Christmas

We had our 2nd Christmas in a row together, since 2003. I was looking forward to spending this day with our family. I'd invited my friend who spent Thanksgiving to spend Christmas with us. I've never had anyone spend Christmas morning with us and have to say I don't think I want to again. Christmas morning is very special, to be able to just have our little family with us is truly such a gift from our Lord. This year our home was opened to my friend and her girls and another friend who's a single soldier who's pregnant (she didn't get up until the kids were nearly done opening gifts). Having M who's the soldier, wasn't an issue, since she didn't come up until late. What was hard was that we have a certain way we do things, and with the grace of GOD our children were blessed with gifts this year. But ultimately it was a blessing and although I prefer it to be just our family, my friend K's husband is deployed so I know being here was a nice distraction for her.

We had a wonderful dinner. I made turkey (which we're still enjoying leftovers of!), a small ham, homemade noodles, my homemade dressing (or stuffing which is what we call it, but we do not stuff it in the bird!), green bean casserole, mashed potatoes. I also made pumpkinn and chocolate pies. M made BBQ meatballs, which were seriously the best BBQ meatballs any of us had ever had! She used my meatball recipe and then made her own sauce which was to die for!!! She also made deviled eggs, which was via Chad's request!!! Dinner was yummo! The kids got to go sledding in our over 1 foot of snow that we started getting more of on Christmas Eve and it continued to snow a day on Christmas!

We have been so blessed and it's all to the Glory of GOD. Christmas is all about Jesus. We are thankful that our Lord humbled himself to be born a poor babe in a manger. Without his birth, we wouldn't have the promise of the cross.

Thank you, Lord....I just wanna thank you Lord.

New Years post will come hopefully tomorrow or Sunday. I have made a decision to take a picture every single day this year. I've already started with taking pictures of all of us at midnight! I also plan to have at least one picture a week with me in it! I'll be posting the pictures, maybe not daily but at least weekly.

God's Blessings...Humbled by our Lord

Hi all! Life's going good, busy for sure!! We're preparing for the celebration of our Lord's birth! The 3 oldest kids are going to be in our chapel's Nativity Story play/program. I some how got wrangled into helping! I don't mind, just not sure how it all happened! LOL PWOC is now finished until January! We'll have 4 weeks off and I have to admit, I'm soooo looking forward to the break. This year I did the normal morning class, which was Sheparding a Child by Tedd Tripp (great book), and I took the evening class (because I'm crazy like that!) and took Beth Moore's: Daniel. If you know anything about Beth's studies, they're homework heavy, digging into the bible, and learning lots of new things. Here's my problem....having so much homework equaled Christy not doing homework most of the time. I know HORRIBLE example to my children. Between school with the boys, playing with Emma and Noah, keeping up the house, a dog (that gets on my nerves daily), trying to be a decent wife, Homeschool PE twice a week, PWOC Praise team practice, Hospitality House, helping friends out with their kids, and just every day living.....homework was often something I literally didn't think about until Tuesday night and then I was too tired! I know still an excuse, but it is what it is. I still learned a great deal in BOTH classes, and think my walk with Christ is deeper, my parenting skills are closer to where GOD wants them to be, and honestly I have joy in my heart. GOD is GOOD.....ALL the time! He knew I wouldn't pull off the homework and he loves me anyways!

So here we are 9 days from Christmas!! I have applesauce cookies made! So one down!! Still need to make no bake cookies, buckeyes, and sugar cookies (with the kids). We have the turkey, don't need to buy too much more for Christmas dinner. This year I was smart and while planning our menu and making grocery list, I finally remembered how stressed I am on Christmas Eve, in trying to get our family a fulfilling dinner, yet never having the actual time to make it because of various other things I need to make for the next day, as well as Christmas Eve service, and our family traditions of opening a gift on Christmas Eve, Daddy reading the story of Christ's birth, and watching a movie together before sending the kids off to bed, very excited. So this year...on the 23 I'll be making a big pot of Veggie Soup and we'll have left overs on Christmas Eve (mmmm....it's always better as left overs too!). I also the last couple of years the kids and I have made sugar cookies on Christmas Eve...not this year! We'll be making them earlier in the week! I'm working to simplify things that we love, yet make sure we keep our eyes completely focused on Christ. Less gifts, more giving.

