This past Tuesday precious friends of ours had their lives change for ever. Their home exploded from what is expected a propane leak. The Johnson's have 5 children. Katie who will be 19 tomorrow, Hannah and Nathan who are twin 16 yr olds, 14 year old Sarah, and 10 year old Sam. Judy and Jody (mom and dad) are Christ-loving, hard working, amazing people. Jody retired from the Army after serving 22 years in the service and Judy is a veteran herself and now a Hospice nurse. Jody works for his childhood friend in construction. Hannah and Sam were not home the morning of the explosion. Judy has 3 broken ribs and 4 broken vertabrae's and was released from the hospital today. Jody and Nathan both were bruised, but otherwise amazing ok and were released yesterday. Katie suffered burns to 40% of her body, she had a skin graft on her foot and hand yesterday and although her face suffered 2nd and 3rd degree burns, they  believe yesterday was the only time Katie will need surgery, nothing but the Lord right there. Sarah, sweet, sweet Sarah. She's with Jesus. She did not survive the explosion. Once Katie is out of the hospital, which will be a few weeks most likely, they'll have her funeral. This family is one of the most giving families you could ever meet. My heart is heavy for them, yet I have hope because the Lord is doing amazing things in the small town of Wilson, New York. He's bringing people to the Lord, he's showing this amazing family how loved they are. They literally have just had visitors one after another while in the hospital.

I don't know why the Lord allows the things he does. I can tell you though his glory will shine. There WILL BE Beauty from the ashes.
Please be in prayer for this family, as they deep for their precious Sarah and as they heal.

Running

Yesterday was a workout for sure! We had a fun day, going to a castle we'd never been to, or even heard of for that matter, only about an hour away, then went to Wurzburg and walked along the All Saints Bridge, which we'd never done. We used to go to Wurzburg a lot and love the city, but had never went to the famous bridge and I'm so glad we did. We walked a great deal yesterday and we didn't get home until after 8 PM. I had promised Jackson we'd go running, and have to say if it weren't for him, I don't think I'd have done it last night. We'd stopped and had Taco Bell on our way home and let me tell you, I will NEVER eat Taco Bell again. It didn't agree with me during my pregnancy with Olivia and well it still doesn't. So, Jack and I went out about 9 last night and off we went. I didn't plan on running a full mile since my stomach was just all over the place, but then I ran into my friend S, who was running and so she went off of her route and went with me. She pushed me to go faster, she talked which helped me to keep my mind off the pain in my legs and stomach, well until we slowed down to turn around and yeah, threw up and then kept on going, I ran the 2nd 1/2 mile home. I was definitely sore when I got home, but it felt good. It felt good to know I'd done something good for myself, and well thankfully all of Taco Bell was out of my system, thankfully.

Today I was sore, so very very sore. I'm still sore and it's almost 2 AM!
Tomorrow night I'm going running again and it'll again be after another busy, but fun-filled day. We're going to Pottenstein to the rollerbahn,paddleboats, and caves.

So I AM doing this! I'm hoping that in a months time I'll see 10 lbs off of me, then hopefully with diet changes and running as well as adding in weight lifting that I'll be adding in to my workouts in the next few weeks, will help to get this weight off. I plan on changing things up every month to every 6 weeks, so my body doesn't stop loosing weight. I know it may seem unreasonable, but I do have a goal of 10 lbs a month. I know I may not hit that goal every month. I know I will most likely it a plateau at some point, but I am going to work my butt off (hopefully literally!!).

So here's my various goals for the next 2 weeks.
Run 6 miles.
4 hours on Eliptical (the plan is 4 days a week for 30 minutes)
2 days of Zumba a week.

Then, the following two weeks I plan to up the running to 8 miles
5 hours of Eliptical
3 days of Zumba

Eating/Drinks:
Only water
upping my fruits and veggies
Planning on fruit for breakfast (not a big fan of breakfast most days) with scrambled eggs on weekend.
Lunch will be healthy sandwiches and wraps
Dinners will be a variety as our family normally does, but I will be limiting my portions.
Lots of fresh fruits and veggies for snacks..when I'm bored my plan is to grab fruits or veggies. I am planning on making angel food cake and enjoying strawberries and angel food cake (no cool whip).

