Soccer Star

Maddie is playing soccer for the very first time and I gotta say, she's a little natural! She's aggressive, fast and just picked up on the game right away. She has great coaches and they have taught her and the rest of the kids so much. Our little Blue Tiger Sharks are undefeated so far! YAY Sharks! Here are a few pictures of her in action tonight.

And here's my little cutie pre-game. I sure love this little girl.

The Glamourous Life

Yes. That's me. Glamour girl.

Aren't some days as a mom so very humbling and just plain old gross? The awesomeness began around 10:30 last night. I had just drifted off into what I thought would be a peaceful night's sleep and next thing I know, I hear a little voice utter the dreaded words. "Momma, I just threw up. In my bed."

Mike and I hop out of bed to start the clean up and see what we are dealing with. As she's cleaning herself up in the bathroom sink, it happens again. At least she was at the sink. So, Mike gets her taken care of while I start rinsing sheets, spraying Febreeze and start a load of laundry. It's always fun to do laundry at 11:00 p.m.

We get pukey-pukerson cleaned and set up on the couch, trash can in reach and head back to bed and much to my surprise, she slept all night long. So, when I wake up, I start thinking that maybe it was food related and not a stomach bug. I get her up to see how she feels and she says she's feeling pretty good. I send her to the bathroom and tell her let's see how the morning goes and try to decide what we should do about school. If it was a fluke food thing, she could probably go, but I was unsure. About 5 minutes after she got up, she tears off running for my bathroom and at that point I was very sure that we had a stomach bug and didn't luck out with the random "food didn't sit well" option.

I tell Macie that she's going to have to get her own breakfast and make her lunch because I had a mess to clean up. (She's so good to help me!!) So, here I am, 6:40 a.m., Pinesol, Scrubbing Bubbles, Windex, paper towels and mop in hand. I text a few friends and Maddie's teacher to try and organize my morning. So thankful for friends that will swing by and help get my kids to and from school while I stay home with the sick ones!!

So then, Mabrie gets up and I run her to the bathroom, put panties on her, get her dressed and try to quarantine her from Maddie. I continue on with laundry and sanitizing the other bathrooms and when I finally sat down to rest for a minute, I notice Mabrie standing right next to me with a funny look on her face. I said, "Mabrie - do you need to go pee pee?" And she started crying. So I feel and she feels wet - ugh! POTTY TRAINING! We rush to the bathroom and much to my surprise, my morning is about to get even better. She did have an accident in her panties, but oh happy day, it wasn't pee. No, no, it was diarrhea. Perfect. So, I get that disgusting mess cleaned up. Throw those panties right in the trash. Because I'd rather buy new ones than deal with that. YUCK!!

I throw a pull up on her and about 5 minutes later it happens again. This time, worse than the first, but WHOOP WHOOP - at least it was contained.

Back I go to the washing machine with yet another load of clothes.

It's days like these that you just have to laugh and thank the Lord that for probably 355 days out of the year all of my girls are healthy and happy. Being a momma isn't for the faint of heart. You WILL have bodily fluids on you, you will rinse vomit out of clothes and bedding, you will get on your hands and knees and clean diarrhea off the bathroom floors. It's gonna happen. It's not glamourous, but the other option is that I don't have these 3 sweet girls in my life. I'll gladly take days like these in order to get to be their mom.

Both girls seem to be feeling much better already after nice long naps and I'm praying that it's over as quickly as it came.

Happy Monday, everyone! :)

Pumpkin Patch & Other Stuff

On Wednesday, my MOPS group had a play date at a local Pumpkin Patch. Macie and Maddie were in school, of course, so it was just Mabrie and me. She had fun playing with the kids, grabbing pumpkins, playing in a bin of bird seed and getting to play games and get candy. She is so much fun - a little sassy and wild, but that's another story.

Trying to get a good picture of a 2 year old could be an Olympic event. :)

Last Saturday our Women's Ministry at church hosted an event called Mugs-n-Muffins. We were so excited to have Katie Rowe come speak to us. I've been reading her blog for years and felt like I knew her, even though we had never met. She was as sweet as I imagined she would be. She loves the Lord and spoke from the heart about the loss of her sweet newborn baby girl, Reese. I should have taken these pictures BEFORE she spoke, because you can tell that her sweet testimony brought me (and everyone) to tears. But, I loved getting to meet her! It was a great day and our ladies just loved her - as I knew they would!

Katie is in the middle - Sarah and I were thrilled to get to talk to her face to face!! We both love her blog!!

And last, here's some fun pictures of Macie and her cheerleading squad from last Saturday afternoon. They are a sweet group of girls and they do a great job! Go Pittbulls!!

