(VERY, VERY, VERY RAMBLY just a warning)  today has been just a day, but like every day should be celebrated.  although I cried today.  I hate to cry.  but I must have reached a boiling point or something.  and my poor children... jace busted her lip open today on the mini trampoline... it was TERRIBLE.  And bled all over Jessica... it's a true friend that will let your child bleed all over them :)  Jace now has 2 little teeth imprints on her lower lip... then she tipped the piano bench on her toes... then aubie was too excited and stuck her eye and scratched her face with her toenails...  my poor child.  She didn't nap and was in bed at 5:30...  Rory is teething and walking and falling... she is definitely unhappy and she is LETTING ME KNOW...  her poor head is covered in bruises too.  she didn't nap well because the neighbors were out of school, thus playing basketball outside her window during nap time... no big deal... she was in bed by 6:20.  of course that means they will probably be up at 6:00!

bible study tonight was, as always, a huge BLESSING.  although that's one of the places I cried today...  I hate crying in FRONT of people.  but no big deal... that's what my friends are there for and God did bring these special women into my life for a reason.  I feel like everything is changing...  but as Trey so astutely pointed out today that was the purpose of life..lol THANKS TREY!  :)  and speaking of friends.... I  MISS MY BEST FRIEND AMANDA SO MUCH... AND NOW MY OTHER ONE IS MOVING (most likely).  BUt bible study has become such a priority in my life... I hate it when we miss a week or two... I totally rearrange my life now for it.  and am thankful that they rearrange the time for me to do this bootcamp right now.

and speaking of...boot camp was good... didn't want to go but I did anyways.  I lost 2.5 more lbs... which is good because I didn't think I had lost ANY.  I feel better exercising and anyone reading this should remind me of this often, if not EVERY day.  I really wish I could do the camp again but it's not looking like it will be in the budget.  In fact, if not for my mom paying for this one I wouldn't have done it.  so THANKS MOM!  I am just going to have to write BIG notes to put everyone to exercise and push myself every day on my own.

and speaking of stuff not fitting in budgets---- the truth is we need a new dryer.  when our old broke we bought a used one to save money.  well our lesson learned is that we should have just bought a new one.  the one we bought is awful and we have to run 3 dry cycles to dry anything thus I am only getting 3 loads done a day (IF I AM LUCKY)... now while I am prepared to deal with this... to take up my cross... its FADING our clothes...  so not only am I still behind from when the first one broke (never got up after getting this new old one), it takes way too long to dry anything, and is aging our clothes faster.  and we are out the $100+ we spent on it... oh well... lesson learned.  We have a generous offer for someone to buy us a new one but I don't know...

business could be better... understatement for a whole lot of people in this country right now.  BUT I am so THANKFUL and PROUD of my husband.  because the truth is he's a GOOD man.  He's the BEST man in my life.  He could so easily give up and be lazy but he's not.  He gets up every day and he works for US...  he is out there EVERY DAY doing all that he can, for US.  Trey and I need to give it too God... we need to let go of our fear and worry and stress and give it up to the Lord.  Maybe that is our lesson in all this--- to fully rely on God --- to never question HIS promise to provide what we need.  The truth is in the broad spectrum of life there are so many people in this world worse off than us... we are obviously not going to starve and God has definitely provided us always what we need.  My biggest thing is my fear, and maybe feelings of inadequacy.  But even if I were to get a job there is nothing paying what I would need to provide for my family and justify daycare for my kids....  one of the blogs I read actually had a great post on stress and fear that I read when I got home tonight.  this woman is so inspiring to me.  

I am thankful for great friends and a wonderful family.  my kids are happy, healthy, fed (although Rory acts like she is starved and eats ALL day), clothed and have a roof over their heads.  I don't know what we do without our mothers... my mom is only a phone call away and is so generous to my kids and us and we wish she was able to be around more often (but she'll be here in about a week---YAAAY)... and Vicki is also only a phone call away and so generous with her time.  Not to mention she cleaned our house yesterday... the BEST gift ever because sometimes I am so caught up with the kids and too tired at the end of the day to be bothered.

No matter how much mothers may drive us crazy (as I am sure I will one day do to my own girls) they are always there.  honour thy father and mother... there is a reason it is one of the 10 commandants...

Sleeping Angels...

