Catching Up with a Random Blog!

So! It's been over a week now since my last blog. Not a fan of that. :) As you can tell from the title this is going to be a random blog that is all over the place because I have a lot to say. ;)

First off, last Friday, January 14th, 2011, two of my girlfriends and I met up at KidZone in town just to get the kids out of the house--and us moms too. It was SO nice! We got there and there was only 1 or 2 kids there and then I think 2 more showed up by the end of the night, but we basically had the entire place to ourselves. I of course forgot my camera! Luckily my friend had my back! She is a fellow blogger--to be honest she got me hooked on blogging--I snagged these pictures off her blog. These were taken before our other friend arrived.
Below is Bayleigh and Avery. This picture makes me laugh for a number of reasons. 1. It's true, they look like Sumo Wrestlers! LOL! 2. The suit that Bayleigh is wearing--that she is swimming in--fits Avery like a glove and he's only got her by a year or so. And 3....I'll explain below....

This is reason #3! Please note that if you ever go here and decide to do the sticky wall--ONLY ONE PERSON ON THE BOUNCER AT A TIME! This makes me laugh because Avery's mom and I were getting such a kick out of how the kids looked in their suits that when WE HELPED them onto the bouncer we both failed to see the sign that says only 1 person at a time! The lady working there was probably thinking....seriously, the sign is right there. Once she asked one of them to step off and told us the rules, we then seen the sign of rules TAPED RIGHT BY THE OPENING!!! LOL! This is Chaille with Bayleigh. It makes me smile reflecting on this photo because Chaille kept taking Bayleigh's balls and Bayleigh wanted to be a big girl and not rat her out and not take them away. She kept looking at me like mom....help! So, I explained to her just to watch her. She wasn't taking her balls, she was helping! She ended up being quite the little helper too. She LOVED handing Bayleigh the balls. She'd say, Here ya go! So cute! Bay couldn't even get the ball out of her hand and Chaille was already prepared with the next. I think she loved the task she assigned herself to and Bayleigh liked it too!

This next picture is of me and Chaille. I posted it because she is just SO DANG CUTE!!!! I know I don't often post photos of myself because I don't usually like photos of me, so I'm distracting you with her beauty. ;)

After going to KidZone we all split up and met up with our individual families and did our own thing. Larry met up with us at KidZone and then we drove over to Pizza Hut for dinner and to let Bayleigh use her Book It Reward and for us to use a gift card we had gotten as a Christmas Gift. It was nice!

Saturday was full of doing NOTHING!!! and by NOTHING!!! I mean, we did NOTHING!!!. LOL! Yes, we have a house that needed to be cleaned and a Christmas Tree that STILL, to this day, needs to be taken down!!! (anyone that knows me knows that I do not leave my tree up past New Year's Eve! I don't like the, for instance, 2010 tree up in 2011). It was NICE just hanging out and being together. That evening we decided to bust out the Wii and play Wii Resort. Bayleigh had so much fun and our family room was full of laughter most of the night! It's a night I know I certainly won't soon forget.

Sunday then brought our day of cleaning. Then it brought a late evening trip to the grocery store for me. YEAH! Not much to brag about there. LOL!

Monday--nothing to brag about.

Tuesday, Me being a clutz--I fell down the steps going out to the truck to get Bayleigh from school. I can laugh about it now because it happened SO FAST!!!! I fell and yelled out--(explicit) SERIOUSLY?!!! And then as quickly as that popped out of my mouth my mind was saying GET UP!!! IT'S RAINING!!!! So, I get up and painfully realize that that really did hurt. I put the box I had in my hands in the back of the truck and hobbled to the drivers seat. Brooklyn said, Jennifer--that box is heavy! Oh, she has no idea! Luckily the heat from my heated leather seats felt great on my stinging back.
Wednesday and now today, Thursday, I am feeling the pain from Tuesday's tumble. School is out for the day because it is snowing. I LOVE snow days!!!!

Now for a few ramblings....remember the book I mentioned in my previous blog called So Long Insecurity by Beth Moore??? I have finished the book and am personally recommending that all women read it. I went into reading the book with an open heart and mind and hoped to take away something from reading it and boy did I ever!!!! My faith in God is flooding my heart at this point in my life. Not that it isn't always, but I am thinking more clearly about my relationship with God and couldn't be more thankful for that. This quote below describes my biggest fault to a T!!! I consider myself a great judge of character and I have a wonderful ability to scense when something just isn't right.

...God had already told her what she needed to know and what her heart and mind could tolerate without self-destruction. But she insisted on knowing something she was wholly incapable of handling...

I am constantly digging for the answers to my Why questions. I am constantly wanting to fix things that I might not have even done. I am constantly worrying about what others think of me. After reading this, it hit me....I can't do that. I need to trust my intuitions and not dig any deeper. Because once I find out what it is that I am "wholly incapable of handling" I go into worry mode and it consumes my every though. I am working on this now and hope to do much better. How about this quote from the book...

We pry because we are insecure, and then we are more insecure because we pried.

Fits me to a T! Please do not take these two quotes and assume this book is not for you. There is something for all women in this book--I just know there is. Trust me on this one.

New subject--I don't want to get too deep on the above subject because I am not ready for that yet. I am still processing what I read in that book learning from it. SOOOO, on a new note--we knew prior to Christmas that Bayleigh's "frog" in Kindergarten had made it across all the lily pads to the swimming pool--did I lose you there??? There are lily pads hanging on the wall and frogs with each of the kids' names. Each lily pad represents a different reading level and then when the frog makes it across he gets to hang out in the pool and do AR--Accelerated Reader Program. Bayleigh finally got to start AR this week. She brought home her books yesterday and read them very easily to me. I was BEYOND PROUD of her. I was brought to tears a couple of times during the books being read because I was just so PROUD! I just remember my struggles in the FIRST Grade learning to read. My fear was that she would have the same struggles, but so far she is doing great and not showing signs of such struggles. :)

Ok, I am going to cut this off. It is a snow day after all and I want to hang out with my little chick a dee!!!! Hope all is well with all of you! Thanks for checking in!

Love,

Jenn
**On the RIGHT hand side of this page ABOVE the OWL you will find older posts if you are interested in checking them out. They are listed by month. Just click on a month and the posts will expand and you can click on each post individually or if you double click the month they will all pop up. Also, you can bookmark this page to your favorites and check back often for updates without having to look up the blog address. If you get to a video in the blog, you must scroll all the way to the bottom of the page and pause or stop the playlist music player or the sounds will play at the same time. Feel free to post comments too!**