Macie's Spiritual Birthday

3 years ago, this very day, Mike and I sat on Macie's bed and prayed with her as she accepted Christ as her Savior. She was 6 years old and she was completely sure of what that meant and was ready to make the most important decision that any person could make.

Being so young, Mike and I wanted to be sure that she understood. That it wasn't something that she just "knew" from being in church all her life and knowing the right answers, but something that she fully believed and understood in her heart. She was in 1st grade, and while that is very young, she really did "get" it. She understood that she was a sinner. She understood that the only way that she, a sinner, could one day spend her eternity with Jesus was to ask Him to be the Lord and Savior of her life. To turn from her sin and live for him. And she understood that it was only because Jesus came to this sin filled earth, lived a perfect, sinless life and died on the cross for her sins that she needed to trust in Him.

This was a day that I had prayed for since I found out I was pregnant with her. I longed for the day that she understood and wanted to live her life for the Lord. I'm so thankful that she made that decision as a young child. She truly has a heart for the things of the Lord. She told me today that she told her teacher and several kids that it was her spiritual birthday and she's not ashamed. She has a spiritual maturity about her that amazes me sometimes. She talks often about going on mission trips, begging for the day she can go with her daddy to Haiti. She wants to go and I know that once she does, she will have a heart for missions that will continue to grow.

We are so proud of her. She's not perfect. Who is? But, she is a sweet little girl who loves people, and loves Jesus and she isn't afraid to tell you about Him. I could learn something from her. Her excitement of her salvation has only grown over the years - isn't that the way it should be?

Macie - we love you so much. To know that I have an absolute assurance that we will spend our eternity together is a joy that I can't explain. I pray and look forward to the day when your little sisters make that same decision. Just think - our whole family will be together FOREVER!! What an awesome thought! You are a joy to raise and we are so thankful for your influence on people around you, but especially your sisters. They are watching and we know that your good example will help to mold and shape who they become, too! Not that you are responsible for your sisters, but you are setting a Godly example for them to follow and we couldn't be more blessed!

Happy 3rd Birthday - praying that God would use your little life in a mighty way.

3 John 1:4
I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.

I took Macie to lunch at Geno's Pizza today to celebrate! :)

All Things Fall

Hello there! It's officially my favorite time of year, and favorite month of the whole year - OCTOBER! I love fall. The weather, colors, smells, food - every month could be like October and that would be perfectly fine with me. Some days it's warm enough for flip flops and capris and some days it's cool and crisp enough for boots and scarves. It's the best!

We have been so busy the past couple of months and I think I've sat down about 10 times in the evenings after we've put the girls to bed with such good intentions to write something and it just doesn't happen. I'm either too tired, can't think of anything to say, or I just don't want to do the work of writing something and would rather fall asleep on the couch to a good old Friends episode. Macie told me yesterday that she's been checking my blog every day and she really wants me to post something, so here I am! I guess at least I still have one reader that is interested in this little blog space I have here. :)

So, what have we been doing? Well, basically the same thing so many of you have been doing - running to and from about a million activities, practices, games, get-togethers, etc.

Maddie started playing soccer for the first time this fall and she loves it. She's really good, too. She gets right in there and gets after the ball. She's scored a goal and assisted in a few others. Her team is undefeated so far and they are a fun little group to watch.


Macie is still cheering for the Pittbulls. She is having a ball. It's right up her alley - jumping, yelling and dancing with a bunch of sweet girls. They have really done such a good job this year - I love watching her do something that I loved when I was younger. I cheered all through Jr. High and High School and it was such a blast. I have a group of girl friends that I cheered with that I'm still close to to this day. It's a special relationship that I have with those girls and I hope that as Macie grows that she will bond and have life long relationships with some of these sweet little girls, too.

Mabrie has kept me busy the past week or two with potty training. Overall, she's doing great. She wears underwear most of the time and has very few accidents. We are still working on it and I wouldn't say we are "there" yet, but we are getting really close. It's a family effort, that's for sure. Someone in the house is constantly running her to the bathroom and giving her an M&M reward. That's the girls favorite part - I think they may sneak one as a little reward for themselves, too. HA!

I've been running a lot more lately and it's wonderful to get outside and run in this weather. I really do love it. I'm going to try to do another 5k in November and my goal for 2013 is to do my first 10k. Hoping to be ready for that this spring. Maybe early May. That's the goal anyway.

Well, that's the update for now. I'll leave you with this little treat. We had a Duck Dynasty Watch Party with some church friends last week and it was a total blast. Not sure this is our best look, but we had fun nonetheless.