I am writing this all out for an accountability.
I've told Chad to not buy me anymore Dr. Pepper. He loves me no matter what my size, but wants to support me in getting healthy. He knows how unhappy I am with my weight and just how I look. I know I will never be the size I was when we got married. 6 babies have widen these hips and there's no way they're ever going back to where they were! I'm truly ok with that. I don't expect to have a flat stomach, just a smaller one (and smaller butt! LOL no seriously it needs to be smaller). These are not just temporary changes, these are forever changes. I want to be healthy for myself and my family. I want my kids to never feel embarrassed by me, because of how fat I am. I want to be a good example to my kids, especially my girls and show them a healthy body image. I don't want them to be obsessed with their weight, just show them that with hard work and eating healthy will keep them healthy. Being skinny does not equate health. I know many see this and don't understand that, but it's true. I have seen and know some very unhealthy "skinny" people. It's about excercising and eating healthy. I don't want to eat our of boredom, sadness, happiness anymore. I want to fuel my body with food and then move on. The fact is, food has never made me emotionally feel better, instead it's made me feel worse. It's time to use food as the Lord designed it. That's to fuel my body, give me energy.

I plan to have one day a week where I don't workout and allow myself a splurge on eating. I plan to make this normally Friday's when we go to the Hospitality House.
I can do this. I will do this. I AM doing this.

Thank you for your prayers and support, it means far more than you can imagine. I can do all things through Christ!!

Here I Go (Again)

I have fallen off the wagon so to speak. I've not been running in far too long and started drinking stupid dr. pepper again. I have one left and then no more and tomorrow the running will start up again. With drinking the pop, I've been craving the sweet, a great deal more than when I was running. I'm so tired of this ridiculous cycle. I'm done. I'm done. I'm done. We have an eliptical that I'm going to drag inside tomorrow and on my off days of running or on rainy really hard days, this is what I'll work out on. I have big changes in eating that are about to start and once I start it, I'll blog about it, because I need the accountability and hopefully the encouragement.

I can say that without a doubt working out really effects my mood. I've been honestly really sad lately, find myself not feeling sorry for myself, just not overwhelmed in all the joy that is my life. I want to be clear that I'm not depressed, just find myself feeling sad or blah more often than I like. I have a husband who loves me, beautiful, funny, smart children who are all in different fun and challenging stages...I want to enjoy all of it. I find myself grumpy and yelling more than I like, more than is necessary by any means, and find myself just flying off the handle over little stuff. So...here I go, again. I recognize that excercising and eating right has a huge impact on me emotionally as well as physically, so I MUST do this. I can't quit, ever. I know that my weight will be a fight for me for the rest of my life, if I don't stay on top of things. My biggest prayer over all of this is that I don't get a dellusional image of my body when I have reached my goal weight/size. I have seen it happen to people who've lost a lot of weight like I need to. They get to a healthy weight and size and then keep going to a point that they're unhealthy on the otherside. So, I'm ready to get healthy and stay healthy. I'm ready to be healthy physically as well as mentally/emotionally.

I know that part of my emotional well being is being in the Lords word daily, multiple times a day. I have been feeling the Lord reminding me that I must be in his word every day and I must be in it on my own, as well as with my children.

So, here I go. Tomorrow's my day.

My sweet baby girl is 4 months already. It's amazing how quickly time goes by. Don't let anyone tell you that it doesn't and it does not matter how many children you have, it goes by too quickly no matter what. Oh if I could only slow things down.

So Miss Olivia is Miss Personality. She's always smiling and just a happy baby girl. She's rolled a few times, but honestly I haven't really put her down on the floor much to give her an opportunity. I learned that the less you put them down, the longer until they're mobile and lack of mobility is a beautiful thing for as long as you can do it! LOL I'm joking, but honestly I'm in no hurry for her to be rolling all over, because rolling leads to crawling, crawling leads to walking. Sigh...then running, jumping, and then heading to collage. Ok so maybe I skipped some years in there, but it just all goes by so quickly.

Olivia just hanging out in her carseat

she was 3 months old here 

My sweet, happy girl 

3 months old 

My cutie...3 months old 

Silly face...4 months old 

Miss Flexible

She smiles with her whole face 

My beautiful girl 

Jack,Noah, and Jacob 

My beautiful girls...Olivia and Emma 

Crazy Army Life

Life is never boring when the Army is part of your life, that is for sure! First we were told we'd be staying here to retire and now we're being told to prepare to move before the end of this year. We've been stationed here for 7 years and the thought of leaving Germany just takes my breath away and the tears start to flow, but...I see God working.

Chad is working to get a GS job when he retires. For us to have a housing allowance as part of that move, he needs to be hired state-side. If we remained in Germany and he was hired as ultimately a local hire, there'd be no housing allowance. So this way the Army moves us back to the states, if he gets hired, the government will move us and we'll get a housing allowance there for saving Chad's pay for our bills, savings, etc. We have a lot to still learn about what civilian life will bring us, but it's exciting (I'll admit a tad bit scary, but in a good way). The older boys are just itching to move back to the states. I think they believe we'll be eating out every day, lol.

