive into some mud in our backyard and couldn't come back in the house. The second one happened this weekend.

This dog is growing SO fast! It's crazy. He already looks huge to me and I know he has LOTS more growing to do. And I mean LOTS. He is so patient with the kids. Tripp loves him to pieces and he is quickly turning into Tripp's buddy. The first thing Tripp does when he wakes up in the morning is find Baxter to love on. Makinley absolutely terrorizes him...and he puts up with every second of it with his tail wagging. I can almost confidently say that he is fully potty-trained. He has only had 1 accident in the last week or so. He is absolutely crate trained. He stays in his crate all night with no trouble and all day while we are at work. We love him and he has been a wonderful addition to our family.

here we go again

The 2011-2012 school year has gotten underway for the kids. On Wednesday morning, they couldn't get ready fast enough. Tripp got out of bed, grabbed his rest mat and told me to get his bookbag and lunchbox....all while still standing in his pajamas. They were gearing to go.

 It is so hard for me to believe that my son is in Kindergarten. I will admit that the transition was a little easier on us since he was already at the primary school last year for Pre-K. So, this year there were no tears on my part. Although it is definitely hard to accept that my son is getting so big, I know God has big things in store for him and it's my privilege to get to see what those things are.

 I got this idea from Pinterest. I wasn't originally going to make one for Makinley since she isn't technically in official Pre-K yet, but I couldn't very well make her brother a sign and not make her one too!

 She is, however, going all five mornings of the week and going home with a new sitter. So, it's a year of transitions for her as well.

 We had to get a couple of family shots in on the first morning of a new school year.

 Tripp loves his Kindergarten teacher. She is related to our friends the Seabolts, so she has known Joey forever. He also has several of his friends in his class...including his girlfriend Mary Cate. Tripp and MC have been in the same class for the last 3 years. I kind of think that they are each other's comfort each year during the changes.

 And of course my girl is getting just as big. She was super excited about getting to go to school every day. She has one teacher on M,W,F and a different teacher on T, Th. So, she likes to tell me that her teachers are like a pattern and repeat their names in the right order!

They were EXHAUSTED Wednesday night. Flat wiped out. They were both asleep around 7:30 or 7:45. I've asked Mak's sitter to not make her take a nap this year. When she naps, she wants to stay up until 10:30 or 11:00. When she doesn't nap, she's asleep by 8 (most of the time). During the summer, she handled not napping extremely well. Granted, there were many mornings that she slept in until 9. I've noticed during these first few days of school, that between the hours of 4-7, she is very weepy. It seems like everything makes her cry. Makinley is not a "cryer" by nature, so I know she is worn out. However, it's like I told Joey, we either deal with her crying for a few hours in the late afternoon and still get time to ourselves, or we let her nap and she's up until we go to bed (happy as can be), but we get no time together. It's a trade-off.

As for me, I couldn't ask for my year to have started out any better. I have a super, super sweet group of kids. I am a collab teacher again this year, except it's with EIP students instead of Special Ed. So, it will be a little different for me. I'm putting a lot of work into redoing lesson plans and trying to figure out the best ways to teach these students that just struggle with learning. I'm partnered with Christen, and we have a full time parapro between the two of us and 2 EIP teachers that work with us as well. So, we have plenty of help. I'm expecting a great year.

a transformation

Her room has gone from this:

To this:

To FINALLY this:

This change has been a long time coming. I've been trying to figure out for the last 18 months what I wanted to do in her room. I originally thought I would go the pink/brown route. But we couldn't figure out what color to paint the room if we went that way. I came across a picture of a pink/white/gray room on another blog I follow and fell in love with it. That was all I needed to make the decision to give my girl a tranquil room that is fit for a princess. She absolutely loves it and so do we. I told Joey the other day that I forget how pretty it is when I'm not in there, so when I walk back in each time it's like a whole new reminder! It's so totally different than it was, which is what I wanted. I've added a storage system from Target under the gallery of her pictures for storage for her dolls and I also added a full length mirror to the back of her closet door. This child loves to primp and look at herself and I'm tired of her climbing on top of my bathroom counters and standing up to see what she looks like! I am planning on getting a fabric runner in pink/gray/white to go across the top of her dresser and nightstand as well. Joey just spray painted the furniture, so we are afraid it will start chipping. So, there you have it. A transformation into a "big girl" room!