Trey

oh, and today is Trey's birthday!!!  HAPPY BIRTHDAY TREY!

Marriage...Love...Babies...

I look at my children and I still see them as they looked when they were newborns.  It's hard to imagine that Roar will be 1 in a week and Jace will be 3 in June...  I love my children more than I thought possible.  I never once worried if I would be able to love my second born as much as my first.  And this is a very real concern for a lot of women these days, the idea that they can love a second baby as much as their first.  I didn't have "to make room" in my heart.  It got me thinking of the magnitude of Christ's love for ALL of us.  He doesn't pick and choose among us, he just loves.  Infinitely.  Undeniably.  Completely.  This is how I feel for my children.  It's a glimmer of Heaven for me... this all encompassing joy of my children.  Children are a privilege from the Lord... they are the fruit of marriage : a sacred love.  "Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb is a reward.  Like arrows in in the hand of a warrior, So are the children of one's youth.  Happy is the man who has a quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed."  Psalm 127: 3-5  

It is only through God's grace that we are married and take on the God given responsibilities of becoming one flesh... and through our holy union, again by God's grace, are we blessed with children.  Trey and I have made a commitment before God to join together, and to multiply for the glory of the Lord.  We are committed to building our home with the grace of God...  Marriage is not intended to be easy, but it is intended to bring us closer to Christ.  "God intends for marriage to be both romantic and redemptive.  God aims to rid us of selfishness.  He uses difficulties in marriage  to melt away the dross in our lives, or as the writer of Hebrews puts it, God chastens us, 'for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness.  Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it' (Heb. 12:10, 11)." God intends for our marriages to reflect His image to a world that desperately needs to see who He is.  "So God created man in His own image: in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them" Gen. 1:26, 27.  I read somewhere the Hebrew word for mirror means "to reflect God, to magnify, exalt, and glorify Him."  I take this to mean that we should focus on His words, "in His own image" and apply this to our marriages with the respect that we should within our marriages adhere to God's will for us and treat our spouses in such a way that it will "reflect, magnify, exalt, and glorify" God.  These are the standards to which we should hold our spouses, and especially ourselves, too.

Picture Thoughts

ENJOYING EACH OTHER....

SHARING SWEETLY....

ROAR'S FAVORITE PAST TIME...

WHY BUY TOYS....

JACE DRESSED HERSELF...

Continual Conversion

I have been reading alot lately about sin and a need for a continual conversion of our hearts away from sin.  Here are some thoughts that I keep pondering....

"Jesus calls every person to turn away from sin and to turn towards him - that is, to convert.  This conversion requires not only change in one's actions but also a conversion of heart, a radical change of being.  In the conversion of heart, one changes from being "dead to sin" to "alive... in Christ Jesus" (Rom 6:11), from a child of wrath (see Eph 2:3) to a child of God (see Gal 4:5-7).

We cannot change (convert) our own hearts, and so conversion is first a work of God, the one who "will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live" (Dt 30:6).  God "circumcises our hearts" in Baptism, when we are cleansed from sin and made children of God, "fellow heirs with Christ" (Rom 8:17) , and "partakers of the divine nature" (2 Pt 1:4).  God gives to each person the grace for conversion, to choose either to accept or reject.  By a response of faith, the person accepts this gift of conversion, and by doing penance, cooperates with this grace.

Penance is any act which assists the Christian to turn away from sin and toward Jesus.  Whenever we sincerely do penance, we cooperate with the grace of conversion.  We will rejoice in our sufferings for the sake of Christ and experience a willingness to complete in our own bodies "what is lacking in Christ's afflictions" (Col 1:24; see also Phil 3:8).  Our penance thus expresses an interior conversion.

Scripture suggests three forms of penance:  fasting, prayer, and almsgiving (see TB 12:8, Mt 6:1-18).  Fasting cooperates with the grace of conversion in one's individual life, prayer cooperates with the grace of conversion in one's life with God, and almsgiving cooperates with the grace of conversion on one's life with others.  Traditional fasting means abstaining from food for a given period of time to draw closer to God.  Some people fast on bread and water alone as a way of teaching that Christ alone is the soul's only real nourishment.  Almsgiving means giving money (or food, clothing, etc.) to the poor.  The Church teaches that we must recognize Christ in the poorest of the poor.  These are his brothers and sisters; as members of his Body, we must care for them.  Furthermore, the practice of penance in one form affects the other two.  For example, if we pray with true repentance, we will desire to change our way of life and will change the way we treat others.