We do not know where we'll be stationed in the states, yet. Chad's requesting Alaska. If we get that, it'll be an amazing gift, as we have dear friends who leave tomorrow to head back to the states (they don't leave Germany tomorrow, just our post) who are heading to Alaska and to the particular post we'd be able to go to. Emma calls the mom of this family, Grandma, so this would be such an amazing blessing. Chad's dreamed of going to Alaska for years, I think it'd be an amazing experience for our family, and we'd be able to be with our dear friends and Emma's sorrogant Grandma who loves her dearly.

We don't have a pin point date of leaving, no pinpoint new assignment to end this career of Chad's and a way of life we've known. But what we do know is that GOD is in control. We see him working in so many ways and don't see him working in even more ways. So for now, I'm waiting and trusting. Waiting on the Lord (through the US Army) to tell us where we are heading to next. So now I wait,  hopefully patiently and gracefully.

Couch to 5 K

I thought i needed to update about this journey, torchure, what ever you want to call it! LOL I have taken this week off. I have had a great deal to do and although it's just 20 to 30 minutes, I think my body needed this rest. I've gained over 10 lbs, well I lost 10 and gained it back. I'm frustrated, and I mean really frustasted with that. I'm so hungry and this fat girl really can not afford this mess. I did not gain the 10 lbs this week, it's been over the last 4 or so weeks. I can't say I'm really eating more, I think my body is just holding onto things more. I also have been trying to make sure I'm eating enough. I'm going to talk to someone tomorrow. I did weigh myself yesterday and a couple lbs were off, so we'll see. I haven't added in the Zumba workouts like I'd planned, but it's time to do that next week.

So next week I'll be back on this journey and will let you know how it goes.

Are You a Slob too?

So are you a slob? When I hear that word, I picture one of two scenerio's....a home that has food/dirty dishes all over the place or a home like what you see on the show hoarders. Now, I'm not "that" bad, but if anyone saw certain rooms on a bad day, week, month, etc...well I'd be horrified. Mostly my bedroom is our "dirty little secret". It's AWFUL. It's the room that everything gets shoved, thrown, and piled into when company is coming over and then is promptly locked, because you don't want to CHANCE anyone accidently opening the door and seeing the horror-fest!
I'm the best cleaner when we have company coming...well guess what...company is coming! Today the kids have been hard at work (and play and messing around and fighting...sigh..you get the picture) cleaning the top floor (their rooms are up there, so it's their responsibility). So today I'm going to start on the disaster that is the Master Bedroom. We had it cleaned up about 3 months or so ago. It was nice and relaxing for me to go into, relax, read, surf the web, watch tv, sit and talk with the kids privately, and biggest yet...I was leaving the door open, when company was over. Now though, oh no, no,no,no. When I went to have Olivia we got a new bed. A wonderful, comfortable, huge...King Size bed. then baby gifts were tucked in there, until I had time to go through them (which I have), then baskets of laundry were brought in there (because I hadn't had time to fold them and someone was coming over) and once they're in there, they just sit and oh you know that they also magically double and tripple over night. Then paperwork was brought in and a sweet little toddler dumps said paperwork, and well  you're tired from night-time nursings, and well seriously the room is packed full again, no room to walk without walking on something (besides a bare floor) so I get out of there as quickly as possible, avoid it as much as humanly possible during the day, and then crawl back in there at the end of the day, to collapse in bed, wake up and repeat.

So today's the day. Most of my day is gone, but the baby who only wanted to nap on me is finally awake and very content in her  bouncy seat, so I'm about to head into the warzone. I'm going to take a before picture and then as I make progress I'll take pictures. I do not know if I'll show the world, but it'll be there for ME and that way I will hopefully never go back.

So besides the inspiration that company is coming, I'm also inspired by: http://www.aslobcomesclean.com/

Do you know her? I LOOOVE her. She's my inspiration. After my company is gone next week, I'm going to start using her tactics. We have a lot of things happening in the next year (a GREAT, BIG MOVE across the ocean...sob-sob-sigh)...our beloved little Army post here in Germany is closing, and well Chad's never fully recovered from his injuries in the wreck he had almost 2  years ago, so medical retirement is beginning. Downsizing is now a MUST. We will most likely be limited to about 10,000 lbs which may sound like a lot to some of you (especially if you've never moved or your a minimalist) but we're not, we also have large pieces of furniture and 5 living children, and have lived in Germany for 7 years (next month)....so we've acquired a great deal of furniture (upgraded in many things). I want to get rid of everything we don't need or want (we have an attic and garage so it's easy to stick things there and then not think about them until you go up or in there and get that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach that at some point you MUST deal with it). So my goal is, get the living space of our house dealt with first. Sort what we want to keep, toss what needs to be tossed, sale or give away what we simply don't need any longer, but someone else does!