Well, Noah is over in his Jumperoo fussing and literally calling my name "Mommmaaaa, Momma"!! So I'll write more later! I'm so blessed!

Zumba....I did it

(This post is truly all over the place as I haven't written in a while, so as I think of things...they'll be there! LOL)


I went tonight to my first Zumba class. Holy smokes, this girl is sore, almost 3 hours after the class and the longer the evening is going on the more I know that tomorrow I'll probably be barely moving. What's crazier is that I'm planning on going tomorrow night too! LOL I'm excited about it. Our instructor is a girl I know. She was actually about my size about a year ago and is literally half the size she was. She looks AMAZING! Honestly, had I not seen pictures of her on facebook I would never have recognized her when I saw her in person. I know I won't have as fast of results as she did, since I can't go every single day, but I am planning on going twice a week. Well next week I won't be able to, but after that I will. There's a class tomorrow evening, which normally there isn't on Tuesday evenings. Wednesday evenings I have bible study, but the last of that class is next Wednesday so after that I'll have 2 hours a week where I'm doing nothing but downing water and working my butt off (hopefully literally!!). A lady that I know has gone 6 times and is already seeing a difference in her body, pretty awesome for 3 weeks worth of work outs! I want to add in weight training as well, I know that's a must to have sucessful weight loss and to up my metabolism, and to firm everything up as the weight drops off. That was tonight, but today was busy and fun as well. Our homeschool group had our Christmas party. It was great. We had good food/snacks, the kids had Christmas crafts, they played Bingo, then we did a family ornament exchange (each family brought an ornament and we then numbered the gifts/ornaments and each family got a number! The kids had a great time and us mom's and even 3 dad's were able to come and enjoy the party (Chad was able to be with us pretty well for the majority).

We've been getting snow since the day before Thanksgiving! It's looking better and better that we're going to have a white Christmas! Every day for the next 10 days, except next Thursday they're calling for snow. Today it was a very wet snow and probably will be the next couple of days, because the temps are up just a little above freezing. I have to say I love snow. I love the beauty of it and I get so sick and tired of people constantly complaining about it. Winter they complain about the snow and cold and summer they complain about the heat....I know by the end of winter I will be more than ready for spring, but I'm not going to complain and whine about it especially at the very beginning of winter. The season's are blessings from GOD and we praise him for all 4 of them!!!

Noah's 6 months now! He's growing so much. Sunday he rolled over for the first time! Yes I know he's a little behind the curve on that one and that's ok by me! I've purposely held him a lot because honestly I'm in no rush for him to roll, which leads to crawling, which leads to walking. It's already going by too fast. But...he's rolled now and so it begins! I'm not going to obviously stop it and he does get on the floor every day quite a few times a day, but I've not encouraged this little bit of progress! LOL I think this weekend or next Daddy's going to be putting up gates on the stairs. The stairs have no back to them, so if he ever did get to them, he'd fall to the basement. I hope I can figure out how to add video on here, and hopefully soon I'll remember to get it up on here. Noah's just the happiest baby. The only time he's really fussy is if he's tired of not feeling good. He just has the best giggle and does it often!!!

Well I'm off to walk the dog. Wish those who WANTED the dog would do so more willingly and that includes the husband who wanted and asked for a dog just as long as the kids! But Momma does the nightly walk, which honestly I don't mind, but from time to time it'd be nice to have a night off from it! Especially when it's wet and slick out! Oh well, a Mom's job is never done! :)

Seven Days and counting!

