Daily Devotional for Gracie

We have been working really hard on praying together as a family, teaching Gracie to pray, reading a daily devotional at night with Gracie and trying to get her to memorize memory verses out of her book. She loves to see what story is coming next in her book:




http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0310714818/ref=oh_o02_s00_i01_details




A friend of mine recommended this book, and Gracie loves it. We all do! We tell her a story, then a bible verse and make her repeat it. We just finished it last night, and we are already looking forward to starting all over again tonight!

Things that are swirling around this pretty little head…

So many things that I have been thinking about lately…

We are starting a small group on Sunday and Brian is leading it.  He is very nervous and it is a very in-depth study.  It is called 40 Days in the Word.  Please pray for guidance for him and please pray that he knows where to lead us.  We are suppose to pick a project as a group to do, and he is getting very nervous and overwhelmed. 

If you were categorized as a mom, would you be a modern mom or a perfect mom?  What about as a wife?  I am by far a perfect mom or a perfect wife.  As some of you may know, I don’t do Brian’s laundry, I never have.  Now, I will help him out when he needs me to, but just to throw his clothes in with mine, I don’t do it.  I do all the other laundry in the house, but his.  Why is this?  Why don’t I do my husband’s laundry??  I also don’t have the cleanest house in the world.  Dust is on my furniture, and yes, my cabinet is cluttered with papers that my daughter brings home daily from Pre-K.  Don’t even get me started on my second bedroom.  It looks like a hoarding situation in there.  Does any of this mean I love my family less, NOPE, sure doesn’t.  I like to come home and spend time with my family, not cleaning.  Since I work full time, I like to come home and spend time playing barbies or coloring with my daughter, or even enjoying a TV show, that all three of us can watch.  Of course, this is after dinner is made and cleaned up.  Gracie is only with me three hours a day before she goes to bed, why would I want to spend that time cleaning and away from her or away from my husband who I haven’t seen all day!

What about as a friend and a sister/daughter?  I have to work on these for sure!  If anyone was to describe me, I would hope somewhere in there, they would put honest and trustworthy.  But, just being there for people in my life, I definitely need to work on.  I should spend more time with my friends/family, I should make time for girl time!  I try to get a lot of this done at lunch if possible, because like in the previous paragraph, I only get to see my daughter and my husband a few hours a day, so I want to spend time with them!  But there comes a time when you need girl time! 

Diet/Exercise…UGH!  I am trying to get back into the swing of things and I have been faithful going to Zumba, but the eating is a different story.  It is hard to get back to hungry.  I mean, it is hard going without again.  Use to, I would just shovel it in whenever I was hungry and now, I have to find healthy snacks to eat and to not overeat them!  I am also dealing with some back pain.  I want to do crunches, etc… at night, and I don’t mind doing them because it takes all of 15 minutes to do a little routine, but my back is hurting and I am thinking it is because I am trying to get used to all of it again.  ALEVE, I need you!

San Antonio Trip

We took a family vacation and went to San Antonio for a few days.  Took Gracie to the Alamo, the Zoo, Riverwalk, and Shopping.  She got a lot of stuff, and a good time was had by all!

 

 

Swimming

Gracie went swimming for the first time this summer on Mother’s Day weekend.  She said the water was freezing, but she didn’t care

 

 

What was happening and what will be happening.

Well, this past weekend was a great weekend!  It started off, by Gracie and I having a girl’s day in Lawton.  We went shopping and then had lunch.  Finished off the day by going swimming and went to listen to some live music at the Smyth house across the street from ours and eat some BBQ.  Which was GOOD!  We had ordered a pizza at Guiseppes, but decided to eat it for breakfast the next morning once we smelled the BBQ across the street.  Sunday, we all slept late, which was nice.  Karen and Terry swung by to say goodbye on their way to Minnesota, then we ended up doing yard work, and went swimming again.  Had some good burgers and went to bed.  Slept late AGAIN!  And again, we cleaned and did yard work, although we did not go swimming, but we did cook some good steaks!! 

We have been getting ready for a garage sale. Yes, that is right, it is garage sale time!  Every year, my family gets together for a giant garage, we through all of our crap together and then we all get to go through it and take whatever we want.  Whatever is left we sale.  It is so much fun, but ask me how much fun on Monday, after we sat in 104 degree weather all day!!

I bought bubbles, sprinklers, water guns, kool-aid jammers, scooby doo snacks,etc… for the kids to eat and play with while we are working our tales off.  I am sure we will all be crabby and hot by the time it is over!

Branson

What can I say?  We had a great time!!  First and Foremost, thank you so very much to Mema and Papa Ron for everything!!  We appreciate it more than you will ever know!!  The car ride there, was short it seemed, although Gracie ran out of things to do within the first hour of the trip.  Oh well, she still did great in the car.  When we got to Branson, our room was awesome.  1400 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 4 beds, washer, dryer, dishwasher, whirlpool tub, this rooms had the works!!  And it wasn’t on the 32nd floor either, we got a great spot.  We got to go do all sorts of great things!  We went to a fish hatchery, and let Gracie feed the fish, we rode the Ducks, of which, Gracie drove.  That little toot, just walked right on up there and was the captain of our ship for a little bit.  We did a ton of shopping and of course, no trip would be complete without a trip to Wal-mart.  Brian needed a new bathing suit, and Mema wanted to buy Gracie some headphones for her DVD player for the car ride home.  HA!  We went swimming, we watched fountains at the Landing, had some great food, and Brian and Gracie enjoyed morning walks together around the hotel while everyone was getting ready.  All in all, it was a great trip!!  Not quite long enough break away from everything, but it will have to do!

I know you all want to see pictures, but I will have to send those out hopefully later tonight!

Saturdays

Today was suppose to be a day of traveling all over the place for me.  We were suppose to go to my cousins house this morning in the big city, but we canceled because we didn't want to be stuck in the house with two crazy three year olds, because we thought it would be raining.  Then, we were going to run back here to have dinner with my mom and family for her mother's day.  Well, that got canceled too.  So, instead, Miss Gracie and I stayed at home cleaning all morning, then we had slushies at Sonic for lunch, then naptime.  Oh, how I love nap time, especially since I had a headache.  Then we got ready, and took Daddy to get some new shoes for our vacation coming up.  Then we decided to have dinner with Mema and Papa, to plan our vacation.  Tomorrow is church, and yard work, if it doesn't rain.  I can't wait for my vacation, I need a break from every day life for sure!

Fishing!

We took Gracie fishing for the first time yesterday.  She was so excited!  She could not wait for church to be over so we could go.  We got everything ready, loaded up the truck, and headed out.  We got to the pond, that a friend of Brian’s graciously let us use, and Brian started baiting the hook.  He cast her line for her, and not 2 minutes, and she had a bite. It was awesome to see that look on her face.  Within the next 20 minutes, she ended up catching 3 fish, and of course they were little perch, so we threw them back in.  After catching her three fish, she was done.  Her patience had worn out.  So we packed it up and went home.  Either way, it was still a great time!