Oh and on a side note..I AM still doing the couch to 5 K, I'm just still stuck on Week 5, but tomorrow we're moving to week 6. I'll blog about that tonight or tomorrow after day 1.

Life's been busy, but so good! Lots of BBQ'ing with friends, birthday's, ballet recitals, baseball games, schooling, and running (like literally), and learning how to really use my camera which I've had for way too long, to not know how to use it truly properly (aka moving it away from AUTO and going into those other scary parts of manual!!)...it's a work in progress, but I AM seeing progress in my photographs so that's good!

                                                              
                                                               My beautiful Olivia Joy who's
                                                           now 3 months old....

                                                  Mr. 2 year old...enjoying his birthday gift
                                                new basketball hoop and basketball!

                                                 Earlier in the day at Jacob's baseball game
                                               Our sweet Birthday boy!!! I can't believe he's 2

                                                    Sweet Emma Grace who loved playing
                                                      baseball this year!

                                                     Jackson as catcher

                                                              Jacob up to bat

                                                      Kids on a field trip

                                             field trip...we went on an art field trip,
                                          no pictures inside, but the art is gorgeous

                                                    This is where the castle is that we visited
                                               on our field trip

                                                      beautiful German fields

                                                            My beautiful babies



Now the running...I'm still trucking along. I will admit I'm not loving running still. I'm doing it and proud of myself, but I still don't enjoy it. Maybe I will one day, but 6 weeks into it (I am only on week 5 in the program though because I repeated week 4 and I am thinking I may repeat week 5 as well). I'm going to complete this though and plan to continue running after I reach my goal of 5 K's aka 3.1 miles. My friend who's doing this with me and who is a runner, wants us to plan on doing a half marathon one day and as much as I hate running, I think it'd be pretty amazing to do 13 miles, I believe it's 13.1 miles for  half-marathon (haven't looked it up, because right now it's a horrifying thought lol) but it's something I know I could do with the proper training! Chad's been really supportive and the kids are all excited that I'm doing this and I really think they're proud of me for doing it. I'm planning on adding weight training so that I can get my metabolism up and working better. Ladies in case you don't know it, weight training is necessary to actually lose weight (you can't just do cardio...we need to build muscle to make the weight come off). As I run I am often saying to myself, with God all things are possible. I am also about at a point where I'm going to be running with music, my Ipod is full of Christian music so it'll be me praising the Lord as I run through the pain. He's given me the will and desire to do this and I won't stop. I'm so thankful to serve an AWESOME GOD, who gives us the ability to do things we don't think we can, didn't want to do, were scared to do!

Update on Friend

Thank you for praying for our friend who was injured in an IED attack in Afganistan. He made it to Landstuhl last week and Chad was over there for a apt himself and was able to see Drew for a few minutes. He then left 2 days later for Walter Reed and Jenn was able to join him there. He's still got a long road ahead of him, surgeries ahead of him, etc...but they're relying on the Lord and he will see them through this. Please continue to pray for both of them, as he learns to live with the aftermaths of this accident, his wife, and their unborn baby who's growing in Jenn's womb. We serve an awesome GOD who can do all things.

Prayers for injured soldier

Army life has many ups and downs and a few days ago we were reminded of not only the downs, but how fragile life is, especially for active duty soldiers. Friends of ours who left here last summer and moved to a stateside duty station, he was hurt in an IED incident. He finally stable enough to be transferred to Landstuhl Army Medical Hospital, here in Germany. It just so happens that Chad has been up at Landstuhl since early Tuesday morning for an apt on Tuesday and two apts today. Chad was able to see Drew as the staff wheeled Drew out of surgery and back to his room in ICU. Chad had an apt at 2:30, he'd been up in the ICU waiting room to see if he'd be allowed to go in and sit with Drew for a little bit. We don't know if they'll let Chad in with Drew or not, but his wife will not be coming over here, becasue he's not going to be here long enough to fly her over, so we're hoping they'd let someone who knows and cares about Drew to be with him, even if only for a few minutes. This would also give his wife a personal account of how Drew's doing before he gets to the states and she can join him. He had life altering injuries (I don't have permission to share those injuries so I won't post them here), but please be in prayer for Drew and Jenn and their unborn son.