Because of ever-present human weakness and sin, continual conversion is necessary.  Someone who truly desires to cooperate with God's grace need only utter a prayer like, "how can I love you more, Lord Jesus?"  and many ideas will surely come to mind.  Scripture teaches that crying tears of repentance (see Lk 7:37-48), "love for one another" (1 Pt 4:8), and "bring[ing] back a sinner from the error of his way" (Jas 5:20) each "covers a multitude of sins" (1 Pt 4:8; see also Jas 5:, and 20).  Other ways to accomplish conversion are receiving the Eucharist, reading Scripture, praying the Rosary or any other devotion, worshipping Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, praying the Liturgy of the Hours, examining one's conscience, caring for the poor, giving money and time to those in need, seeking and following spiritual direction, visiting the lonely, practicing self-denial, and patient acceptance of suffering and persecution."  ( taken from a handout printed by The Association for Catechumenal Ministry; ACM)

Sin in our world is massive and consuming, and without realizing it we can become so indifferent to the reality of sin that we become dismissive of God's will and assume authority of our own lives.  The more indifferent and dismissive we become as a society, the harder it becomes for people to acknowledge their own sin and need for salvation.  Mankind has become so egotistical that we have willfully ignored God's intentions for our lives here on earth and instead try to assert our own desires.  Trey has asserted to me many times that most churches today have become nothing more to people than places where they can practice a faith of convenience.  The idea behind his description is really quite disturbing for me... and after a while I realized that he has a point.  There seems to lack a cohesiveness of beliefs among Christians today, and it seems like every one wants to assume their own authority in their faith and religion.  And the only truth for me is that the only real authority is God himself and Christ our Lord, and the Church that Christ set up for us on this earth.  People want to fit Christ around their schedules and want him to adapt to their lives when the truth is we NEED to center our lives on Christ.  It may not always be convenient but it is always what God desires for us.  It is only through Christ and trying to live by his example that we will ever find true spiritual nourishment. And without the true spiritual nourishment that God enabled us to have through his sacrifice of Christ, and the sacrifice that Christ gave to us of himself on the cross, the lives we lead will be nothing but an empty passage through time.  

Rory

Rory's first birthday is the 23rd of this month :)  And she has recently started walking!!!  Trey said she looks like a smurf when she walks.  HAHAHA!  She is really so tiny.  She is still in size 3 diapers with room to spare, whereas Jace was in size 5 by the time she turned one!  And she is so short and petite and just plain CUTE!  We finally figured out about a month ago that if we lay her in the bean bag with her bottle than she would finish it... we have been battling her for months to get her to finish bottles!  I guess she didn't want us holding them for her... she really is already little miss independent, like her sister, mother & both grandmothers!!!  Poor Trey... surrounded by all these strong willed females... no wonder he's grumpy sometimes!  HAHAHAHAHAHA!

Mommy's girls'

I don't post many pictures of myself, simply because I don't like many of the pics that are taken of me.  But this picture makes me smile because my children are being such momma girls!  I have recently started a boot camp that meets 3 times a week for a 6 week period.  I am doing that in conjunction with working out at the Y on my off days from boot camp.  I am hoping to do this boot camp for at least one or two more six week periods to get into a better routine of exercising.  Jace does not like that I leave her 3 times a week at night.  She is always asking me not to leave, but I just tell her that mommy has to go get healthy for her and Rory...

today

See these faces?  This was most of our day... Rory has like 6 teeth coming in so she's just grumpy and Jace was constantly bothering her so she stayed in trouble ALL day!  It was almost enough to drive me to drink... almost.

Siblings

Funny tidbit from today...  Jace informed me that she wanted a baby brother name Michael.  Out of nowhere... granted we were watching Peter Pan so I think that's where she got the name from.  So then I said "What!?"  and she said it again.  So playing along, I said "Well what would you name another sister?"  She said, "Rory!"  I told her she already had a baby sister name Rory, so what would she want to name another sister.  She clearly and defiantly informed me, "I don't want another sister!  NO MORE SISTERS!  I want a brother----MICHAEL!"  She ended the statement in an extremely LOUD voice...  I sadly had to inform her that she had no control over that!  HAHAHAHA