I love Thanksgiving. I love what the day stands for, to be thankful for our nation, to be thankful for our lives, and for us to be thankful that we have a GOD and Savior who loves us so much he died for us. I also love cooking the Thanksgiving meal. I LOVE cooking the turkey. I put it on normally around 10 or 11 PM Wednesday night, I season it, butter it up, and add water (to cook it all night, you must add water). I baste it off and on while I'm still up, but don't get up just to baste it through the night. It's covered by either my turkey pan lid or foil if the turkey's too big for the lid to fit on (which this year it will be indeed). I like to make my pies the day before, this year I'm making 2 pumpkins and 1 chocolate pie. Thursday morning I'll get up and start making my homemade noodles, get potatoes peeled and diced for mashing later on, cut up fresh veggies and cheeses for snacking on throughout the day. I normally make stuffing, but not this year for Thanksgiving (I'll make it at Christmas though). I'll use the broth from the turkey for my noodles and for gravy. We'll be having corn per Chad's request. The rest of the meal will be made by my dear friend Kandice. They recently moved to a post that we used to be stationed at when Jordyn was alive, they got here in October and we've yet to see each other and I am just so excited I can't wait!!!!! She's bringing things to make her mom's stuffing (oh I hope it's good, because I love stuffing and although until we got married, Chad never liked stuffing, he loves mine...so we're hopeful lol), green bean casserole, and a couple other things. I'm so excited to share this day with my friend, meet her husband (they just got married 18 months ago), see her girls and just hang out and laugh and probably do some crying (her hubby will be deploying in a matter of days after Thanksgiving..sniff-sniff).
Of course I have lots to do before they get here. Lots of cleaning and organizing. The boys are working on getting the upstairs cleaned and I bought a shelving unit at the German thrift store today for their towels to go into, it also has a place for all their games (board games), and any odds and ends I want/need to go in there. I bought yesterday a shelving unit for us downstairs for our towels, and just in general bathroom sort of things, which will really help me to feel organized. I need to take all of Noah's clothes that I've packed up that he's out grown up to the attic, get all of Emma's clothes that she's outgrown packed and up to the attic as well, find our airmattress, for Kandice and Josh to sleep on in Emma's room (a little privacy). The girls will get to sleep in the family room on our futon couch. We figured the kids would want to hang out down there most of the time anyways, so might as well let them sleep in there!

I'm so thankful that we are able to host our friends in our home, that we have a home truly big enough to welcome them in and for them to be comfortable in. I have to get the laundry room cleaned up aka lots of laundry done (have I ever mentioned how much I HATE laundry)? I despise it. It's that unending chore, even when you're "done" you're not done, because you and your family are all wearing clothes, but it must be done and I REALLY am thankful that I have my own laundry room and no longer have to share it with 5 other families! So with that, I'm off to work on laundry and then get dinner started and finish mopping the dining room and then to vacuum the living room (which will have to be done about oh...5 more times before Thanksgiving! LOL

What are you thankful for this Thanksgiving? How will you be marking the day? What are your traditions if you have any?

Days 25-30

I'm going to finish up this little project of 30 days of me.

Day 25...A First:

Wow I'm seriously struggling to find something to write about on this, so I'll hopefully come back to it and if not, it's because I am just drawing a blank...of course that could be a first in its own right, not knowing what to say! :)

Day 26: Your Fears

I think most people would say "My spouse dying or one of my child dying" and well I don't want either of those to happen anytime soon, yet eventually Chad will die and go to Jesus and eventually I will die, and my children will all die as well and be face to face with our Lord. I've already had to let go of one child, and she is resting safe in the Arms of Jesus. So what fears do I have? My one fear is that those who I love will die without knowing and accepting Christ as their Savior. There's nothing that burdens my heart like that.

Day 27: Your Favorite Place....anywhere with my family honestly. But...with my family and not at home I'd say it's a tie between Ireland and right here in Germany. I love both places, now granted I've only visited Ireland so I could feel differently if I lived there, but we loved our 7 days there. I feel so at home here in Germany, I'd love to stay here for the rest of our lives, if it's what GOD called us to. We shall see what his plans are for our family!


