Home is Where the Heart Is

Isn't she just the cutest thing ever? Sara recently found out that she has a tongue so she likes to stick it out a lot. This picture just made me think about how much I love my home, including the family that lives in it. Our home is so homey and I am grateful for that. Today I put up our christmas tree so I could surprise Dan when he got home from work. The best part was when the girls work up from their naps and came out to see the tree. They were in awe. And then when Dan got home he had a really big smile on his face when he saw what I did. It is fun to start reflecting on why we celebrate christmas. It is also exciting to know that we get to teach our kids all about Jesus and his birth. How fun!

On a different note, please pray for an upcoming presentation that I will be doing. I have an opportunity to present to elementary teachers about autism. At first I was really nervous about this because I have been out of the education field for a couple years. I also left the field feeling burnt out and a failure because I had tough cases and not as much success during my last year of teaching. I put a lot of pressure on myself and had high expectations that I wasn't able to meet. However, working on putting this presentation together has given me the confidence to know that I have a lot of knowledge about autism. I am excited to share this information and I am having a blast putting the presentation together. Praise God for this opportunity!

The Fashion Experts

As I am getting older, I find that I need to look to the young ones for new fashion trends. Aparently I was very unaware of the fact that socks can now be worn on your hands. I might try this out tomorrow. I am worried about my hands getting hot and my feet getting cold, but I guess if it is trendy then I will do it. I want to be in style like these two girls.

Trick or Treat

We had a fun evening trick or treating. Hannah and Mya walked the street together and it was fun to watch them walk up to the houses and get candy. You could see the wheels turning in their heads as they were trying to comprehend the fact that they were getting lots of candy in a bag that they were allowed to hold on to the whole time. We don't keep candy in our house very often so it was quite a treat for Mya. Below is a picture of Hannah (Snow White) and Mya (kitty cat).
This picture is of Mya and her cousin Reid (monkey). Aren't they adorable?

Here is a picture of the whole group from left to right: Mya, Reid, cousin Brad, Luke, and baby Sara in the back.

And once the evening was done and the kids were in bed, guess what Dan and I did? We emptied Mya's candy bag on the floor and rooted through it like we were little kids. We decided on the Tootsie Roll suckers. Yum!

Milestone

Sara rolled over for the first time yesterday! Unfortunately, we all missed it. The kids and I were in the other room and when we returned, Sara was on her belly. Luckily today I saw her roll a couple times so that makes up for missing it yesterday.

The Love Dare

Dan and I have this new devotional book for married couples based on the movie Fireproof. We are only on Day 2 of the book, but I can already tell that it is going to be excellent. In the back of the book there are a series of questions to ask each other in our "spare time." One example of a question is "What do you enjoy the most about your life right now?" Or "What is the next major decision that you think God would want us to make as a couple?" We spent about a half hour on Sunday night asking each other these questions and it was so much fun. I learned a lot about Dan's hopes and dreams. That is something we don't take the time to talk about because we are busy with the kids. I think sometimes we get used to being married and focused on life as it is and forget to dream and share with each other.

What lead me to write about this book on the blog was the amazing content in the devotions. We are reading about what love looks like in a marriage. The first day was about patience and last night was about kindness. We were challenged to think about kindness as gentleness, helpfulness, willingness, and initiative. Ephesians 4:32 states "Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you." What an amazing verse to focus on in a marriage. We are living in a world where morality is compromised so it is important for us to battle Satan and his influence in our lives with scripture and truth.

I remember just the other day that I woke up to Dan just looking at me, watching me breathe. He was smiling from ear to ear. He said that he loves to just watch me sleep peacefully. Talk about kindness! Picture me with bed head and bad breath and he still likes to look at me in the morning. Wow! I am challenged on a daily basis to show him kindness in ways that I don't always want to. We were both challenged, by the author of the book, to do something unexpected today for each other. Hmmm....I wonder what I will do for Dan today. I love that the author helps us focus on putting each other first. Maybe I will give him the night off and tell him to play video games for hours and hours. Boy would he love that! And boy would that be unexpected!

See Julie Run

I joined this new running group called seemommyrun.com. There is a great group of moms in the area who are committed to running and training for a race in December. Last Saturday I ran 7 miles and yesterday I ran 9 miles. That is the most that I have ever run, ever! I was absolutely exhausted, but felt SO great for running as far as I did. I am also excited because Dan and I are going to run a 5K together in December. We used to run together when we dated and haven't been able to run together since I got pregnant for Mya. The race will be a great bonding time for us. Yeah!

Happy 2nd Birthday Mya!

Yesterday was Mya's birthday. I completely believe that she woke up that morning knowing that she was two years old. It was an interesting day full of tantrums and other fun things like dumping her milk on the carpet on purpose. You gotta love toddlers! We did have a fun party with Dan's family in the evening. We had a campfire and s'mores and other fun food. It was cold, but very enjoyable. Mya is enjoying her new toys from her birthday parties. Below are pictures of Mya jumping on her new trampoline, which she has been jumping on since she woke up at 7:00 this morning.