What's up here...

SO I haven't actually been doing much writing here or on my other blog mainly because I just haven't had much to say. Just been thinking alot to myself and haven't wanted to share anything yet. Every year at the beginning of the new year people make resolutions. Well one of mine for as long as I can remember has been, to exercise and lose weight. I would love to be able to say I accomplished that last year! But as you all know last year was a tough year physically with my knee surgeries. In fact today as I was walking home from taking the twins to school I was thinking wow, in just under two weeks it will be a year from when I had the first major knee surgery that basically put a halt to everything for about 6 months of the year. That is a long time to be stuck and honestly I feel like last year was a year of stretching, pulling and fighting. Yes fighting, fighting for everything! God has really been teaching me a lot of things and eventually I will sit down and write out everything I have learned through last year.

It pretty much has not be a quiet new year for us. Sean lost his job in Dec. and praise God started his new one yesterday. It brings with it a very changed schedule for our family. I am not sure how we will adjust. But I am sure we will do fine. We started the New Year with 23 youth at the Rockin Lockin at church. That was a lot of fun, but I realize just how old I am when I was ready to hit the sack and I still had kiddos up and wanting to play games. I sat with 4 boys 6-13 yrs old (none of my boys) playing Uno for about an hour. Ya know something, play Uno with a bunch of boys of that age and you learn a lot about what they are going through and and they open up faster than if you just wanted them to sit and talk to you! So as a hint to those parents or youth leaders out there, get yourself a pack of Uno cards play a game. You may be surprised at how the kids open up!

Since then I have been nonstop thinking about children's church and the change that 2009 brings. I am switching the theme and transforming the room into a tropical rain forest! Yep a tropical rain forest. Why? Well when you wake up in the middle of the night and all you have on your mind is rain forest and can envision exactly what the room would look like then you know you have either lost it or God has shown you what He wants you to do. I believe that later of the two cause personally I know I lost it a long time ago! LOL!

Our best friends, Mike and Marty came to visit us. It was so much fun! We had free bowling passes so we blessed their kids and we took all 6 kids (total) bowling. They had so much fun! We have been friends with them since 1994! We were in or part of their wedding and they were in ours. They have two autistic children and we have our Kris. Kris and Jay are buddies. It is so neat to see them get excited about seeing each other, its like they have no worries cause they get each other! Seeing them is like a breath of fresh air! We leave off like we have never been apart. They were the ones that invited us to go on vacation with them to Gaitlinburg TN this past July. That was so much fun! Would love to do that again sometime!

On Jan 4th Sean and I celebrated 12 years of wedded bliss. Well we should have been celebrating but we had church all day plus we had promised to take the kids bowling. Plus there was some miss communication and well it wasn't so happy. But things were better by the nights end, just we were apart . . . he was at work. But I am happy that we have been able to celebrate 12 years and we have been able to say no matter what; rich/poor, sickness/health, we have weather many different storms and we have made it through another tough one. We are so looking forward to this year being better and different!

So that is what has been going on here. I am so glad to have put my Christmas decor away, but have kept the snowmen out. Being that we have an actual winter compared to when we lived in Florida, I get to enjoy my snowmen all the way till March. This year I may take them down at the end of Feb. We are heading south this year for spring break. The kids haven't seen my family in a year or my parents who they are very attached to. We are hoping to take another trip in the summer to visit Sean's family in NY. We wanted to head to NY but we all voted for somewhere warmer...plus since we will be there during Sean's birthday, we are heading to Disney...if you go on your birthday you get in free! So we are going to go on his special day to save some money . . . hey $60 is $60 but then again it could be more than that. This is all happening as long as we get a nice tax refund this year! Last year we did so we are hoping to again this year! We'll see . . . what ever God wants for our family and the plans we have made are really in His hands. We can plan but we have to let Him control the rudder!