Day 28: Something that you miss: Well the obvious would be Jordyn....so since that's the obvious let me go with the nonobvious to many. I miss some of the conviences of the US, like stores that are open past 7 PM, Sonic (lol....seriously though, I do miss it). Seeing my brother and his wife and daughters. Ok this could get really long as I keep thinking of things/people I miss.

Day 29: Your aspirations: I want to be a GODLY wife and mother. I'm so far from it, it's heartbreaking and sometimes discouraging. I know that with GOD's help I can be who he's created me to be, I just wish I was there right now.

Day 30: One last moment:

One last moment, the fact that with each child GOD has blessed us with, I love them and as excited about them as with Jordyn's pregnancy and her birth. I really didn't think it'd be possible, yet GOD makes it so. I'm so blessed!


And...I never could think of anything for Day 25....eh...I'm done!

Faith Deployed Winners......

The drawing is done (I should have taken pictures, but totally forgot!).....so the winners are.......


Brandi C and Linda M!!!! I will email you both and get the books mailed out first thing on Monday! Congratulations ladies~!!!!!!!!!

Faith Deploy Review

I was blessed to have received this book last Feb. at PWOC, so when I saw I'd have the opportunity to do a give away of this book, I jumped on it! Joceyln obviously put great thought and heart into this book, and most of all our Lord is written all over it! Faith Deployed isn't just for you if your spouse is deployed, it's for all of us who's spouse is in the military, was in the military, or is planning on being in the military. Faith Deployed is a devotional that cuts to the heart of it, there are stories/devotions that made me laugh out loud and then the next page I'd be reaching for the tissue's to dry the tears. There are many that simply made me put the book down and open my bible and read GOD's word out of gratitude and thankfulness. This is honestly the best devotional I've read directed to Military wives. There's not a single branch that's not represented. It's such a great reminder that no matter if your husband is in the Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines, or the Coast Guard....we all have hardships, but we're never alone we always will have sisters in Christ walking with us, but most of all we have Christ who is holding us and helping us through it all.

I want to end this review with a reminder from our Lord himself!
Matthew: 28:20
"Surely I am with you always"

Our Lord is always with us. As military wives, life can be lonely sometimes, but we are NEVER alone...we always, always,always have Christ with us!!!


If you want to win this book, leave a comment with your name and email address. Two names will be picked tomorrow sometime!


********I'm going to push drawing the names to Saturday, so spread the word and encourage your fellow military wives to leave a comment at a chance of being blessed***************

Faith Deployed Give Away

Just a reminder, if you're a military spouse or know one (and in turn want to bless them) I'm having a contest to give away TWO, yes count them TWO Faith Deployed books....so if you'd like to be entered, just leave a comment and your email address. Tomorrow I will be writing a review of this great, beautiful book!

Days 22,23,24

Day 22: Something that Upsets You

This is something I feel so passionate about.....parents smoking around their children or anyone smoking around children or pregnant woman, and worse a pregnant woman smoking. If you want to smoke, no one can stop you....but as a parent you have no right to hurt your child or anyone else's kids. It makes my blood boil when I see a parent in a car driving, smoking with kids in the car. It's so careless and thoughtless. It truly hurts my heart. This can and does cause cancer not just to the smoker, but to those innocent little people they have no choice. Trust me there's nothing worse than allowing something around your child that ends up being behind why they died. It's a guilt and heartache no one wants.



Day 23: Something that makes you feel better....

Just one thing? Wow....my family is the first, true friends, music/singing, but most of all Jesus. No one can I trust more and know that he loves me and there's nothing better than to know you're unconditionally loved.

Day 24: Something that makes you cry....

Seeing people who I love hurt. Be it my children, my husband, a friend.

October in Pictures